What Did You Think Of Star Trek? (Spoiler Discussion)
May 8, 2009 by Vic HoltremanNeed a place to talk about the Star Trek movie, including spoilers? Come on in…
Regular Screen Rant reader “790″ suggested I set up a discussion post for the Star Trek movie, where people can feel free to talk about all aspects of the film without having to worry about spoiling it for others. I had meant to set one of these up for Wolverine but just never got around to it.
Considering how popular I think Star Trek will be (moreso than Wolvie), I thought it might be a good idea to get this set up ASAP. 
So discuss the film below to your heart’s content!
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@John
Gonna respond to the Enterprise related post first. Just ’cause it was shorter.
I haven’t seen Scott Bakula in anything other than Enterprise, so I could be mistaken about his acting ability. But I remember so many times, especially in the first season, when he could have easily taken a line or a scene in another direction. It didn’t always have to be angry or confused.
“Naive” and “full of wonder” don’t say anger management issues to me. Neither does “flawed”. I don’t expect him to be anything like Picard. Picard, aside from having a lot more personal experience than Archer had, had centuries of starfleet history backing him up. Procedures, training, all of the mistakes having been made and worked out. Archer was much more like us: he came from a culture that had strained too far and too fast to get to where it was; where the world was changing every day and you had nothing but your self and those around you to rely on. I get it, I really do. I think that’s a great premise, and (strangely) one that I haven’t seen done before.
But he had the opportunity to discover the galaxy for the first time in the history of humanity, and he got angry at it! I can understand getting angry at specific things, but angry at the beggining, angry in the middle, and angry at the end? I can understand the confusion, to a point (not as far as he took it). It was a big new galaxy that they were facing, ad the Vulcans had pretty much shielded them from it for a long time. I can understand him being angry at the Vulcans. I can’t undertand him being angry at the universe. There could have been far more to that character then he put on the screen.
On a side note from the enterprise series discussion.
I really enjoyed the theme song from that show. I really did not watch it but that song… it felt to me like exactly what starfleet and the federation stood for. to quote it:
I see my dream come alive at night
I will touch the sky
And there not gonna hold me down no more
no there not gonna change my mind
Because i’ve got faith of the heart
i’m going where my heart will take me.
Since i first heard it i have trying to live my life that way.
Oh i dont think I actually answered the original question
of the thread.
I loved this movie. As did my mother and my sister. We are all avid trekkies. It is the only t.v. series that we all agree on. Trek made me who I am (computer tech) and showed me that at least one other person believed as i did.
Did i have any problems with this movie? Only that it made me cry at times and that has only ever happend before with the secret of nyhm and when optimus died in transformers the movie (no not that M. Bay crap). While I was in the theater when it ended I felt a need to stand up and shout my love of trek , I didn’t. I’m just to shy so I yelled it from my seat and it felt really damn good. I feel like a long lost part of me has been reawakened and for that JJ Abrams gets my gratitude, I give him this for as the title goes “Everything I need to Know I learned from Star Trek.
Thanks for reading folks. I think you all are the only ones who will get it.
@John on the Spock-related post.
Just to clear up right at the beggining: I have seen all of TOS. I’ve also seen most of the movies involving them at least twice (not V – it was just too bad). I’ve just only watched TOS through once, and that was a couple of years ago, because I really hated watching Shatner’s Kirk. Watching him gave me a deep understanding of the feminist movement (from someone who swore that feminism had no place anymore), and I don’t like to feel that much hate, so I haven’t re-watched it. I did watch every episode once, though, and I really liked the rest of the main characters. (So, don’t tell me it was the times. Scotty and Bones were the times. The uniforms were the times. The sexy, airheaded yeomen were the times. Kirk was not just the times.)
I know that Spock was not a stone, emotionally, in TOS. He had a quiet sense of humor, he had cultural prejudices. And, yeah, I tend to discount inconsistancies from the earliest episodes because both the actors and the writers were still finding their characters. This is especially true of TOS, because it was the first show of its kind (so far as I’ve found – I wasn’t alive then to know).
You wrote, “It helps to remember that, far from being a naturally logical race, the Vulcans, although gifted with an unusually clear, deductive mind, are nonetheless VERY highly emotional – that is why the great Vulcan messiah, Surak, was so determined to make peace, 1500 or so years before, to keep Vulcan from consuming itself in a global thermonuclear war. It is this very highly emotional nature of the Vulcans that made their embrace of logic and reason so central to their survival as a species.”
As it was both a necessity and highly desirable social feature, I would think that Vulcans would have an evolutionary trend toward minds that were naturally ever more ordered and inclined to logic. As a human-vulcan hybrid, Spock’s mind would be less naturally inclined to order and logic (our minds are just so seriously messed up), which would make him less able to strictly control his emotions. His emotions would most likely also be less dangerously intense because of his heratige (though still stronger than human emotions. That accounts for all of the emotional slip-ups we see from Spock that weren’t induced by mind-altering mechanisms. I certainly wasn’t saying that vulcans are emotionless, but I do think that Spock would be more naturally inclined to showing emotion than a full-blooded vulcan. It’s that tendancy that I’m calling his humanity.
Because this is taboo in vulcan culture, and he grew up among vulcans almost exclusively, I think he would have tried from a very young age to deny that this tendancy existed and quickly (nearly sub-consciously) quash anything that he thought showed this perceived weakness. The thing is, the big ones like happiness, anger, sorrow, joy, jealousy, etc. are obvious. The small ones like some points of humor, contentment, the love of friendship – these things slip in without us even noticing. It was the quiet emotions that Spock showed throughout TOS.
You also wrote, “By being as Vulcan as possible, even with the failure of his ‘Kohlinaar’ ritual (good catch there, Vee), but instead accepting the highly charged emotional nature of his dual personality, he becomes a perfect model of self-discipline for both species – hell, all species.”
I don’t know about the perfect model of self-discipline.
The perfect model of balance, perhaps. When he accepted that his emotions were part of who he was and stopped trying to hide all of them, he was able to find the balance required to let himself feel but not be overwhelmed.
