Author Topic: Star Trek  (Read 106531 times)

Offline EdSolo

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Re: Star Trek
« Reply #225 on: May 30, 2013, 07:45 AM »
I didn't want to hate it.  I wanted to enjoy it.  Who goes into a theater wanting to hate what they're about to see?  Other than a professional reviewer?

Just because you don't agree with the criticism, don't try to paint those who hold a different opinion as somehow biased and thus their criticisms invalid.  Transporters in Trek2 only worked and only failed when it conveniently served the plot.  It was one of many signs of EXTREMELY sloppy writing.

And the fact that other movies have plot holes, some of them excused by various people, is not a meaningful rebuttal.  Reviews are subjective and thus not bound by objective criteria like consistency.  I love me a good, bad zombie movie... that doesn't make any criticism I'd make of a bad good zombie movie invalid.

If you want further proof of just how stupid this movie is, enjoy: 
http://io9.com/star-trek-into-darkness-the-spoiler-faq-508927844

I see this movie getting a lot more criticism for sloppy writing than just about any other Hollywood blockbuster with similar sloppy writing.  Yes, I read that article and the writer starts off with a bit of a flawed premise.  Kirk steals the scroll to get the primitives out of the temple so that Spock and company can get to the volcano unseen.  It wasn't about getting them away from the killer volcano.  The cold fusion bomb comment is just really nitpicky.  The average viewer isn't going to know what cold fusion is other than a buzz word about energy generation.  I think the term was used just to sound "sciencey".

As for the Enterprise under water, the merits of that analysis are debatable.  While the vessel was built for the vacuum of space, we don't really know the structural specs of the ship.  On Voyager, they landed the ship on a planet.  I would think the ship would be subject to some strong stresses from an atmospheric landing.  The ship is also designed to fly faster than the speed of light.  Since that is impossible by today's standards, one really can't calculate the stresses involved with warp travel, thus it may be entirely feasible for the Enterprise to be under water due to the structural requirements to withstand warp travel.  At 500 feet of depth in salt water, the pressure would be somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 psig.  At that depth, it would make the swimming into the ship impossible so either it wasn't that deep or Kirk and McCoy should be crushed.  Really, they shouldn't have survived the cliff jump at the height it appeared to be from.

The Khan criticism if legitimate, but that was more a casting choice than anything.  They essentially ignored his back story and I don't think they even mentioned the Botany Bay.  They certainly didn't mention his background of the Eugenics War.  I would think they were more concerned about comparisons to the old Khan, however, the climax of the movie was written to draw comparison to Wrath of Khan.  Not necessarily the character, but the plot.   Really, they may have been better served by having Harison being another Botany Bay crew member that was either pretending to be Khan or attempting to revive Khan thus saving Khan for the next movie... which looks like they could be doing anyway.

While the writer is being tongue in cheek with a lot of his writing, he brings up a lot of "original universe character did this, and new universe character did this".  They aren't the same people anymore after the universe changed.  I believe I mentioned in several posts earlier that the entire crew is closer in age than they should be.  Sulu, Uhura and Chekov should all be like 15 to 20 years younger than Kirk, Scotty and McCoy, but that doesn't appear to be the case here.

The secret branch of Starfleet, Section 31, was something that was created for DS9 and later used in Star Trek Enterprise.  It isn't out of the realm of possibility for it to exist here.  It also really isn't a stretch to believe there is a militant wing of Starfleet due to Nero's actions in the previous movie.

Offline BillCable

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Re: Star Trek
« Reply #226 on: May 30, 2013, 09:57 AM »
I see this movie getting a lot more criticism for sloppy writing than just about any other Hollywood blockbuster with similar sloppy writing.

You're making the same mistake as before - just because one movie gets a pass for plot holes doesn't mean EVERY movie should get a pass for plot holes.  Films aren't and shouldn't be reviewed objectively.  You don't do that with art.

