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The new "Star Trek" shows us what we've lost
The Movies | 5/10/09 | Vanity

Posted on 05/10/2009 12:14:38 PM PDT by pabianice

Edited on 05/10/2009 3:43:21 PM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]

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To: PapaBear3625; pabianice

The idea of “rebooting” the franchise with a younger, edgier teen cast was rejected by the makers of “Wormhole X-treme”


121 posted on 05/11/2009 7:56:22 AM PDT by Oztrich Boy (Obama in Office for 100 days: Wall Street panics.)
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To: pabianice
simply discards any sense of reality and ends this story with Kirk in command of Enterprise without having had to bother with inconveniences like advancing through the ranks by proving competence and maturity and receiving the endorsement of his superiors – a process which actually take 21-22 years in the real military

"HERE'S TO SICKLY SEASONS AND BLOODY WARS." - Famous British toast.

And as an example of promotion jumps.
Pershing - Captain to Brigadier.
Custer - 2nd Lieut. to Brigadier(Brevet)

122 posted on 05/11/2009 8:11:17 AM PDT by Pistolshot (The Soap-box, The Ballot-box, The Jury-box, And The Cartridge-Box ...we are past 2 of them.)
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To: Mr. Blonde
I find this hard to believe. Actually the rest of the review too as this is the first I have heard bad about the movie. It is at 96% on Rotten Tomatoes right now with 226 reviews.

IOW, people who work for Paramount are stuffing the ballot box.

123 posted on 05/11/2009 8:27:56 AM PDT by pabianice
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To: pabianice

Wow you watched a completely different movie. I found this movie to be a return to the TOS mentality, the closest Trek has come to it’s roots since half way through the first movie. It is once again bold. (SPOILERS) I think the argument between Spock and Kirk after the destruction of Vulcan was really an argument between post TMP Trek and TOS Trek. Spock, being the voice of post TMP wanted to meet with the fleet and talk and plan; Kirk in the roll of TOS wanted to go kick the bad guy’s ass. Trek had forgotten that they were supposed to be BOLDLY going where no man has gone before, they are once again bold.


124 posted on 05/11/2009 8:34:42 AM PDT by razorboy
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To: pabianice

J J Abrams used computer cheat codes.

Seriously folks (SPOILER ALERT)

“Prime” Spock, as they put it, is trapped in the past.

We have HUGE errors in the continutity only a pot head, snorting cocain, chased with a enian and johnny walker (ugh) can think is consistent.

(SPOILERS ALERT II)
Perhaps the next episode can address the continuity issues (principle planet destruction, main character’s sexual affair in his position as professor with one of his students, AMANDA GRAYSON!)

The sound track in the back ground was not trek, it was almost like it wanted to be Narnia I.

For the next one they better demonstrate their REAL skill at telling a story by respecting the cannons.

Using “cheat codes” just exposes weak writers who can’t tell a story.

(plus I though kirk did not become captain until his 30’s not 25! talk about blatent marketing)

PS: Keep in mind Paramout owns the star trek franchise outright pretty much. see: merchandising, video games, casino themes, dvd sales, spin offs, star trek perfume...


125 posted on 05/11/2009 8:39:19 AM PDT by longtermmemmory (VOTE! http://www.senate.gov and http://www.house.gov)
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To: PapaBear3625

Spock of the future told them to...


126 posted on 05/11/2009 8:40:32 AM PDT by longtermmemmory (VOTE! http://www.senate.gov and http://www.house.gov)
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To: Pistolshot
And as an example of promotion jumps. Pershing - Captain to Brigadier. Custer - 2nd Lieut. to Brigadier(Brevet)

In the case of Custer, the Union Army at the start of the war numbered 16,367 officers and men comprising 198 line companies distributed among 4 artillery regiments, 5 mounted regiments, and 10 regiments of infantry. Out of that, a number went to the Confederate side. The Union Army quickly grew to over 2 million men. They pretty-much had no choice but to promote any regular officers they had to senior command.

At the start of WW-I, it was a similar deal, with a force of 90,000 being quickly expanded to over 4 million.

If what we're talking about in this new Star Trek universe is a situation where they just began a war with the Romulans where 95% the Fleet consists of people who had been raw civilians a few months prior, then yes they would have no choice except to use whatever regular officers that they had available. I guess I'll find the background when I go see it later this week.

