Star Trek 4 Hits A Snag

[Malaika]

He does? I never saw anything between Krall and Uhura at all. Just regular hero faces down villain stuff.

He could've killed her from the start but he seems to have a fixation on her in particular, talking to her and sharing his plans and opinions more than he did with Sulu and the others.
'Crush' is a joke to emphasize the fact he seemed to take an interest in her, that's why she spends more time with him than the other characters (which is key why she recognizes him in the video). Didn't mean romantic, just joking about his behavior.

The movie, I think, is pretty clear that the planet was abandoned before the Franklin crashed there. Why the aliens were gone is not explained, of course, as is usually the case in Star Trek. Telling a story about leftover technology makes the ultimate fate of its creators largely irrelevant. Better to leave it a mystery most of the time.

And yet, I find the 'creators' more interesting. I wanted to know more about the planet and its people. It's kind of disappointing that krall&Co were, once again, just humans.
I was hoping to see more mystery, exploration and a new alien race.
From the promotion, I expected Krall to be the leader of a new alien race that hated starfleet for survival reasons, like the aliens were so different that starfleet had to be their enemy because it would put them in danger. Something about kirk&Co accidentally interfering with a world that wanted to be left alone for controversial yet valid reasons.
Instead, he's just a crazy human.

And the Federation very clearly did not know Krall existed, so I don't get how they supposedly 'let' him do anything in exchange for anything. Even if you go out of your way to assume a Section 31 coverup, which is never even obliquely mentioned in the film, the story would make no sense. If Krall had the cooperation of Section 31, he could attempt and achieve a lot more than what he did.

I was only expressing confusion over some aspects that seem implausible or forced to me, such as the fact no one knew that he was there ..and he was supposedly killing anyone who got close to his planet.
It's weird starfleet had no clue. But I'm not saying there are any hints they knew about him, just that the plot would make more sense to me if some things were explained differently even if it would get more complex to develop.

I mean, that sentence could literally describe almost any planet in the trek franchise. Trek generally doesn't tell stories about planets, it tells them about people (a few obvious exceptions notwithstanding).

Aren't the people who live on a planet still people?
I think telling stories about the natives of a planet and how they interact with the crew is as trek as it could be. They are explorers, the fun is precisely finding new words with new people on it to interact with. Mystery, wonder, discovery.

The first movies were criticized for lacking this aspect, but Beyond is deeply dishonest about it because it promised to give us exactly that, do be 'better', but they didn't. They aren't stuck in Earth, but the time they spend on Altamid and Yorktown doesn't really make me forget they were still on earth, on sets modified to look alien. I didn't really see a new world, beside Yorktown that while exciting it's artificial and not as magical as seeing a planet with its unique alien aspects. It seemed an earth based futuristic place (basically Dubai lol).

So yeah, at this point better the honesty of the first two that showed us glimpses of Vulcan, Delta vega and a futuristic Earth. The latter is interesting to me because the fun of things like trek that are set in the future is also imagining how our cities will look like. Our familiar places. Beyond gave us a new planet, but they did nothing with it beside using it as a 'set'.

 

[Grendelsbayne]

He could've killed her from the start but he seems to have a fixation on her in particular, talking to her and sharing his plans and opinions more than he did with Sulu and the others.
'Crush' is a joke to emphasize the fact he seemed to take an interest in her, that's why she spends more time with him than the other characters (which is key why she recognizes him in the video). Didn't mean romantic, just joking about his behavior.

It seemed pretty standard to me. Uhura was just the 'representative' of the prisoners, just as has been shown in various pow movies over the years. Perhaps she was made such because Krall admired her strength, but evenso, that's all it was.

And yet, I find the 'creators' more interesting. I wanted to know more about the planet and its people. It's kind of disappointing that krall&Co were, once again, just humans.
I was hoping to see more mystery, exploration and a new alien race.
From the promotion, I expected Krall to be the leader of a new alien race that hated starfleet for survival reasons, like the aliens were so different that starfleet had to be their enemy because it would put them in danger. Something about kirk&Co accidentally interfering with a world that wanted to be left alone for controversial yet valid reasons.
Instead, he's just a crazy human.

I mean, I can understand all that fine, but I don't see it as a problem with the movie. It's misleading advertisement, which will always wind up disappointing someone. But for my part, even though the movie wasn't what the ads said it was, Krall was an interesting and unique villain that I thoroughly enjoyed, even though he was just human.

Though I do still think the movie would've been improved had they dropped the 'big surprise' altogether and allowed at least the audience to know him as Edison from the beginning of the movie.