The plot holes in Trek2 are particularly egregious, IMO.  So bad they pulled me out of the film.  That never happened for me with IM3.  Thus it draws my ire.

Plus I expect Trek NOT to be gallingly stupid.  There's no reason for it to exist if it becomes another dumb popcorn flick franchise.  I don't want to have to shut off my brain when I go into a Trek movie.  Sorry for holding the franchise to such a high standard.
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Offline Phrubruh

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Re: Star Trek
« Reply #227 on: May 30, 2013, 10:25 AM »
I agree. Trek should be a higher form of science fiction. However the only one that came close to this is Undiscovered Country but even that was still a popcorn shooter.
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Offline EdSolo

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Re: Star Trek
« Reply #228 on: May 30, 2013, 11:06 AM »
I see this movie getting a lot more criticism for sloppy writing than just about any other Hollywood blockbuster with similar sloppy writing.

You're making the same mistake as before - just because one movie gets a pass for plot holes doesn't mean EVERY movie should get a pass for plot holes.  Films aren't and shouldn't be reviewed objectively.  You don't do that with art.

The plot holes in Trek2 are particularly egregious, IMO.  So bad they pulled me out of the film.  That never happened for me with IM3.  Thus it draws my ire.

Plus I expect Trek NOT to be gallingly stupid.  There's no reason for it to exist if it becomes another dumb popcorn flick franchise.  I don't want to have to shut off my brain when I go into a Trek movie.  Sorry for holding the franchise to such a high standard.

Have you watched much Trek?  Transporter malfunction was a pretty frequent plot device.  This is science fiction after all.  This movie was certainly more entertaining that the vast majority of other Trek movies.  Space whales aren't gallingly stupid?  A god-like being trapped in the middle of the galaxy?  Heaven as ribbon floating through space? A fountain of youth planet?

I'm not saying any movie should get a pass for plot holes, but this one is getting slammed overly hard for them.  I certainly don't see them as egregious as you do.
« Last Edit: May 30, 2013, 11:09 AM by EdSolo »

Offline Pete_Fett

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Re: Star Trek
« Reply #229 on: May 31, 2013, 12:59 PM »
I agree. Trek should be a higher form of science fiction. However the only one that came close to this is Undiscovered Country but even that was still a popcorn shooter.

It's interesting that you mention Undiscovered Country in this discussion. While I generally like that movie a lot. It unfortunately suffers from a pretty serious plot hole...

In the beginning of the film, it is the Excelsior that is cataloging gaseous anomalies in Beta Quadrant, and they are the ship that encounters the energy wave from the explosion on the Klingon moon of Praxis which kicks off the story/events of the movie.

Then during the final, climactic space battle with General Chang, Uhura, aboard the Enterprise, suggests that they use the equipment they have on board from cataloging gaseous anomalies to track the exhaust of the cloaked Bird of Prey.

Ummm, what?

As far as I'm concerned, that is a far worse plot hole than ANY of the ones that have been discussed here regarding Star Trek: Into Darkness.
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Offline Phrubruh

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Re: Star Trek
« Reply #230 on: May 31, 2013, 02:30 PM »
Maybe the Enterprise was going to catalog gaseous anomalies someplace else. Maybe it is new standard equipment?
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Offline Pete_Fett

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Re: Star Trek
« Reply #231 on: May 31, 2013, 07:10 PM »
Maybe the Enterprise was going to catalog gaseous anomalies someplace else. Maybe it is new standard equipment?

Yes, and this is the answer that most fans give to justify the mistake. The fact is, it's still a plot hole - and A LOT bigger of one than complaining that they couldn't use transporters or remove cryo-tubes from torpedoes or whatever.

One created by the fact that in the original version of the ST6 script it was the Enterprise that was cataloging gaseous anomalies in Beta Quadrant AND got hit by the energy wave from Praxis AND offered to help, which is why the Enterprise was then sent to meet Gorkon, etc.., etc..., etc...

