What are your thoughts about seeing the prime universe again?
- Thread starter The Rock
- Start date
Here's what I've discovered...STID very much has a theme, several in fact, and because certain fans hate those themes, they completely blocked them out of the movie, because you know, it's in space. This was sort of the reason Roddenberry told these tales in the first place.
If you don't know what I'm talking about, re-watch the movie and figure it out.
Unwatchable? They set Trek records for critical reaction and box office, as well as home video. Somebody is having an easy time watching them. BTW, I've been a fan 35+ years and I've sat through the original Solaris(going through great pains to acquire it on double-VHS tape back in the day no less) and 2001 so many time I lost count. My attention span is very much intact, tyvm.
I mentioned this in my review. A good article
Star Trek Beyond makes the 2009 Star Trek a much better film
It reveals an ongoing story that's stronger than any one chapter
http://www.theverge.com/2016/8/1/12343636/star-trek-beyond-into-darkness-2009-film-jj-abrams
RAMA
I still encounter people every week who can't separate one parallel timeline from another..just last week a discussion on social media was about Sulu not being gay..and I had to explain to them that the Prime George is not necessarily or unlikely to be gay.
There very much could/should be moments as with STiD where events or utterances happen that would be familiar to both timelines. The Ongoing comic series re-wrote original series tales this way and I didn't see many complaints about it..but put 5 minutes of similarities to STII or the same villain (but different) and it's hysteria. Most of the time it's easy to just laugh at them.
Yes, and I love Parallels and should just plaster it over every post these geniuses make.
RAMA
What's more, while there are "truther" elements there in the movie, you can also read it as a straight political commentary. Both elements are there.
RAMA
If you don't know what I'm talking about, re-watch the movie and figure it out.
Unwatchable? They set Trek records for critical reaction and box office, as well as home video. Somebody is having an easy time watching them. BTW, I've been a fan 35+ years and I've sat through the original Solaris(going through great pains to acquire it on double-VHS tape back in the day no less) and 2001 so many time I lost count. My attention span is very much intact, tyvm.
I mentioned this in my review. A good article
Star Trek Beyond makes the 2009 Star Trek a much better film
It reveals an ongoing story that's stronger than any one chapter
http://www.theverge.com/2016/8/1/12343636/star-trek-beyond-into-darkness-2009-film-jj-abrams
RAMA
I still encounter people every week who can't separate one parallel timeline from another..just last week a discussion on social media was about Sulu not being gay..and I had to explain to them that the Prime George is not necessarily or unlikely to be gay.
There very much could/should be moments as with STiD where events or utterances happen that would be familiar to both timelines. The Ongoing comic series re-wrote original series tales this way and I didn't see many complaints about it..but put 5 minutes of similarities to STII or the same villain (but different) and it's hysteria. Most of the time it's easy to just laugh at them.
Yes, and I love Parallels and should just plaster it over every post these geniuses make.
RAMA
What's more, while there are "truther" elements there in the movie, you can also read it as a straight political commentary. Both elements are there.
RAMA
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It's a fair point. Tom Cruise is nuts, but his movies are good. That said, I'm not aware whether his stories incorporate Scientology...
Oblivion (2013) does.
A movie that I happen to like, even though I think Scientology in nutty.
Only insofar as L. Ron Hubbard created a scam religion based on his terrible scifi writing, so when someone sees Tom Cruise in a mediocre (albeit visually stunning and enjoyable) scifi movie they start drawing parallels between Scientology's lame scifi elements and clichés and tropes that can be found in hundreds of scifi films and novels.
Oblivion was originally a graphic novel written by the director (Joseph Kosinki) and his writing partner, neither of whom are Scientologists unless they're keeping it way on the down low. It was adapted into a screenplay by Kosinki and two other writers before being wrapped up by Michael Arndt (The Force Awakens), who is also not a Scientologist. Cruise signed on to be in the film based on the graphic novel, strong word-of-mouth in the industry, and a short VFX demo before even seeing the completed screenplay, so the story was already in the can before he got involved.
Whatever one thinks of Cruise's whacky beliefs, by all accounts from people who have worked with him he is completely professional and a team player who gives his all (including doing most of his own stunts), is very friendly on set, and doesn't force his beliefs on anyone while working. So the idea that he's going to take over someone else's project and turn it into a Scientology propaganda piece is unlikely. He'd just use Scientology's own abundant resources to make their own dedicated film, as they've done before with Battlefield Earth
Cruise is just a big scifi fan, and almost any scifi story is going to share some elements which can be vaguely connected to Scientology, but that doesn't mean it was inspired by it.
One can extract themes of violence and pain from Mickey Mouse bopping Goofy over the head with a mallet. It's not exactly provocative.
Some avant garde film where people just stand around doing sod all for six hours, if one works at it, one can extract themes of meaninglessness and despair. It may not be engaging though.
Sure there are themes in these films. They are themes in every single cultural work ever created. I felt, here though, they were badly executed themes and what was there was smothered with the tidal wave FX, so they failed to engage with me at all.