As for Kirk saying that Spock’s soul was the most “human” one he had ever encountered, I chalked that up to things people say at funerals that they wouldn’t have said before the person died. Actually, come to think of it, I’d really like to know how the Star Trek writers define “human”. They pull that same gimmick with Data, and I don’t really think that Spock and Data are very much alike at all. (I see the logic simularity, but other than that, they’re nothing alike.)
You seem to be one of those people who’s been watching TOS for longer than I’ve been alive (born in ’87), so you could probably answer this. Did the idea of vulcans being a naturally highly emotional species rather than a naturally highly logical species actually get presented during the show’s original run, or was that one of the things they added in later? I know that that was used in TNG, but I don’t actually remember it being used before that.
I have re-watched the film now, and wow, there really are a LOT of lense flares. I think I didn’t really notice it before because I have Irlen Syndrome, and the world looks that flarey, streaky and bright to me every day. Even with that, it was slightly annoying to me once I noticed it. It must have been quite aggravating for those of you who aren’t used to it.
I also did better with young Spock this time. What really helped was the realisation that this Spock will never become the Spock I’m used to, so there’s no need to reconcile them. They’re completely different people. Kind of like brothers. Same background; different person.
The plot holes and inconsistancies still bothered me. And the romence still seemed thrown in for the sake of romance. And it was still Star Wars with Trek characters and history. And the fight scenes weren’t any more watchble than before. Thankfully, that shakey hand-cam extreme close-up thing is just a phase that Hollywood’s going through right now.
Man, I don’t even know where to start. There are so many posts and so little time. I have been watching Star Trek since about 1968 (I was 9) and it was close to the end of it’s run and I have of course seen all moveis, series episodes, etc. I am not an intellectual and I dare say I am ot really a purist either. I do have the Encyclopedia and many other books, etc, but the bottom line is that I love Trek and I love it no matter what. No matter how ‘well’ it’s scripted there are those of us that also want it to be “fun” as in Kirk’s last words. If it’s not a bit fun, then what’s the point? And I am not so insecure that I am offended that Spock dare ever have a romantic or feeling relationshipor that they put that in there at all. There are humans in teh movie and part of life is sex and romance. It’s not just all work and play. Spock was still finding his true course and I think he always had to struggle with the human part. As to Vee’s post I think it’s always been known that Spock is 1/2 human. I can’t recall when exactly Vulcan’s were presentted a highly emotional race that learned to oppress that but I thought it was always known. I will have to read my Enclyclopedia. At any rate, I am not so much concerned with all the technicalities. I enjoy it nonetheless. Compared to others I know very little and I can’t remember all the details like some. It just seems to me that those that are the most disappointed seem to missing the point. It’s supposed to be fun. It’s not “real” and it’s ok.
@everybody
I’ve seen the movie five times now, just to make certain I have my facts straight before I post on here. First, this was a top-notch movie, and it was also imperfect. I (like many others) wrote my doctoral dissertation on Star Trek, so I know a thing or two about it. It’s great to get credit for watching a show you love. Now, specifically, I love TOS, and the first six movies. After that, there hasn’t been any Star Trek for me. I’ve read all of the posts on here, and I don’t honestly remember if it’s in one of them or one of the many reviews I’ve read elsewhere on Star Trek, but everything after TOS has been a movie/series with “Star Trek” slapped on it.
I *hated* the Enterprise-D. Nobody has ever explained to me the benefits of an aerodynamic starship. My point was beautifully (poetically?) proven with the introduction of the Borg. (I watched enough TNG to know stand firm in my loathing of it) A cube-shaped ship is about as far away from aerodynamic as possible. So, let’s talk reality for a couple of paragraphs.
First, in Star Trek the series, people have to remember that the original pilot (the Cage) was never meant to see the light of day. It was meant to SELL a series to a network. The network bolted and we got “Where No Man Has Gone Before.” Enter Kirk. Spock smiled in that episode, said weird things like “Ahh yes, one of your human emotions” as if he had never encountered them before. He used contractions constantly (something you’ll notice Zachary Quinto’s Spock never does – excellent writing) and he emotes. Compare this Spock to the one that appears in “Mudd’s Women” (the first episode that actually aired) and they’re like two different people. People conveniently forget that the original series contradicted itself quite frequently, because writers were hired on a per-episode basis. Something that the ship could do easily in one episode is impossible in another. Stardates were just numbers made up to fill a part of the opening sequence (or return from a commercial break) and had no order to them. They fixed this in TNG (I believe) and in the movies, but they are clearly screwed up in TOS. It never bothered me in the least.
Gene Roddenberry needed episodes in a bad way due to the lag in SFX production in TOS, so he broke “The Cage” into two episodes, and filmed about 20 minutes of footage to end cap it. Jeffrey Hunter (the original Pike) wouldn’t reprise the role, so they had to get some unknown actor, apply a ton of make-up, and make him horribly scarred and put him in a “wheelchair” so that nobody would notice. Pike never had a chance to develop into a character because he only existed in one episode. So, Greenwood’s Pike in the movie is a fantastic addition of detail to this otherwise-mysterious character from Star Trek past.
I was very upset when I first saw a picture of the new Enterprise for this movie… I agree with the post above, it seemed like they morphed the Enterprise from the TV series with the one in the movies. Then I saw it on the screen and fell in love – that’s the great thing about movies: they can surprise you.
People in this board are amazing in their criticism! What was Chekov doing in the movie? “He wasn’t introduced until the second season.” Just because we don’t see him until the second season does not mean he wasn’t on the ship. Sulu was originally in astrophysics, I believe. He definitely was *not* the helmsman in “Where No Man Has Gone Before.” On the subject of Chekov, try playing “Kill the Chekov” as a drinking game. The first movie, they fry his arm. Second movie – ear worms. Third movie… pretty good for him. Fourth movie… falls off a nuclear “wessel’s” deck to the dock… add in the stupid things he does in the series and you can get drunk very quickly, so play with care.
