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STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS - Grading & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Grade the movie...


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Of course, I never said that Cumberbatch or Abrams did swarthy people a disservice or a "crime." That's all you, or perhaps actually those links that Shaka's referring to.
 
Liked the movie (though slightly less than '09's), but like the last one the villain really was one of the weakest things about it.

I liked it more. Red magic stuff that either sends you back in time or destroys things depending on what the plot calls for is infinitely worse than any of STID's flaws.

I wasn't offended by the use of Khan (or the ethnicity of the actor playing him) but I thought it was a shame that having gotten over the hurdle of being burdened by having to distance themselves of what came before they went right back to well at the first opportunity.

I thought it had a good first two thirds but then fell off a cliff in its final act, especially having to put up with an overblown special effects laden fisticuffs battle that ends with Uhura just beaming down right behind and shooting him.
 
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Explain how it is a "plot hole." I can get not liking it, but that doesn't necessarily make it a plot hole.

landing a starship in the the ocean for no good reason other than purposely wanting to be seen by an alien race you're supposed to have no contact with. They could have taken a shuttle down or transported. It's nothing more than an overdone action/fx sequence to get the movie going. The stupidity shown by the crew in that sequence is mindblowing.

As far as a lack of screen time... Checkov was on screeen for what, 2 minutes total if he was lucky? Scotty is off getting drunk for 3/4 of the movie. McCoy is around plenty, but he doesn't do much of anything except get his hand stuck in a torpedo. Overall, the first nuST gave us way more character development. This one, not so much due to introducing a character that brought nothing to the table except eye candy.

If Khan is Sikh, that can make him Asian or Middle Eastern. Regardless, we're splitting atoms on that issue. He obviously shouldn't be a brooding, monotone Brit. If they would have said, in movie, he had a sex change, I'm fine with that... but they didn't, so the complaint is valid imo.
 
Explain how it is a "plot hole." I can get not liking it, but that doesn't necessarily make it a plot hole.

landing a starship in the the ocean for no good reason other than purposely wanting to be seen by an alien race you're supposed to have no contact with. They could have taken a shuttle down or transported. It's nothing more than an overdone action/fx sequence to get the movie going.

And yet, having repeated all that...you still haven't explained how the sequence is in any sense a "plot hole."

Between this and the misuse of words like "misogyny" elsewhere it's looking like the only way some folks can find to criticize the movie is to invent a new language or code which only passingly resembles the look of English.
 
A plot hole, or plothole, a play on the word "pothole," 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 sometimes even contradicting itself. 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.

As cool as I think the "Enterprise rising out of the ocean" bit is, there really is no apparent reason for it to need to happen.
 
I thought it was pretty cool too, and I understand the criticisms against it, but I think there was a reason, even if the reason is kinda poor. I wouldn't really call it a plot hole.
 
A plot hole, or plothole, a play on the word "pothole," 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 sometimes even contradicting itself. 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.

As cool as I think the "Enterprise rising out of the ocean" bit is, there really is no apparent reason for it to need to happen.

That's not so, because what's meant by "apparent reason" with regard to plot isn't a question of whether something can be defended in real world terms.

The "apparent reason" that Enterprise needs to surface is because they need to be in the air over the volcano for the transporter to work properly, and they've been submerged to hide from the locals. All of that is explicitly set up and stated.

There's no plot hole there. People can argue about whether they should have been underwater on other terms, but not as a "plot hole."
 
I actually think it would fall under 'illogical' as opposed to happening for no reason.

I can go either way. With transporters, there was no reason to hide the ship under water. With transporters, there was no logical reason to hide the ship under water. :techman:
 
landing a starship in the the ocean for no good reason other than purposely wanting to be seen by an alien race you're supposed to have no contact with. They could have taken a shuttle down or transported. It's nothing more than an overdone action/fx sequence to get the movie going.

Wait, isn't that a good thing ?
 
It's not at all illogical. The arguments against it have to do with how the faux technology of Star Trek works, not the logic of the events themselves.

Logic is built from premises. The premises established here is that Enterprise has to hide from the locals in order to obey the PD, and that the locals are presumably unable to detect the ship under water. So, it's logical to hide the ship under water. Therefore, when an unexpected problem arises and they need a line of sight for an emergency transport they have to surface.

