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

No he hasn't. He's got it laughably wrong....and so, it seems, have you.

There's absolutely nothing unreasonable about the question, and I am baffled as to why Castle is in need of special protection. His threats to destroy the board are quickly forgotten it seems....

Castle is in no need of special protection. Media Central is in need of remaining a flame and troll free forum as much as possible.

But there is no flame!!!!!!

Forget it Chup, it's Chinatown.

National Review's review of Star Trek: Into Darkness is pretty scathing.

Including the moral imbalance at the end where the viewers are supposed to care more about the results of one fistfight than tens of thousands of people killed in San Francisco.

I also found it amusing how the writer referred to the picture as having Starfleet "run like a prom committee instead of a professional military organization" (and yeah, everyone knows Starfleet is military).

Who cares? Have u seen it?

Discussions of Dayton's credentials take place in the Red Room. Discussions of DADT take place in the Red Room. I think a pattern is emerging here.

Guys, this thread ISN'T going to turn into a discussion of policy. Let's drop this and return to the topic. If you want to have it out over this, please take it to the Red Room. If it continues here, I'm going to close the thread.

As for how to fix the plot contrivances in STiD, I'll list a few possibilities:

Either scotch the "KHAAAAAN!" moment entirely, or have a more appropriate character execute it. McCoy, for example, would be far and away a more appropriate character for that moment, since between he and Spock, McCoy is the one who is actually Kirk's friend, as well as being credibly the more emotionally expressive of the two characters. It's fine for Spock to be there and to be emotionally moved and fired into violent action by McCoy's display of anguish, and it's a damned sight less unforgivably contrived that way. Furthermore, it establishes Kirk, Spock and McCoy as the primary trio they were in TOS, rather than just the duo of Kirk/Spock.

Just one example.

^I don't think that works.

Spock has an arc in the story, and his emotional response at Kirk's death is the payoff. If you have another character do it, Spock's arc is just kinda lost.

In both Abrams films, Spock's emotional outbursts are effective to us the audience because we see what it takes to provoke them. Spock getting angry at Kirk's death is MUCH more effective than McCoy doing so. We EXPECT humans to have strong emotions; to see it erupt from Spock amplifies our reaction to the plot.

I will say, as much as I didn't like the first film, I thought Spock's "Live long and prosper" that was a "fuck you" to the Vulcan council was well done.

That's true -- Spock does need a character arc. I'm not sure, though, that it has to necessarily be in a "more emotionally expressive" direction. It could be equally effective -- and in my opinion simultaneously more effective and more appropriate to the character -- for him to go from the level of emotional expression we see at the beginning of the film, where he's borderline insubordinate to Kirk (in the volcano scene) to flippant with Pike ("I'm currently displaying several attitudes; to which are you referring?) and growing progressively colder and more closed-off as the story progresses, until McCoy's anguished, "KHAAAAN!" sends him out for the brutal violence of his hunting Khan down on the planet's surface.

So rather than growing increasingly more overtly emotional, he instead closes down, tightens up and ices over, becoming a walking fist of a character -- and after that last straw that is Kirk's death, all that emotion we didn't see from him gets unleashed.

That's the kind of "where the fuck did that come from?!" twist that is appropriate and effective for an ostensibly stoic character. Granted, it's also a trope of its own, but it would have been a perfectly acceptable application of it.

Yeah, that doesn't work as well for me. Spock needs to feel the anger as a direct response to Kirk's death. McCoy can't be a catalyst for his metamorphosis. The only real problem with the scene is that we are used to Kirk screaming KHAN!!!!! But if that never happened (and it didn't in JJVerse), then it isn't a problem at all.

That was my first choice; simply not use that callback to TWOK at all. Or, frankly, any of the other ones, either. I've said before, I thought the whole point of the reboot was to take the franchise in new directions.

To tell that story, we'd have to see Spock trying to remain emotionless as more and more things happened to him:

That could work, but it would probably wind up focusing the story too much on Spock.

The secondary problem with that is that if Spock is totally emotionally repressed, it makes it hard for the audience to identify with him.

Edit: a third problem is that arc represents failure: Spock tries to keep himself under control and fails to do so. Failure to achieve a goal works just fine dramatically, but it's a bit of a downer for the audience. We want characters to overcome their burdens, not succumb to them.

Well, no, he wouldn't be totally repressed. He could certainly be visibly fighting it; but wasn't that part of what made the character work in its original incarnation? The usually subtle and occasionally overt war between his Human and Vulcan characteristics? Not to put too fine a point on it, but with these last two films, he's been less a Vulcan and more a volatile green (blooded) rage monster.

So why does he feel that much anger/anguish/whatever over Kirk's death to begin with? When did we see any sign of his previously considering Kirk to be someone to care about? I honestly can't remember.

meh-
if you have Khan in the movie, you have to have the scream. Spock was the logical choice to make it.

NAHT
there's a scene where they have a discussion on friendship and Kirk tells Spock they're BFF's. Part of his arc of course, is accepting the concept of friendship, so this kind of sets him up to be so emotionally affected. Other than his mother and Uhura, I doubt people express their affection to him much.

DADT was a bad law. Dayton should teach about that.

Face, I have reported your post as off topic spam. Furthermore, it's only okay to imply that Dayton is a teacher in Red Room threads. Paladin will be along shortly to close the thread.

Spock is the appropriate character. This film is partially about Spock dealing with death and his attempt to lock down his emotions, and Kirk's death acts as a revelation at how deep the relationship has come and the final straw that tears open all that repressed emotion.

Something similar in the primeverse may even have been what set that Spock on the path to Kolinahr.

It's telegraphing is pretty heavy-handed, from Spock melding with Pike to the argument with Uhura.

It's an issue with having a film series, where as in a TV series this can built up over a couple of years, they've got a 120 minute block with plenty of other things going on.

It'd be nice to see some sidequel character pieces to make up for that, but can't see that happening.

Had John Harrison been one of the other 71 superpeople instead of being Khan 2.0, then in that scene where nuMcCoy and Carol 2.0 open up & look in that warhead, the superman in there could've been Khan, & they could've superimposed Khan from "Space Seed"'s image over a stand in actor, or dummy perhaps, in the cryotube.

Also, nuCarol clearly grew up in the UK, unlike Carol Prime. Would it have been so hard for Alice Eve to convincingly fake an American accent for the role? As alot of other UK, as well as Australian and New Zealander actors & actresses do, a perfect example being New Zealander Karl Urban, who's in that very scene I talked about in the first paragraph.

All I know is, I just caught the movie again before it leaves theatres and it was even more awesome the second time around!

I think we will have another khan movie. We need a shatner or patrick stewart cameo.

I doubt it, or at least I hope not. NuTrek needs to do an original story now.

I hope not. It's time to get way from the cameos and stand on its own two feet. No more TOS cameos. No more TOS links.

I think it's time for a rematch with V'Ger.

OH!!!!

"Errand of Mercy", with V'Ger instead of Organians!!

"spock's Brain", except this time they take McCoy's.

The Naked Time is ripe for a remake, especially with nuSulu's awesome fencing chops.

Can we have Uhura run around the ship topless with a sword this time?