Should novels set in the JJVerse rectify the film's plot holes?

[JarodRussell]

It's like this 63 billion death toll in Destiny. I. Don't. Care. Such numbers are just way too big. It gets uninteresting and loses impact.

Agreed. The death toll in Destiny was so far over the top. It's a number you can't wrap your head around. It's just a way to make a villain seem bigger and badder.

You could try to make sense of these numbers:

If you start counting now, you won't reach a billion by the time you die - not even close. Now, consider each number you counted was a person, with dreams, hopes, family. Now, multiply all this by a thousand and you'll have a pale ideea of what the federation lost in 'Destiny'.

Doesn't compute for me, and I'm sure it doesn't for anyone. A single death will always have more impact on you than the death of a million. Which is why there's the saying: "one death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic".

 

[Shazam!]

If you start counting now, you won't reach a billion by the time you die - not even close. Now, consider each number you counted was a person, with dreams, hopes, family. Now, multiply all this by a thousand and you'll have a pale ideea of what the federation lost in 'Destiny'.

Right, so you don't even try.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

It's like this 63 billion death toll in Destiny. I. Don't. Care. Such numbers are just way too big. It gets uninteresting and loses impact.

Agreed. The death toll in Destiny was so far over the top. It's a number you can't wrap your head around. It's just a way to make a villain seem bigger and badder.

You could try to make sense of these numbers:

If you start counting now, you won't reach a billion by the time you die - not even close. Now, consider each number you counted was a person, with dreams, hopes, family. Now, multiply all this by a thousand and you'll have a pale ideea of what the federation lost in 'Destiny'.

Doesn't compute for me, and I'm sure it doesn't for anyone. A single death will always have more impact on you than the death of a million. Which is why there's the saying: "one death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic".

"one death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic" ONLY if you treat numbers like 'million' or 'billion' as abstractions. But, you see, in this context - genocide - they're anything but abstractions! They are not imaginary values, they have concrete correspondents.
Your mind may not be big anough to encompass the true scale of the death these numbers represent, but it's large enough to realise a fraction of the loss, if you stop treating such numbers as mathematical fantasies.

If you start counting now, you won't reach a billion by the time you die - not even close. Now, consider each number you counted was a person, with dreams, hopes, family. Now, multiply all this by a thousand and you'll have a pale ideea of what the federation lost in 'Destiny'.

Right, so you don't even try.

Why not?
Because, if you do, you might get an inkling of the true scale of the death, of the genocide that such numbers represent?
That's cowardly.

 

[Shazam!]

Why not?
Because, if you do, you might get an inkling of the true scale of the death, of the genocide that such numbers represent? That's cowardly.

So... the filmmakers were cowardly in not devoting more time to it?

 

[ProtoAvatar]

Why not?
Because, if you do, you might get an inkling of the true scale of the death, of the genocide that such numbers represent? That's cowardly.

So... the filmmakers were cowardly in not devoting more time to it?

You mean 'Star Trek XI'?
Well, the filmmakers DID devote time to it - they turned the trekverse into battlestar galactica verse. NOT an inspired choice.

But still better than star wars' cowardly treatement of the Alderaan megadeath - if you present a genocide and then treat it as inconsequential you establish your universe as being shallow, artificial, made out of cardboard. NOT good writing - quite the contrary.

 

[JarodRussell]

You could try to make sense of these numbers:

If you start counting now, you won't reach a billion by the time you die - not even close. Now, consider each number you counted was a person, with dreams, hopes, family. Now, multiply all this by a thousand and you'll have a pale ideea of what the federation lost in 'Destiny'.

Doesn't compute for me, and I'm sure it doesn't for anyone. A single death will always have more impact on you than the death of a million. Which is why there's the saying: "one death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic".

"one death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic" ONLY if you treat numbers like 'million' or 'billion' as abstractions. But, you see, in this context - genocide - they're anything but abstractions! They are not imaginary values, they have concrete correspondents.
Your mind may not be big anough to encompass the true scale of the death these numbers represent, but it's large enough to realise a fraction of the loss, if you stop treating such numbers as mathematical fantasies.

