What are your thoughts about seeing the prime universe again?

[Rahul]

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.

We saw when McCoy was injecting the blood into the tribble. Also, since when do Tribbles have human blood? Anyway, good to see that Khan's blood also stops the radiation from Kirks body, since if it wouldn't he would die right away again. The death/revive-story seems to be a favourite of Orci/Kurtzman, they have used it in a very similar way in Tranformers 2, where they even handled it a bit better. In both cases though, they kind of fumbled it. Dying of radiation is a pretty gruesome fate. Finding a cure to that, the failing of multiple organs and brain functions at once, means you have found the wholy grail of all death cures and the fountain of youth at the same time. Yeah.

Almost seems like some folks didn't really watch the movie, they seem to just be parroting inaccurate internet chatter.

You really need to tone down the low-key insults when exchanging arguments, otherwise you will get another thread shut down really fast again.

 

[BillJ]

You really need to tone down the low-key insults when exchanging arguments...

It's not an insult. It is a general statement about people misrepresenting what went on in the movie, because they are trying to score points in a debate.

Dying by radiation is cruel. But this isn't the real world, it is Star Trek. The thing where dead people come back all the time, where the transporter can split you in two and put you back together like it is nothing, where the machine can de-age you by simply scanning a hair, where the technology can turn you into children and back again without any real effort.

Some folks seem to hold the Abrams films to an entirely different standard than the rest of the franchise. It is tiresome.

 

[Kemaiku]

Removing the radiation wasn't the problem, and we've seen Star Trek being able to de-radiate anything. It was the cell damage, Mc Coy even said so.

Khan's blood contained genetic enhancements to repair cells, which is what they did with the Tribble and Kirk, clinical death is reversible even now. We just don't have the crionic ability to keep people suspended until the surgerical aspects are done with something that severe.

Kirk was only just clinically dead, someone they could revive him from with ease, the cell damage would have killed him fully if they did. McCoy said the process took a real toll on his body, and he spent two weeks in a coma, probably still under constant medical care with follow up treatments for tissue repair.

I and others have explained this about 20 times, despite the movie itself already doing so, and yet people keep shoving their fingers in their ears, covering their eyes, pretending none of the 20-30 explaining threads and posts ever happened, wait for another oppertunity to cry "TER MAGIZ BLOODZ LOLOLOL" over and over.

I guess you can't help some people.

 

[Rahul]

It's not an insult. It is a general statement about people misrepresenting what went on in the movie, because they are trying to score points in a debate.

Yeah. Everyone knows exactly how it's meant, when you're directly replying to a post and then suddenly switching to "some people" before using words in the same context that wouldn't be allowed under Forum guidelines if used directly...

Some folks seem to hold the Abrams films to an entirely different standard than the rest of the franchise. It is tiresome.

Oh, I do hold television to a different standard than movies. I will give them more leeway if we know it's in the middle of the season, they have deadlines and need filler episodes. Television works under much harder constraints, deadlines and pressure, I forgive them more for little plot holes or if they let plot threads hanging...

Streaming television has more time and better production values, I hold them to a higher standard. Having an episode where everyone turns into children and back in Discovery would need to be really plausible and good for me to forgive it. (and I don't like the TNG episode in the first place either - but again, it's a difference if you have to finish 26 stories a year, or one(!) story over two years - I expect that one(!) story to be more thought out.)

That being said: I'm the first one to complain as soon as a show breaks internal consistency. I don't like how in DS9 the transporter once worked as a fully operational time machine, and I will critizise this as soon as it happens again. A blunder THIS BIG, like curing death for all time, simply has never happened in Trek before, though.

 

[Ovation]

And it didn't happen here either. Death from falling off a cliff? No magic blood cure. Death from being ejected into space? No magic blood cure. Death from being crushed under a collapsed building? No magic blood cure. Death from being vaporized by phaser or disruptor? No magic blood cure. Death from...

And those are just a few I've thought of in the time it took to type them.

 

[BillJ]

I and others have explained this about 20 times, despite the movie itself already doing so, and yet people keep shoving their fingers in their ears, covering their eyes, pretending none of the 20-30 explaining threads and posts ever happened, wait for another oppertunity to cry "TER MAGIZ BLOODZ LOLOLOL" over and over.

