The latest Roger Ebert's "Answer Man" -- all Star Trek questions

[KirkusOveractus]

Looks like he suspended disbelief for Angels & Demons, which is maybe what he should have done for Star Trek.

If it entertains, you can forgive some of the details. I think he's just soured on Star Trek, or maybe he feels that by giving thumbs down to a movie that was favored by a majority of other reviewers, maybe he keeps his name in view instead of being one in a crowd.

 

[Jeri]

I'd say he's illustrating absurdity quite nicely.

Agreed; but his own, not the movie's.

 

[Aragorn]

He used to be really good at evaluating a movie in its complete form, and how it all came together cinematically.

Now, he just focuses on one thing and never lets it go, instead of moving on.

So if he were a Trek canonite, his entire review would be about the zero in the Kelvin registry number, Enterprise being built on earth and the lack of Gary Mitchell or Finnegan?

 

[CaptainJon]

I'm normally a fan of Ebert's, but I found his review to be a mess. He never really reviewed it. It was more like a mockery of the film then it was a critique. He never commented on the story, the plot, the acting, nothing that contributes to a good movie. All he did was mock the "science". Yet, he loves the Star Wars movies where their science is just as unlikely as Star Trek's! Anyone remember him loving The Phantom Menace?

 

[KirkusOveractus]

He used to be really good at evaluating a movie in its complete form, and how it all came together cinematically.

Now, he just focuses on one thing and never lets it go, instead of moving on.

So if he were a Trek canonite, his entire review would be about the zero in the Kelvin registry number, Enterprise being built on earth and the lack of Gary Mitchell or Finnegan?

Given how he used to be about classic movies, that sounds almost accurate!

Ebert, in his written form, used to write really well-done reviews about the lighting of a scene and how it helped or hindered, how a piece of music gave an otherwise drab scene a better flow, and so on.

He gave each movie a treatment as a whole, and not really picked out one facet for ridicule. If it was a terrible movie, it was because the whole thing was terrible. Not because he can't even locate the real Grand Canyon on a map, and thus making the movie not worthy of a thumbs-up (despite it steadily making a good amount of money, and generating good WOM).

 

[Mr. B]

...Not because he can't even locate the real Grand Canyon on a map, and thus making the movie not worthy of a thumbs-up...

Chris Pine, as James Tiberius Kirk, appears first as a hot-rodding rebel who has found a Corvette in the 23rd century and drives it into the Grand Canyon.

Thanks for your corrections. I got carried away with the Grand Canyon, which, after checking with Google Earth, I find is not located in Iowa.

Seriously, check the batteries in your sarcasm detector.

 

[Cakes488]

Looks like he suspended disbelief for Angels & Demons, which is maybe what he should have done for Star Trek.

If it entertains, you can forgive some of the details. I think he's just soured on Star Trek, or maybe he feels that by giving thumbs down to a movie that was favored by a majority of other reviewers, maybe he keeps his name in view instead of being one in a crowd.

If he's soured on Trek and that is influencing his review then he shouldn't review it! I tell you where I'd like to put that thumb of his....

 

[KirkusOveractus]

"Chris Pine, as James Tiberius Kirk, appears first as a hot-rodding rebel who has found a Corvette in the 23rd century and drives it into the Grand Canyon.

Thanks for your corrections. I got carried away with the Grand Canyon, which, after checking with Google Earth, I find is not located in Iowa.

Seriously, check the batteries in your sarcasm detector. "


^ That isn't the point I was trying to make. Check your eyesight.

 

[Amaris]

...Not because he can't even locate the real Grand Canyon on a map, and thus making the movie not worthy of a thumbs-up...

Chris Pine, as James Tiberius Kirk, appears first as a hot-rodding rebel who has found a Corvette in the 23rd century and drives it into the Grand Canyon.

Thanks for your corrections. I got carried away with the Grand Canyon, which, after checking with Google Earth, I find is not located in Iowa.

Seriously, check the batteries in your sarcasm detector.

He's still wrong. He threw out sarcasm instead of experience. In other words, he didn't bother to say "oh, that was a quarry, my mistake" (of which there are many quarries in Iowa). It bothers me that he's so flippant about such detail. It's his job to catch nuance. He's missing it on this one.

J.

 

[Mr. B]

He's still wrong. He threw out sarcasm instead of experience. In other words, he didn't bother to say "oh, that was a quarry, my mistake"

 

[KirkusOveractus]

Not to mention the other miss in that part of his review:

Chris Pine wasn't Kirk during the Corvette scene.

