A challenge to all the JJ Trek haters

It's a fucking movie from 3 years ago!

This thread is amazing. Please, continue.

Yes, he understands, and no he hasn't gotten lost in his own arguments. He's just trolling.

That's why I like yanking his chain!

All other considerations aside, reusing some of the same general memes would be obvious. The incursion which changed the time line would not logically have made Romulans less angry, Klingons less proud, or wiped out the brain slugs. It's still the same basic universe, only certain parts of it would have been re-directed
And frankly, that one incursion alone isn't enough to account for all the differences we see, IMO - I maintain that to properly account for the new time-line you need to assume First Contact created a new time stream (wherein we found ST:Enterprise) and THAT time stream in turn was altered by the advent of Spock and Nero.

In fact if one were to analyze it there are certainly several other premutations before that, now that the operating hypothesis is that each incursion creates a new time-stream.

But I digress. Point being, the universe is VAST and even a relatively major event isn't going to change the whole thing.

JJ wasn't trying to make the great intellectual statement you would prefer him to make, so he needs no excuse.

He was trying to make a whiz-bang summer action movie which would lead to a franchise successful enough to make more - i.e. he was making a Transformers-style movie.

Anyone who thought it was ever going to be anything else wasn't paying attention. And the Box-office justified his intentions in the eyes of the studio.

If you want thoughtful, intelligent Trek, then hope it someday returns to television (and that wouldn't guarantee it but in the right hands...), or hold out hope that someday the movie franchise will be re-booted by a Nolan-type visionary. Until and unless one of those happens, paramount will EXPECT the summer-action-flick result, not the thoughtful intellectual film that does 1/3 the business.

If you don't want to see the popcorn movie then don't, but it's as pointless to grumble that it exists as it is to grumble that politicians are corrupt or that football is violent.

Is it your contention that he could have sold that Swiss-cheesed shitheap of a story if it hadn't had the brand name hot-glued onto it?

Except that it did -- before the timeline-altering event even occurred. Kelvin? Remember? Not a "Cage-era" design? No? That's going to be conveniently overlooked yet again?

Nah.
All it takes is simple resignation to the reality of Hollywood, and arguably of paramount in particular.

The only way you can be outraged over JJ's movie is if you suffer under the delusion that Paramount's chief objective was to make a high quality, critically praised, fan beloved, thoughtful and intelligent film

Paramount's objective is precisely what it has always been - make a shit-ton of money. If they could have done that with hand-puppets and cardboard cutouts the THAT is what would have been on the screen.

Wish it were different? that the film industry's first objective was to create great art? Sure, by all means.
Also, feel free to wish that children never got cancer and there was no such things as STDs while you are at it.

But - particularly for one with capitalist-friendly political views - please don't delude yourself into thinking such a thing is actually possible.

Thoughtful, arty, critically beloved films do get made - usually by visionaries with enough weight to dictate their vision to the studio instead of vice-versa. Or independently. But even then, the visionary has to have a reasonable amount of success or they lose that influence.

Right now, the only guy like that I can think of is Christopher Nolan. If Nolan makes a Trek film i will expect possibly the greatest film of all time.

I never expected anything from JJ but popcorn shtick. Thus, I am not disappointed.

Which is among the many reason why I said that they were in an already altered (by First Contact) timeline.

No, but I don't see why that matters.

The Mission Impossible movies would never have been made without the Franchise name and Cruise attached. Examples are legion.

you are simply overlooking what genre of film we are speaking of.

Oh do piss off.

One can like both.

I like Transfromers, which is the biggest pile of empty calories probably ever put on screen, and I like Blade Runner.

The two are not mutually exclusive.

I liked JJ Trek alright, even though there are a dozen individual points that rankle me, and I like TWOK and the rest of the TOS films.

I can do both.

It does not require one to hand in their Trekfan membership card that they have the capacity to enjoy something less intellectually stimulating than Star Trek.

Now, if you want to say this wasn't REALLY Star Trek, just a cosplay poser wearing the name like a costume - fine, I got no beef with that. But it does not oblige me to dislike it on that basis, not does it oblige me to exhibit impotent rage that a Hollywood studio acted precisely like Hollywood studios stereo typically act.

BTW, congrats to Async for getting this thread to 500 posts!

Of course you can like both -- my issue isn't with liking it. My issue is with those who insist that the two are equivalent. They're not. Not even close. Could any of the other Star Trek films made sense without being tied in to Star Trek? Probably the worst of the TNG-era ones could have, yes; I'm talking Insurrection and Nemesis here. You know what that made them? Generic, besides incredibly crappy. But the first six? No way. Even Star Trek V, which was, no argument here, seriously crappy in its own right.

But ST2009? That was not only crap, it was crap that didn't even have to be Star Trek. It had no ties to Star Trek other than the names. Not even the designs beyond a fan-film level. The only thing that made it Star Trek was tacking the name onto it. If that's not the most blatantly cynical money-hungry bullshit that Hollywood has ever perpetrated, then I'm a fuckin' pomegranate.

Has Star Trek been that before? Sure. Star Trek V was phoned in, no question. So were Insurrection and Nemesis. But has Star Trek always aspired to be more than that? Absolutely. There has always been the sense that it was, even when unsuccessful, trying to present great storytelling.

Not so with ST2009. That was deliberate and calculated pandering to the jock douchebag crowd and a huge middle finger to people who like what Star Trek has always tried -- not always succeeded, but always tried -- to be about. In that way, it was every second and every ounce the piece of shit Nemesis was, right down to ripping off basically the same shallow, uninspired plot.

Always willing to do my part to [-]troll the self-appointed experts[/-] contribute to a worthy discussion!

