LAST EDITED ON Jun-05-17 AT 04:15 PM (EDT)
 
Into Darkness has its issues, but I have to admit, that scene where Khan gets the ever-living shit kicked out of him is pretty satisfying. It reminds me just a bit of the climax of Manhunt.

"Hey. Shut the fuck up."

Still haven't gotten around to watching most of Beyond yet. Suppose I need to set aside some time for that...

--G.
><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Beyond is the strongest of the Nu-Trek films, but is still kind of a shitshow. The bar has moved from "these people don't understand Star Trek at all" to "these people have acquired at least a superficial understanding of Star Trek." So that's an improvement. The performances of everyone but Chris Pine continue to be pretty darn good.

It does continue the fine Nu-Trek tradition of trying to cash emotional checks it doesn't have the balance to cover, tho.

-Merc
Keep Rat

Beyond did an excellent job of giving Karl Urban more to do as Doctor McCoy. I like the actor, but he wasn't given much in the previous movies.

The enormous ensemble cast of Star Trek has always made movies difficult. In any given episode of a Star Trek TV show, even the big establishing premieres or finales, there's always a few characters who don't have much to do because there's just not enough room. And that's okay, because later on those people will get episodes that are all about them.

Movies... this is harder in movies. You want to give everyone at least one good scene but often that's all they can get.

-Merc
Keep Rat

Unless you are willing to go to a near 3 hour movie, like "The Longest Day", it's very hard to do a large, ensemble cast and do justice to all characters. TV can get away with it because of multiple episodes let you focus on different characters in various episodes.

Even the original series movies suffered from this. Not a one of them did justice to all the characters. You basically come down to the Trinity taking the spotlight and everybody else standing in the background.

Hm, makes me wonder if the JJVerse version of ST would work better as a proper TV series instead.

Michael C. Fortner
"Maxim 37: There is no such thing as "overkill".
There is only "open fire" and "I need to reload".

>Hm, makes me wonder if the JJVerse version of ST would work better as
>a proper TV series instead.

For the reasons everyone has enumerated above, Star Trek always works better as a TV series by definition, so, signs point to yes. Let's face it, neither Star Trek: The Motion Picture nor Star Trek (2009) would have been comprehensible if virtually all the people watching them hadn't already been familiar with the setting and characters.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>>Hm, makes me wonder if the JJVerse version of ST would work better as
>>a proper TV series instead.
>
>For the reasons everyone has enumerated above, Star Trek always
>works better as a TV series by definition, so, signs point to yes.
>Let's face it, neither Star Trek: The Motion Picture nor
>Star Trek (2009) would have been comprehensible if
>virtually all the people watching them hadn't already been familiar
>with the setting and characters.

Enh, it depends. My first ever movie seen in theater - and my first ever exposure to Trek - was seeing ST2:TWOK when it hit. It blew the shit out of me, I thought it was incredible. I loved every minute.

Wrath of Kahn was a just plain excellent movie in all respects though, it did a good job of explaining who people were for the latecomers (of which there were probably many) who people were and what their THING was.

The Motion Picture just dropped you in and explained precisely dick. Same with NuTrek. It didn't tell you anything except how it was DIFFERENT.

(incidentally, I'm still angry that they're calling the NuTrek the 'Kelvin Timeline' when multiple timelines are *explicitly* not how time travel works in Star Trek. There is only ONE timeline, and time travelers are exempt from the effects of the changes. The changes they make HAPPEN and overwrite the original world. Did nobody on the production team watch City on the Edge of Forever? Or any of the other dozen or so time travel episodes that all confirm this exact thing?)

(For that matter, it's clear that there was ALREADY changes considering the state of the ship Kirk's dad was on was clearly far more advanced than that of even a new Refit Connie. The entire premise is bullshit! And I'm a fool for seeing all three NuTreks to date in theatre and being part of the problem...)

>
>(incidentally, I'm still angry that they're calling the NuTrek the
>'Kelvin Timeline' when multiple timelines are *explicitly* not how
>time travel works in Star Trek. There is only ONE timeline, and time
>travelers are exempt from the effects of the changes. The changes they
>make HAPPEN and overwrite the original world. Did nobody on the
>production team watch City on the Edge of Forever? Or any of the other
>dozen or so time travel episodes that all confirm this exact thing?)
>

This is easy to No-Prize though: they've jumped dimensions as well as times.

