Plot hole city: Part II!

[M'Sharak]

Knock it off.


M', Grammar Police Police

 

[Saquist]

Saquist, when quoting from an article or other source, it should look something like the above.

A) The quoted passage(s) should be placed within quote tags.
B) Any images contained within the body of the text should be either omitted or converted to links. If left as inline images, they are drawing on the bandwidth of the hosting site; this is generally discouraged and considered bad form.
C) The source from which the text is being quoted should be properly cited by including a link to the appropriate page.

Thanks.

Aye.

Spock and Kirk meeting like they did may be a bit implausible...but then again life is full of coincidences...in reality this is a contrivance not a plot hole.

Exactly!

Indeed. Plorhole in layman term would be any problematic bit of writing but this is definitely a massive contrivance.

SANTA MONICA, California — J.J. Abrams’ rebooted Star Trek could hardly have been more successful with critics and the general public, but some Trekkers found the film’s script to be rife with plot holes that spoke more to convenience than good storytelling.


Rather than putting Kirk in the brig, Spock shoots him off the ship in an escape pod. Kirk lands on a primitive ice planet, where he runs into the original Spock (Leonard Nimoy) from the original time line. The pair then travel through the snow and ice to meet up with the only other human on the planet — Montgomery Scott (Simon Pegg).
That’s a reach, even for Star Trek.
“I know there are some fans out there who watch the movie and say, ‘How could Kirk land on that planet and meet up with Spock?’” Abrams told Wired.com. “But I think (screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman) handled it by doing it. They went at it directly and decided to do it because this film is about fate and friendship.”


“In the scene, Spock explains that (the encounter of Kirk and Spock Prime) is a result of the universe trying to restore balance after the time line is changed,” Abrams said. “They acknowledged the coincidence as a function of the universe to heal itself.”

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2009/10/abrams-star-trek-dvd-sequel/

They definitely new they were stretching the believability cloth a long way which goes without saying so they thew in a few lines of diplomatic explanation to at least address it but it doesn't significantly strengthen the story, it's a plot patch. This plot patch would have been just as visible as the contrivance or hole it's covering. It's just like pulling on the Thread of garment and watching it rumple in response.

 

[F. King Daniel]

But haven't we already seen numerous improbable coincidences where important characters always meet up in alternate timelines despite massive differences in history ("Mirror, Mirror", "In a Mirror, Darkly", "Yesterday's Enterprise", "Crossover" etc) and where characters lost in a different era manage to find each other at a convenient moment ("City on the Edge of Forever", "Time's Arrow", "Future Tense")?

This didn't start with a meeting in an ice cave - it's been going on for 45 years. Spock's vague "currents of time" bit from CotEoF is the only explanation we've ever been given.

 

[Saquist]

But haven't we already seen numerous improbable coincidences where important characters always meet up in alternate timelines despite massive differences in history ("Mirror, Mirror", "In a Mirror, Darkly", "Yesterday's Enterprise", "Crossover" etc) and where characters lost in a different era manage to find each other at a convenient moment ("City on the Edge of Forever", "Time's Arrow", "Future Tense")?

This didn't start with a meeting in an ice cave - it's been going on for 45 years. Spock's vague "currents of time" bit from CotEoF is the only explanation we've ever been given.

I would never use that argument. I don't believe in taking a Star Trek "hostage" from the past to justify or defend the current Trek. Each production should be appropriate judge on it's own work and not by others work...(different production teams, different artist, different producers and writers and completely different cost)


For example The TV series have contracts to use those actors to so many episodes) Would it be more realistic if everyone didn't have a mirror universe representative...sure but it's not cost effect to the "materials" you have available. Trek 09' had a free and open possibility of a mirror universe. Reasonably they could have done anything they wanted to especially with 150 million dollar budget. With more money there is more expectation and while it did make more than any other Trek film the story shows a considerable number of errors. The movie may have more writing flaws than any 2 hours of Trek previously. (Including Voyager)

Most importantly lets draw appropriate parallels. Trek 09's contrivance goes beyond coincidence. In those other mirror or alternative universes the coincidences aren't unlikely despite the history but are merely entertaining similar but alternate realities. This means the "coincidence" in question is built in from the beginning. They are placed in those positions as the PREMISE of the story not as the progression of the story.

Hence...under the same rules Trek 09's showing us Kirk, Spock, Uhura, Checkov Sulu and McCoy in similar relative positions at the beginning represents a similar premise as those Mirror universe episodes. This is exposition. But the moment you move away from the exposition and pursue the plot introducing an unlikely coincidence, with deus ex machinma to solve the plot issues...then there is a literary problem with said coincidences.