Unwatchable for me and I think that's obvious if one applies a degree of intuition to my post. Anyhow. Questions of box office and ratings are an interesting question but, boom or bust, they are a matter of no importance to me. People go back to junk food time and time again but they also go back to superb quality as well. So we're back to square one. Mass audiences are a frustrating calculus for quality. I'm always amused by how vexed people get over that kind of stuff. Box office/ratings are only really interesting to support us in attempts at forecasting studio intentions for any future projects. It's not a metric for quality.
Also, I wasn't thinking of fans which I did not make clear in my post - but mass audiences - and there's a particular constituency who enjoy FX, enjoy action sequences and don't really prize much else about the various movies that they watch. I don't think I'm really making a controversial point here.
Fans are a different species. Some forgive a multitude of sins, others hate to an undue degree. And all that's great grist for the mill for forum debate.
Anyhow, I wouldn't accuse fans of having a short attention spans. But I'm amused by some of the pious people one here who often take a heavy dig at fans but are talking a holier than thou attitude when I make a few choice remarks. But there you go.
For me the filmmakers carefully hoarded together what I loathe in some contemporary movies, looked around, found Trek and tipped the whole lot in there. A kind of perfect storm..
Well, it might help me enjoy the account of these films on memory alpha or something. But it doesn't help me with the films as cinematic pieces in of themselves. I don't like elements like "magic blood", awkward parodies of the Kahn yell, catapulting Kirk from cadet to Captain in a week and all set within a pulsating tidal wave of a breakneck FX environment that I just loathe. The third installment won't help me with that.
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The magic blood is about as "Star Trek" as it gets. Future science with a toe hold in current science. Plus it's an extrapolation of McCoy's assessment of Khan's recovery in "Space Seed".
Edge of Tomorrow (2014) is also a recent Tom Cruise sci-fi film but (as far as I know) it hasn't been linked to Scientology.
L. Ron Hubbard was a sci-fi author before he became a religious leader so a lot of common sci-fi tropes influenced his philosophy.
However few sci-fi/fantasy movies (to my knowledge) have been linked to Scientology:
Phenomenon (1996)
Battlefield Earth (2000)
Knowing (2009)
After Earth (2013)
Oblivion (2013)
I don't presume to know that much about Scientology to debate for or against each and every of the above movies though.
My thoughts: Why not.
While personal taste will vary (as @Paradise City put it so succinctly) I don't find quick or fast to mean "meaningless."
I think that the Kelvin Universe films take the building blocks of Trek (social commentary and action/adventure in space) and weave them together in a contemporary way. Whether or not it suits all, is another question.
Agree here. Can the term "ADD movie" be removed please? It's so insensitive and ridiculous exaggeration that is rather offensive.
And, no, I'm not joking.
Absolutely agree. I can find more in common with the Khan's blood therapy in contemporary science than I can other elements in Star Trek that are
It really is an example of selective memory. There's nothing THAT uniquely weird about regenerative blood in Star Trek. Just off the top of my head, the TNG episode "Pen Pals" features a fun little medical trick where Dr Pulaski erases Sarjenka's memory to the precise time she first interacted with Data. That is Trek hand-waving if I ever saw it. And if you want to talk about "magic blood" negating the need for doctors and curing everything, having a way to erase a being's memory at will and at specific time periods negates any tension about breaking the Prime Directive. Because you can just wave your hands and the damage is undone.
What about Mortal Coil where Neelix is brought back from the dead with nanoprobes? There was no mention of them only working in this one case so presumably they could bring other people back as well. And yet it's never mentioned again. And now the writer of that episode is the showrunner of Discovery.
"Magic blood" in itself is pretty Trek-handwave-y for blood Gen therapy. There's nothing wrong with it.
What's wrong with it is using Magic blood, without any prior processing (you know, blood types exist) to literally raise the dead. Kirk was dead! As was that Tribble. Not comatoese, mutated or radiated. Just DEAD. Something that stupid is pretty unique in Trek.
Did they use questionable science before? Of course. Basically everytime the 'Mutation of the week' get's cured. That was always pretty wonky. But they never crossed the line to flat out cure death itself.
What's wrong with it is using Magic blood, without any prior processing (you know, blood types exist) to literally raise the dead. Kirk was dead! As was that Tribble. Not comatoese, mutated or radiated. Just DEAD. Something that stupid is pretty unique in Trek.
Did they use questionable science before? Of course. Basically everytime the 'Mutation of the week' get's cured. That was always pretty wonky. But they never crossed the line to flat out cure death itself.
See my post above. They did using nanoprobes and then never mentioned it again in any later episodes. Even in the episode there was no discussion of the implications of how this could potentially make them almost immortal.
I remember there were speciic Plot points given why this would only work in THIS very Special scenario, and that the Revision has to be done FAST, before decaying of brain matter sets in. All in all very scientific.
They raised the dead before (Spock), But they were always careful to make clear How Special and non-repeatable those cases were. They never found a Way to cure death for all intends an purposes.
We don't know how long the Tribble was dead. McCoy clearly states, "we need to get him into a cryotube to preserve brain function", and "you were only mostly dead". Death isn't an on/off light switch, it is a process. There was also a line, IIRC, about McCoy synthesizing a serum. He just didn't pump Khan's blood into Kirk.
Almost seems like some folks didn't really watch the movie, they seem to just be parroting inaccurate internet chatter.
