Knights & Knaves Alehouse

Okay, you were warned.



I wanted to respond to this from the other thread:

Chgowiz wrote:All I can say is, the allegories of "Abrams ST is to TOS" like "4E is to OD&D" could be correct if you wish - but then, I'm also the guy who would play 4E with the right group of people who play D&D like I like D&D to be played. I can watch Abram's ST with understanding the reboot. TOS will always be my favorite, but I'll definitely enjoy this ST universe as well.

Actually, I found Kirk's character to be struggling against the 3e/4e Big Bad Guy. Except for being a good looking young man, there wasn't anything particularly spectacular about Kirk, except for his signature confidence and the arrogance of youth. None of the other original characters were particularly heroic either. They're sporting no bulging muscles, tattoos or body modifications of any type.

Contrast those characters against the bad guy(s). The future Romulans are hanging out in a big chaos-looking ship that looks like something stripped right out of Giger's brain, and they're all tattooed-up just like any respectable 3e/4e character should be.

Kirk and crew fight these guys with nothing but desperation, decent planning and plenty of balls. The bad guys, on the other hand, have to rely on their super kewl weapons (the drill and the "red" matter) to do much of anything.

OMG, and the end was pure KOS (Kirk Old School ), when he offered to rescue the Romulans , they said they'd rather die and he followed back with "Okay". You just KNOW Picard woulda saved the Romulans anyway, for their own good.

My only serious WTF moments were the two kissing scenes between Uhura and Spock. I kept telling my sons, "They can't do that!" and chuckling. I seriously wanted Kirk to bone Uhura.

It didn't really bother me but it was unexpected.

edited for grammar/spelling

DuBeers wrote:My only serious WTF moments were the two kissing scenes between Uhura and Spock. I kept telling my sons, "They can't do that!" and chuckling. I seriously wanted Kirk to bone Uhura.

I didn't really bother me but it was unexpected.

Agreed. That whole Spock/Uhura relationship just came across as forced and awkward.

Oh yeah, and I like my Orion girls with black hair and for them to have a more .. umm .. athletic build.

Well, these were Romulans from the future, desperate in their need for revenge. I actually thought they fit in well - no cloaking, miners using an advanced ship beyond its means. Considering they stole the red matter from Ambassador Spock, they were more like kobolds with hand/eye of vecna.

That was an awesome moment at the end and I had the same "Oh hells yes" reaction to the "We'll help you." "No." "OK, rocks fall on you" exchange. This isn't PC Star Trek.

There were things about the BSG reboot that didn't sit well at first, but I got over it - and I suspect I'll do the same about Spock having a relationship with Uhura. That was probably the one thing that rubbed me the wrong way, but it was more of an add-on than the main thrust, for which I was extremely grateful. The main thrust was the relationships between the 3 - and that is what ST was always about. I was trying to explain that to my wife last night - that the times TNG worked, despite all the glitz, was when it was about Picard/Data/Worf or centered around a character's conflicts with themselves. "Best of Both Worlds", "Yesterday's Enterprise" and "Reunion".

Missed opportunity, IMO, with Simon Pegg. The lines just didn't really sit well with me, but overall, I was impressed with his "Scotty" as a miracle worker.

Spock and Uhura having a relationship didn't bug me at all. They were definitely trying to show Spock as a being at conflict with himself trying to figure out where he fit in the universe.

I'm concerned that in their first time at bat they destroyed Vulcan. That planet, and it's people, are a major part of ST mythology. It just seems they've lobbed off a source of valuable material and already started writing themselves into corners. Of course, it's science fiction, so they could pull more time travel shenanigans later to bring it back, but time travel is already overdone in ST, so I'd be disappointed to see that.

If you watch "The Man Trap" there's a kind of weird scene where Uhura is sort of coming on to Spock and he gives her the cold shoulder. There could be a romantic backstory leading in to that.

I have to finish Fight On! #5 before I go see this thing though.

The only real WTF? moment for me in the movie was when Kirk was running around the enterprise with balloon hands and McCoy kept sticking him with hypos. Funny? Yes. But that kind of humor didn't seem to really fit with the rest of the movie or the ST feel.

Uhura has always had a thing for Spock; I guess in the new movie they just made it more overt. In TOS, there was plenty of sexual tension between the two.

Brad wrote:Uhura has always had a thing for Spock; I guess in the new movie they just made it more overt. In TOS, there was plenty of sexual tension between the two.

I always suspected that when Spock was looking into the little viewer thing... it wasn't always scans of gravitational anomolies, star charts, and such... he might have had a mini-cam positioned to look up Uhura's skirt while she was seated.

TheRedPriest wrote:I'm concerned that in their first time at bat they destroyed Vulcan. That planet, and it's people, are a major part of ST mythology. It just seems they've lobbed off a source of valuable material and already started writing themselves into corners. Of course, it's science fiction, so they could pull more time travel shenanigans later to bring it back, but time travel is already overdone in ST, so I'd be disappointed to see that.

The Vulcan diaspora that they are facing leaves room for a lot of stories. I think it gives the Vulcans a lot more cred for being ambassadors and peacemakers they are an excellent example of the foibles of passion gone wrong and the awful destruction that high-tech civilization could bring down upon each other and itself.