Trek already acknowledges alternate realities exist (see anything involving the mirror universe.) NuTrek is just a case of folks who thought they were moving horizontally in time actually moving diagonally in time and reality.

	-={(Astynax)}=- "Now, if they could cut back on both sorts of movement, that'd be great..."

The problem with the mirror universe though is that it's the ONLY alternate reality we've ever seen existing, save those temporary ones created by Q or other godlike beings.

At least in the live action TV shows. I'm....hesitant to include the comics and animated series in canon.

>The problem with the mirror universe though is that it's the ONLY
>alternate reality we've ever seen existing, save those temporary ones
>created by Q or other godlike beings.
>
>At least in the live action TV shows. I'm....hesitant to include the
>comics and animated series in canon.

I believe you have forgotten Parallels.

That was possible quantum timelines intersecting, wasn't it?

>That was possible quantum timelines intersecting, wasn't it?

hello 911 yes star trek nerds are arguing about completely made-up fine points of fictional pseudoscience on my website yes i'll hold

>That was possible quantum timelines intersecting, wasn't it?

Tomato, tomat naHmey :D

>>
>>(incidentally, I'm still angry that they're calling the NuTrek the
>>'Kelvin Timeline' when multiple timelines are *explicitly* not how
>>time travel works in Star Trek. There is only ONE timeline, and time
>>travelers are exempt from the effects of the changes. The changes they
>>make HAPPEN and overwrite the original world. Did nobody on the
>>production team watch City on the Edge of Forever? Or any of the other
>>dozen or so time travel episodes that all confirm this exact thing?)
>>
>
>This is easy to No-Prize though: they've jumped dimensions as well as
>times.
>
>Trek already acknowledges alternate realities exist (see anything
>involving the mirror universe.) NuTrek is just a case of folks who
>thought they were moving horizontally in time actually moving
>diagonally in time and reality.

(@set me/Pedant-Mode=On)

Actually, Star Trek (2009) is explicitly not the same timeline as Classic Trek. How do we know? George Kirk et al see Romulans on-screen and recognize them as Romulans. In Classic Trek no human had seen a Romulan prior to Balance of Terror.

(@set me/Pedant-Mode=Off)

That said, this is really the point where Trek has said "Look. We gave the Continuity Wonks Enterprise, and it went to some really shitty places in the name of Continuity Wonking. So we're not going to do that anymore. Forget everything about Star Trek, we're taking the basic setup and moving from there and anything you think you know may or may not be true."

And then JJ Abrams made a couple of really good Star Wars movies starring Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto.

>That said, this is really the point where Trek has said "Look. We gave
>the Continuity Wonks Enterprise, and it went to some really
>shitty places in the name of Continuity Wonking. So we're not going to
>do that anymore. Forget everything about Star Trek, we're taking the
>basic setup and moving from there and anything you think you know may
>or may not be true."
>
>And then JJ Abrams made a couple of really good Star Wars movies
>starring Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto.

I don't actually know how much STO is a factor in all this, but I'm pretty sure they have to be making money, and AFAIK they're the only property doing anything with the original continuity. Which is just as well, because not unlike what happened to the Star Wars EU, as soon as anyone makes a new Star Trek movie in the original continuity, STO will suddenly become non-canon. I'd...actually hate to see that, even if STO is nowhere near perfect.

------
Fearless creatures, we all learn to fight the Reaper
Can't defeat Her, so instead I'll have to be Her

>I don't actually know how much STO is a factor in all this, but I'm
>pretty sure they have to be making money, and AFAIK they're the only
>property doing anything with the original continuity.

Discovery will be original continuity when it eventually drops.

-Merc
Keep Rat

If it weren't for them inexplicably tying Enterprise into TNG in the finale, I'd say Enterprise is where they screwed the timeline up.

Also, the Feddies and Romulans had a war like a hundred years before Balance of Terror, didn't they? Surely SOMEONE must have seen them at that point, but nobody had in a long-ass time so it was a shock to the crew that they were basically Roman Vulcans.

(it's been a while since I've properly Trek'd. I should do something about that.)