They only re-wrote the script to include the Excelsior stuff when George Takei REFUSED to return as Sulu, demanding that he be given command of his own ship. Since they didn't want any of the original cast NOT in their final big screen adventure, they gave Takei what he wanted.

They also wanted Kirstie Alley to reprise her role as Saavik in the movie and have Saavik play the same function as what the Valeris character did.

« Last Edit: May 31, 2013, 07:11 PM by Pete_Fett »
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Offline Phrubruh

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Re: Star Trek
« Reply #232 on: June 1, 2013, 02:35 PM »
They also wanted Kirstie Alley to reprise her role as Saavik in the movie and have Saavik play the same function as what the Valeris character did.

Now that would have been cool to see and a better betrayal of Spock moment. She would have been in the middle of Cheers so she would have still been fairly good looking.
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Offline Qui-Gon Jim

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Re: Star Trek
« Reply #233 on: June 3, 2013, 08:34 AM »
Pete's on the money here.  Takei  and Alley played hardball.  The role was written as Saavik.  Pete is also right in saying that it is easy to explain away this plot hole, just like most every complaint that people are throwing at ST:ID.  Star Trek is not, contrary to what some think, high science fiction.

Offline Jesse James

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Re: Star Trek
« Reply #234 on: June 3, 2013, 09:52 PM »
I'm with others on this...  ID has plotholes, absolutely, but no more/less than most other Trek films I've ever seen really.  Some of the past Trek movies are horrid to me.

I FINALLY got to see Into Darkness yesterday at a matinee...  a packed matinee at that.  I was shocked considering how it hasn't held a top spot in the box office since it premiered.  I kinda was disappointed how many people showed up, actually.

The movie was good though...  McCoy's a LITTLE over the top, but I felt everyone else was great as their respective characters.

I didn't care for the Spock moment in engineering...  the emotion prior to the moment great, but the moment, blah.  Something the original storyline had that kinda sucked.

I wish they'd have gone a different character route ultimately.  I don't care much for them going right for the jugular with this antagonist, etc.  I think something purely Klingon would've been better...  You have really centuries of Klingon badness you can milk, so going for the baddies as they did, meh.

Zachary Quinto is great as Spock...  like, disturbingly good. 

The effects are wonderful too...  The space battles are immersive.  I wish I could've watched in 3D but the gf's not a fan.  2D is really nice though.  I worried it might not be for some reason but it was great.

I was a little surprised how it ended...  I thought it was over then it all started up again.  Thought maybe Abrams was walking away from it but couldn't see them ending the reboot so soon.  I had no knowledge of the story so it was a ltitle surprising though I figured out who the baddy was pretty early on when his ass couldn't be kicked.

All that said, it was fun, different...  Still felt trek but a little more exciting than the original movies which, honestly, only 3 really appeal to me and one's a TNG crew film (love TNG more, always will).  This makes me like TOS crew a little more like I like TNG crew though, for some reason.  My gf loved this movie as well...  She hates this stuff usually, but likes the new Trek for some reason.
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Offline McMetal

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Re: Star Trek
« Reply #235 on: June 4, 2013, 11:25 AM »
I saw it over the weekend too, was waiting to enter the fray of this thread before seeing it with my own eyes.

I enjoyed it, was a decent summer popcorn flick. If that's the only measure for success, thumbs up I guess.

But on a more serious level, I found the movie, specifically the plot, to be really non-sensical in places. I mean, if you think everything out to its logical conclusion, it just doesn't make sense IMO.

I'm not taking about transporter malfunctions or nitty gritty stuff either. The most basic plot elements didn't add up to me. Like, I could never grasp the point of putting the 72 corpsicles on the Enterprise. Did Marcus expect them to shoot all 72 at Kronos? Just to kill one guy? If Marcus wanted them gone, wouldn't it be easier to dump them in a volcano somewhere and simply arm the Enterprise with REAL photon torpedos? That would seem a lot more likely to start a war, which was sort of the point.