I will admit, Nero was no Khan as a villain, but I disliked him as a character, and generally you’re not supposed to like the villain, so they score a star there.
The SFX are an amazing blend of past and present. I thought the bridge looked a little retro compared to the first six movies, but if you look at the movies, you’ll see that the bridge morphs quite a bit throughout the movies. The set was damaged after Star Trek IV was filmed, so Paramount “borrowed” their own property for the fifth and sixth movies. Using the TNG “Battle Bridge” with some window dressing, if my memory serves me. Nobody has complained here that this violated canon. I mean, we *clearly* see the “old” bridge at the end of “The Voyage Home” (ST IV or “the one with the whales” to those who need a reference) yet it’s completely rebuilt in ST V for no reason. Uhura’s in love with Scotty for no apparent reason. Spock has a half-brother that nobody knew about for no apparent reason. (It’s noteworthy that his mind and McCoy’s were melded for the span of the third movie, and even McCoy didn’t know Spock had a half-brother?)
The point to all of this is that every Star Trek movie has had a few problems, even Star Trek VI’s “starboard thrusters, turn her into the wave” on Excelsior’s bridge when the ship is clearly turning to port. That’s called “we shot the scenes and whoever did the VFX wasn’t paying attention at ILM.” It happens, the movie was still good. Did anybody wonder why they needed book dictionaries printed on paper to look up Klingon words? I mean, even if “the Universal Translator would be recognized” as Chekov comments, couldn’t they use SCREEN-BASED dictionaries? In other words…
1. Hit Mute.
2. “Computer, how do I say ‘we are carrying supplies to Rura Penthe?”
3. Computer displays response.
4. Unmute and speak.
It was a plot line that worked in the movie, and I laughed with everyone else that they were reading books.
Now, onto acting.
First, Karl Urban was channeling DeForest Kelly – Kelly’s Dr. McCoy was my inspiration for becoming a physician, and Urban kept that spirit alive. Another star awarded to this movie.
Quinto does a great job of picking up the Spock from “Where No Man Has Gone Before” and taking him back to a place from which I can see him logically (pardon the pun) originating.
The thing that a lot of people don’t like to admit is that Star Trek was about Kirk/Spock/McCoy. It’s why they (and only they) appeared in the “Starring” sequence of the credits in TOS. Heck, they didn’t even add DeForest Kelly until the second season. If a series tries to focus on too many characters, you can’t connect with them. Roddenberry’s vision was for an interracial crew (with a Vulcan thrown in to boot) but that doesn’t mean the story focused on ethnic mixing. Yes, the interracial kiss was huge, and kudos to Star Trek for doing it, but why wasn’t Uhura (even once) left the Conn? The “also-starring” actors were all excellent in their roles. I’d have like to have seen more Scotty, but his introduction was where it was in the movie, and it works for the purposes of the script. He better get more screen time in the sequel, but not too much. He was always an “almost-starring” character for me.
If I’m going to complain about this movie, there’s my first complaint: Chekov was left the Conn, and he turned it over to some unknown guy sitting at the helm. Uhura has never been in command of the Enterprise – that they could have fixed: props to them for finally canonizing her first name, though. I was upset that Sulu was given that honor in “The Undiscovered Country” but they couldn’t find time to do the same for Uhura. So, there’s a second star – fixing something that’s been bothering me for years.
I’m very pleased they kept William Shatner out of this movie. He made his bed when he signed the contract to do Generations. Unlike Nimoy, who got a great death scene, Shatner got a paltry, “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!” He didn’t even die saving *his* Enterprise. Bringing him into this movie would have served no purpose, and really would have screwed up the time stream in a way that can’t be explained by alternate timelines. Unless we want to assume that Spock (Prime) was from an alternate timeline where Kirk doesn’t die, and lives to be about 150 years old, yet only looks about 80. Shatner was and will always be Captain Kirk to me, but his presence in this movie would have served nothing. A star for sticking to their guns on this – Shatner tried very hard to get into this movie. Spock was integral to the story line, Kirk was not.
To prove I was paying attention, here are the things that baffle me about this movie:
1. Vulcan and Earth sure must be close, or Kirk was unconscious for a long time in Sickbay. (Did anyone else notice McCoy call to Nurse Chapel off screen, or the old “thwump” of the med bed when Kirk was thrust on it?) I can’t figure out why the trip was so short.
1a. I can completely understand Vulcan not having defenses. They’re pacifistic people. Nobody asked where the orbital facilities were in “Amok Time” as the only thing in orbit during that episode was the Enterprise. Anyone remember when Surak went to negotiate with Colonel Green in “The Savage Curtain?” Spock gives a long (for a TV Episode) speech on Vulcans’ disdain for violence. It doesn’t surprise me, then, that Vulcan does not have orbital defenses. There was an awful lot of debris floating around when the Enterprise shows up in the movie, so I presume Nero just blew everything up. That I can believe.
2. Why is Delta Vega so close to Vulcan?
2a. I get that they’re paying homage to the planet so named in “Where No Man Has Gone Before” but that planet was not an ice planet, and it definitely wasn’t close to Vulcan. I know that Vulcan has no moons, but it does have a huge “sister” planet with varying names if you read the books. Regardless, it is not Delta Vega. So they get a star for paying homage but lose a star because it just doesn’t fit.
3. Where was Kirk’s older brother?
3a. Kirk *clearly* finds his older brother George, (now officially named after their father) in “Operation Annihilate!” and even if the time continuum changes when Nero’s ship comes back, George Kirk is *older* than Jim Kirk. He should not be affected by the change in time. According to the novelization, and several websites, this role was written and cast, but the character never appears. It’s not integral to the plot line, but neither is the random “I’m stealing your car” scene. So Kirk was a hellion as a child… I didn’t need a movie to help me figure that out. Down a star for messing with a part of the canon and not explaining it. (Points – but no star – for naming Kirk’s mom and dad per the books, and his grandfathers to boot)
That’s it. No more things about which I can complain.
