The ONLY thing I hated about STXI (please explain)

[Crazy Eddie]

I have to say, I agree with the OP. That line was vulgar and embarressing, and just didn't belong in a Trek film IMHO. In fact I'm not really all that fond of that entire bar sequence; even the loud rock music in the background seemed tacked on.

Loud rock music... would you expect them to be playing in a bar in Iowa? Mozart's 5th Symphony?

Well, considering the people in that bar would've been listening to 300 year old music...

Or a fifty year old remix of a 150 year old song.

The thing about scifi is, it's easy to imagine what culture might look like, but it's expensive and complicated to represent what culture sounds like. Accents, music styles, jokes, lyrics, insults, etymology, especially slang and vernacular; you can explore these in detail if you have enough time, but it's hard to do, it takes alot of work, sometimes you have to actually write music and lyrics and get someone to sing it for you, you have to make up entire languages and then explain what those languages are or where they come from.

Even the fact that 23rd century characters talk the way they do is just artistic license; you're supposed to ignore the fact that 200 years of language development, popular culture and shifting word use would produce a new class of idioms, vernacular and figures of speech such that even if you were talking to a 23rd century English speaker you probably wouldn't understand half of what they were saying.

 

[Franklin]

Even the fact that 23rd century characters talk the way they do is just artistic license; you're supposed to ignore the fact that 200 years of language development, popular culture and shifting word use would produce a new class of idioms, vernacular and figures of speech such that even if you were talking to a 23rd century English speaker you probably wouldn't understand half of what they were saying.

They may not even speak to each other. The way things are going, they may just sit around texting.

Actually, you're correct. And, it isn't just about speech, either. Trek has been about 20th century people (now 21st) with largely 20th century sensibilities facing 20th century problems (now 21st) in a future setting. No pretense has ever been made otherwise.
Any real Kirk, McCoy, or Scotty from the 23rd century would no more fit in with us today than Benjamin Franklin or Thomas Jefferson would if they suddenly showed up.

 

[Jeri]

Anybody who needs proof of that can just watch TOS and see if that isn't a mid-century modern period piece already. We made our own history, since we lasted long enough.

 

[Pemmer Harge]

To be honest, I have trouble understanding how people are fine with a film depicting the deaths of billions of people but are horrified by a quick joking reference to bestiality. Believe me, hearing that line won't screw up your children.

 

[Disillusioned]

That's because the billions of people dying aren't real but the insult flung at "hicks" is.

 

[M'Sharak]

The hicks in the movie aren't real, either. They're just as fictional as the rest of the characters, seen and unseen.

 

[Disillusioned]

Too bad it's an insult that's been used against real "hicks" then. Kind of like the implication that people who don't happen to live in a city are stupid.

 

[M'Sharak]

Too bad it's an insult that's been used against real "hicks" then. Kind of like the implication that people who don't happen to live in a city are stupid.

Country folks have had just as many less-than-kind things to say about city people, over the years, as the other way around, but I don't see anyone getting up in arms about that. Why keep trying to make this out to be like J.J "City-boy" Abrams is insulting you, personally? He doesn't even know you, does he?

It's just a story, and as has been pointed out before, that line is not delivered as if it were an insult, but rather as a teasing acknowledgement that she had somewhat misjudged the drunk guy who was trying to pick her up in an off-base bar; it's a joke, he responds as someone would who understands it to be a joke, and that's it. It's an early milestone in the character arcs of both characters, not a deliberate attempt on the part of the filmmakers to belittle rural people.

 

[Disillusioned]

Country folks have had just as many less-than-kind things to say about city people, over the years, as the other way around, but I don't see anyone getting up in arms about that.

Probably because that isn't what happened in this movie.

Why keep trying to make this out to be like J.J "City-boy" Abrams is insulting you, personally? He doesn't even know you, does he?

An insult doesn't need to be personal to be insulting.

It's just a story,

An insult is still an insult.

and as has been pointed out before, that line is not delivered as if it were an insult, but rather as a teasing acknowledgement that she had somewhat misjudged the drunk guy who was trying to pick her up in an off-base bar;

No, it's been asserted before, but I've asserted myself that since the "dumb hick" way of shrugging him off didn't work she went with the "well you people just fuck animals" insult.

it's a joke, he responds as someone would who understands it to be a joke, and that's it.

He responds to it in the only way he could without insulting her back, assaulting her, or just silently leaving the bar. It wasn't a joke even if his comeback was.

It's an early milestone in the character arcs of both characters, not a deliberate attempt on the part of the filmmakers to belittle rural people.

I just see it as business as usual from Hollywood.

 

[Kelso]

No, it's been asserted before, but I've asserted myself that since the "dumb hick" way of shrugging him off didn't work she went with the "well you people just fuck animals" insult.

It was playful banter.

 

[Disillusioned]

Didn't seem all that playful to me. She was telling him to get lost and that was just an insulting way of doing it.

 

[Kelso]

You misread the scene.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Didn't seem all that playful to me. She was telling him to get lost and that was just an insulting way of doing it.

Duh. She was trying to insult him.

 

[The Castellan]

The future music from "The Fifth Element" was sort of like rock. Sort of.

I was too busy looking at Leeloo to notice.

Anyhow, the one thing I hated about the film was engineering.

 

[Pemmer Harge]

That's because the billions of people dying aren't real but the insult flung at "hicks" is.

Oh, that doesn't interest me, especially since I'm not from a country where such things have any resonance (arguably in Britain people from the country are more snooty about city folk) but I am concerned with the idea that somehow this is going to harm people's children if they hear it. Because, y'know, it isn't.

 

[Disillusioned]

You misread the scene.

No, it was pretty obvious that she was insulting him.

Duh. She was trying to insult him.

Well we agree on something, anyway. I kind of doubt we'd agree on whether this was acceptable or not, though. After all, she could have just been up front and told him to leave her the hell alone. That might have even avoided those other cadets coming over and stereotypically feeling the need to defend their female colleague (since apparently they need men to stick up for them).

 

[CommanderRaytas]

She did sort of tell him, and also the male colleagues that she could handle the situation by herself.

 

[Trekker4747]

Uhura is supposed to be a bit sassy.

"I will rescue you fair maiden!"
"Sorry, neither."

 

[M'Sharak]

After all, she could have just been up front and told him to leave her the hell alone.

She'd been telling him that from her fourth line in the movie onward, and her first directed to him: ("Her shot's on her. Thanks, but no thanks.") He wasn't taking "no" for an answer.

 

[Neumann]

Sorry people but back in the country, specifically in farms the mules are famous... so what? Vulcan is no more and that is that.