The New Star Trek, the good, the bad, the Zachary Quinto.
There is a level of detail that is important and then at a point it just becomes obsessive. However lots of trekkies are just that obsessive it would seem. I think the recent film did a great job of covering most bases without wasting time on nitpicky details.
Heroes : Angrem (50 Stone tank), Exo Inferis (50 Fire blaster), Exo Proteus (50 ill/emp), IceVengance (50 cold defender)
Villains : AtomBomb (50 Rad/Kin corruptor), Aleks (50 SS/Inv brute), StoneLethal (50 EM/Stone brute), Davroz (50 Bots/Dark mastermind)
Mariel,
There are at least a dozen ways you could Identify a ship as Romulan without ever seeing a Romulan (a bit of shortsightedness, of the 60s, who thought we'd have two way 50' visual screens in our living rooms by 2010 and a line that needs to changed in the Balance of Terror. ).
Romulan Power signatures/ship design: Even though they'd never seen a Romulan, they had fought a war against and I guarentee the "outposts along the Neutral Zone" have huge huge huge sensor nets spying on Romulan space. Given that this is Archerverse (Scottiy's angry admiral's pet, who reappears in the book) I'd bet not seeing a Romulan doesn't equate to not having a clue about how they design ships and what they use to power them. Trek hasn't show massive inovation in what powers their ships, just the efficiency, it's possible the ole Romulan Artificial Quantum Singularity power is how the Roms do the FTL thing and everyone knows it. So the tactical computer goes AQS power source, threat probably Romulan. We do that with submarines now (Tracking sound profiles)
Markings: I'm not convinced the Nardea wasn't marked. Sensors that can handle trans-light navigation and put visuals on the screen at millions of kilometers may just notice things we don't. There may not have been a Romulan Star Empire flag on the mining ship, but how about SS Nardea writing in Romulan script?
My favorite is IFF: Maybe the Nardea was just broadcasting her IFF, Nero wanted the humans to pay for the destruction of Romulus (sp) maybe he was broadcasting to the universe.
Red,
Lucas innovated the summer blockbuster, and I'll give you fantasy, but not Sci Fi...ok maybe Sy like the Sy Fy channel (meaning no science at all) 
Jack Wolfe Prototype Super Tank, over 25 million in damage taken in the service of others
My 360 hates me and writes about it
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I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness for it shows me the stars. ---Og Mandino---
but not Sci Fi
Sorry, even Sci-Fi, even if it was indirectly. Alien, Blade Runner and others do not get made if it was not for Lucas reviving space-themed movies. Heck even Star Trek gets revived on the big screen due to Star Wars.
Sometimes the history and details are important. You've got to know your audience.
I disagree, in fact, Star Trek has suffered more because it tried too hard to appease a narrow-audience that is divisive even amongst its small number (so you can't even please the entire narrow hardcore base). It is when Star Trek relaxed, and let loose, that it always found better box office returns and ratings.
Also Enterprise was awful - for reasons far beyond "canon violation". It was also poorly timed. The reboot was the way to go, in other words, trash all canon and go again. The fact, it was this tactic that finally worked for the dead franchise, demonstrates clearly that history is *not* important - entertainment is.
The mainstream "audience" for Star Trek, is not the compulsive nerd who knows minute details of the Ferengi (or how to spell it even, as I clearly don't). The "audience" for Star Trek from a bottom line perspective, is the same person who loved Iron Man. Nerds (like me) forget how you sell stuff on Wal-Mart, which in the end, is all that matters for the success of a franchise.
Canon is crap. It and always will be just BS. We pretend it is important because we love it, but really it as trivial as how many coconuts the gorilla threw at Gilligan in season 2.
And because the subject matter usually begins with BS premises, and then goes into episode form - it can't possibly stay congruent. All "canon" is, is a platform for nerds to argue and obsess over. It's been this way since Superman learned to "fly" - a direct violation of his original power set.
My favorite line in this thread though is this:
I thought a wizard did all that?
This is genius, and wins the thread. It also manages to say more succinctly in one clever sentence than I can explain in miles of purple prose and bad grammar.
It also spoofs this superb (and fairly recent) cartoon:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/11/2/
This, in a nutshell, is what I am ranting about.
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Which are the same people that love Star Trek.|
Originally Posted by ChaosRed
The "audience" for Star Trek from a bottom line perspective, is the same person who loved Iron Man.
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I'll note that I don't think the new movie "failed". It preserved the history and details as far as was necessary to make the movie still feel "Star Trek", while changing it enough to create new possibilities for the future. Enterprise utterly failed at the first, and thus the second did not matter.
I say this as a life-long Trekkie, born of Trekkie parents, all of whom enjoyed the new movie.