 

[F. King Daniel]

"Take hostage"? Ugh.

So you're saying it'a okay to say something's "wrong" when it's done differently to prior Star Treks, but it's not okay to point out that something which you personally disagree with has been done in Trek before, repeatedly, and is thus arguably a part of how the Trek universe works with regard to time travel and alternate universes. Even when this movie features Nimoy's Spock, a character that experienced all these things first hand.

Starting with the transporter, the Star Trek universe is born of 1960's television budgetary limitations. They defined it - and everything that followed.

 

[Saquist]

"Take hostage"? Ugh.

A hostage is One that serves as security against an implied threat: The phrase human shield would also apply (minus the human)

It's a defensive posture designed to draw fire.

So you're saying it'a okay to say something's "wrong" when it's done differently to prior Star Treks, but it's not okay to point out that something which you personally disagree with has been done in Trek before, repeatedly, and is thus arguably a part of how the Trek universe works with regard to time travel and alternate universes. Even when this movie features Nimoy's Spock, a character that experienced all these things first hand.

Every story is responsible for it's own plots, characters and plot devices. It has nothing to do with prior Trek's wrongs or rights. Frankly they aren't remotely equivalent and you've admitted as much as to your own expectations regarding the upgrading the visual look from TOS to the big screen of 2009. You don't expect them to look the same but you fully expect them be just as poor or worse with the literary standard?

 

[F. King Daniel]

I know what a hostage is, Saquist, I just can't believe you're applying the word to my referencing of prior Star Trek canon.

There's a world of difference between elements that can be recast or visually updated (actors, sets, props) and the rules that govern Trek's world. What you see as as "wrongs" that should be ignored I see as how the ficticious universe of Trek operates. It's not real life. There are no pointy-eared, logical, telepathic, humanoid aliens living on a planet orbiting 40 Eridani. Time travel is not possible. In the fantasy world which allows all that and much more, Spock's magical "currents of time" from "City on the Edge of Forever" that are what got Kirk and Spock to find McCoy just in the nick of time, and got all the mirror and alternate universe crews together at the same time despite very different circumstances, are what got Kirk to meet Old Spock and then Scotty on Delta Vega. Yes it's silly and implausible, but that's Trek.

 

[Relayer1]

Sorry if it has been explained away elsewhere but how could the Enterprise travel for hours at warp away from Vulcan before putting Kirk off the ship, only for him to find himself on a planet from which he could view the destruction of Vulcan ? It would have had to be very close...

 

[Gojira]

Sorry if it has been explained away elsewhere but how could the Enterprise travel for hours at warp away from Vulcan before putting Kirk off the ship, only for him to find himself on a planet from which he could view the destruction of Vulcan ? It would have had to be very close...

Who said the Enterprise traveled for hours at warp away from Vulcan?

 

[Saquist]

Sorry if it has been explained away elsewhere but how could the Enterprise travel for hours at warp away from Vulcan before putting Kirk off the ship, only for him to find himself on a planet from which he could view the destruction of Vulcan ? It would have had to be very close...

The writers say this is merely an "easter egg" for the fans so that Kirk could once again go to his first planet ever...Delta Vega. They ignored the astronomical issues it created.

I know what a hostage is, Saquist, I just can't believe you're applying the word to my referencing of prior Star Trek canon.

There's a world of difference between elements that can be recast or visually updated (actors, sets, props) and the rules that govern Trek's world. What you see as as "wrongs" that should be ignored I see as how the ficticious universe of Trek operates. It's not real life. There are no pointy-eared, logical, telepathic, humanoid aliens living on a planet orbiting 40 Eridani. Time travel is not possible. In the fantasy world which allows all that and much more, Spock's magical "currents of time" from "City on the Edge of Forever" that are what got Kirk and Spock to find McCoy just in the nick of time, and got all the mirror and alternate universe crews together at the same time despite very different circumstances, are what got Kirk to meet Old Spock and then Scotty on Delta Vega. Yes it's silly and implausible, but that's Trek.

Ultimately it's just a movie but critiquing often doesn't have the benefit of knowing all genre relevant history.

 

[Relayer1]

Sorry if it has been explained away elsewhere but how could the Enterprise travel for hours at warp away from Vulcan before putting Kirk off the ship, only for him to find himself on a planet from which he could view the destruction of Vulcan ? It would have had to be very close...

Who said the Enterprise traveled for hours at warp away from Vulcan?

Well, that's how I remember it, but memory is unreliable.

