Trek Spoiler Spectacular! (Forked Thread: The new Star Trek movie is...)

[Jack7]

I don't know guys, I think there is something more to this whole Kirk got promoted too quickly thing than first meets the eye. Why I didn't even bother to mention it in my review.

First of all Spock did far more to save everybody than Kirk did. The old/future Spock conspired to take Spock out of the Command Chair, and Pike seemed to be pushing things behind the scenes from the get go too.

I wouldn't doubt other forces are at work in the background, stuff we haven't seen yet.
This is Abrams we're talking 'bout.

The apparent and the intentional are different things from the apparatus and the indeterminate.

I was shocked when Vulcan ate it. While watching the film I kept looking for the Deus Ex Machina.
But this ain't your grandpappa's Star Trek.

This is something other than what it just appears to be.

With Abrams people don't just make destiny, they become destiny.

That was apparent by watching all of the characters.

If Kirk took the chair too young then it wasn't by happenstance.
There's a ghost in that machine. A wolfcub in the bitch litter.
You just can't hear it howling yet cause of all the background noise.

And it'll hunt when it's time to hunt.
Til then it'll look just like any old coondog.

By the by, I'll bet ya dollars to doughnuts this Kirk ain't the Kirk of the original series. He'll share power. A lot of the time.

And he won't be near as confident.
What he will be will be an instrument of other things.

 

[Umbran]

This is Abrams we're talking 'bout.

Yes, JJ Abrams. Creator of such deep and layered film gems as "Armageddon" and "Cloverfield".

How many questions on "Lost" have gotten answers such that you felt the guy had a grand plan from the start? This is a legit question - I've only seen the first two seasons, and people didn't know diddly-squat at that point, and it didn't look like he had any real intention of revealing anything any time soon.

So, I really don't expect any grand scheme that makes sense of the move. They gave us a typical American "wrapped up with a bow" ending, because it is an action flick and you don't leave threads hanging on action flicks.

I was shocked when Vulcan ate it. While watching the film I kept looking for the Deus Ex Machina.
But this ain't your grandpappa's Star Trek.

This is movie-franchise Star Trek, where they can make major changes without worrying about it, as there won't be enough screen-time to actually display much about the impact of those changes. It is easy to blow up a planet if the only impact we'll see is on a single character who really doesn't show much emotion.

And remember, this is coming from someone who *liked* the movie. It was fun, but I see no coherent signs that it's a masterpiece of planned depth.

 

[mrtauntaun]

I don't have a problem with Kirk being promoted to full Captain. Starfleet lost a lot of ships in this movie, and a LOT of officers. Good officers are likely hard to come by right now, and having someone who has proven his worth under fire is a valuable commodity. He was given a field promotion to first officer, and then was acting Captain and saved a whole planet. I thought it a fitting reward. Now, if Starfleet wasn't in such dire straights, this may not have happened. But given the state of the fleet, I can believe it.

 

[Jack7]

How many questions on "Lost" have gotten answers such that you felt the guy had a grand plan from the start? This is a legit question - I've only seen the first two seasons, and people didn't know diddly-squat at that point, and it didn't look like he had any real intention of revealing anything any time soon.

So, I really don't expect any grand scheme that makes sense of the move. They gave us a typical American "wrapped up with a bow" ending, because it is an action flick and you don't leave threads hanging on action flicks.

Anything is possible, of course.

But if it turns out later that there is a plot reason that shows something odd about Kirk's career then will ya then say, "Well, why didn't they say that right up front?" or will ya say, "well they just made that up as they went along."

Cause either way you're gonna be right.

Except of course you do have a couple of loose threads don't ya?

You got Spock from the future now loose in the past (or the present future, depending on how you wanna look at it), you got Kirk in a chair too big for his current britches, you got Pike as an Admiral with real power (not retired to a fantasy thought planet), and you got a whole species of allies nearly wiped out and facing a very different future than the one they should know.

Well, if they're not loose threads, at least they're kinda frayed.

 

[fanboy2000]

They took longer with Scotty bumbling through tubes of water, and that wasn't "story" worth mentioning.

Well, the scene's funnier when you realize that it was filmed on location at an Anheuser-Busch brewery.

 

[Pbartender]

Well, the scene's funnier when you realize that it was filmed on location at an Anheuser-Busch brewery.

I was right! When we saw the movie on Saturday, and we first saw them running through the engine room catwalks with those big circular tanks on either side, I whispered to my wife, "Hey, look! The Enterprise has a brewery on board!"

