Non-fans of TWoK....

[CorporalClegg]

Khan is an interesting IDEA, but a ridiculously bad execution.

THANK YOU!!!

Totally agree which is why I'm all for a nuTrek Khan.

I've pretty much established my disdain for Trek Wars, but I figure, at this point, it's inevitable. So, if they're going to do it, they might as well go all out--non of that half-ass stuff they feed us time after time after time.

Khan represents a great outlet to do that in. Plus, the right story makes for the perfect "explore the human condition" vehicle.

Keep the petty larceny and the tired revenge angles out of it. This guy is supposed to be Cesar, Hitler, Alexander, etc. all rolled into one. Stealing ships and chasing after his widower-maker is beneath him.

I want to see Khan take over the fucking UFP. After all, that's what he was designed to do.

He should be true a leader with real charisma, charm, and the ability to surreptitiously manipulate people.

His "superior intellect" shouldn't be limited to military tactics. He should be a true student of history, geopolitics, and sociology, so much so, that he has a good idea of what is coming.

He knows the world is on the verge of a mass man-made extinction. He also knows humans are on the verge of galactic space flight. He foresees great socio-economic an political changes. And it is he who cryofreezes himself and has himself and his closest followers flung out into space.

He then sets up series of seeds to bear fruit when he needs them. Inserts his influence in key places--influences so strong, that they stay intact through the centuries. Puts the Augments into play. And plans out a series of gambits to be executed upon his "return."

Heck, I wouldn't put it past him to have planned on being picked up by aliens. In this case, the Klingons--who, as "luck" would have it, are already under the influence of the Augments.

He then basically manipulates the Klignons into faining war against the Fed. In turn, he creates a false air of jingoism and fear among the Fed systems where he insists he is th answer. Perhaps he sets up a situation where he leads Starfleet in a successful series of battle to convince everyone of this--everyone, that is except Kirk and Spock.

So you have the entire Starfleet against the Big E.

Yes, it's fanwanky, trite, and kind of silly. But it's bold, grandiose, and ostentatious. Something "Film Xplosion Trek" has never dared to be.

It's also kind of Bab 5. So what? Bab 5 is awesome.

If I'm going to be fed war, I want to at least eat the good stuff.

 

[Hober Mallow]

The only thing I can't stand about TWOK is the space rats.

 

[Therin of Andor]

The only thing I can't stand about TWOK is the space rats.

A space station studying a scientific device that involves creating life from lifelessness shouldn't have any lab rats?

 

[EJA]

Someone should write down a list of pros and cons of TWOK.

 

[EJA]

One thing I've sometimes wondered is if the makers of the film were influenced by recent sci-fi horror movies such as Alien and John Carpenter's The Thing. Like they thought that if they threw in some gratuitous violence and gore, (e.g. the Ceti eels burrowing inside people's skulls, the blood-dripping corpses of the tortured Regula 1 scientists) it would make the film more appealing.

 

[Grant]

Yes any post Aliens sci-fi movie would feel the obligation to have blood/gore. That's why they did it.



BEWARE POPO BAWA !!!!

 

[CoveTom]

I also never actually thought of Alien as having gratuitous violence and gore either. Actually, the amount of violence and gore in that film is rather minimal, except for a couple of specific scenes, and where it is included it seems to be directly a function of the plot, rather than thrown in for shock value. Most of the film is built on suspense, rather than shocks.

 

[Grant]

^^^^
Absolutely. Like Psycho, Alien gave the viewer the impression there was more blood and gore than there actually was. Letting the audience's imagination do the work.



BEWARE POPO BAWA !!!

 

[Brutal Strudel]

I love threads like this. TWoK is my second favorite film (TMP is my favorite, the new one is third) but, reading through this thread, I see a lot of valid criticisms, stuff I can't argue with.

 

[Grant]

^^^^

I think it is totally cool that your like TMP, TWOK & the new movie.

It's like people are trying so hard to jump into camps.....