I guess that outside the military (and yes, in TOS Starfleet IS a military service) screwups, the biggest problem I have with the movie is not the destruction of Vulcan, but the complete re-write of Kirk's personal history.

This proves that this is NOT "our Star Trek".

It may be A Star Trek, but it is definitely an alternate reality... one that split off well before the Romulans show up via time-travel.

This movie has been mega-hyped as being "the" prequel to TOS... and it makes the Federation TOS existed in impossible.

Just like the series Enterprise made the TOS universe impossible, and had to be "rewound" through the massive use of time-travel.



As for the military stuff... the latitude allowed a starship Captain is in no way indicative of the latitude allowed an Academy midshipman!

Not even close... and remember the times Kirk was courtmartialed and/or reprimanded (to the point of being busted from Admiral back to Captain for stealing the rebuilt Enterprise in TWoK)?

There would have been major punishments levied on Kirk for what the movie shows... another sign that this parallel universe diverged well before Kirk was born.


TOS back history of Kirk:
The character was raised in Riverside, Iowa. James Kirk's brother, Sam, and his sister-in-law are introduced and killed in "Operation: Annihilate!" (1967), leaving behind three children. Although born on Earth, Kirk for a time lived on Tarsus IV, where he was one of nine surviving witnesses to the massacre of 4,000 colonists by Kodos the Executioner.

At Starfleet Academy, Kirk became the first student to defeat the Kobayashi Maru test, garnering a commendation for original thinking by reprogramming the computer to make the "no-win scenario" winnable. Kirk was granted a field commission as an ensign and posted to advanced training aboard the USS Republic. He then was promoted to lieutenant junior grade and returned to Starfleet Academy as a student instructor. Students could either "think or sink" in his class, and Kirk himself was "a stack of books with legs". Upon graduating in the top five percent, Kirk was promoted to lieutenant and served aboard the USS Farragut. While assigned to the Farragut, Kirk commanded his first planetary survey and survived a deadly attack that killed a large portion of the Farragut's crew. He received his first command, the equivalent of a destroyer-class spaceship, while still quite young.



New movie back-history of Kirk:
The 2009 Star Trek film introduces an "alternate, parallel" timeline that reveals different origins of Kirk, the formation of his friendship with Spock, and how they came to serve together on the Enterprise. Although the movie treats specific details from Star Trek as mutable, "characterizations remain the same"[no comment]. In the movie, George and Winona Kirk name their son James Tiberius after his maternal and paternal grandparents, respectively. He is born on a shuttle escaping a starship on which his father is killed by Nero, the main villain of the film[even where he is born is re-written]. The character begins as "a reckless, bar-fighting rebel" who eventually reaches "maturity". According to Pine, the character is "a 25-year-old [who acts like a] 15-year-old" and who is "angry at the world". Kirk and Spock clash at Starfleet Academy, but, over the course of the movie, Kirk focuses his "passion and obstinance and the spectrum of emotions" and becomes captain of the Enterprise.

Kirk became Starfleet's youngest captain when he received command of the USS Enterprise for a five-year mission, three years of which are depicted in the original Star Trek series.




Nope... it is not what the movie was originally claimed to be... I guess that is the main source of my problem with it.

I will be unable to separate the two... they should have done all-new characters if they were going to change so many things about those characters.

They are NOT the same people.

Well, you can't argue with any of that Blackbat. They did the time travel thing was to avoid pissing off the bulk of old trekkies by screwing up the original show (when and how people met etc.) and as you pointed out, they failed to do that completely (for "Hollywood reasons I suppose) but still, if you can take the show as a seperate thing (for the most part) it works (its a nonstop action movie with likeable characters flying around in space ships fighting and blowing things up).

The shows full of impossibles (kirk meeting spock by chance in an icecave, no planetary ships defending earth (shown), allowing a crew with no experiance to pilot the enterprise (the original show had guys in their 40s and 50s walking around), all the crew (more or less) being in the same cadet class (despite obvious age differences on the original show) the list is really to long to go threw.

That said, I expected a mutilation of everyone and everything which didn't occur. They screwed up the history, yes, they underpowered phasers, didn't have good heavily judo based fight scenes, etc. but at least they had hand to hand fighting, they didn't gayify everyone and everything (which is exactly what the limp wristed typical Hollywood writers who did all the other series would have done). The new movies merits to me aren't so much on what they did, but on what they avoided doing (something that since TNG hasn't occured) as I said, this movie appealed to the fans of the original show, and kids in highschool now, I think it wasn't at all marketed to the TNG DS9 fan base (who actually liked that crap they put out).

PS and what about Pike. That guy was no Jeffery Hunter, plus he seemed to old compared to the TV show. They should've either picked someone else or made this a new character. I was also surprised, no Finigin (Kirks class mate nemises).

BlackBat242 wrote: It may be A Star Trek, but it is definitely an alternate reality...

That.

And, for that, I take the film at it's face value. True, the histories of the characters are altered by the renegade Romulans' attack, but their core personalities (as far as I can tell) are essentially intact. As long as the relationships between the crew members are maintained, and the quality of the films remain high, I'm cool with the new Trek.

Given the acceptance of time travel and alternate realities in Star Trek the alternate reality shown by this film (and hopefully more) is totally kosher and authentic Trek.

(I'd love a movie or two in a Goatie Wearing Evil Trek universe if it was done right)