I’m not a bothered by everyone else that Vulcan was destroyed, or that Amanda dies. Did it have to happen? No. But it was integral to this story, which is the story that the director chose to tell. I might have picked a different planet (say, Andor or Tellar) to destroy as a writer, but that wouldn’t evoke the emotional response necessary from Spock. If they cleaned everything up at the end of this movie, you get a Disney movie. I don’t want to see “Princess Uhura” dolls at my local Target store. Star Trek II ended messily (dead Spock) as did three (no Enterprise). The story arc came to a graceful close at the end of Star Trek IV – Spock’s back, new ship, we can boldly go again.
On the subject of “The Voyage Home,” it’s noteworthy that much like the original Motion(less) Picture, the enemy was not someone I hated. I did not hate the Probe. I feared it, so it was a good villian, but it had no acting, no voice, no emotion. Not all villians need a good background if the story is well told. So Bana’s Nero was okay for me, as I mentioned previously.
I’m not sure what my final “rating” is for this movie, because I’m a doctor, not a mathematician. If someone wants to add up my additions and subtractions of stars, feel free. The rating I ascribe to this movie isn’t nearly as important as what it did for me: it re-engaged me to a series with which I had become completley disenfranchised. It kept the core essence of Star Trek and made is visceral, beautiful, and fun. I am eager for a Star Trek sequel for the first time in almost twenty years. Since I’m in my mid thirties, that’s impressive.
If someone wants to banter points of the plot, I’m all game for that. My prescription to Vic: keep writing movie reviews – yours was excellent and prety spot on.
To Fury2701, I am in the same boat. I loved Enterprise and the opening music. It was different, Scott Bakula was hot an they needed to stick it out for 1 more season. If I recall, on the opening night of NexGen, I already had all my little preconcieved, purist notions and I had decided that I wasn’t going to like it, no sir-re! It really did take until season 3-4 for it to start to grow on me. Now, when I watch the 1st few season of NG I think it was a bit cheesy and over acted. I feel the same about DS9 and Voyager. I wasn’t really hooked and involved until seasoni 3-4. I am hoping against hope that they bring it back but I know that will never happen. T
@ Vee & Badnewsoit; RE ‘Enterprise’:
(Smiling, sheepishly) Sorry, Vee, if I got the impression that you had watched only a FEW of the TOS episodes, instead of watching the ENTIRE series only ONCE through – quite a big difference, and I missed it because I didn’t read your post closely enough – I apologize profusely.
I have to admit, Bakula would not’ve been my first choice for a starship commander – that would’ve been Robert Patrick, aka FBI Special Agent John Doggett, partner to SA Dana Scully of the X-Files. I also would like to see TV/movie veteran Robert Ironside in that role, but not on ‘Enterprise’ – maybe some ST series set even further in the future. Patrick, at least, would’ve been more quizzical about the galaxy. In that sense, his curiosity as an FBI agent would serve him well as a starship captain – a man of authority, unafraid of the responsibility of representing all of humanity. Damn sure better than Shatner.
And Bad, I liked that song, too; as a Star Trek series theme, it differed from the others in that it was a an actual SONG, with lyrics, and I am sure I read somewhere that it was chosen just for the series, as a sort of touchstone for the ST philosophy.
As I said in an earlier post, if not for that Franchise, my natural cynicism about people would’ve devolved into full-blown depression a long time ago – an effect of the TOS series noticed, and remarked on, as far back as the interim period not long after the first cancellation (Tom Snyder’s late night talk show, guest stars Jimmy Doohan & DeForest Kelly, followed up by writer & Star Trek consultant Harlan Ellison), when people who had serious emotional and even physical handicaps watched TOS and somehow, mysteriously, felt better & happier about life.
I don’t remember ever being completely satisfied with ‘Enterprise’, but perhaps my lackluster passion for the show was a matter of it only suffering by comparison to, I dunno, uh, FOUR OTHER TV SERIES and 10 – count ‘em, TEN MOVIES – YA THINK??? I knew it was a prequel, but my attitude was like, “Helllloooo? The FIRST Starship Enterprise? I thought that was a Constitution class vessel captained by guys with names like April, Pike, and Kirk???”
Anyway, all things considered, I thought they did a good job, Bakula notwithstanding, and I won’t be an apologist for the series, only for the idea; if you ask me, if it isn’t in the Star Trek Chronological Concordance, it didn’t happen.
And it isn’t like I was completely satisfied with TOS, either. I loved Spock, and he (and Uhura running around in a miniskirt – forgive me, Vee, I am but a man) made up for ‘overdramatic Bill’ Shatner.
But then, it IS Star Trek, I’m sure you’ll agree…anything can happen.
Perhaps, as someone mentioned on here, the series ‘Enterprise’ was a result of the altered timeline events in the movie ST/’First Contact’…
???
JOHN
JOHN
@ Vee:
Vee, I agree with you, kiddo – ‘balanced’ is a much better description of Spock, perfect or not, than ‘self-disciplined’ – as a matter of fact, I would say that the term ‘self-disciplined Vulcan’ is a redundant oxymoron (!), but I like your term better just for it’s accuracy. Let’s face it, that is more important, what was I thinking, lol?
And to answer your last question about basic Vulcan passion (seems the best word for it), you don’t have to take what is in the later series & movies as evidence, the TOS episodes were full of it – in ‘The Savage Curtain’, where Spock was able to meet the great Surak face to face (sort if); in ‘Amok Time’, where Spock had to fight Kirk (standing in for T’Pring’s true love, a Vulcan named Stonn), not because he wanted to but because he REALLY had become, despite what Bones had said to him in his defense as a sentirent being, like a “salmon swimming upstream”; or like in ‘The Paradise Syndrome’, where alien plant spores made him shake off his Vulcan sense of duty, fall in love with an old flame of his from Earth (Jill Ireland), and only after Kirk (who was curiously immune to the spores) angered his Vulcan temper to the point of murderous rage, did he regain his senses; he was also very into the art & beauty of ‘The Cloud Minders’ (as well as the beautiful Droxine); or the regret & pain he expressed to Kirk, even if under a strange mutated molecule infecting the whole crew in ‘The Naked Time’, that he could never tell his mother Amanda that he loved her – that he came from a culture where his friendship for Kirk, or any friendship, was considered ‘bad taste’.