Dude, there is a reason why Amanda had to die in the new movie. Why Obi-Wan had to break down when Alderaan was destroyed. Why the Excelsior saw the imagine of a panicking, burning Klingon on the destroyed moon Praxis. Because otherwise the audience wouldn't feel it. What's more tragic? Death of your grand mother or genocide in Somalia? To me, it is the death of one I know, and not of a million I don't know. And that goes not only for me, that goes for everyone. That's not even an opinion anymore. Watch the news, they know that, too. Which is why for every giant catastrophe they pick this one individual to show the tragedy.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

Doesn't compute for me, and I'm sure it doesn't for anyone. A single death will always have more impact on you than the death of a million. Which is why there's the saying: "one death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic".

"one death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic" ONLY if you treat numbers like 'million' or 'billion' as abstractions. But, you see, in this context - genocide - they're anything but abstractions! They are not imaginary values, they have concrete correspondents.
Your mind may not be big anough to encompass the true scale of the death these numbers represent, but it's large enough to realise a fraction of the loss, if you stop treating such numbers as mathematical fantasies.

Dude, there is a reason why Amanda had to die in the new movie. Why Obi-Wan had to break down when Alderaan was destroyed. Why the Excelsior saw the imagine of a panicking, burning Klingon on the destroyed moon Praxis. Because otherwise the audience wouldn't feel it. What's more tragic? Death of your grand mother or genocide in Somalia? To me, it is the death of one I know, and not of a million I don't know. And that goes not only for me, that goes for everyone. That's not even an opinion anymore. Watch the news, they know that, too. Which is why for every giant catastrophe they pick this one individual to show the tragedy.

If your point is that 'Star trek XI' or 'Destiny' did not present genocide in detail, so as to make us realise how gigantic the scale of the death is, THEN YOU HAVE NO POINT.

In 'Destiny' or 'Star trek XI' the writers did struggle, did everything they could to present an inkling of what 'genocide' truly means - by including personal examples, too.
The fault for not realising the scale of the destruction lies with you and your refusal to look beyond mathematical abstractions.

Compare this with star wars, where Alderaan was a red shirt - Obi Wan's reaction? Really? Wach Leia and how "affected" she was of the megadeath. Observe how little the other characters cared about the genocide.

 

[JarodRussell]

"one death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic" ONLY if you treat numbers like 'million' or 'billion' as abstractions. But, you see, in this context - genocide - they're anything but abstractions! They are not imaginary values, they have concrete correspondents.
Your mind may not be big anough to encompass the true scale of the death these numbers represent, but it's large enough to realise a fraction of the loss, if you stop treating such numbers as mathematical fantasies.

Dude, there is a reason why Amanda had to die in the new movie. Why Obi-Wan had to break down when Alderaan was destroyed. Why the Excelsior saw the imagine of a panicking, burning Klingon on the destroyed moon Praxis. Because otherwise the audience wouldn't feel it. What's more tragic? Death of your grand mother or genocide in Somalia? To me, it is the death of one I know, and not of a million I don't know. And that goes not only for me, that goes for everyone. That's not even an opinion anymore. Watch the news, they know that, too. Which is why for every giant catastrophe they pick this one individual to show the tragedy.

If your point is that 'Star trek XI' or 'Destiny' did not present genocide in detail, so as to make us realise how gigantic the scale of the death is, THEN YOU HAVE NO POINT.

In 'Destiny' or 'Star trek XI' the writers did struggle, did everything they could to present an inkling of what 'genocide' truly means - by including personal examples, too.
The fault for not realising the scale of the destruction lies with you and your refusal to look beyond mathematical abstractions.

Compare this with star wars, where Alderaan was a red shirt - Obi Wan's reaction? Really? Wach Leia and how "affected" she was of the megadeath. Observe how little the other characters cared about the genocide.

If you read the previous discussion, you'd see that is was Picard's breakdown that affected the readers the most. Nobody of them really cared if it was 63 billion or 63 million, but watching Picard breaking apart, that's what just sold the Borg as the most horrifying villains in these books. Quality over quantity.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Relax,it's fiction, they weren't real people. Ups the emotional ante when fictional characters we like and "know" die. I call it the "Stephen King Maneuver".

What? It's fiction? Thanks for clearing that up.