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Good rebuttals, however in good writing and story telling you have to leave clues to a conclusion. |
Originally Posted by DrJackWolfe
Mariel,
There are at least a dozen ways you could Identify a ship as Romulan without ever seeing a Romulan (a bit of shortsightedness, of the 60s, who thought we'd have two way 50' visual screens in our living rooms by 2010 and a line that needs to changed in the Balance of Terror. ). Romulan Power signatures/ship design: Even though they'd never seen a Romulan, they had fought a war against and I guarentee the "outposts along the Neutral Zone" have huge huge huge sensor nets spying on Romulan space. Given that this is Archerverse (Scottiy's angry admiral's pet, who reappears in the book) I'd bet not seeing a Romulan doesn't equate to not having a clue about how they design ships and what they use to power them. Trek hasn't show massive inovation in what powers their ships, just the efficiency, it's possible the ole Romulan Artificial Quantum Singularity power is how the Roms do the FTL thing and everyone knows it. So the tactical computer goes AQS power source, threat probably Romulan. We do that with submarines now (Tracking sound profiles) Markings: I'm not convinced the Nardea wasn't marked. Sensors that can handle trans-light navigation and put visuals on the screen at millions of kilometers may just notice things we don't. There may not have been a Romulan Star Empire flag on the mining ship, but how about SS Nardea writing in Romulan script? My favorite is IFF: Maybe the Nardea was just broadcasting her IFF, Nero wanted the humans to pay for the destruction of Romulus (sp) maybe he was broadcasting to the universe. Red, Lucas innovated the summer blockbuster, and I'll give you fantasy, but not Sci Fi...ok maybe Sy like the Sy Fy channel (meaning no science at all) |
Let’s say I was writing a story set in the cold war where a Russian super submarine goes rouge and I had an American spy trying to find it, I would mention sonar tracking and “tell tell” distinctions between American and Russian Subs… In addition, if the story was made in to a movie I would make sure we had a scene showing this. I wouldn’t leave this to the Audience to figure out.
This is where my complaint with the story telling comes in, they made a point of giving both Spock and Kirks Background but the Main Villain was a little short and too quick. To me this is a minor yet annoying writing mistake.
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But what I find Most Astonishing is that so many of you Cry "Nerd" when I point this out. I am a lot of things and I fall in to a nerd like category since I like Sci-Fi, Anime, Video Games, and Computers. But I doubt any of you would call me a nerd to my face. I usually get 'OMFG a Vampire", "Freak!!", "are you one of them devil worshiping goths?", Nerd is almost never used. My point is I can like a good story and be a fan of something with out being a trekkie. I have never gone to any Star Trek Convention, and in the 30 or so times I have gone to Las Vegas I have only once gone to the Hilton. I have never baught a video, book, DVD or any other Star Trek realated Material (besides a bottle of wine and a case of beer, the one time I did go), I did However Download all things Star Trek, TOS, TAS, TNG, VOY, DS9, ENT, and all the movies, And I did Watch them. However I did the Same With babylon 5, BSG, Star Wars, Caser Closed, Naruto, Ranma, Macross, and many more.
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First, in another post you made some excellent observations on how various time travel episodes could screw up the time line a piece at a time.|
Originally Posted by Mariel_Martog
The Bad:
The inside of the Enterprise looks like a Brewery. The tech isnt just prettier, but actually felt more advanced than the original series. |
now the more advance tech you mentioned: I read/heard somewhere that team Abrams had decided that the newer tech on the new Enterprise was in large part the result of retro-engineering technology from the Kelvin scans of Narada, which were carried by the survivors. In like manner, but even less displayed, the Klingons got their retro-engineering boost when Narada was captured (in scenes and storyline not displayed in the theaters. I've heard its on the blueray. Is that accurate?)
The problem with that reasonable concept was that team Abrams did a lousy job of explaining that to the movie goers. Even a single dialog exchange would have sufficed.
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I think that is my main point, one line of dialog would solve all of it, such as a Kelvin Bridge officer in the background just saying "Scanner Reads Romulan But its Very Advanced"
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Originally Posted by Rodoan
The problem with that reasonable concept was that team Abrams did a lousy job of explaining that to the movie goers. Even a single dialog exchange would have sufficed.
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Everything here can all be explained in episode 7 of the Disney/Pixar/Coca-Cola/Toyota/Google holographic omnivision web-series, Star Trek: Continuity, which was uploaded in Korea in March, 2048 and will be reintegrated into the linear timeline schedule at a more convenient and economic timeslot the day after tomorrow.
One must also bear in mid that the movie in question was made by the guy whose bright idea was Lost.
Canon, logic, and consistency are not the first things one should perhaps most readily associate with Mr Abrams.
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That was due to the theme song though not a disrespect for canon.|
Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
Funny you bring this up, because the very reason Enterprise flopped and was perhaps the biggest failure in Star Trek's history is precisely because the creators decided that the history and details weren't important, and because of this they alienated their target audience.
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Or at least it was for me. I didn't even hang around long enough to see any canon get defiled. Theme song followed by ridiculous gratuitous unisex shower scene was enough for me to decide "I'm not watching this. Tis silly, and not in a good way." With the movie the sillyness just about covered by the fact it went "WHEEEEE" really fast, and on a massive cinema screen. A DVD rewatching and it'd probably irk me more.
Of course with Enterprise Captain Fuddled-Brow didn't help either. It worked fine when you're shunted to random bodies in random timeframes each week, not such a good look on a starship captain who's supposed to look at least vaguely competent and not like he's stoned and forgotten what he wandered into the Bridge for (see also Harrison Ford in most of his movies over the last 15 years or so)
I'm a trek fan from way back and have seen it all, inlcuding the new movie, which I loved.
I find the arguement about canon in relation to this movie truly humorous.
Someone please explain to me how traveling back in time and changing history is NOT part of Trek canon
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Sometimes the history and details are important. You've got to know your audience.