As for your comparison of Spock to Data, that actually happened, in the TNG episode ‘Unification, Part 1′ (I THINK, maybe it was Part 2); Spock fully admitted to Data that like him, he still felt apart from the Terran humans, but he had learned to acccept that he was only human by half. Data was surprised at this, android logic being what one might expect, as he had always desired more than anything else to be fully human, like Pinnochio.
Spock merely raised one eyebrow, as was his fashion, and answered, “You would be surprised, Commander…”, leaving much unsaid.
Personally, I don’t think Kirk was just eulogizing at Spock’s firs tfuneral, he meant it, like Scotty playing his ‘Amazing Grace’ recording on the bagpipes, something common anywhere on Earth that was ever a part of the British Empire (including Arlington National Cemetery, to this day).
I mean, f’Chrissakes, they ALL went back to get his body on Genesis Planet – he was their friend, and those six people considered him as human as they were themselves.
I think it’s clear that, Vulcan or not, Spock’s decisions throughout the whole of his life, from his fateful choice to help Christopher Pike return to Vela on Talos IV, to his return to the Enterprise after his failure of Kohlinaar, to his sacrifice in the bowels of the Big E’s warpcore and later his loyalty to Kirk & McCoy and their rescue off of Rura Penthe – hell, even his willingness to deliver the red matter into the heart of the Killer Star, Hobus, in this last movie – is evicence enough to me that, at LEAST by half, he was as human as any of us.
And as for Kirk, well…he was his friend. Friends stand by each other.
JOHN
PS: You’re right, I am an old fart, lol! I was 15 when Star Trek first premiered on NBC, 20 YEARS before you were born, so yes, at 56, I do qualify as an original, life-time fan!
I suppose the concept of Vucan savagry was quite evident in TOS, as I say above, but so was their hatred of violence and their desire for the order of a civilized society – probably why they supported the capital of the Federation, so to speak, being in San Francisco, the original home of the ‘old’ United Nations (as it was founded there in 1945, moved to Flushing Meadow, NY, and finally moved to New York City); apparently there was something they very much admired in the human tendency towards peace and away from war – to an alien curious about Spock, Kirk once noted that they ‘worship peace, above all’ – and like the humans of Earth, they came about it honestly, as they very nearly wiped themselves out in the time of Surak.
Later, Vee, thanx for asking -
@ Steve:
Gotta tell ya, Doc, I really, really loved all you said – and now I have ‘Verbosity Envy’, is that a real condition? I thought I had a lot to say, lol! I mean that as a compliment, oarticularly loved your take on the Enterprsie bridge translation scene! (“Nope, it’s not in the LCARS, we need a Klingon/English-English/Klingon dictionary…get the Funk & Wagnalls, somebody…anybody?”) Hahaha! Loved it!
My favorite musing of yours is the ‘Kill the Chekov, Kill the chekov’ drinking game! “Nucleear wessels…?”
I am warry soorry, buut I vill have to stun you…PFFFT!
Whoops….
You crack me up, Doc! You’re a doctor, not a mathematician! Lol!
I love it! Not at all surprised that Bones McCoy was your inspiration to aspire to medicine. I have two nieces who are medical doctors, and they both loved Bones, too.
To quote your own words right back at you about the new movie: “It kept the core essence of Star Trek and made it visceral, beautiful, and fun. I am eager for a Star Trek sequel for the first time in almost twenty years. Since I’m in my mid thirties, that’s impressive.”
Well, I am 56, and I feel the same – if you ask me, you nailed it.
Good job, Steve,
JOHN
@Steve
One of the funniest posts I have seen. So many of these posts feels like there writers are wound way to tight.
I was around 10y/o when I really got into trek in it’s syndicated run and I have watched ever since. In fact I have seen the episodes of TOS, TNG, DS9, and even Enterprise countless times.
I had posted way earlier about this topic and I have finally found a friend. THE ENTERPRISE-D HAS BEEN THE UGLIEST STARSHIP EVER! Areodinamic my ass!
The borg had one big collective laugh when they saw it!
And one more question for ya. Why did scotty need a mascot?
@Cookie Garris
About scotty’s sidekick: Maybe it’s just because I’m female and find everything cute, but I thought it was hilarious and random and I loved it.
@Fury2701
I love Enterprise. Yeah Archer annoys me, but I don’t expect perfection and overall I love the series. I wish it went longer, the last episode was utter crap. They should’ve left it at the 2nd last episode, it had a feeling of the end. The last episode seemed to come out of nowhere, it was almost like they felt that they had to kill someone to end it. Trip shouldn’t have died, he was awesome… I never watch the last episode because it pisses me off so bad.
But no, you are not the only one who loves Enterprise
@John
You wrote, “And it isn’t like I was completely satisfied with TOS, either. I loved Spock, and he (and Uhura running around in a miniskirt – forgive me, Vee, I am but a man) made up for ‘overdramatic Bill’ Shatner.”
Don’t worry – I’m not that kind of feminist. I think appreciating a person’s physical attributes is fine. We’ve evolved to have a great interest in the opposite sex’s physical attributes. What I have a problem with is women being forced by society to emulate the ideal of a sexually attractive woman (revealing clothes, make-up, shaved legs, plucked eyebrows, pierced ears, the list goes on) in order to be recognised as women, only to be rewarded by being assumed to be sexually permissive. And by society, I don’t mean men. We do it to ourselves, too. I’m not against men finding women sexually attractive, I’m against people (note: people, not just men) ostracizing women who choose not to participate in the whole “beauty” industry, but still have hygene standards at or above those required for men.