If I'm Khan, and I'm declaring war on Starfleet, why even go to Kronos in the first place? Seems like he was just following Marcus' original plan. I guess you could surmise Khan is just outright lying and he never "broke" from Marcus in the first place, but having the guy shoot up a room where you are sitting seems like an awful uncontrolled risk.

I'm not stupid, but maybe I am missing something? It seems like they kind of threw out two separate backstories between Marcus and Khan and there never really seemed to be a clarification of who was telling the truth.

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Offline BillCable

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Re: Star Trek
« Reply #236 on: June 4, 2013, 12:00 PM »
I'm stumped on this as well.

  • Khan was unfrozen to develop missiles (because everyone knows the best person to develop cutting-edge missile technology is someone who's been frozen in carbonite for 300 years).
  • He designed missiles that *can* accept a frozen-dude-cicle as a payload.  We presume this is so he can hide his crew inside the missiles - OR - because Robocop ordered him to do it that way.  If it's the former it was a STUPID plan.  If it's the latter it was an even STUPIDER plan.  I can only assume it was the former.
  • Robocop orders Enterprise to launch ALL the missiles at Khan.  Is this because he KNOWS Khan hid his crew in them and wants to kill them all?  So he'd sacrifice this new treasured missile tech cuz he's pissed?  Or does he NOT know about the crew-cicles, and he just wants to get rid of ALL the missile he unfroze Khan to create (out of spite??).  Neither case makes a lick of sense.

I'll tell you what actually happened - well at least what seems obvious to me.  They worked backwards from the payoff.  And in doing so they wrote themselves into a bunch of stupid plot holes.

JJ Abrams: "We need a hook to make the confrontation cool... like how Spock pointed out Khan's 2-D naval thinking in ST:WoK!  So what can we do that's different but still strategically mind-bending?"
Writer Drone 1: "Spock needs to trick him!"
JJ Abrams: "Right!  How about Spock tricks Khan into beaming explosives ONTO HIS OWN SHIP??!!"
Writer Drone 1:  "Brilliant!  But why would Khan do that?  He's this super genius."
JJ Abrams:  "Well - Khan has to think they're something else!  Something he wants!"
Writer Drone 1:  "What does Khan want?  Revenge against Kirk!"
JJ Abrams:  "No!  That was BEFORE the time-travel thing.  This Khan doesn't even know Kirk.  What Khan wants is his crew."
Writer Drone 1:  "OK - so Khan needs to mistake the explosives for his crew.  Maybe they can be infected with that Extremis virus thing..."
JJ Abrams:  "No - they need to be identical to the explosives... like INSIDE the explosives."
Writer Drone 1:  "Why would Khan's crew be inside explosives?"
JJ Abrams:  "Yeah... that would be stupid... unless Khan HID THEM THERE!"

And on that goes, opening new plot holes with each new reason invented.
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Offline Pete_Fett

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Re: Star Trek
« Reply #237 on: June 4, 2013, 01:21 PM »
I view the order of events simply as this:

1) Starfleet finds Botany Bay, realizes what it is, thaws Khan, since he has a violent, military mind - he brought something to the table that other Starfleet engineers didn't have - a killer instinct. Yes, his tech knowledge is VERY out-of-date, but if his intellect is enhanced, there's nothing to say he couldn't have been educated on tech. With a digital library at Khan's disposal who knows how much info he could absorb?

2) Khan develops lots of things for Starfleet, not just the missiles. That big ship that Admiral Marcus had was also from the mind of Khan - again - Starfleet had ships for exploration and peace. Sure they have defensive capabilities, but this ship was offensive FIRST. Maximum damage, minimum crew.