 

[Amaris]

He's still wrong. He threw out sarcasm instead of experience. In other words, he didn't bother to say "oh, that was a quarry, my mistake"

Don't give me those WTF eyes. I highly respect Roger Ebert, but it's obvious in this review he simply doesn't care. It's sloppy and riddled with inaccurate statements. Hell, I caught more on my first viewing than he did, and he gets paid to do this.

J.

 

[Dream]

So Ebert LIKED Angel and Demons but hated Star Trek? Oh man. Obviously the man has gone insane.

 

[Amaris]

So Ebert LIKED Angel and Demons but hated Star Trek? Oh man. Obviously the man has gone insane.

He thought Knowing was a far superior piece of thoughtful science fiction.


J.

 

[Geoff]

Roger Ebert sez:

A. "Star Trek" was very wrong about black holes. [...] (2) One in the center of Vulcan would swallow the planet and everything else in the vicinity, including spaceships.

OH RLY???

Really, Roger, stick to the plot and the characters and stop trying to pretend that you know the first damn thing about astrophysics.

If the mass of Vulcan collapses down to a singularity, then what you have is a singularity with precisely the same mass as the planet Vulcan. In other words, as far as the neighboring celestial bodies are concerned, the planet is still there. It has the same gravitational pull that it has always had. Satellites continue to orbit around it, and the singularity itself (or "black hole," if you prefer) continues to orbit around its star.

A black hole doesn't "suck" anything into it unless something gets caught in its gravitational well, which is what happens with any massive celestial body.

 

[KirkusOveractus]

So Ebert LIKED Angel and Demons but hated Star Trek? Oh man. Obviously the man has gone insane.

To me, it isn't that he liked A&D over Trek (I'll probably see A&D, to see how it was transformed into a sequel, where the book takes place prior to Da Vinci Code), it's that he gives it merit and excuses things in it because it entertains.

Star Trek entertained, but he thumbed it down because he found problems in its fictional science, for one.

 

[Checkmate]

What are you talking about? Vulcan's destruction wasn't "boom, done!" It drove the entire second half of the movie, it gave both Spocks fuel for years to come, it gave a reasonable excuse for Old Spock to stay in this timeline without people going "what happened to him?" Hell, it's definitely not Nimoy's last potential appearance in the movie. Of all the old cast members, he's the only one they can bring back in without any technobabble or time travel nonsense. He's there. He's doing something important. And it's all unpredictable, so anything can happen.

The only real fault with the movie was the pacing. They tried cramming way too much into it. But they handled that about as well as they could and, despite a few oddities and waving of the hands. All of which are easily excusable because this movie pretty much just set the stage for what can be. Future movies can slow down and focus more on the plot as well as the characters, the latter of which was the emphasis of this movie.

 

[Trekker4747]

Wow, he really got hung up on the wrong details of this movie.

You can't see a blackhole? No, no you can't. But you can see the shit being sucked into it! And even if you couldn't, who gives a crap?

I'm pretty sure a black hole was discovered because someone looked saw a star being sucked into one if I'm not mistaken. I could be wrong on the details.

Black holes do not "suck." They're gravity. Very, very, very, STRONG gravity. But gravity.

Hold your arm straight out perpendicular to your body. Do you feel your arm being "sucked" toward the floor?

 

[Cakes488]

So Ebert LIKED Angel and Demons but hated Star Trek? Oh man. Obviously the man has gone insane.

To me, it isn't that he liked A&D over Trek (I'll probably see A&D, to see how it was transformed into a sequel, where the book takes place prior to Da Vinci Code), it's that he gives it merit and excuses things in it because it entertains.

Star Trek entertained, but he thumbed it down because he found problems in its fictional science, for one.

But how can he have a problem...really...with the "fictional science"....it's fiction!!!!! But didn't Trek entertain...he said it did...so why won't he excuse the fictional science...but he can excuse fictional history...someone help me out here...

 

[Amaris]

Wow, he really got hung up on the wrong details of this movie.

You can't see a blackhole? No, no you can't. But you can see the shit being sucked into it! And even if you couldn't, who gives a crap?

I'm pretty sure a black hole was discovered because someone looked saw a star being sucked into one if I'm not mistaken. I could be wrong on the details.

Black holes do not "suck." They're gravity. Very, very, very, STRONG gravity. But gravity.

Hold your arm straight out perpendicular to your body. Do you feel your arm being "sucked" toward the floor?

Only if she's really good.

But how can he have a problem...really...with the "fictional science"....it's fiction!!!!! But didn't Trek entertain...he said it did...so why won't he excuse the fictional science...but he can excuse fictional history...someone help me out here...

I don't get it either. There's no reasoning or logic behind his choices, or his answers for that matter. I think he just chose not to like it and bent his review in that direction regardless of it's ill fit with the actual movie.


J.