I was only expressing confusion over some aspects that seem implausible or forced to me, such as the fact no one knew that he was there ..and he was supposedly killing anyone who got close to his planet.
It's weird starfleet had no clue. But I'm not saying there are any hints they knew about him, just that the plot would make more sense to me if some things were explained differently even if it would get more complex to develop.

Altamid is inside a nebula. At the beginning of the movie, they clearly state that the nebula is uncharted by Starfleet. They were literally on the edge of the frontier (Yorktown is even described as the newest starbase in the Federation) and they simply had no contact with that area until now.

Aren't the people who live on a planet still people?
I think telling stories about the natives of a planet and how they interact with the crew is as trek as it could be. They are explorers, the fun is precisely finding new words with new people on it to interact with. Mystery, wonder, discovery.

The first movies were criticized for lacking this aspect, but Beyond is deeply dishonest about it because it promised to give us exactly that, but they didnt. They aren't stuck in Earth, but the time they spend on Altamid and Yorktown doesn't really make me forget they were still on earth, on sets modified to look alien. I didn't really see a new world, beside Yorktown that while exciting it's artificial and not as magical as seeing a planet with its unique alien aspects. It seemed an earth based futuristic place (basically Dubai lol).

So yeah, at this point better the honesty of the first two that showed us glimpses of vulcan, delta vega and a futuristic earth. The latter is interesting to me because the fun of things like trek set in the future is also imagining how our cities will look like. Beyond gave us a new planet, but they did nothing with it beside using it as a 'set'.

Again, I wouldn't mind seeing those things as well, but I think what we did see was more than worth watching, and I'm not willing to condemn a movie for bad advertising decisions.

 

[Malaika]

I think it's one of the main issues of beyond's narrative.
There is a difference between leaving some things as a mystery on purpose because it serves your plot better (same goes for being subtle about the characters and their dynamics and arcs etc as a stylish choice), and being just lazy in terms of developing your stories, so everything happens mostly off screen or isn't explained at all and the audience has to make suppositions. Not everything can be a mystery just because it isn't explained or developed enough. In altamid's case, it was mostly a waste IMO. Just like other aspects of the movie that had potential, but are way too underdeveloped.
Beyond needed a novelization more than the first two perhaps, but ironically it's the movie that didn't get it because the writer couldn't keep up with the script changes. (if their script was as basic as I heard it was - thus lacking descriptions, notes, explanations etc - we'd probably read more the interpretation of the author than what the creative team intended anyway so it wouldn't be that useful, I guess)

 

[Khan 2.0]

Why the aliens were gone is not explained, of course, as is usually the case in Star Trek. Telling a story about leftover technology makes the ultimate fate of its creators largely irrelevant. Better to leave it a mystery most of the time.

yeh, every other ep of TOS seemed to be about the left overs of a long dead civilisation.
Vaguely remember something about the Rihanna music vid supposedly being something to do with showing the swarms origin (but then that was just to look cool for the mtv vid)

 

[Grendelsbayne]

I think it's one of the main issues of beyond's narrative.
There is a difference between leaving some things as a mystery on purpose because it serves your plot better (same goes for being subtle about the characters and their dynamics and arcs etc as a stylish choice), and being just lazy in terms of developing your stories, so everything happens mostly off screen or isn't explained at all and the audience has to make suppositions. Not everything can be a mystery just because it isn't explained or developed enough. In altamid's case, it was mostly a waste IMO. Just like other aspects of the movie that had potential, but are way too underdeveloped.
Beyond needed a novelization more than the first two perhaps, but ironically it's the movie that didn't get it because the writer couldn't keep up with the script changes. (if their script was as basic as I heard it was - thus lacking descriptions, notes, explanations etc - we'd probably read more the interpretation of the author than what the creative team intended anyway so it wouldn't be that useful, I guess)

I really don't see what the makers of the swarm have to add to this story. Could you make a fun movie about them in their own right? Sure, probably. But it wouldn't be this story anymore. I like this story for what it is, even if it could've been improved in some ways.

 

[gerbil]

He wasn't really, the Romulans were goading him into doing it, and he was going along with it so he had their fleet at his disposal.

I’d always read it as his decision to bring glory to himself via the Romulans. He tips his hand when he refers to the Picards as conquerors.

That's even more convoluted than I thought.

And re-reading Beyond plot/motivation here . . . it seems we - who dig this stuff - are not in agreement. That's just not a good indicator.

I mean, he explains it clearly to Uhura. He discusses the Federation making people weak because they don’t know struggle. He later tells Kirk that he fought the Xindi and the Romulans and is disgusted that we’re trying to make friends with them. Given the chance, almost certainly would have been part of the Terra Prime movement.