I also have a problem with men who lie to or mislead women to get into their panties, which was pretty much my problem with Shatner’s Kirk. Fine, sleep with a lot of women, just don’t represent it as anything but casual.
I agree with you that the Eterprise opening theme rocked. I actually liked the opening sequence a lot. It was very different from anything Trek had done before and really emphasised that this was not a show about the federation. It was a show about Earth and humanity finding it’s place in the galaxy.
Oddly, I don’t really ahve a problem with things not exactly matching the published ST timeline. In my view, that was more of a guideline than gospel, and anything that was only mentioned in a line or two throughout canon can or has been changed because somebody thought of something better. It’s actually kind of like we get to see the first draft of ideas. When those ideas get fleshed out, edited, and refined later on, they’re often very different from the first draft (klingons, ferengi, trill are just a few that come to mind).
“Perhaps, as someone mentioned on here, the series ‘Enterprise’ was a result of the altered timeline events in the movie ST/’First Contact’…”
Ooo, that’s a good theory. Especially since they’ve officially jumped on board with this theory of time travel. I really want to see how they reconcile this with the clearly linear time travel of earlier Treks, though. My first thought was that they were going to say that different methods of time travel did different things, because of how they worked. How the borg time travel works into that deserves some more research in the future.
@John RE: my question about vulcans.
I had forgotten about the events in ‘Amok Time’, thanks. That alone pretty much confirms that vulcans had a highly emotional and savage background in TOS. In ‘The Paradise Syndrome’ and ‘The Naked Time’, I remember feeling that those were Spock-specific because of his human half. I also remember theorizing that his emotions in those episodes were more extreme than for the rest of the crew because he was unused to handling emotions rather than denying them, but I was probably wrong on that, given the depth of vulcan emotions. As for ‘The Savage Curtain’ and ‘The Cloud Minders’, I feel bad about it, but I don’t remember those episodes at all! D:
As for the describing of Spock (and Data) of being “human”, this is one of the points that’s really bother me about ST almost the whole way through. The writers seem to regard saying that an alien was very human as the biggest compliment that can be given. What massive arrogance! Not to mention blindness. The only show they didn’t do this in was DS9, which could be part of why it’s my standing favourite out of all the ST shows to date.
What exactly was it about Spock that was supposed to have been more human than all of the humans that Kirk had actually met? With Data, I can at least understand where they were coming from a bit. Curiosity is often regarded as one of the key traits that’s made humans what we are, and it was also Data’s defining trait. This completely ignores that my dog happens to be pretty curious and I don’t think of her as human, but I can at least understand it. But Spock? If he’d been a full-blooded human, I doubt they would have ever thought to say something like that about him. Kirk was just paying him the highest compliment he could think of (and again, I think that was the height of arrogance).
Things like Spock’s “loyalty to Kirk & McCoy and their rescue off of Rura Penthe” are not strictly human traits. Bringing my dog into this again, she’s extremely loyal, but I don’t think of her as human. This isn’t meant to compare vulcans to dogs, btw, just to show that these admirable traits are in no way limited to humans and that it’s bigotted to think that they are.
You also seem to have misunderstood me a bit about the implications of that eulogy of Kirk’s not being completely honest. This doesn’t mean that I thought their friendship was a sham, or that he wasn’t loved by the crew of the Enterprise. Obviously, they cared very deeply for him. I just don’t think that they had to consider him the epitome of humanity to do that. That they would have to think of him as being a human with vulcan baggage to care about him actually lessens the friendship in my eyes.
@ JOHN
You think that was a long post? I edited for content!
I agreed with so many comments (and disagreed with so many others) that I just decided to write my own.
Anyone who expects Star Trek to be a neat continuum of events will go insane. Look at “City on the Edge of Forever.” McCoy saves Edith Keeler and suddenly the Enterprise is gone. Didn’t spin off a new time continuum there, it affected the one we’re in. Of course, the “logical” answer is that it did, but we were observing the events in this time continuum. It makes my head hurt, but that’s why I don’t rationalize everything to the nth degree and I enjoy the show as a futuristic, optimistic series of stories that make me feel good after watching them.
@Cookie
You really don’t want to get me started on Enterprise-D, or the U.S.S. Dust-buster (formally known as Voyager) because I just didn’t like the look of the ships. And I’ve always felt that Picard’s bridge looked like an airport lounge. Look, faux wood and carpet! I expected Troi to ask if I wanted pretzels every now and again as the ship warped through long voyages. If the latter series were enjoyable for you, that’s fantastic. But for me, they disappointed (one exception: I loved the DS9 “Trials and Tribbleations” episode – true homage).
@Vee
I think the symbiotic paradigm between Spock’s two “halves” is poetic. First, he’s not “half” anything. He’s a Spock. He calls himself Vulcan, just as I call myself “American” but my ancestry is not Native American. Like all Vulcans, Spock has emotions, and being half-human neither adds nor subtracts to this. Physiologically speaking, it’s possible that certain characteristics such as brain development may have made mastering human emotions more difficult for him than a 100% Vulcan (genetically speaking) but Spock’s inner conflicts are reflective of our own battles of who we want to be versus who we are. That’s not making Spock human; it’s describing the human condition, of which Spock is a great and unique lens through which it can be viewed.
@ everyone
If you don’t recall episodes, you can watch them all for free online in HD. I think it’s just at cbs.com, but any Goggle search will turn up the appropriate site. You can learn a lot about Vulcan from the episode “All Our Yesterdays” where Spock and McCoy (and Kirk) are marooned in the past of Sarpeidon, and Spock “reverts” to Vulcans of that time and gets very belligerent toward McCoy. An excellent demonstration of an angry Spock as portrayed by Leonard Nimoy.
@ Cookie (again)
That “wee beastie” of Scotty’s sidekick was (as so many people have already noted) the Jar Jar Binks of this movie. Completely worthless except for comedic humor. If it makes a reappearance, I will be extremely disappointed.