3) Marcus wants to start a war with the Klingons, he gets Khan to develop long range missiles that can be fired from outside the neutral zone directly at the Klingon Home World. Khan uses this as a way of smuggling his crew out of the Starfleet facility where they are being held and starts putting them inside of the missiles, shielded so as to avoid them from being scanned.

4) Marcus discovers Khan's plan and moves in to stop him. Khan escapes. Marcus knows that there are Botany Bay crew members in those missiles and he doesn't care. Ultimately he doesn't care if all 72 of them are fired on the Klingon Homeworld and decimate a good portion of it - all he wants is a war, started by the Federation, against the Klingons. He's like Dick Cheney.

5) Khan attacks the tech archive in London so he can grab the experimental transporter based on Scotty's equations so he can attack Starfleet headquarters and then beam himself to the Klingon Home-world, knowing that if he goes to there, Marcus will use the missiles to fire on the Klingon Home world from Federation space starting the war he so desperately wants

So from here there are two possibilities and since they are not mutually exclusive of each other, it's possible both are true:

6a) Khan developed a fail-safe into the missiles where he could deactivate the explosive yield, alter flight trajectory and even stop a missile in flight, so even if the Starship Captain that Marcus sends after him DOES fire the missiles as ordered, Khan can deactivate them, have them stop somewhere in the neutral zone, steal a ship and go claim his crew - Khan wins

6b) Just in case the Starship Captain that Marcus sends after him DOES NOT fire the missiles as ordered, he knows he can simply wait to be collected by that Starship's Crew knowing full well that his entire crew will be on board. Possibly even gaining sympathy from that ship's Captain and then the events pretty much following a similar story of the Space Seed episode where Khan and his crew try to take over a Starfleet ship. If that's successful - Khan wins.

And in the movie we see the result of the 6b option unfold and the only place where Khan's plan goes "wrong" is that Kirk doesn't entirely act in a manner that Khan expected.

So what I'm trying to say is that Khan, hedged his bets - he forced Marcus' hand so that no matter what actions Marcus and the rest of the Starfleet took, he could see a positive outcome for his own goals.

Is it possible that Marcus could have just destroyed all of the weapons. Sure.

Is it possible that Starfleet could have taken all of the Botany Bay crew out of the tubes. Sure. (in this scenario, if Khan has the ability to control the missiles himself, he could easily stop the missiles, steal a ship, gather the missiles and then threaten to fire them at Earth - again Khan wins)

Yes, I understand that no where in the dialogue of the movie do they imply that Khan had built fail-safes into the missiles to protect his crew, but no where does the dialogue say "dismiss Khan's plan as being stupid" either.
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Offline BillCable

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Re: Star Trek
« Reply #238 on: June 4, 2013, 02:10 PM »
So what you're saying is that if you re-write the script and add things that maybe it kind of works?   8)

Khan had no way of knowing the Enterprise was on the edge of Klingon space with the 72 missiles aimed at him, so he'd never have a chance to trigger a fail-safe.  He couldn't even know there'd be a Scotty around to track the destination of the top-secret-prototype hand-held transporter.  He'd have to have built proximity sensors and beacons into the missiles so they'd never explode and alert him when they've been launched - because Marcus could have launched them at anything.  "See if you can take out that womp rat over there!"  Boom - So much for Zed!

So relying on Marcus aiming these particular missiles at Khan would be a crucial strategic flaw.  And in the movie Khan seemed SHOCKED that there were 72 missiles on the Enterprise - at which point he immediately surrendered.  That action alone suggests it wasn't his plan all along to be targeted by the missiles.  What if they only loaded 12?  Then Khan kills Kirk and plan ruined?
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Offline EdSolo

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Re: Star Trek
« Reply #239 on: June 4, 2013, 03:58 PM »
I'm not sure we can assume that Khan always intended on ending up on Kronos either.  What happens if he killed everyone at Starfleet HQ and Kirk doesn't trash his ship?  Does he still transport out or does he try to find the torpedoes that contain his crew?