What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?

[FredH]

I never felt that “I’ve always known I’ll die alone” was any sort of precognition, or meant to be. It was just a nagging, irrational fear/expectation, of a sort I think many of us have. Plus, it was obviously a setup for him not dying at the end of The Final Frontier, when he thinks the Bird of Prey is about to kill him, only for him to be beamed up and helped instead.

And intentionally or not, Generations seems to make a point of disproving it, in accordance with its own themes: At first, Kirk appears to have died alone, in the fiery blowout on the Enterprise-B (cf. “Time is the fire in which we burn”). But later, when he does die, it’s in Picard’s company, no longer alone (“Time is a friend that sees us through”).

 

[cooleddie74]

^
Every bit of this.

 

[Christopher]

Edith Keeler has entered the chat...

What? First off, Keeler just offered a generally optimistic conjecture about humanity's future that fortunately managed to come true, which is very different from imagining one can predict the circumstances of one's own death. (She would have been much better off if she could have done so.) Second, Keeler never claimed to "know" this would happen, merely to hope and believe that it could. Expressing belief and asserting certain knowledge are two radically different things. In the absence of evidence, the former is aspirational, but the latter is delusional.

I don't know. I've always known/felt since middle/high school that I would be a bachelor/single for the rest of my life and here I am at 55 and I'm still single/bachelor with two cats to keep me company. Sometimes there are things you just "know".

That's not too different from my own experience, but that's not precognition, it's just pattern recognition, knowing one's own personality and situation and projecting how it might affect one's future. I certainly never assumed I "knew" it, just that I was aware of it as a possibility.

Everyone makes guesses and assumptions about the future. Most of them never come true and we forget about them, but the few that do coincidentally resemble what actually happens stand out in our memories, creating the illusion of future "knowledge." This is a very commonplace cognitive fallacy.

I never felt that “I’ve always known I’ll die alone” was any sort of precognition, or meant to be. It was just a nagging, irrational fear/expectation, of a sort I think many of us have.

That's just it -- I don't buy that Kirk would be so irrational. I could buy him fearing he'd die alone, but having him say he's "always known" it is just silly.

Plus, it was obviously a setup for him not dying at the end of The Final Frontier, when he thinks the Bird of Prey is about to kill him, only for him to be beamed up and helped instead.

The fact that something is obvious does not make it good writing. Generally you want to avoid being too obvious about that kind of contrivance.

 

[Jayson1]

I never felt that “I’ve always known I’ll die alone” was any sort of precognition, or meant to be. It was just a nagging, irrational fear/expectation, of a sort I think many of us have. Plus, it was obviously a setup for him not dying at the end of The Final Frontier, when he thinks the Bird of Prey is about to kill him, only for him to be beamed up and helped instead.

And intentionally or not, Generations seems to make a point of disproving it, in accordance with its own themes: At first, Kirk appears to have died alone, in the fiery blowout on the Enterprise-B (cf. “Time is the fire in which we burn”). But later, when he does die, it’s in Picard’s company, no longer alone (“Time is a friend that sees us through”).

I feel like Kirk did though still die alone. Picard was there but he just meet the guy. Spock and Bones weren't there though.

 

[FredH]

That's just it -- I don't buy that Kirk would be so irrational. I could buy him fearing he'd die alone, but having him say he's "always known" it is just silly.

This really does seem to be in the category “I know you’re going to be the death of me someday”, or “I know this isn’t going to end well” (or “I knew it’d be something stupid like this!”). No I don’t. It’s an emotion, and an expression. Kirk doesn’t literally know it, or even think he literally knows it. He’s expressing how he emotionally sees things going, not knowing in any literal way.* I daresay there’s not a human alive who doesn’t do this sort of thing — even should they say (or even should they believe) that they don’t.

*He’s also not going “OMG, I’m definitely going to die alone, I’m terrified!” He isn’t irrational. He’s just human.

The fact that something is obvious does not make it good writing. Generally you want to avoid being too obvious about that kind of contrivance.

No doubt, but I did not suggest that it was good writing, only what it was doing in the script. (I’m not a defender of TFF, generally.).

 

[camdudetenger2018]

we are now at 1500 pages of this thead

 

[Rahul]

Yes. They were mandated to keep TOS cast participation to the first 15 minutes and then were told they could bring Kirk back at the end. Paramount was very concerned, for some reason, that people view this as a TNG film and so they didn't want the crossover elements running through the entire film.

I don't know, many of the best films ever were made due to big mandates (this set/actor/location/... is available, use it).
I think the issue is more that this movie was approached as just "the next one", instead of being it's own, unique thing. Re-using stock footage and villains from a tv show & the final explosion from the previous movie are unacceptable.

But this movie DID start that annoying trend where the movie ends with a fistfight stopping the badguy from destroying a whole ass planet. A total creative dead-end/submission to MARVEL-type movies, and the death of relevancy for the Star Trek movie series.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

But this movie DID start that annoying trend where the movie ends with a fistfight stopping the badguy from destroying a whole ass planet. A total creative dead-end/submission to MARVEL-type movies, and the death of relevancy for the Star Trek movie series.

Dubious.

I mean, for a start, TSfS is ends like that… but then there’s countless examples of other movies from the very beginnings of cinema that end in a fistfight.

This is not a trend that Generations started. Ask Schwarzenegger.

 

[cooleddie74]

Hell, A View to a Kill ends with a fistfight ON TOP OF THE GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

Hell, A View to Kill ends with a fistfight ON TOP OF THE GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE.

Predator, Commando and Aliens from around the same time spring immediately to mind.

It goes back decades though. All the way back to 1952 with High Noon I think.

 

[Christopher]

This really does seem to be in the category “I know you’re going to be the death of me someday”, or “I know this isn’t going to end well” (or “I knew it’d be something stupid like this!”). No I don’t. It’s an emotion, and an expression.

That doesn't fit with the context here, though, either the dialogue or the way Shatner delivered it.

KIRK: And, as I fell, I knew I wouldn't die.​

McCOY: I thought he was the only one who's immortal.​

KIRK: It isn't that, Bones. I knew I wouldn't die because the two of you were with me.​

SPOCK: I do not understand.​

KIRK: I've always known ...I'll die alone.​

That's not using "know" as just a metaphor for a strong emotion. Not when he was actually falling off a cliff.

As I said, the most logical interpretation is that he was saying he had faith that Spock would save him. But "I've always known... I'll die alone" is a melodramatic and poorly written way of expressing that, implying some kind of mystical foreknowledge rather than just trust in his friends. Just change that one line of dialogue and I'm fine.

 

[Tallguy]

But this movie DID start that annoying trend where the movie ends with a fistfight stopping the badguy from destroying a whole ass planet. A total creative dead-end/submission to MARVEL-type movies, and the death of relevancy for the Star Trek movie series.

How does Where No Man Has Gone Before end, again?

 

[Firebird]

we are now at 1500 pages of this thead

Yes. People are able to count.