 

[Mistwell]

As Lord Trillian wrote over at CM:

Eh, he just saved the Earth, rescued a highly honored captain (now admiral), shown one of the most promising and intelligent people at the academy (Spock) how to save the world and has ample support from Pike AND future Spock (whose opinion has to count, considering how *much* he knows about the federation, Vulcan and so on).

And Starfleet just lost seven starships, probably with high-ranking captains like Pike. If you apply TOS scales, seven starships is a lot.

A man with this courage and positive track record from the future? The son of a hero? Personal recommendations? Hell, give him a ship and put him in a crash course with Command 101 for Dummies!

It was cool, not totally outlandish and how the film simply had to end!

 

[Umbran]

Except of course you do have a couple of loose threads don't ya?

Well, the way I see it, not really...

You got Spock from the future now loose in the past (or the present future, depending on how you wanna look at it), you got Kirk in a chair too big for his current britches, you got Pike as an Admiral with real power (not retired to a fantasy thought planet), and you got a whole species of allies nearly wiped out and facing a very different future than the one they should know.

Old-Spock is completely ignorable. He's off helping the remaining Vulcans with their new colony.

Kirk in a chair that's too big for him - there is exactly zero indication in the movie that anyone (including the writers and director) feels the chair is too big for him. That's what I find irksome. If anyone seriously felt that, they wouldn't have given him command of the flagship.

Pike, again, completely ignorable. He's off flying a desk. You see how deeply the character of specific Admirals impacted this movie? Zero. Expect more of same.

Vulcans weak - that's not a loose thread, in that it cannot be "tied up", it si not a plotline or element that needs resolution within the scope of a movie. Unless the Enterprise goes about doing more time-travel to reverse the events of this movie (and oh, gods, the headaches the temporal logic would cause!), this is simply now a setting characteristic, not a loose end.

 

[EricNoah]

Just some thoughts I have about where a film 2 might go, theme-wise...

1) Kirk's gotta grow up a little bit. We know he's brave and willing to die, but is he willing to lead, take advice, foster teamwork, etc? I think his look-before-leaping zest for adventure (and disregard for his own life and safety) could land his crew and his ship in very hot water. The first time someone dies under his command he's going to have to take a hard look at himself and at what being a captain means.

2) The side of the main "character triangle" that didn't get much attention was the Spock-McCoy side - I would like to see that heat up a bit and get Kirk in the middle of it.

3) Spock and Uhura ... I think it's pretty clear they can't stay together. Workplace dating never ends well, plus we all know Spock has "issues" with intimacy and emotions and all that - it very well could be leaving Uhura starved. And in here somewhere I think we need to see Kirk and Uhura figure out their relationship - he can't allow any jealousy/rivalry to show or interfere with the operation of his crew and so he might armor himself in professionalism and kind of push her away as a potential friend. I dunno, I'm probably putting too much thought into that angle.

4) The rest of the crew ... the fact that we're dealing with a handful of 2-hour movies over the course of the next few years, plus a fairly lare ensemble means some characters will continually going to get shorted their time to develop, as opposed to what could be done with hours and hours of TV. I think Sulu, Chekhov and Scotty could make a nice secondary character triangle - these are the guys who are most hands-on with the Enterprise and so could be kindred spirits in that regard. I think finding interesting stuff for them to do will be a big challenge.

5) The Enterprise as a character - some reviewers noted that the ship itself is (or was in the TV shows and other films) a character unto itself but didn't really seem that way in the new film. In a film 2 hopefully we can start to see the crew and Kirk feeling more attached to her as a refuge and a home. On the other hand ... if something is going to get shorted, this is the least important thing to deal with in my opinion.

 

[coyote6]

Kirk in a chair that's too big for him - there is exactly zero indication in the movie that anyone (including the writers and director) feels the chair is too big for him. That's what I find irksome. If anyone seriously felt that, they wouldn't have given him command of the flagship.

Did they say Enterprise was the Starfleet flagship? IIRC, in the original series/timeline, it wasn't the flagship until after Kirk & co. covered it (and themselves) in glory a few times.

Actually, I thought it wasn't a flagship until Admiral Kirk was in command (because, hey, then there's an admiral on board, and they're the ones with the flags). Then in TNG, it was the plum command of Starfleet because of the Enterprise name's storied history.

I don't think the TOS Enterprise was supposed to be that special; it wasn't even the first ship of its class (it was a Constitution-class starship, meaning the USS Constitution was the first of its kind).