LAST EDITED ON Jun-11-17 AT 03:07 PM (EDT)
 
>Also, the Feddies and Romulans had a war like a hundred years before
>Balance of Terror, didn't they? Surely SOMEONE must have seen them at
>that point

Indeed not. It was a remote-control war; they blew each other up at long range with radar-guided nuclear missiles. Neither side saw any member of the other, just their ships. (This was basically the biggest plot point in "Balance of Terror", narrowly edging out "being the captain of a starship sucks sometimes.")

Presumably the writers of the 2009 film either forgot that detail, never knew it, or chose to ignore it.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Well, *I* certainly forgot about it, so I suppose I can't in good conscience really jump on anyone else for doing so. Fair enough!

That must've been a weird-ass war, too. Why did they even *go* to war, anyway?

*really* have to do a proper Trek soon....

>That must've been a weird-ass war, too. Why did they even *go* to war,
>anyway?

I don't recall that ever being explained, but it probably had to do with conflicting expansion priorities, like pretty much every war between two colonial powers ever.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>>Hm, makes me wonder if the JJVerse version of ST would work better as
>>a proper TV series instead.
>
>For the reasons everyone has enumerated above, Star Trek always
>works better as a TV series by definition, so, signs point to yes.
>Let's face it, neither Star Trek: The Motion Picture nor
>Star Trek (2009) would have been comprehensible if
>virtually all the people watching them hadn't already been familiar
>with the setting and characters.

Oddly enough, this is part of why I enjoyed Beyond so much. It felt like a season finale of a possible NuTrek show. Probably helped I'd been reading the comic series for years.

Matrix Dragon, J. Random Nutter

I'd just like to note for the record that I, one of this board's bigger Trek nitpickers, am not taking part in the discussion about timelines and quantum realities. That's a level of nerdiness that I can't descend to without spelunking gear.

That said, my biggest problem with NuTrek is probably their reliance upon fans having read the comics/visual novels to get the half of the plot that didn't make it into the film. SFDebris noted this with Star Trek, how the writers had come up with this detailed and emotional backstory for Nero that was fleshed out in the comics, which could have made him the strongest villain the franchise had seen since Khan. But because you don't get credit for what you didn't include in the story, he just comes off as a random bald emo Romulan.

Same deal with Khan in Into Darkness, the writers came up with a detailed storyline to explain how Khan had started out as the Indian genocidal dictator that we all knew, before a round of brainwashing and cosmetic surgery turned him into Lt. John Harrison. Likewise they detailed his mission to Qo'nos, using the transwarp beaming equation to set a bomb that blew up Praxis and devastated the Klingon population. But none of that made it into the film, so we get a pasty white British man playing a character we all remember well being played by the tanned and muscular physique of a Mexican actor.

And that's NuTrek's biggest problem in a nutshell: The movies make great popcorn flicks with action and comedy aplenty. But like popcorn at the theater, a few hours later its stale and flavorless. You remember the humor, you remember the action, but the story itself was largely empty air. All I'm saying is that next NuTrek film needs more to it than navel-gazing about why Jim Kirk wants to be captain. Or the on-again/off-again romance of Spock and Uhura. Put the character development up on the big screen, don't leave it stuck in the comic books that only fans bother to check out. This is especially grating to those of us in the fanbase who spent the better part of the last 3 decades being told that if something didn't appear on-screen, then it wasn't canon to the franchise unless it appeared in a licensed book/magazine.

>And that's NuTrek's biggest problem in a nutshell:

While you make a strong point, I'm going to argue: NuTrek's biggest problem is that they fucked up Jim Kirk massively hard, and whatever else they might do right or wrong, it is hard to get past the fact that they fucked up the central pillar of that flavor of the franchise.

I mean... I get it, it's a different timeline and whatnot. But they didn't HAVE to turn Kirk into the caricatured version of himself. Kirk the banging-green-women, go-with-his-guy-in-all-situations, arrogant, dismissive asshole isn't actually Jim Kirk. It's the satirical version of Kirk that has been used so many times (looking at you, Zapp Branigan) that instead of satirizing the concept it instead reifies it.

-Merc
Keep Rat

I didn't even know there WERE new comics. Definitely not CANON comics.