Huge Star Trek XI Spoiler

[Alelou]

Okay, think like a Hollywood producer. They need a really awesome special effect. Hey, I know! Let's destroy an entire planet! Oh wait a minute, we already did that once or twice. Okay, make it Vulcan. We haven't done THAT before. And since time travel is associated with previous successful Trek movies, let's do that too and that way we can put it all back at the end! Yeah, perfect. No problem. The fans are used to this crap. We don't even really have to come up with something new, we can just shuffle time-honored Star Trek plot elements around. Enterprise's "Twilight" meets "First Contact" meets "Star Trek IV: The Search for Spock." Add Vulcan pathos! Hurrah!

[Asso]

You're incorrigible, Alelou.

[Aquarius]

At first I read this and said "Okay, I hate this movie already!" But then I remembered this is Star Trek; people don't always stay dead for long, so things don't necessarily have to stay destroyed. Spock proved that there is resurrection in sequels. So don't lose faith.

[Elessar]

Okay...but I thought AU was an alternate universe, and time travel in your own universe was not considered an alternate universe. Sounds like I am not going to like this movie very much. It still makes very little sense.

Nah, they went back in time and changed something... that IS an alternate universe. I mean it sorta depends on your opinion of the nature of quantum mechanics, but, in as far as Star Trek is concerned, that's how you create an alternate universe. I'm not sure there's any canon to this at all, but I've heard claims that the MU is just that... a consequence of a temporal incursion at some pointin history that totally changed things.

In this case, for certain though, Star Trek has often called it an alternate timeline (alternate universe is the same thing as an alternate timeline, just different vocabulary) when you go back in time and change something.

[Elessar]

Okay, think like a Hollywood producer. They need a really awesome special effect. Hey, I know! Let's destroy an entire planet! Oh wait a minute, we already did that once or twice. Okay, make it Vulcan. We haven't done THAT before. And since time travel is associated with previous successful Trek movies, let's do that too and that way we can put it all back at the end! Yeah, perfect. No problem. The fans are used to this crap. We don't even really have to come up with something new, we can just shuffle time-honored Star Trek plot elements around. Enterprise's "Twilight" meets "First Contact" meets "Star Trek IV: The Search for Spock." Add Vulcan pathos! Hurrah!

I think you give them way too much credit for giving a rat's ass what the fans want. This has more to do with J.J. Abrams' masturbatory need to find a way to telepathically intuit what his viewers expect to see and then try to ROCK THEIR WORLD by turning it upside down and having it make absolutely no sense at all.

To those who like it this isn't true, but to those who don't, Lost is exhibit A in J.J.'s "it's brilliant because it makes absolutely no fucking sense" school of thought.

He just wanted to find something they could do that NOBODY thought they could do --

SPOILER!!!:

i.e., destroy Vulcan

, then find a way to make it marginally consistent (

SPOILER!!!:

time travel/alternate universe

, and not because he cares about it being consistent, just so he can say he found a way.

Eh, it will get fixed. It has to be. If not in the first one, then in the sequel.

Well, they're not going to fix anything because in their eyes they have started themselves a new story and nothing is broken. It's their way of ripping off a corner of Roddenburry's breathtaking mosaic painting and drawing fugly ass stick figures all over it.

They're not going to fix that

SPOILER!!!:

Vulcan is gone

or that

SPOILER!!!:

Amanda is dead

or even feel compelled to any more than RDM felt compelled to "fix" that Starbuck was a woman instead of a man. It's just their way of making it their own version.

Even though I'm sure I'm not going to approve, I gotta tell you, it's better than the abomination in that at least it has a point of divergence from the previously established reality. *the_abomination* was *actually* supposed to have happened in the same reality. This at least say "hey, something crazy and fucked up happened and nothing is the same as the other universe from then on."

[CX]

CX, what do you mean by

SPOILER!!!:

visual changes.

?

Do we really need spoiler tags in a thread clearly marked "Huge Spoiler"?

