star trek:into darkness (WARNING: SPOILERS as of 4/23/13)

For 3, I want total cerebral.

The characters stuck in a room, talking.
With theremin music.

If you like it then why are you so bothered by people saying it is garbage?

No one ever said Media Central was reserved for people who LIKE Star Trek movies.

We have the TrekBBS for that....

I think so too. I usually love 3D, but this one didn't do much for me.

And yet, there were fans trying to raise money to pay for another season once it was announced that Enterprise was canceled.

Anyone noticed that EVERY one of these reviews of the movie by fans, even if they loved the movie....are being very heavily qualified?

Nope, haven't noticed that.

From Aurora's review

In conclusion I must say: it's nice that Abrams revived Trek with a bang. STID will rake in enough money to guarantee a third one. But I'm also happy he'll move on the Star Wars now. It's more his style, lots of flash and bang and not much story. It's time Trek loses a little testosterone and returns to its roots. The perfect way would probably be a new TV series exploring the world in a deeper way and an 'event movie' such as the last two every few years to draw in the masses.

I'll give STID a solid 7.7/10 s 'because there is still Trek inside and just longs to come out. However, this is a straight forward action movie with the name and characters tacked on.'

From Jan Jansen's review

However, this is not a movie which will leave its marks in time. It's just fodder for the masses with a little Star Trek background.

From Packard's comments

So I've finally seen it. In general terms, it's a nice action movie, but that isn't what I'm looking for primarily in Star Trek

Camren's comments

As a pure Trek movie it's weak

Do I really need to go on?

I don't believe any of them said they loved the movie, so before going on, you should probably try starting.

Close enough.

The obvious question:

So what?

Dayton doesn't like Star Trek.

So it begs the question...why have we had to drag him around with us?

You know what, I'll be the one to go there.

Taken as a whole, TNG is damned weak sauce. The E-D is ugly as hell, Picard is a pompus self-important twit, Riker is a pussy who is afraid of his own command, Geordi is background decoration except when he gets in trouble or want a woman, Weasely is the most hated character in all of Trekdom, 90% of the stories are vanilla namby-panby forgettable pablum.

Yet millions of people love it, indeed, millions of people are only trek fans at all BECAUSE of TNG.

Why? Because it's fucking Star Trek.

It's not Kirk and the gang or even very similar to TOS in any notable way other than superficial name dropping. You could rename the ship, the Federation, and make a couple of other decorative changes and gone without calling it Star Trek at all.

And yet no one on earth disputes that it's "real Star Trek" and not all that many are willing to say "it really wasn't all that good most of the time"

There's MAYBE a dozen episodes, out of ~170 (depending on how you count the two-parters) that I would even entertain the conversation regarding whether they are in the same ballpark as being entertaining on the level of JJTrek.

Most of the criticism is self-delusional elitist bullshit based on a too-rosey remembrance of Trek Past.

if you consider TNG to be good quality authentic Star Trek then you need to shut the fuck up bitching about NuTrek because you are contradicting yourself from the jump.

A couple of years ago I rewatched all seven seasons of TNG.

It's aged very badly.

Shit, they're still at it - there's currently a campaign to get a 5th season on Netflix.

Supposedly if ENT would've gotten a fifth season, the ship would've undergone a refit to that configuration.

Wow.
Now, I'm okay with ENT, it does have it's moments where it shines, but I would have laughed my ass off if that would have happened.

"It's as if millions of nerdly assholes suddenly clenched in butthurt, and were suddenly silenced."

2000th post!

I'm not. I just find it hysterical and highly entertaining that some people can be so self-absorbed that they will stop at nothing to piss on everyone else's parade simply because they didn't get what they wanted.

All the best ones are on the "Fan Collective", sets.

Dayton, we get it. You don't like the vision of Star Trek that JJ Abrams and his collaborators have put forth.

Other people do. Why is this so hard for you to grasp?

Seriously, why are you so invested in telling people they're wrong about something that is an entirely subjective opinion?

You know why I think TNG seemed more magical than it was at the time?

The computers.

You could say all the tech, but in hindsight, it all boils down to the computers.
They were sci-fi, and we wanted them.
Watching TNG was the only way to see them.

We've got them now.
Wikipedia and Youtube are the fucking library computer.