It would have upped the emotional ante if it were treated as more than a drive by shooting. And Romulus was an innocent bystander that was driven over while the shooter was on the way to Vulcan.

It ws a cheap way to say "Hey, we're not the other guys. We're different. Look, the Vulcans are dead. Isn't Nero the baddest of the bad?"

You're the one crying like they ran over your dog.

If you want to see Vulcan or Romulas again all you gotta do is pick up a book or pop in a disc. Even in the new continuity you're gonna see Vulcans. And Romulas is still out there. They made that pretty clear.

I thought the destruction of Vulcan and its impact on Spock was well handled. Consequences and reprecussions are much better that resets buttons and everyone/everythings safe. For Vulcan to be an "redshirt" it would have to be the planet of week with no lasting impact on the characters and setting.

 

[Myasishchev]

Myasishchev suggested that Mutara could be a planetary nebula around a post-Main-Sequence star, with the Regula planetoid as an outlying body in its orbit. Thus the star would be inside the nebula and be the source of it. It's a bit problematical in terms of the density and appearance of the nebula, but it's the only plausible suggestion I've heard for the origin of the star.

Aww.

It's not perfect, of course--it also doesn't explain why the rest planetary nebula is just gone in Trek 3 (I can sort of see it being cleared, particularly with the explosion of the Reliant, but not vanished), nor explain why a previously geologically stable planet blew up (planetary binding energy >1 zillion times the energy contained in the Genesis Torpedo), or why the Genesis Star isn't a white dwarf (you can kind of pretend it was if you want I guess).

But the main thing, that the sensor-interferin', pea-soup dense "nebulae" are in fact dying red giants is an idea near and dear to my heart. The great thing is that you can make them pretty much arbitrarily dense, since they're fictional stars shedding their atmosphere on your own schedule. The only problem is that there should not be very many of them, because they're very short-lived.

Oh, and what's up with the negative reaction to the "Bones" explanation? Good as any and better than most, including "Sawbones," which is prosaic and dull. I also liked the callback to McCoy's bitter divorce, which never made it onto the screen before.

 

[kkozoriz1]

Star Trek [/I]franchise had to be big to grab the attention of new audiences.

Again, that's the key point that mustn't be overlooked. This film wasn't made just for the established fans, the people who were familiar with Vulcan. This film was made to introduce the Star Trek universe to new audiences.

The comment JJ amde (or was it a tagline?) that "This sin't your father's Star Trek" made that quite clear. Of course, I am the father he's talking about. This wasn't made for me. It was made for the crowds of summer movie fans to park their brains by the door and watch the big explosions. Star Trek has been turned into a movie much like The Transformers series. Sure, it'll make a bunch of money. For the first time in decades none of it will be mine. I'd prefer to have a bit more in a movie. Like plot.

 

[Christopher]

But the main thing, that the sensor-interferin', pea-soup dense "nebulae" are in fact dying red giants is an idea near and dear to my heart. The great thing is that you can make them pretty much arbitrarily dense, since they're fictional stars shedding their atmosphere on your own schedule. The only problem is that there should not be very many of them, because they're very short-lived.

As I mentioned in that other thread, I think it would be cool if SF productions would use gas-giant atmospheres in place of nebulae. Real nebulae are far, far thinner than Earth's atmosphere, thinner even than the solar wind in the space around Earth. If you want something as dense and cloudy as the nebulae in sci-fi, particularly something electrically charged like Mutara, you want a Jovian atmosphere. Also, if Mutara had been a Jovian planet instead of a nebula, then the Genesis Planet could've been a moon that the torpedo terraformed.

But a red giant shedding its atmosphere is a cool idea too. I think there's a Stephen Baxter story in Vacuum Diagrams depicting a space fleet hiding inside a red giant, though I may be conflating the Baxter story with something else.

Oh, and what's up with the negative reaction to the "Bones" explanation? Good as any and better than most, including "Sawbones," which is prosaic and dull. I also liked the callback to McCoy's bitter divorce, which never made it onto the screen before.

Some people just can't tolerate anything that diverges from their preconceived notions. Which is too bad for them, because good storytellers love to defy people's expectations.

 

[Myasishchev]

I find genocide (REPEATED AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN) out of place in the trekverse. The trekverse was intended to be optimistic, to affirm humanistic values.
And yet, lately, on-screen trek, lit trek, even the games turned the trekverse into battlestar galactica verse - death and misery ad nauseam.

