Star Trek (Page 6 of 9)

My broader point is that Star Trek fandom by and large tends to have rose colored glasses when it comes to its own logic. 

Trey is largely right about Battlefield comissions.  They are far more common than one would think.  Keep in mind, Kirk was promoted to acting Commander by Cpt. Pike himself, BECAUSE he was the only one who figured out the signal.  The same Cpt Pike who pulled his record and saw a near genius IQ in Kirk, and after Kirk fulfilled his goal to finish SF Academy in 3 years, vs 4.

Looking at the weight of ALL of these things, I too, if I were in Pike's position, place an exceptionally talented graduate as the #2 in charge while Im away, under the leadership of an even more intelligent and seasoned Officer (Spock, in this case)

Point being, they're are plenty of logic gaps to rightly criticize, (the black hole thing is laughable to me) but that is the least of my issues.

Eddie, I both like and respect you. Y'know, from afar. But seriously, the movie I went to see was called "Star Trek." It was not called "Read Captain Pike's Mind." Everything you pointed out would have made perfect sense if it'd actually, y'know, happened in the movie. At the very least, Orci and Kurtzman are guilty of demanding that their audience spend time sussing out the motivation of a character who's on screen for roughly a fifth of the film and who basically has only three scenes, yet who drives the entire plot with decisions that might indeed make sense in his mind but that are depicted in the film as being about as rational as a sushi sandwich.

In the end, though, I'm whipping out Occam's Razor for this one. Is this script actually far more clever than it seems, with lots of subtext and a refreshing overestimation of the audience's intelligence? Or is it the cinematic equivalent of connect-the-dots? I vote dots.

(Now's one of those times when I feel compelled to remind everyone that I really, deeply like the film despite its jaw-droppingly hideous flaws.)

And as to the brewery thing that Mayhew reminded me of … meh. On the one hand, yes, it's conspicuously a brewery, and that's lame. But on the other hand, engineering spaces in previous Star Trek depictions have looked about as engineering-y as my childhood best friend's finished basement rec room. A for effort, C+ for execution.

Jeff, I'm not saying its the cleanest of story points, Im just saying its the least offensive.  I love the film too, in spite of its many flaws.  There's tons of fuzziness abound.  But on the whole I enjoyed the movie a great bit.  But the Pike thing didnt irk me in the same way.  Nothing more, nothing less.

And that's my opinion as well.

Brian will never understand this - that's okay, there are many things Brian will never understand - but for me, see...when I was a kid  we had this nifty sportscar...   

Sure, the backseat was too small and it got terrible mileage and didn't even have an iPod dock.   But once a week we'd all get in and take it for a spin, just 'cause it was fun. 

Then somebody's grandmother got hold of it and every Sunday for thirty years she carefully drove it to church at five miles below the speed limit while listening to important social issues being discussed on talk radio.    I'd see it go by sometimes and think, well okay, if that's what you want to do with it, but I ain't getting in.

But then she sold it to that Abrams kid, and while I'm not wild about that new paint job he put on it, at least he ain't afraid to mash that accelerator. 

Turns out that thing can still haul ASS.   

And that's good enough for me.

Why are we being mean to Brian? He's being an unmitigated ubernerd, but come now. We invoked Ents earlier and expected rightly that everyone gets the reference. This is a safe place.

We make fun of Brian cause it's fun. Let's not lose this.

Last edited by Gregory Harbin (2010-04-21 23:19:15)

Greg, with all due respect, you have got to stop reading into things and then talking about it like it's incontrovertible fact. Nowhere in Star Trek is it ever said, implied, or hinted that the Kronos we see after the events of Star Trek VI is an entirely different planet. That's perfectly valid speculation, sure but so is a bunch of other possibilities, and you're writing about it like we saw the entire process from start to finish.

And look, before anybody starts, this isn't about nitpicking Star Trek, it's about mistaking assumptions for facts and then behaving as if those assumptions are gospel that anyone else is an idiot to disagree with.

The reality of it is around the beginning of TNG, which was also the time Star Trek VI was produced, Roddenberry and the rest thought they were going to make the Klingons a member of the Federation and the events in VI are obliquely about setting that up. But further on they decided they didn't want the Klingons to be members, just allies and kind of retconned the whole thing, but never really went back and explained what happened with that whole "evacuating the home planet" idea. For all we know, Kronos is still liveable in the TNG era, it just has shitty weather all the time. My point being is that there are any number of possibilities as to the rest of the story, don't assume that your interpretation is the only possible one.

I understand your point of view just fine, Trey. I just disagree with it. Last time I checked, reasonable people could do that.

Of course, you'd have more of a leg to stand on if you had ever really bothered to listen to any of the shows the old lady listened to. Or actually watched her drive more than once for part of her commute all those years.

Dorkman, I do find this double standard amusing, if frustrating. I think it's because the Star Trek nerd is such an old and cherished cliche in our society, that it somehow gives license to people who are otherwise immense nerds themselves some kind of moral superiority that they can dispense like they're the varsity quarterback in an after school special.

If I was judging this I would say Brian is winning. It's like Battle Royal, except Battle Brian.

Thank you, guys.

Rest assured, when I launch my own utopian interstellar Federation, you guys can be the ambassadors to the pleasure planet.

If I promise to put on some pants, can we have a group hug?

Hey, that's prejudiced again!