@ everyone above who said the same thing
I loved the new warp effect. It’s the most realistic one they’ve ever shown in my opinion, never having travelled faster than light personally. In conclusion:
@ every critic
Star Trek is not perfect, but it has caused countless great things to happen in our society. People dreamed of little devices that let you communicate with an orbiting starship and thirty years later, we have them. There’s no particular reason that most mobile phones have to flip open, but the fact that many early designers were Trekkies probably plays into it. The authors of the original scripts as well as consultants to the original shows were scientific dreamers. Every great thing begins with a dream, and even if we didn’t have the “Eugenics Wars of the 1990s” (thank God for that) we’re starting to brush up against that subject as cloning and genetic modification become more actualized.
Fun discusion everyone. I have to go heal people for eight to ten hours, but I enjoy this discussion. Today’d random bit of medical advice: do not encourage your children to put light brite pegs up their nose or in their ears. They don’t enjoy having them removed.
Primum No Nocere (look it up!)
Steve
WOW! And I thought all the girls that posted for the Twilight article a couple months ago were in too deep..
Except for the token Ewok with the paper mache’ mask (Lucas has cursed us all) and the over use of lens flares I liked it, a lot!
8 out of 10 easily or 3.5 out of 5 (4 without the Ewok)
..and Zoe was HOT!
@Steve
I say we should nominate you for the Screen Rant Trek Award.
You have the most analytical view of Trek I have seen in a long time.
One of the things that drew me to Trek was the use of scientific theories. Even in TNG, terms like “Heisenberg Compensators” and “Dyson’s Sphere’s” were thrown around but are actual scientific theories. Also, the episode “All Our Yesterdays” spawned a book where Zarabeth had a son that for reasons that escape me at the moment was needed in the 23rd century (had something to do with the Guardian malfunctioning). Of course, the books are not canon but many are entertaining.
After reading all of these posts and thinking very hard about all of the points brought up, comparing this to the original, how scientifically sound all of the theories are (old vs. new), and how this movie was probably influenced by another movie, I’ve come to a conclusion: JessSayin is absolutely on the spot correct, Zoe was indeed HOT!!! Wowza!
Lol, sorry, I find myself unable to join in the Star Trek discussion sometimes since I never really watched the originals. I’ve seen some episodes from every series, TOS, Next Gen, Voyager, and DS9, but not the newer Enterprise show…
But out of them all, I would have to say that I liked Next Gen for their scientific technobabble, but hated their politically correct BS. TOS was more fun to watch, but was just so cheesy, lol. The others were, blah…
@Steve
I recognise that Spock was on the show as a tool to be used to comment on the human condition. So was Data. So were Quark and Odo. So were the Doctor and Neelix (more the Doctor than Neelix). If you’re looking at them from the point of view of a literary analysis essay, that’s really all you need to care about.
I use fictional as a tool for escapism. If you’re escaping into another world, that world has to be real for you, and it has to make sense. It has to be able to make you feel things you’re just not getting from real life. That’s why the details (and you’ll notice, not all of the details) are important to me. If it was just a show that had people on it that you admired growing up, and what’s important to you now is the effect it’s had on the world we live in, that’s fine. I recognise those things, but they’re not what’s important for me. I know I can’t really speak for the others here who care about the details, because I don’t know them, but I hope this helps you understand some of the reasons that people care so much.
I find it interesting that you would say that Spock’s not half anything. Do you know anyone who’s half asian and half black? If you do, ask them if that didn’t effect their lives and their self-image. The origins and cultures of your parents definitely influence your life. Being a child of two cultures that don’t normally mix can’t be ignored.
When I say I haven’t watched them, I mean that I don’t really keep up with them. I would watch episodes if they happen to air before or after a program I’m watching, but that’s about it.
@Vee
Go to Jamaica, or any of the islands, you’ll meet people who are half asian and half black all over the place…
Big deal about how the ship looked, as long as it didn’t look like the Wright Brother’s plane who cares. As far as power and features there is an argument. USS Defiant didn’t look like much but it was T-bagging the hell out of Cardassian ships and what not.
@John
I couldn’t agree more.
Ann Crispin’s Books “Yesterday’s Son” and “Time for Yesterday” are both very good (even if they’re non-canon) books.
I also appreciate the sentiment on the nomination, but I really have enough alphabet soup after my name now, I don’t know if I can take any more
@Vee
There’s a different between escapism and obsession. Regardless of what anyone (and I include myself in this group) may wish, Star Trek is fiction. It is generally good fiction, but it remains fiction. If people enjoy the movie and go and see it again, it is successful fiction. If they base it on probable-but-not-yet-realized theories it is science fiction.
I know a lot of people who are of mixed heritage, but none of them have ever tried to dissect themselves and say “my Asian half makes me do this and my African half doesn’t want me to do that” so ethnic backgrounds, while important, form your personality, but there’s no gene that makes Asians smarter than Africans. Data was (and to me remains) a cheap rip-off of Spock, and I’m really not qualified to comment on the other series. As I said in my first post, to me, Star Trek stopped after Star Trek VI, and TNG was an interesting postulation of what might happen in the future. I never found the conflict between the characters, and Gene Roddenberry didn’t like it when his characters fought.
*Blasphemy Alert*
Gene Roddenberry was a terrible writer.
His vision for Star Trek was greatly needed, but his stories were too verbose and very boring. There are many reasons that most people don’t sit and read dictionaries for fun. As someone who lives and works in a world of “technobabble” I find escapism in the simplicity of the dilithium crystals always being the problem. If only every patient presented with a case of a sinus infection! I never had to bog down in science to enjoy TOS, and in TNG, the solutions were almost always based in science.
Someone above said something like: “The _______ needs to have _________ done to it and then _________ will solve all our problems.” That’s how I felt about TNG – and why I seldom watched it. The exchange between Scotty and La Forge in “Relics” summed it up well for me. I’m not going to quote it here for lack of time, but Scotty didn’t bother Kirk with the details, he just fixed things. La Forge wasted minutes of time each week in technobabble, which meant nothing to me as a viewer – especially one who was trying desperately to get into Medical School.
