The latest Roger Ebert's "Answer Man" -- all Star Trek questions
- Thread starter Aragorn
- Start date
A
Amaris
Guest
Agreed. You know, I was thinking it was about time he retired as well. There are others to carry on his legacy (James Berardinelli for one, who gave the movie 3 out of 4 stars and highly recommended it), and he can rest on the excellent career he's had. It's just that he is getting more inconsistent, almost as inconsistent as an American Idol judge. Which is bad.
J.
Q. I believe the film did try to address the issue of why the characters "have to physically parachute to land on a platform." If I'm not mistaken, it is mentioned that the drill is interfering precisely with the function of the beam; the drill must therefore be disabled manually before the beam can be used. In this case, then, the logic may not be entirely puzzling.
Andrew Wang, Los Angeles, CA
A. I missed that detail, perhaps because I was astonished that three men would attempt to parachute from Earth's orbit and zero in on a platform so small one of them misses it. And then I got caught up in their battle with the Romulans, which involves a duel with swords and a fistfight, although I was relieved to find such weapons are still used in the 25th century.
* This last sentence is downright passive-aggressive. It does make another point: I don't recall them saying phasers were inoperative also, though if communications and transporters are out, it's possible. Seems to me though that handheld phasers would be a LOT harder to disrupt than a transporter lock. (Although all Trek series have MANY conveinent instances where phasers don't work.)
It's the only way to explain why we have the awesome Sulu-with-a-katana sequence (can you say action figure?). But this is the danger of mixing archaic tech in with super-modern tech: there still has to be a reason to justify the archaic tech. They'd have been better off paragliding in with 6-shooters, if the phasers were also inoperative.
There are some previous consistencies, though. We know that Sulu is *very enthusiastic* about any chance to use his fencing. We know that Prime Kirk has a penchant for more extreme sports (which is really Shatner). There was even a deleted orbital skydiving scene from Generations, which may be where that idea came from. There are a lot of internal consistencies between STXI and the preceding films if you look for it.
Another one is Pike's Admirals uniform in the final scene: clearly TMP-style Admiral's uniform.
Overall, I think Ebert's rating is fair, but I can't help but feel he went into it with some prejudice. And he's actually like a Trekkie with his armchair astrophysics analysis - I too was a little confused by the black-hole travel. I don't remember it being explained that the Narada and the science vessel could both go through black holes. Which then made no sense at the end of the film to me: wasn't the Narada being crushed, so why open fire? It wasn't being crushed, Kirk was actually preventing his escape by firing. This kind of confusion shouldn't be present - could be writing, or it could be editing. But there is enough WTF? in this film that I can understand a reviewer getting hung up on something.
Andrew Wang, Los Angeles, CA
A. I missed that detail, perhaps because I was astonished that three men would attempt to parachute from Earth's orbit and zero in on a platform so small one of them misses it. And then I got caught up in their battle with the Romulans, which involves a duel with swords and a fistfight, although I was relieved to find such weapons are still used in the 25th century.
* This last sentence is downright passive-aggressive. It does make another point: I don't recall them saying phasers were inoperative also, though if communications and transporters are out, it's possible. Seems to me though that handheld phasers would be a LOT harder to disrupt than a transporter lock. (Although all Trek series have MANY conveinent instances where phasers don't work.)
It's the only way to explain why we have the awesome Sulu-with-a-katana sequence (can you say action figure?). But this is the danger of mixing archaic tech in with super-modern tech: there still has to be a reason to justify the archaic tech. They'd have been better off paragliding in with 6-shooters, if the phasers were also inoperative.
There are some previous consistencies, though. We know that Sulu is *very enthusiastic* about any chance to use his fencing. We know that Prime Kirk has a penchant for more extreme sports (which is really Shatner). There was even a deleted orbital skydiving scene from Generations, which may be where that idea came from. There are a lot of internal consistencies between STXI and the preceding films if you look for it.
Another one is Pike's Admirals uniform in the final scene: clearly TMP-style Admiral's uniform.
Overall, I think Ebert's rating is fair, but I can't help but feel he went into it with some prejudice. And he's actually like a Trekkie with his armchair astrophysics analysis - I too was a little confused by the black-hole travel. I don't remember it being explained that the Narada and the science vessel could both go through black holes. Which then made no sense at the end of the film to me: wasn't the Narada being crushed, so why open fire? It wasn't being crushed, Kirk was actually preventing his escape by firing. This kind of confusion shouldn't be present - could be writing, or it could be editing. But there is enough WTF? in this film that I can understand a reviewer getting hung up on something.
I feel sorry for him. The poor guy has not been relevent in years.
CaptainStoner: The main reason why I see Sulu's fight with the sword was because he took it out to originally cut the lines to his chute, as it was dragging him to the exhaust port.
A
Amaris
Guest
Kirk's phaser went over the side of the platform.
Sulu didn't carry a phaser, he carried his sword, hence the "hand to hand combat" experience.
I just think he missed the forest for the trees, and gave that same pass to Angels and Demons. Very inconsistent and only days apart, not years, which would at least indicate a buffer of time in between.
J.
Wow, it's amazing how out of it some seem to be. Read Ebert's blog - he's very relevant. Just because he did not gush about ST or he rated something like A&D the way you wanted after you saw both movies; doesn't mean he's irrelevant. Agree or disagree with him, I don't care, but he's actually quite relevant.
He is, however, incorrect about many of his review points.
I still like Ebert, though for a while now he does tend to get hung up on the smallest things in his reviews, or focus on Angelina Jolie's or Jennifer Lopez's breasts and give all his thumbs up. For the most part, Ebert wrote reviews that told you if you'd like it or not regardless of whether or not he did.
At least he'll never be a Ben Lyons.
At least he'll never be a Ben Lyons.
So fucking nitpicky!
Here. I'll edit my original post.
I'll repeat this part, again.
I still like Ebert. But man, when he reviewed Spielberg's War of the Worlds, he REALLY got hooked on how much he hated the tripod vehicles.
They are, BUT depending on the density, the event horizon can be very large indeed. As for how black hole work; yeah it's laughable that they survive a black hole, but since Nero's ship is fitted with Borg technology I assume that the ship itself modified the properties of the black hole to permit ships to 'come out the other side'.
X
He may (or may not) be relevant, but's not the point here. The point is that if he (or his answer man) is going bash details about the film, perhaps those details should be right (and perhaps he should pay more attention).
I don't have any problem with him not gushing about the film, but being plain wrong on the details he is bashing is not excusable.
Similar threads
- Locked