TMP is the greatest---TWOK sucks!
TWOK is the greatest--TMP sucks!
The new movie is fantastic---old trek movies are boring!
The old movies were 10 times better than the new movie!

Somebody who can actually watch a movie for what it is and try to enjoy it. Refreshing.

 

[Chrisisall]

^^^^

I think it is totally cool that your like TMP, TWOK & the new movie.

It's like people are trying so hard to jump into camps.....

TMP is the greatest---TWOK sucks!
TWOK is the greatest--TMP sucks!
The new movie is fantastic---old trek movies are boring!
The old movies were 10 times better than the new movie!

Somebody who can actually watch a movie for what it is and try to enjoy it. Refreshing.

TFF is best, all others suck!!!

 

[CoveTom]

TFF is best, all others suck!!!

LOL. I actually like TFF, but I suspect there are very few people in the camp of thinking it's the best.

 

[KobayashiMaru13]

the movie itself was good, but the end made me wanna throw it out my window (but since i rented it, that wouldn't have been a good idea )

Khan was rather over dramatic though, and F him for inadvertedly causing spock's death.

 

[Gojira]

While I like TWOK I do appreciate people's opinions because it validates one point I like to make. Every Star trek movie has plot holes and inconsistencies and things that make me roll my eyes. So in the end I just enjoy them for what they are and don't take them at all too seriously.

In this manner I like them all.

 

[Chrisisall]

In this manner I like them all.

Yeah, there's only one I personally can't sit thru comfortably- Generations.
But it's a personal thing concerning a particular Wyle E. Coyote chump death scene.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

While I like TWOK I do appreciate people's opinions because it validates one point I like to make. Every Star trek movie has plot holes and inconsistencies and things that make me roll my eyes. So in the end I just enjoy them for what they are and don't take them at all too seriously.

In this manner I like them all.

I agree, Space Therapist. I watch to be entertained.

 

[CoveTom]

I enjoy, to coin a phrase, the best of both worlds.

I can sit and watch a Star Trek episode or film and enjoy it for what it is. For example, I went to see the new Star Trek film this year, was very entertained, and thoroughly enjoyed it. But that doesn't mean that I didn't find there to be issues with it that I came here to debate later.

After the fact, once I've seen the episode or film and enjoyed it for what it is, I also enjoy coming here and picking it apart. That doesn't mean I don't enjoy Star Trek or find it to be fatally flawed. Not in the slightest. I just find it to also be entertaining to discuss the problems and issues that each Trek effort has. That's part of the fun of being a rabid Trek fan.

 

[TOS Purist]

Wow...this thread has been EXTREMELY gratifying! I get really tired of people gushing over TWOK as if it's the best film in history, when it's not. And when they try to act like it's some kind of "canon" incarnation of "Star Trek" - well, it shames everything that Star Trek is supposed to be. I don't consider ANY of the films to be canon, but TWOK holds a special place in my heart reserved for things I hate the most.

TOS had a very distinctive identity; an identity which helped form the basis of "adult science fiction" (as "The Making of Star Trek" put it) and revolutionize the entire genre. Gene Roddenberry completely abandoned this identity (I don't just mean the way it looks, but the entire SPIRIT of it) during the production of TMP in favor of copying "2001: A Space Odyssey," while ripping off the script of "The Changeling." He presented no original material, nothing that was distinctively "Star Trek" - or at least the "Star Trek" which blazed a trail through science-fiction and our modern culture.

For TWOK, he gave control of the entire genre over to Harve Bennett and Nicholas Meyer, who proceeded to reimagine the crap out of the genre to what they thought it should be, until it was so far from Gene's original vision that I'm surprised they could even call it "Star Trek." People complain about what JJ Abrams is doing to Star Trek, but what Bennett & Meyer did to the franchise was far, far worse. They interpreted what Gene did in their own way, and in the process completely ruined it.