Now that computer ownership is de-mystified, TNG stories have to stand on their own.
And, they mostly don't.

Just imagine how unimpressive they'll be when we've all got affordable 3-D printers.

I've given my reasons many times and gotten nothing but constant bitchin and moaning from people about them.

No need to go into my reasons again.

Hell, do you WANT me to become the focus of yet another thread? For once I could do without it.

ST:TNG I"ll freely admit was overrated. Both then and now. But still, I think that their best episodes are the equal of the best of the original series and DS9.

And their worst episodes are as easily as bad as the worst from those series.

The big difference between the Original Series and ST:TNG to me were the "mediocre" episodes.

All in all, I think lots of the "average" episodes from the original series were simply better than the "average" episodes of ST:TNG.

I consider "The Savage Curtain" and "Spectre of the Gun" to be examples of the original series "average episodes.

Dayton, I wouldn't review the movie at length if I didn't care about it. I watch as many movies as my sparse free time between a full time job, a kid and a social life allows, but I'll only mention/review those I care about (in both a positive and a negative way).

It's Trek. It has been in my life for over 30 years now albeit in a positive way and without the need to buy Spock ears. While I matured and Trek didn't it still holds a place in my heart. Almost no matter what - though ENT got me close to losing faith of the heart, I grant you that much. I actually enjoy JJTrek. But as Trek movies, I'll hold them to the highest standards so mistakes are even more glaring. I can pick apart any movie like I did with STID and most would come off much, much worse.

Also, the Reeves-Stevens were planning to do an episode aroung finding the Borg queen.

....I'm glad it's dead.

Per Dayton's comment above: it's rare that I give an UNQUALIFIED favorable review. Even films I love aren't perfect.

Anyhoo, a point I wanted to expand on about STID...

The main weakness was the plot, which contained a number of very large contrivances, some obvious shortcuts for the screenwriters, and, perhaps, a complete lack of logic. Mind you, I don't think any of these will really keep you from enjoying the film in the moment. It's just that they're pretty big flaws in retrospect.

First, there's the "character that serves too many purposes," which is an obvious device used by a screenwriter to connect the threads of the story. Remember Gwen Stacy in Spider-Man 3? She was simultaneously (1) Peter Parker's lab partner, (2) Eddie Brock's love interest, (3) the police chief's daughter, and (4) the one girl in Manhattan threatened by a runaway crane. Now, I could buy that if these connections were organic--say, Peter introduced her to Eddie, or a villain was striking at her with the crane because of her connection to Spider-Man--but the screenwriter expects us to accept that all of these things are true strictly by chance!

Well, Carol Marcus is kinda like that in STID. She is, conveniently, both the daughter of the antagonist and an expert in weapons, especially torpedoes, special versions of which figure prominently in the plot. Now, that's not too big a stretch by itself, especially if, say, she had been working for her father as part of the development team. But apparently, she wasn't. Unless I missed something, she lies her way on to the Enterprise to merely examine the new torpedoes. Remember, her father DOES NOT know she's there, so where did she get the authority to even be on board the ship, let alone be near a top secret weapon system?. To me this is kinda like some modern weapons expert bluffing their way onto an aircraft carrier to check out the latest anti-shipping missile. And all because they're "curious." A little implausible. (Maybe I missed something here; but that's the jist I got.)

Incidentally, I think the screenwriters missed a BIG opportunity for a completely ironic twist: they should have made Carol be KHAN's lover/confederate. The plot would easily have allowed her to be working in the weapons program (where they would've met) and her presence on the ship could've been a tactic to reunite him with his crew. That would've been a wicked revelation!

Second point: Admiral Marcus' plan makes little sense. It's a little unclear to me; I'm not sure whether he knew or did not know that the Botany Bay crew were in the torpedoes. But it doesn't make sense either way. Follow my logic...

If he doesn't know, then why does he need the Enterprise at all? You need someone to go into Klingon space and wipe out the bad guy with a few well-placed torpedos? The friggin' VENGEANCE seems like the PERFECT ship for that job. So, why accept Kirk's offer to take the Enterprise on that mission? He doesn't have to do that.

If he does know, then surely there was an easier way to get rid of the Botany Bay crew then by having the Enterprise take them into Klingon space and fire them at the surface of Qo'noS.

More about some plot contrivances later...

TNG was excellent. I'm not liking the revisionism.