127 posted on 05/11/2009 8:40:59 AM PDT by PapaBear3625 (The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money -- Thatcher)
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To: Williams

I think it was very clear Spock had a significant relationship with Uhura. (accademy professor/cadent student)


128 posted on 05/11/2009 8:47:32 AM PDT by longtermmemmory (VOTE! http://www.senate.gov and http://www.house.gov)
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To: LdSentinal

Technically speaking he isn’t “only a cadet”, he’s done the Kobiashi test, according to Trek rules that’s basically the final exam from the officer section of Academy. So he’s about to be not a cadet and a commissioned officer, by old canon at that point he was on the fast track to being a captain, in this new canon he’d just saved the earth as an acting captain.


129 posted on 05/11/2009 8:51:04 AM PDT by razorboy
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To: LdSentinal

I think it is interesting that McCoy is the one of the big three that did not change.


130 posted on 05/11/2009 8:55:20 AM PDT by longtermmemmory (VOTE! http://www.senate.gov and http://www.house.gov)
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To: PapaBear3625
In Custer's circumstance, the individual states recruited their own officers for the militias involved. Custer used a lot of contacts to get what he wanted.

In Pershings case, it was not quite as complicated. He was married to the daughter of an influentional Senator, that and exemplary service with the 10th Cav at San Juan Heights with a certain future president(Teddy) didn't hurt either.
Pershing tied the decorum of the army from Miles to the future Patton. Even in Mexico, Pershing shaved every day and wore a tie. He demanded the same from his officers.

131 posted on 05/11/2009 9:01:07 AM PDT by Pistolshot (The Soap-box, The Ballot-box, The Jury-box, And The Cartridge-Box ...we are past 2 of them.)
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To: pabianice

It was bad. And lazy movie making. It’s everything that Gene Roddenberry fought the network over. Now the first 15 minutes was OK. Just Ok. But they can’t expect Star Trek Fans to watch this and forget what Roddenberry wanted in the first series . If they had made it a Star Trek Movie with all new characters that would have been different. It still would have had problems with the time line and story telling . After the movie was over I had to talk to others in the Theater. The Young ones loved it. Most of the older people didn’t like it at all.


132 posted on 05/11/2009 9:03:37 AM PDT by feyler
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To: Old Sarge; pabianice
You just saved me the $40 I’d have spent on this dog-spew of a movie.

Ah, it's worth seeing. Pabiance is pretty much spot-on with his critiques, but there are a few things that make it worthwhile.

133 posted on 05/11/2009 9:03:52 AM PDT by r9etb
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To: Bokababe
The Federation is an intergalactic multi-world UN with military "teeth". No one in the Federation every talks about money, except the Ferengi and they are "greedy capitalists". No one comes from "a country", although main characters clearly had accents. Spock's "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few --or the one" is the antithesis of individual rights.

Roddenberry definitely got into the "Brave New World" concept, and the "prime directive" of non-intervention was another premise of us leaving more primitive cultures alone. In the original 60s version, there were definitely UN implications to the Federation, but it actually played out that the Federation was more like NATO, with the Klingons being the Soviets and the Romulans being the Chinese. This simply scaled the earth to the galaxy.

Even in the original series, I believe Kirk made a reference to there not being money, but this seemed confined to the military/exploration part of the Federation, as they made ports of call and apparently bought alcohol there. I think they deliberately kept this part loose, as is common with TV series (how often did people pay for drinks in Cheers?)

TNG lost me because Patrick Stewart would surrender the Enterprise to a life boat. They had way too many stories where surrendering was the "right and noble" thing to do. One of the things I like about the Kirk character is that he doesn't believe in the no win scenario and in this movie neither he or his father would ever consider surrendering their ship.

Another thing that lost me with TNG was that they got completely away from true science fiction and became totally new age. I remember reading an interview where the writers were bragging about how for TNG they would write plots, but instead of coming up with a real scientific solution, they'd write "insert techno-speak here" and have somebody insert scientific gobbledy-gook, usually involving tachyon particles. There was no true scientific principle behind many of the "solutions" to problems in TNG.