I've only seen it once, but realised that my enjoyment was probably dependent on my not thinking too deeply about it, hence not having rewatched it yet...

 

[F. King Daniel]

Sorry if it has been explained away elsewhere but how could the Enterprise travel for hours at warp away from Vulcan before putting Kirk off the ship, only for him to find himself on a planet from which he could view the destruction of Vulcan ? It would have had to be very close...

They didn't warp between Vulcan's destruction and marooning Kirk. The icy Delta Vega is supposed to be in the same star system.

In fact, marooning Kirk was the result of Kirk and Spock arguing over which way to go next - to the fleet or to persue Nero to Earth.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Preemptively, Delta Vega being in the Vulcan system is not a plot hole.

 

[Saquist]

Well, technically...it can be considered a plot hole.
The planet was in orbit of Vulcan and wasn't destroyed aswell.

If you stick to the science side of Sci Fi...
You need several solar masses to even get a black hole. 10x the sun. And for some reason Delta Vega survived when it should have been shredded to pieces.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Well, technically...it can be considered a plot hole.

Not within any meaningful definition of "plot hole."

In fact, no violation of science is "technically" - to use your term - a plot hole. "Plot" is a word that means something specific in regard to storytelling, the fact that bloggers at Cracked.com or other sites use it lazily notwithstanding.

 

[Saquist]

Well, technically...it can be considered a plot hole.

Not within any meaningful definition of "plot hole."

In fact, no violation of science is "technically" - to use your term - a plot hole. "Plot" is a word that means something specific in regard to storytelling, the fact that bloggers at Cracked.com or other sites use it lazily notwithstanding.

Unfortunantly if a story establishes a scientific premise then it becomes part of the flow of logic for the story which would fall under plot hole in an extremely technical use.

This would be like say..."A Hurricane threatened the entire Earth." Without fictioinal mitigating circumstances then the statement goes against the flow of logic (a pretense of realism) and thus a plot hole...

So technically The supernova and Delta Vega issues could be considered plot holes. If seeing Vulcan swallowed by a black hole was somehow plot relevant then the visual effects they show for that would technically be plot holes too since you could never actually see anything devoured by a black hole...it would appear to hover above the event horizon indefinitely...

 

[Gojira]

Well, technically...it can be considered a plot hole.

Not within any meaningful definition of "plot hole."

In fact, no violation of science is "technically" - to use your term - a plot hole. "Plot" is a word that means something specific in regard to storytelling, the fact that bloggers at Cracked.com or other sites use it lazily notwithstanding.

Unfortunantly if a story establishes a scientific premise then it becomes part of the flow of logic for the story which would fall under plot hole in an extremely technical use.

This would be like say..."A Hurricane threatened the entire Earth." Without fictioinal mitigating circumstances then the statement goes against the flow of logic (a pretense of realism) and thus a plot hole...

So technically The supernova and Delta Vega issues could be considered plot holes. If seeing Vulcan swallowed by a black hole was somehow plot relevant then the visual effects they show for that would technically be plot holes too since you could never actually see anything devoured by a black hole...it would appear to hover above the event horizon indefinitely...

How is the location of Delta Vega a plot hole?

 

[F. King Daniel]

I dunno - but by Saquist's impossibly rigid definition of "plot hole", Trek collapses in on itself the minute we see the ridiculous, impractical shape of (any) USS Enterprise.

 

[Gojira]

I have talked with people who will nit pick and analyze movies to death and see inconsistencies and plot holes that are not really there.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I didn't realize that a questionable scientific explanation or a poorly constructed expression of technobabble constitutes a bona fide plot hole anyway.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plot_hole:

A plot hole, or plothole, is a gap or inconsistency in a storyline that goes against the flow of logic established by the story's plot, or constitutes a blatant omission of relevant information regarding the plot. These include such things as unlikely behaviour or actions of characters, illogical or impossible events, events happening for no apparent reason, or statements/events that contradict earlier events in the storyline.

I agree with those who have been saying that neither the collapse of Vulcan nor the supernova that destroyed Romulus can get filed under illogical or impossible events, any more than the behavior of the Genesis Device can.

Since "red matter" was used when Vulcan was imploded, that event does not need to conform to any science we presently understand, any more than the slingshot effect does that propelled the HMS Bounty back in time in TVH.

There are several types of supernovae currently accepted by science (link). If pressed, all the writers have to do is make up a new type of supernova not presently accepted by science, say that type of supernova was what destroyed Romulus, and voilà, issue resolved.

Since these sort of explanations are accepted all the time in Star Trek, as a kind of incidental technobabble Feinberger, they can't really be plot holes.