Anyway, what I mean is how things look. Abrams and friends basically changed how everything looked. In fact the thing they changed the least was the uniforms. Basically the entire premise of this movie is that it's supposed to be an AU caused by Nero traveling back in time. IMO, that kind of makes anything that happens in it pointless, but whatever. Anyway, the point of divergence is supposed to be the attack on the Kelvin and the death of Kirk's father. The thing is, the Kelvin itself, while slightly closer to a TOS look, still shares more visual design features with the Apple-prise than it does with anything ever seen in TOS or even the movies for that matter. If you look at the shots from the trailer of both ships' bridges, you can see that same set of greebles behind the command chair, and that basically everything is just a more angular version of what the Abrams-prise bridge has. Really the only things its missing are the hostess desks with those weird glass walls and the side stations lining the lower well that the conn/nav console is in.

[Alelou]

I hadn't realized this was the guy who does Lost. (You see how much attention I pay.) God help us.

Does this guy have any idea how angry Trekkies can get??? He should have talked to BnB....

On the other hand, it is a creative way of separating yourself from a monolithic past that millions of fans obsessively know every detail of. It's got a kind of Escriba touch to it. (Except that her stories make sense.)

[Linda]

Sigh, I don't think I even want to think about all this! I guess the bottom line of those making money making ST is to make a buck and the only place you are going to find people who care about Roddenberry's vision is among the fan base who are more interested in the integriety of the ST vision and crafting good stories - because the bottom line is NOT the buck.

Okay, Elessar, I am buying what you are saying about alternate universes and how they are created. But I am getting more and more depressed about the upcoming movie.

[Navigator]

I hadn't realized this was the guy who does Lost. (You see how much attention I pay.) God help us.

Does this guy have any idea how angry Trekkies can get??? He should have talked to BnB....

On the other hand, it is a creative way of separating yourself from a monolithic past that millions of fans obsessively know every detail of. It's got a kind of Escriba touch to it. (Except that her stories make sense.)

Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch time.

[Elessar]

Ships always change in new movies/shows, I've given up being attached to architectural continuity... it's hopeless because new SFX means the ability to create a more compelling look, and it would be cinematic suicide to intentionally leave things exactly as they looked before. People want to see somethign different... I mean, not saying I do, but the 80% of people who are interested in Trek that aren't hardcore fans and are giong to be the ones paying to go see it

[CX]

Ships always change in new movies/shows, I've given up being attached to architectural continuity... it's hopeless because new SFX means the ability to create a more compelling look, and it would be cinematic suicide to intentionally leave things exactly as they looked before. People want to see somethign different... I mean, not saying I do, but the 80% of people who are interested in Trek that aren't hardcore fans and are giong to be the ones paying to go see it

Except that every previous romp in the TOS era in the last 18 years has meticulously recreated the original sets as closely as possible, including ENT's own IaMD. But to be honest the attitude that either everything has to be completely redesigned in order to be more "current" or look the same as the plywood sets of the late '60s kind of pisses me off. I've seen some pretty good fan projects that have updated the look of the old girl without losing the original lines or design aesthetic of that era. It can and has been done - by fans, who have received no pay for their efforts. Why can't anyone who actually would get paid to give a shit accomplish what they could? There's no reason why it couldn't be done, so changing everything was just all part of jumping on the reboot bandwagon so the drooling masses would have some eye candy they think looks cool to look at. And I say thinks because even on its own merits the Abrams-prise is fugly as sin.

[CX]

A different approach

[Elessar]

Someone just showed me this, I wasn't out looking for it but it's interesting to hear what the 'Shat thinks:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUoaFITd ... re=related

[CX]

^And yet it's still fugly and doesn't resemble the original 1701 any more than any other Federation ship might.

In any case, you may want to read this review.

[Lady Rainbow]

A COMPLETE retooling of the whole Star Trek franchise? I can understand it being an AU from a certain point in time, but STILL...

I'm gonna reserve judgment until I actually see it.