The abandonment of speculative science fiction for new age dogma hurt the franchise badly. Worf was also the best character from TNG, but they kept writing his character down. He should have been the toughest guy on the ship, but Data, Yar and everybody else beat him up. The franchise further degraded when Deep Space 9 deleted the "hopeful future" that Roddenberry created, replacing it with losers stranded on an out of the way docking station. In Voyager, the only memorable characters were the holographic doctor and Seven of Nine. The other characters were weak and insipid, including the captain.

Nobody's going to want to reboot any of the other series. I have to agree with some of the other posters that there's a "Muppet Babies" quality to the movie, in that the characters are VERY young to be assuming the levels of responsibility they do. Yeah, there's a certain idiocy to having a suspended stowaway assume command of a starship (I could imagine if a guy left the brig of an aircraft carrier and showed up on the bridge, assuming command.) In TOS, however, there were 450 people on the ship, of which apparently only about seven had actual jobs. Whenever there was extreme danger on a planet, the captain, the first officer and the ships's medical director beamed to the surface, while everyone else ran back and forth in the corridors.

134 posted on 05/11/2009 9:04:15 AM PDT by Richard Kimball (We're all criminals. They just haven't figured out what some of us have done yet.)
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To: longtermmemmory

They moved canon aside, that was part of the point of the story, this is an alternate time line, all that canon stuff happened over there in that other time line. This wasn’t a prequel, this was a shaking of the etch-a-sketch, they have no intention of this being able to lead up to TOS, this is the start of a whole new run.


135 posted on 05/11/2009 9:11:12 AM PDT by razorboy
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To: PeaceBeWithYou

you realise this means all those really sucky TNG movies can be removed from the cannon. Kirk may not be dead...

(Star Trek XII: Prime Spock, “what is the old police box doing here?...”)


136 posted on 05/11/2009 9:14:00 AM PDT by longtermmemmory (VOTE! http://www.senate.gov and http://www.house.gov)
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To: razorboy

They can only do that up to a point.

They have been many immitators of Star Trek that failed because they tried to do this. As of right now it is past momentum that is going to carry this film.

However, they can’t just trash the past because they can. Change for the sake of shock value is not going to be sustainable for a franchise.

No mistake and credit due to abrams for producing a star trek action film. (the final kobayashi test was more about what was happening inside kirk’s head exposed rather than running it dry and official as would have been expected. apple forbidden fruit?)

Then again, does this mean the ENITRE voyager series can be expunged from the continuity?


137 posted on 05/11/2009 9:21:14 AM PDT by longtermmemmory (VOTE! http://www.senate.gov and http://www.house.gov)
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To: Richard Kimball

(SARCASM ON)

What are you talking about, the red shirt holding the explosives still died. That was true to the original.

paging Ensign Expendible, paging Ensign Expendible, please report to the transporter room...

(sarcasm off)


138 posted on 05/11/2009 9:24:55 AM PDT by longtermmemmory (VOTE! http://www.senate.gov and http://www.house.gov)
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To: Pistolshot
simply discards any sense of reality and ends this story with Kirk in command of Enterprise without having had to bother with inconveniences like advancing through the ranks by proving competence and maturity and receiving the endorsement of his superiors – a process which actually take 21-22 years in the real military

"HERE'S TO SICKLY SEASONS AND BLOODY WARS." - Famous British toast.

"sickly seasons and bloody wars" were the circumstances where promotion from Midshipman to Captain did take 20 years.

In peacetime 75% of Lieutenants, 80% of Commanders, and 90% of captains were unemployed on half pay, and noöne was being promoted, for any reason.

Super Rapid promotion only occurs during extended major wars, not as a reward (that's what medals are for). And all the back story of the Federation says the this was not a time of extended total wars. (For one thing Starfleet is a lameass military clearly showing the effects of peacetime neglect)

139 posted on 05/11/2009 9:32:15 AM PDT by Oztrich Boy (Obama in Office for 100 days: Wall Street panics.)
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To: longtermmemmory

Yeah, Ensign Ricky took it in the shorts again.


140 posted on 05/11/2009 9:32:50 AM PDT by Richard Kimball (We're all criminals. They just haven't figured out what some of us have done yet.)
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