Lately?

Watch TOS. Watch the murders of ones and scores and billions. Then watch them laugh.

Now, if you want to argue Trekverse--at least in TOS--didn't take itself seriously and didn't want to be taken by others in the same vein, that's a more fertile field.

And anyway, as someone who watched BSG (and ultimately hated it), the continuous existential threat of the Cylons has never really been replicated. Even Destiny, which had the threat, didn't apply it continuously over the course of four years (in-universe, anyway, although it's long enough that you could say--ha ha, just kidding ). The comparison is not really apt.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

I find genocide (REPEATED AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN) out of place in the trekverse. The trekverse was intended to be optimistic, to affirm humanistic values.
And yet, lately, on-screen trek, lit trek, even the games turned the trekverse into battlestar galactica verse - death and misery ad nauseam.

Lately?

Watch TOS. Watch the murders of ones and scores and billions. Then watch them laugh.

Now, if you want to argue Trekverse--at least in TOS--didn't take itself seriously and didn't want to be taken by others in the same vein, that's a more fertile field.

And anyway, as someone who watched BSG (and ultimately hated it), the continuous existential threat of the Cylons has never really been replicated. Even Destiny, which had the threat, didn't apply it continuously over the course of four years (in-universe, anyway, although it's long enough that you could say--ha ha, just kidding ). The comparison is not really apt.

A, yes, TOS. Much like star wars, it was red shirt genocide.

Recent star trek, on the other hand - all recent releases (televised/lit/games) went from genocide to genocide, analysing its effects, painting a gloomy picture.

'Destiny' or 'Star trek XI' didn't mantain this atmosphere "over the course of four years" - in-universe or not? True. But they made a "promising" start.
Well, we'll see what comes next.

 

[Myasishchev]

As I mentioned in that other thread, I think it would be cool if SF productions would use gas-giant atmospheres in place of nebulae. Real nebulae are far, far thinner than Earth's atmosphere, thinner even than the solar wind in the space around Earth. If you want something as dense and cloudy as the nebulae in sci-fi, particularly something electrically charged like Mutara, you want a Jovian atmosphere. Also, if Mutara had been a Jovian planet instead of a nebula, then the Genesis Planet could've been a moon that the torpedo terraformed.

I don't mind the idea of gas giants to simulate the "submarine warfare effect" TWoK was going for (it worked in that DS9 episode pretty well), but wouldn't their gravity well be problematic? I don't know, but for loitering maneuvers wouldn't you constantly be having to counteract a strong, downward acceleration?

Some people just can't tolerate anything that diverges from their preconceived notions. Which is too bad for them, because good storytellers love to defy people's expectations.

Seriously. I'm glad I never do that.

 

[Christopher]

The comment JJ amde (or was it a tagline?) that "This sin't your father's Star Trek" made that quite clear. Of course, I am the father he's talking about. This wasn't made for me. It was made for the crowds of summer movie fans to park their brains by the door and watch the big explosions.

I've been a fan of Star Trek since January 1974. Maybe I'm not in the original generation of fans, but I'm certainly in the one after that. And I feel this movie was made just as much for me as for the new audience. Yes, it's designed to be a stepping-on point for newcomers, as it should be, but it's also very clearly a creation of people who know and love Star Trek and have striven to balance the need for freshness and accessibility with respect and fidelity toward the original. It's made for both the old and new audiences, which is the right way to approach it. No, it's not made for purists, but no new version of anything is made for purists. There were TOS purists who loathed the TOS movies and TNG. There were TNG purists who loathed DS9. Purists never like change, by definition. But that doesn't mean that something that brings a fresh approach to a concept can't be faithful to it and satisfying to more open-minded fans of the original.

Star Trek has been turned into a movie much like The Transformers series. Sure, it'll make a bunch of money. For the first time in decades none of it will be mine. I'd prefer to have a bit more in a movie. Like plot.

The plot is full of holes, true, but it has something more important: strong characterization. Even as I complained about the problems with the story and the science and the logic, I still cared about the characters and believed they were really Kirk, Spock, McCoy, etc. Is there room for improvement? Hell, yes. But it is Star Trek.