As far as Edison’s crew, two others survived. One was Anas and the other was the woman who lured them to Altamid who’s name escapes me at the moment.

 

[JKM]

So saw this article today on Shatner saying why Kirk was killed off in Generations. Not sure if this info has been out there before, but it was news to me. This is the kind of stupidity that Paramount is STILL dealing in. https://www.cbr.com/william-shatner-kirk-death-star-trek-generations/
Short quote of a shorter article:

“So the Producer said, ‘We’re going to kill Kirk because we think that The Next Generation will make more money at the box office,’ and I said ‘Why? Why do you want to kill the Captain?’” Shatner said in an interview with Comicbook.com. “[They said] ‘Ah, the box office, expenses, the budget, and the box office.’ And they said, ‘Do you want to be a part of it?’ And I said, ‘Yes, I’ll be a part of it.'”

However, in reality, Shatner felt he had little say regarding the decision.

“Well, I didn’t think I had any choice in the matter,” he continued. “Paramount had decided that the ceiling that they could reach in our box office had been reached and they thought that by putting in The Next Generation cast, that they would reach a higher box office. That decision had been made. It was either I was going to appear and die, or they were going to say he died. So, I chose the more practical of the two. That was their theory. It didn’t work out that way, but that is the way it was.”​

 

[Nyotarules]

And yet, I find the 'creators' more interesting. I wanted to know more about the planet and its people. It's kind of disappointing that krall&Co were, once again, just humans.
I was hoping to see more mystery, exploration and a new alien race.
From the promotion, I expected Krall to be the leader of a new alien race that hated starfleet for survival reasons, like the aliens were so different that starfleet had to be their enemy because it would put them in danger. Something about kirk&Co accidentally interfering with a world that wanted to be left alone for controversial yet valid reasons.
Instead, he's just a crazy human.

Well said, and this is the reason I was disappointed with the movie. I rewatch this movie just to see Jaylah and Kevin

 

[Khan 2.0]

not a lot of ST4 news lately is there, just this about Chris Hemsworth building his own starbase on the coast of Australia (no wonder he holding out for more $$)
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowb...Patakys-8m-Byron-Bay-looks-like-fortress.html

 

[JKM]

They just need to ditch him. Saw him in a preview for some new movie last night and I'm just like at his movie choices, Avengers aside.

 

[CorporalClegg]

That's the gaudiest fucking thing I've ever seen.

 

[Malaika]

If they need one more Chris, they could replace Thor-Chris with Chris Evans, or Chris Pratt. There are so many and they are all blond.
Or Zoe could put a good word for Sam Worthington. Her colleague didn't have much luck after Avatar.
Sure, though, as this Kirk's dad there is no denying that Hemsworth was a+ casting (and so is Winona Ryder as the mother of this Spock btw. That whole 'his mother's eyes' connection is definitely there. It was a nice touch by this team that they gave him Amanda's eyes, that his human side was betrayed by his dark soulful eyes that are like his mom's)

 

[Khan 2.0]

If they need one more Chris, they could replace Thor-Chris with Chris Evans, or Chris Pratt. There are so many and they are all blond.
Or Zoe could put a good word for Sam Worthington. Her colleague didn't have much luck after Avatar.
Sure, though, as this Kirk's dad there is no denying that Hemsworth was a+ casting (and so is Winona Ryder as the mother of this Spock btw. That whole 'his mother's eyes' connection is definitely there. It was a nice touch by this team that they gave him Amanda's eyes, that his human side was betrayed by his dark soulful eyes that are like his mom's)

lets face it the only reason they were wanting to do the Kirks father story was due to Hemsworth getting more and more famous as Thor and Avengers doing 1.5bill (and now 2b) and Ragnarok almost doing 1b too (plus hes the star of the new MiB) so they must want the Kirk father more than ever (within reason of $), if it had been Sam Worthington as George Kirk then they probably wouldn't be interested in doing the George McFly Kirk story now aand theyd figure something else out or just wait for QT

 

[Malaika]

lets face it the only reason they were wanting to do the Kirks father story was due to Hemsworth getting more and more famous as Thor and Avengers doing 1.5bill (and now 2b) and Ragnarok almost doing 1b too (plus hes the star of the new MiB) so they must want the Kirk father more than ever (within reason of $), if it had been Sam Worthington as George Kirk then they probably wouldn't be interested in doing the George McFly Kirk story now aand theyd figure something else out or just wait for QT

In short, yes. The supposed plot involving his dad sounds forced anyway, unless Kirk would meet mirror verse George without knowing he came from the mirror verse.
Bringing the actual George Kirk back only takes away from the poignancy of that opening scene in ST09 kind of making the importance of his sacrifice meaningless.