I guess it is what it is. Magic blood is far more realistic than lots of the things Star Trek has done over the years. The silliness with the transporters being a big one. Nomad revived Scotty like it was nothing in "The Changeling", Crusher continued to try to revive Tasha Yar even after declaring her dead in "Skin of Evil", the three folks from the 20th century were all brought back to life in "The Neutral Zone"... and the list goes on.

Kirk being revived is just part of a long standing Star Trek tradition, one people didn't seem to care about until JJ Abrams came along.

 

[Kemaiku]

Yup, it's basically a genetic form of micro surgery, and can only fix something that it could.

Had Spock smashed Khans head off, or thrown him off that barge a couple of hundred feet down into the industrial district of SanFran, he wouldn't have been walking away from that one.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Yup, it's basically a genetic form of micro surgery, and can only fix something that it could.

Had Spock smashed Khans head off, or thrown him off that barge a couple of hundred feet down into the industrial district of SanFran, he wouldn't have been walking away from that one.

It's only a flesh wound.

 

[urbandefault]

"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.

He was only mostly dead. That means he was still slightly alive.

Seriously, Khan's blood was used to repair Kirk's radiation-damaged cells. It was never said that the blood brought him back from the dead.

It's not a difficult concept to grasp, unless you're just unwilling.

 

[Balok's Decoy]

I wish Khan had stolen Kirk's brain. Then people would really have something to nitpick to death.

Also we would get to hear Karl Urban say, "Spock, where are you gonna look for Jim's brain?"

 

[Rahul]

It's not a difficult concept to grasp, unless you're just unwilling.

It's not a difficult concept to grasp. It's just a silly one. Like transwarp beaming. Or using beaming for timetravel. Or Spock's Brain being stolen. I like neither of those.

People have different opinions. They can tell you why they don't like something. You can make counter-arguments. But you can't make other people like stupid things, only because you like them and have made them work by filling in your personal head-canon until it makes enough sense for you.

I'm not going to try to convince other people that stealing Spock's brain wasn't stupid. That it indeed was plentiful and scientifically sound explained in the episode why it works, that Star Trek has done worse things before, that some folks are holding this particular episode to a higher standard than the rest of Trek, that some people just can never let it go, and that they should LIKE Spock's brain being stolen goddammit!

 

[urbandefault]

It's not a difficult concept to grasp. It's just a silly one. Like transwarp beaming. Or using beaming for timetravel. Or Spock's Brain being stolen. I like neither of those.

People have different opinions. They can tell you why they don't like something. You can make counter-arguments. But you can't make other people like stupid things, only because you like them and have made them work by filling in your personal head-canon until it makes enough sense for you.

I'm not going to try to convince other people that stealing Spock's brain wasn't stupid. That it indeed was plentiful and scientifically sound explained in the episode why it works, that Star Trek has done worse things before, that some folks are holding this particular episode to a higher standard than the rest of Trek, that some people just can never let it go, and that they should LIKE Spock's brain being stolen goddammit!

You made one mistake there, in assuming that I have a "head canon." I don't try to take things any further than what is on screen. I don't try to fill in blanks, I don't try to connect dots. I just watch the story as it is told, and if I like it, great. If not, I'm moving on.

You don't like it, that's fine. But in my opinion you're doing the opposite of what you claim others are doing: trying to make us not like it. Maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong. Either way I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.

 

[Blamo]

.....and that we should just let it go, what was your reaction when you heard that this show is taking place in the prime universe? Were you glad that the prime universe is coming back?

Not really.

The prime universe just got far too busy and over developed for me. Too many alien races discovered. I didn't like the insanely advanced tech like the holodeck/holopeople, replicators, etc. I didn't like how almost every major race had 100's of disposable cruisers. I didn't like how the Borg transformed from the "ultimate user" into space zombies.

 

[Nyotarules]

He was only mostly dead. That means he was still slightly alive.

So Spock had no reason to be a crybaby.

 

[Rahul]

You made one mistake there, in assuming that I have a "head canon." I don't try to take things any further than what is on screen. I don't try to fill in blanks, I don't try to connect dots. I just watch the story as it is told, and if I like it, great. If not, I'm moving on.

You don't like it, that's fine. But in my opinion you're doing the opposite of what you claim others are doing: trying to make us not like it. Maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong. Either way I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.