My point in all of this is that I love Star Trek (reminder, just Star Trek, nothing after it) and it absolutely functions as an escapism for me. I am not so obsessed however that I say a director “can’t do that!” because said director already has done so. Criticism is fair, and everyone is entitled to his or her opinion.
@SIN187UM
The look and feel of a ship is incredilby important. “Form follows function” is a great saying, but many people misinterpret the axiom. If the Enterprise (the original, real one) looked like a flying saucer, people would have laughed at the show. I believe “Lost in Space” tried that general approach. However, Matt Jeffries, when designing the Enterprise, did note that the audience had to have some way of connecting with what they knew. It couldn’t look like a seafaring ship. It needed to look futuristic. So he took a UFO, flattened it out a little bit, and then added the secondary hull, and the nacelles. He originally envisioned the nacelles as rockets, all of with which the original 60s audience would have been familiar, even if they didn’t know why. Many people are ignorant of the fact that Mr. Jeffries designed the Enterprise upside down, and that due to an error in photography, it was filmed “upside down” (which is right-side up to us) and everyone loved it. That being said, there’s no reason the ship couldn’t “fly” upside down in space. We find the look comforting because we’re used to it, but anyone who’s ever put together one of the toy models will tell you it’s incredibly top-heavy. That doesn’t matter though, because it looks cool, which is why looks are important, at least in my opinion.
(@Vee – this is by no means a personal attack, so please don’t take it as one)
In my job, I treat people who are half this, a quarter that, and ethnic backgrounds are important in determining risk factors for all sorts of conditions. But foolish is the physician who says, “you’re black, therefore your chest pain must be a heart attack because you have a higher incident than a white individual.” Did their dual (or triple, or quadruple) heritage affect their upbringing? Absolutely. But the postulated theory above precludes the notion that people who have a single heritage (a statistically small percentage of the population) were not also impacted by their ethnic background.
So here’s my parting speech for the day @ everyone:
Star Trek did not feature the first interracial kiss. Since this is about a science-based show, I suggest anyone interested look at the scientific breakdown. Family, Genus, Order, Phylum…. Species. We’re all human. Race is a social construction, and doesn’t exist in science. Race only exists when we make it exists – it was created as an excuse to say that one group of humans was superior or inferior to another. Anyone who wishes to dispute this would be enlightened by the book “Racism without Race,” which can be found at a library near you or on Amazon.com.
Now I must be off to the hospital. Adieu to everyone who’s still reading this, and great discussions all!
Cheers.
@JessSayin
Yeah, that was definitely an Ewok wannabe. I don’t know where people are seeing Jar-Jar Binks in that thing. For one thing, JJB never shut up and this thing had one line in the whole movie.
I’m also going to bring an entirely new type of nerdom to this subject and say that what that thing really looked like was an Ewok with that paralysing, turn-you-to-woody-looking-stone disease from Fullmetal Alchemist. It was bang on for that.
@Steve
Don’t worry, I don’t take anything as personal on a message board unless it’s as obvious as “You’re a _____!”, and I like to assume that other people don’t either. We all have different backgrounds, knowledge, and ways of thinking, so of course there are going to be times when people just don’t agree with each other’s opinions.
I’m also not sure whether that disclaimer was for the looks statement above, or the statement that ” the postulated theory above precludes the notion that people who have a single heritage (a statistically small percentage of the population) were not also impacted by their ethnic background.”
If it was the looks thing, I completely agree with you there. If it was the other, I think that Nazi Germany proves that the theory does NOT preclude the notion that people with a single ethnic heritage were impacted by it, but rather that they’re simply less conflicted about it.
Related side question: would you say that humans, klingons, vulcans, etc. are all different races or different species? With the different chemical make ups of blood, the different organs and all that, I’d have thought species, but isn’t that defined largely by an ability to reproduce? This is something that I’ve always wondered about but that I don’t have the medical knowledge to say either “It’s improbable, but possible” or (like with the galaxy-destroying supernova) “They’re just talking out of their arses”.
I’d also like to say that I feel there are different levels of escapism ranging from “I had a hard day and I don’t want to think about it for a while” to “I hate my life and I can’t stand being in it for another second.” The first requires something that can serve to distract you for a short period of time. The second requires a vividly realised world to escape into. At that second extreme, you’re right, there’s probably obsession. It’s somewhere in between that you start caring about the details.
Holla to all my fellow female Trekkies!
To what Vee said before about being disturbing about Spock/Uhura, I say this: what about the countless professor/student relationships in the real world? Maybe I’m jaded, but it seems like while it’s frowned upon, it’s nothing to freak out about. Spock and Uhura were smart about keeping it quiet while at the Academy, but once Uhura had her assignment, I think their relationship is fair game.
Or maybe it’s just because I was imagining myself in Uhura’s place… ^_^ Fangirl much? Absolutely.
@ Steve: You are right about it not being the first interracial kiss, but you didn’t quite make it. It’s often cited as the first white/black kiss on television, but that award goes to Nancy Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr. on a tv special that aired in 1967.
@Steve
I was fully agreeing with about the Enterprise-D. And just think that was the Federation flagship. LOL! Voyager was no better. She new starship classes that were first seen in First Contact were much better.
You are so right about the technobabble. That’s a big reason the new movie is doing so well. You didn’t need a scientific dictionary to watch it.
My comparisons of Scotty’s little helper to jar-jar binks is a little off but the point I wanted to make was that it didn’t add to the story in the least and was only as you said comic relief.
@ Steve
So if form follows function the ships were designed basically to function, not to be physically appealing. And the design served its purpose inside and out, so I stick by my argument that the look and feel of the ship don’t really mean much if it functions as it should.
Oh and for the last time. KAL PENN IS NOT IN THE DAG BLASTED MOVIE.
The guy people are referring to is Faran Tahir – Played Middle Eastern Villain in IronMan
Played Captain Robau in this Film – NOT KAL PENN
http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809752801/cast
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faran_Tahir