For example, in the TOS writer's bible, Gene Roddenberry wrote that the character of Captain Kirk would be like "...a space-age Horatio Hornblower," meaning that the character of Kirk himself would be every bit as brave and bold as Hornblower or any other great commander from history (or historical fiction). Bennett misinterpreted this statement; he failed to realize that it was talking about the character of Kirk, and assumed it was meant to describe Star Trek as a genre. And rather than seeing "Horatio Hornblower-like" as meaning "action adventure," he stupidly assumed that it meant that everything should be like the Navy. Thus he proceeded to completely rework Starfleet into a militaristic Navy-like institution (despite the fact that Roddenberry ALWAYS said that Starfleet was NOT a military), gave them Navy-like uniforms, made the Enterprise manuver like an 18th century galleon (or a lumbering tub of lard, take your pick), and even lowered the level of technology to the point where they were using PHYSICAL TORPEDO CASINGS which had to be PHYSICALLY LOADED into the launcher by crewmen, who first had to lift these silly grates from the floor so they could load the torpedo in ONE AT A TIME. In TOS, torpedoes were energy "blobs" with a very high rate of fire. In TWOK, it takes about half an hour for shields to be raised....ugh, I could go on and on.

Gene Roddenberry said that during TOS, he wanted the crew to be role-models, examples that "Moms could tell their kids, 'Be like Captain Kirk' or "Be like Mr. Spock.'" The TOS characters, although 100% human, were also ideals to look up to - TOS Kirk is my hero to this day. In the movies, especially TWOK, they went with the "flawed" garbage, stripping the characters of their admirable traits and beating them down to a pale shadow of what Gene envisioned them to be. TOS Kirk wouldn't cheat on a test - heck, in WNMHGB we learn that he was quite a strict stick-in-the-mud at the Academy. TOS Kirk wouldn't have bastard children. TOS Kirk was a hero, not the weirdo who was in the movies. When you get right down to it, the movies are a mockery of TOS - a pale, grotesque shadow of what was ground-breaking science fiction which inspired thousands of people to better their lives and reach forward to their goals.

If Star Trek had started out the way TMP was, or the way TWOK was, it would never have been as ground-breaking or popular as it is today. I doubt it would have even been picked up for a second season - and there wouldn't be any legions of fans writing into NBC to save it.

And to date, none of the other incarnations of Star Trek have succeeded in recapturing the original, unique, ground-breaking identity of Star Trek TOS - the identity that was thrown out back in 1979 and never picked up again.

 

[Chrisisall]

Gene Roddenberry said that during TOS, he wanted the crew to be role-models, examples that "Moms could tell their kids, 'Be like Captain Kirk' or "Be like Mr. Spock.'" The TOS characters, although 100% human, were also ideals to look up to - TOS Kirk is my hero to this day.

Purist, WE REACH!!!
I HATE the Kirk we were given in later movies, only STIV & VI come close IMO.
In two, as Mal would say, what a whiner. He was way better in three, but still, to kill his newfound kid effed it up for his character IMO.
Harve Bennett gets kudos for keeping it viable, but damn him for the character assassination. And thanks to Nimoy for keeping it as real as he could.

 

[TOS Purist]

Purist, WE REACH!!!

WOW brother, you're One?

Glad I'm not alone, that's for sure! I'm also happy that some people are actually able to see that the appropriately-named "character assasination" actually occured in the first place - a lot of people don't even see it!

I agree that ST4 and ST6 had better representations of Kirk and the others, probably because Shatner (and the other actors, with their characters) were given more free range with their performances and were able to bring the familiar crew back to life on the big screen. It's too bad the movies sucked, especially ST6...which, among other things (Spock wouldn't mind-rape someone, please!), suggested that the sole reason Starfleet existed was to counter the threat of the Klingon Empire, and that if the Klingons weren't a threat, that Starfleet would be disbanded. That takes Bennett's stupid militarization of Starfleet to a retarded extreme - Starfleet is for EXPLORATION!! It is NOT a military!!