First Contact didn't alter the timeline, as evidenced by the fact that the crew, on reaching the 24th century once again, were satisfied that the original timeline had been restored. So no, First Contact doesn't absolve the sin of the Kelvin's non-"Cage" design.

You know what does explain that?

There ya go. Mystery solved.

PSSHHTT!!!

Yyyyyyyyeah, I think you snapped the wrong finger, there, DiacanQ.

Because in "the cage", they rolled out the whole fleet, and let you gawk at all the doohickeys and doodads in slow meticulous panning shots.

Did we see the "Cage" Enterprise? We certainly did. Did we see the various "doohickeys" on it? We certainly did. Were those doohickeys supposed to indicate the level of technology on the ship? They certainly were. Did we see any of those same doohickeys on the Kelvin? We certainly did not.

Your point just fell as flat as a Coke that's spent a week in the blazing sun.

And, by the way, those doohickeys on the "Cage" Enterprise? Since we don't have anything that even remotely does what they do, it is absolutely, fundamentally retarded to say that the TNG style or the Abrams style is more "advanced". Unless you can show me a working Bussard collector from the 1960s and a working Bussard collector from 2009, the assertion that Abrams-Trek's version is "more advanced" is absolute bullshit. Alternatively, introduce me to a living person from the 2260s and let them settle it.

No?

You can't?

Then there is not one whit of substance to the idea that Ryan Church's design is more appropriate than Matt Jeffries'.

And that's it.

And that's it.

Oh, and...

not an argument I ever made.

What the hell's so "advanced"?


Graphics?
Hey, if someone from 1960 saw me typing away at Wordforge, with it's basic setup, would they be able to tell that my PC could also render 3-D shit, or, display full motion streaming video?

Probably not.

But, we know "the cage", 'puters have both clunky "graphics"...AND can render the atomic structure of an entire human being for beam-down.

So..yeah.


Same tech, and we see different slices of it.

Except that's not it. We also, later on, saw other Starfleet ships, and saw that their "doohickeys" matched the "doohickeys" on the Enterprise. Know what that means? That means that the Enterprise's "doohickeys" were the standard "doohickeys" of the time period. Know what else? We saw the Phoenix, about two hundred years earlier, with the same doohickeys -- and then the Enterprise NX-01, about a hundred years after that, and still with the same "doohickeys." Know what that means? That means that those are the doohickeys of Star Trek spaceflight. Not no "space turbines", not no "glowy deflector dish 80 years before TMP", fuckin' nuh-uh.

The Kelvin? Way the fuck out in left field. Know what that means? The Kelvin was "alternate timelined" by a timeline-changing event that hadn't fucking happened before it was constructed. And do you know what that means? That the "alternate timeline" ploy was bullshit. Even the people who dreamed it up didn't fuckin' treat it seriously. So why should I?

Of the Connie class.
The 30 year old Connie class.

And the NX class a hundred years before that. And the Phoenix a hundred years before that.

So no.

So?

So we're back to the question: If the people who whomped up the "alternate timeline" bullshit didn't treat it seriously enough to stick to it, why should I?

For those who need a cheat-sheet on that last question, here it is:

"You shouldn't. And I guess we shouldn't have, either. It was great spectacle. It was flashy and whiz-bang and woo-haw. But story-wise, it didn't take itself seriously at all, and for those of you who take stories seriously, gosh, I guess we can understand why you think this one flunked lunch."

That'd be the honest answer. Really would. It's probably also the least-likely answer to be heard here.

I was entertained by the movie, but I don't really consider it a proper Star Trek outing. I will probably go see the sequel, but if they didn't make a sequel I wouldn't be too upset about it. I'll give the movie a spin on DVD every now and then, but its not something I think much about or obsess over.

I liked it better than the last two Trek movies, but that isn't saying much. Star Trek V was piss-poor but at least it had the original cast.

The plot holes and inconsistencies in the new movie might have really bothered me 15 years ago... but after Voyager/Enterprise/Insurrection/Nemesis... I really don't care anymore. I just take it for what it is. Despite the presence of Old Spock, I still consider it a full reboot.

Anyway, how do we even know that Old Spock is actually from the same universe we've been watching all these years? I like to think that there is still a universe out there where Romulus hasn't been destroyed and Spock is still there working on reunification... nothing in the new movie really contradicts that notion.



And I like pomegranates.

Um, I think you're caught in some weird log loop, I don't get what you're fucking saying.

So...because NX-01, and Phoenix, follow a "look", but...Kelvin (in your opinion) departs from that "look",...it can't possibly fit in , therefore alternate timelines are bullshit?

Sounds like you're assuming the conclusion....

And as I (and others) have pointed out several times, altering the timeline of the Enterprise crew means that all of the time travel events they participated in were altered as well. Gary 7 interfering with Earth history in the 1960's? Altered. The aforementioned whale theft and handing over the recipe for transparent aluminium? Altered. Edith Keeler almost letting Hitler take over the world? Altered.

Then after a century you've got an Enterprise D/E crew with with a centuries worth of altered history behind it. That time aliens were sucking the life out of humans in the 19th century? Altered. Rasmussen and his attempts to steal 24th century technology to use in the 22nd century? Altered. Picard entering the Nexus and having the ability to travel anywhen? Altered. The crew of the E stopping the Borg from preventing First Contact? Altered.

And you're complaining about one ship looking different? Shit, you should be happy humans don't have antlers or something.

In my opinion? Are you actually serious with that? You have actually seen the Kelvin, right? It doesn't look like any other Star Trek ship, ever.

Oh, right, right, unless you want to reduce the idea of what a Star Trek ship looks like down so far that a Star Trek ship also looks like a freakin' dirigible. And then, yeah, the Hindenburg and the Kelvin are identical.