"Oh, but they don't need to/can't do that because we know that the ship can't do that/can do this" is a matter of bringing other continuity to bear on the logic of the events, as if established continuity constitutes a relevant body of fact. That in itself is arguable.

It shouldn't need to be said that challenging anything as being an "impossible event" is completely meaningless in Star Trek or most other fantasy movies.
 
That's not so, because what's meant by "apparent reason" with regard to plot isn't a question of whether something can be defended in real world terms.

I'm not trying to define it based on real world terms. I'm defining based on what has been established previously in the "universe".

The "apparent reason" that Enterprise needs to surface is because they need to be in the air over the volcano for the transporter to work properly, and they've been submerged to hide from the locals. All of that is explicitly set up and stated.

The reason they need to surface is explained. What they don't explain is why they needed to hide a starship there to begin with. How they got down there without being noticed by the populace? Why they didn't use shuttlecarft for both ends of the mission?

It is one of the absolute coolest scenes in all of Star Trek. But I think it constitutes a plot-hole because it violates the rules of the universe and ignores the capabilities of the Enterprise as defined in these movies. YMMV.
 
Logic is built from premises. The premises established here are that Enterprise has to hide from the locals in order to obey the PD, and that the locals are presumably unable to detect the ship under water. So, it's logical to hide the ship under water.

Unless the locals have a way to observe a starship in orbit, it's illogical not to hide it there.
 
Logic is built from premises. The premises established here are that Enterprise has to hide from the locals in order to obey the PD, and that the locals are presumably unable to detect the ship under water. So, it's logical to hide the ship under water.

Unless the locals have a way to observe a starship in orbit, it's illogical not to hide it there.

No. It's not required that the filmmakers explain why an option presumed to exist isn't utilized, though it might be nice for fans familiar with previous Star Trek history.

But I think it constitutes a plot-hole because it violates the rules of the universe and ignores the capabilities of the Enterprise as defined in these movies.

These are all rules defined elsewhere, not within the plot of the movie. Therefore, while it may be annoying it's still not a plot hole since it doesn't violate the logic of events in the movie.

Having submerged the ship at the opening of the movie, if later in the story there'd been a good reason to take the ship underwater and they chose not to because "it's impossible for the Enterprise to submerge," that would have been a plot hole.
 
Maybe the locals had primitive telescopes and could see the ship in orbit ? I wonder how Kirk thought he could sneak the Enterprise out of the water when all was said and done without getting spotted.
 
No. It's not required that the filmmakers explain why an option presumed to exist isn't utilized, though it might be nice.

Of all the flaws that exist in this film, this is simply the one I cannot come up with a "Trek-explanation" for. It's fucking cool, I've drooled every single time I've seen the movie. But every time I leave, it's the one thing that I reflect on that makes zero sense.
 
These are all rules defined elsewhere, not within the plot of the movie. Therefore, while it may be annoying it's still not a plot hole since it doesn't violate the logic of events in the movie.

I think it is because we see in the very same sequence two different means of travel that doesn't require hiding a starship underwater. :p
 
No. It's not required that the filmmakers explain why an option presumed to exist isn't utilized, though it might be nice.

Of all the flaws that exist in this film, this is simply the one I cannot come up with a "Trek-explanation" for. It's fucking cool, I've drooled every single time I've seen the movie. But every time I leave, it's the one thing that I reflect on that makes zero sense.

Perhaps [Trekkie hat] the same thing that prevents anything other than a line of sight beam out somehow interferes with the sensors of the ship at any distance greater than where they are parked underwater.[/Trekkie hat] That we don't see/hear that discussion is because we pick up the "adventure" in mid-stride. Had it been a self-contained episode shown from its beginning, I suspect such an explanation (or something similar) would have been part of the conversation. Again, this is something I can work out for myself without needing an explicit statement from a character (much like the way I don't get worked up about not being shown transit travel between two points when "speed of plot" is employed). YMMV
 
Right. Personally I hope the next movie also starts mid-adventure. It gives us the impression that they are doing something between movies, which wasn't the case for the previous ones.

TMP was justified and in III and IV also, but in II, V and VI for some reason they are just dicking around waiting for a mission.
 
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