Watch TOS. Watch the murders of ones and scores and billions. Then watch them laugh.

Yep. Nomad exterminated the whole Malurian civilization, killed a horde of security guards, and wiped Uhura's mind, and by the end of the episode Kirk was joking about being its proud father. Talk about "too soon."

Conversely, in ST'09, the destruction of Vulcan is hanging over the characters for the rest of the film. Even though they have their moments of lightness, it's not long before we get a reminder that this is a tragedy and people are grieving or angry about it.

I don't mind the idea of gas giants to simulate the "submarine warfare effect" TWoK was going for (it worked in that DS9 episode pretty well), but wouldn't their gravity well be problematic? I don't know, but for loitering maneuvers wouldn't you constantly be having to counteract a strong, downward acceleration?

Indeed, and that would make it more interesting. Although it wouldn't necessarily have affected the action much, since even in the "two-dimensional thinking" scene, the ships were still portrayed as having a common up-down vector, "sinking" and "rising" relative to each other like aircraft in flight.

Though I guess it would change the bits where the ships had their engines knocked out, since then they'd begin to fall. Some adjustments would've had to be made. But overall, adding a gravity well would've made it even more dangerous and exciting. (Well, if you found it exciting in the first place. Personally I find the action in TWOK to be tediously slow-paced, and I'm saying this as someone who likes TMP.)

 

[Nerys Myk]

Star Trek [/I]franchise had to be big to grab the attention of new audiences.

Again, that's the key point that mustn't be overlooked. This film wasn't made just for the established fans, the people who were familiar with Vulcan. This film was made to introduce the Star Trek universe to new audiences.

The comment JJ amde (or was it a tagline?) that "This sin't your father's Star Trek" made that quite clear. Of course, I am the father he's talking about. This wasn't made for me. It was made for the crowds of summer movie fans to park their brains by the door and watch the big explosions. Star Trek has been turned into a movie much like The Transformers series. Sure, it'll make a bunch of money. For the first time in decades none of it will be mine. I'd prefer to have a bit more in a movie. Like plot.

So in other words, it's the same as every Trek film since TWOK (only more successful)

 

[Thrawn]

^ I had a whole, three-paragraph post ready to go, but that one sentence pretty much covers it.

 

[kkozoriz1]

The plot is full of holes, true, but it has something more important: strong characterization. Even as I complained about the problems with the story and the science and the logic, I still cared about the characters and believed they were really Kirk, Spock, McCoy, etc. Is there room for improvement? Hell, yes. But it is Star Trek.

Some of the characters work, many did not.

Spock and McCoy were great. Great acting. I believed that they were the same people although in different circumstances. They were and yet, were not, the same characters as TOS. They worked in the new setting.

Scotty didn't work for me at all. He had many humerous situations in TOS. (We'll ignore STV and the head bump.). He was never just the comic relief. I didn't find him to be at all recognizable as the character I knew.

Kirk. Well, Kirk was just an obnoxious prick from start to finish. At no time could I see him growing into a man remotely like the Kirk of TOS and later. I didn't find him charming, dashing, heroic or a leader. Just a self important jerk who just happened to be right about there being a connection between the death of his father and the "lightning storm in space". Didn't like him at all.

Uhura got more to do and got more charactatization that Sulu and Chekov and I could see her as her TOS counterpoint. Sulu was mostly window dressing except for the sword scene. Chekov was annoying but was not a major player so it was easier to look past that.

 

[Christopher]

Scotty didn't work for me at all. He had many humerous situations in TOS. (We'll ignore STV and the head bump.). He was never just the comic relief. I didn't find him to be at all recognizable as the character I knew.

True, the film's Scotty was basically Simon Pegg with a Scottish accent. But then, the original Scotty was basically Jimmy Doohan with a (faker) Scottish accent. So it's kind of a toss-up.

I like New Scotty. He was fun to write in Seek a Newer World. By contrast, I never really felt I got a handle on Scotty Prime in my previous TOS fiction. In Ex Machina, he was the one I felt I used least effectively.

Sulu was mostly window dressing except for the sword scene. Chekov was annoying but was not a major player so it was easier to look past that.

Yep, pretty much exactly like the originals.