I'm sorry, the "head canon" was not intended as a snide remark, and I apologize if it came across as one. I just firmly belive everyone has it's own head-canon. I, for myself, usually try to explain gross scientific inaccuracies if I see them. In Trek09 for example, when Spock sees the destruction of Vulcan from Delta Vega, in my personal head canon he's just greatly exxagerating his personal experience of said events. How the destruction felt to him a few lightyears away. Not that he actually saw it firsthand as depicted.

I said that because in your head-canon he was only "mostly dead" - wheras in the actual movie is was super-fucking dead. Or how you explain Khan's blood works (which actually makes more sense than in the movie), even though that's not how it worked on the tribble (that also was super-dead), or the little girl (where we saw that it's indeed Khan's blood that is directly pumped into her to cure her of all her diseases).

And again, that doesn't mean anybody should dislike it. But "Spock's Brain", "Threshold" et al. where also viciously taken apart for their scientific inaccuracies. I don't see any reasons to cut Into Darkness more slack for it, just because it's newer.

 

[JJohnson]

.....and that we should just let it go, what was your reaction when you heard that this show is taking place in the prime universe? Were you glad that the prime universe is coming back?

FINALLY! Now we'll see real, proportional ships again and not have gigantic breweries in tiny engineering hulls trying to pretend to be main engineering and no stupid lens flares or Apple iBridges.

 

[JWPlatt]

Or how you explain Khan's blood works...

I live in the moment, take it for granted, and believe what I see until I leave the theater. Maybe I make a poor Trekkie nerd, but I have no desire to explain fictional things in real terms. Consequently, I am usually entertained. It's when I start thinking about it later and read critical posts that actual thought begins to emerge. It's probably a mistake to do that.

That said, lens flare and Spock's "Khaaan!" moment thoroughly break my suspension of disbelief and remain laughable.

 

[Nerys Myk]

said that because in your head-canon he was only "mostly dead" - wheras in the actual movie is was super-fucking dead.

Being super fucking dead has never been a problem before.

(A knight in armour on a black horse has appeared, and is coming towards them.)
MCCOY: These things cannot be real. Hallucinations can't harm us. Go back to where you were.
(Kirk and Spock arrive on the scene. The knight lowers his lance, charges, and runs McCoy through. Tonia screams. Spock draws his phaser, and Kirk the gun he confiscated from Sulu. He shoots the knight from his horse, then they run to McCoy.)
TONIA: He's dead.

Captain's log, supplemental. All contact with the Enterprise has been lost. We're trapped here. Our ship's surgeon, my personal friend, is dead. We're certain now that whatever we're facing is terribly real.

SCOTT: Lieutenant! Keep away from that
KIRK: Scotty!
(A blast of energy sends Scott flying backwards into a bulkhead.)
KIRK: Bones.
MCCOY: He's dead, Jim.

McCOY: No! You'll flood the whole compartment!
KIRK: He'll die!
SCOTT: Sir! He's dead already.
McCOY: It's too late, Jim.
KIRK: Spock!
SPOCK: Ship ...out of danger?
KIRK: Yes.
SPOCK: Don't grieve, Admiral, ...it is logical. The needs of the many ...outweigh
KIRK: ...the needs of the few.
SPOCK: Or the one. ... I never took the Kobayashi Maru test ...until now. What do you think of my solution?
KIRK: Spock!
SPOCK: I have been ...and always shall be ...your friend. ...Live long ...and prosper.
KIRK: No!

As For STID

McCoy: Get me a cryo tube, now! Get this guy out of the cryo tube. Keep him in an induced coma.We're gonna put Kirk inside.It's our only chance to preserve his brain function.How much of Khan's blood is left?

*****
McCoy: Don't be so melodramatic.You were barely dead.It was the transfusion that really took its toll.You were out cold for 2 weeks.
Kirk: Transfusion?
McCoy: Your cells were heavily irradiated. We had no choice.
Kirk:Khan?
McCoy: Once we caught him,I synthesized a serum from his superblood.

So barely dead, not super fucking dead.

 

[BillJ]

I said that because in your head-canon he was only "mostly dead"...

McCoy actually states that he was only "barely dead", in the actual movie.

EDIT: Thanks @Nerys Myk for the actual dialogue.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Now I have this in my head
Munchkin: As Coroner I must aver, I thoroughly examined her.
And she's not only merely dead, she's really super fucking dead.