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

[Rykion]

1. Red Matter - it creates singularities so why drill to the core of a planet first?

Maybe it needed to be exposed to a major power source for the reaction needed to create a singularity. Something like the molten core of a planet, a star, or the explosion of a warp capable spacecraft.

 

[coyote6]

They did talk about "igniting" the red mercury matter -- Nero's goons didn't want to shoot at the Vulcan ship.

The Red Matter was pure MacGuffin, even more so than the Genesis device.

Now I'm hoping that a sequel borrows from the Assignment: Earth plot, but updated to the then-current day, and with Gary Seven replaced or augmented with Sydney Bristow.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

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.

Not challenge - opportunity. These characters don't now, and never have had any interaction with each other. Sulu and Chekov sat next to each other for years of TOS and several movies and have never actually interacted except for exchanging a glance or two. I doubt they've even SPOKEN to each other - only to Kirk and Spock, and FAR less with McCoy, Scott, Uhura. And even then their interactions were overwhelmingly, yessir, nossir, and oh-my-god-what-is-that-thing or I-don't-understand-can-a-major-character-explain-it-for-the-audience-instead.

It can be excused during TOS because, that's just how TV worked (& often still works). The movies did little more for them than the series did, if anything. But clearly the original characters and setting have MUCH more to offer that has gone unexplored onscreen. Uhura has a relationship with Spock? Okay, so it's not the relationship with Kirk that everyone was expecting but at least UHURA now has an actual relationship - yes?

THAT'S the sort of thing that comes of a reboot and I want more of it. Temporal mechanics and logical command hierarchy be damned. Full warp speed ahead I say.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

BTW, did anyone else geek out over the various ship types? I notice that the Kelvin really rather strongly resembled one of the old FASA destroyers.

Actually, I sorta did a little. One of Star Treks unwritten rules has always been that warp engines have to come in pairs. The idea of having just one warp nacelle was, to my understanding, first speculated by Franz Joseph Designs which created the first Enterprise blueprints and Technical Manual. FASA just picked it up from there. But canon has always been that they have to be paired which, frankly, unnecessarily limits ship design possibilities.

I always LIKED the look of the single-nacelle destroyer and was sorta frustrated that it was not accepted as canon. So, yeah, I geeked a bit.

 

[Grog]

Maybe it needed to be exposed to a major power source for the reaction needed to create a singularity. Something like the molten core of a planet, a star, or the explosion of a warp capable spacecraft.

If so, this is something they should have mentioned. This was my biggest problem with the movie, too - why were they bothering to drill to the core of the planets before using the red matter? A black hole on one side of a planet will destroy that planet just as effectively as a black hole in the center of it.

Sure, you can invent explanations to make it make sense after the fact, but as it stands in the movie, this is a plot hole.

However, that said, I loved the movie. I wonder if anyone has told George Lucas yet that this movie blew away all three of his Star Wars prequels....

 

[Eosin the Red]

Maybe it needed to be exposed to a major power source for the reaction needed to create a singularity. Something like the molten core of a planet, a star, or the explosion of a warp capable spacecraft.

Humm, my thoughts are dramatic tension, cool space jump, and melee combat on a small object hanging miles above the planet. Oh yeah, and a wicked fall with difficulty getting transporter lock.

I am sure it can be explained but it wasn't in the movie. I've come to a conclusion similar to your own to satisfy my sense of "rightness."


Mouse... wow. Just wow. Nero being captured for 25 years is sort of a whole new story. And weird. That will have to be one large expansion on the DVD (or some odd exposition in a movie without much exposition). Still, good to know. Thanks.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Not challenge - opportunity. These characters don't now, and never have had any interaction with each other. Sulu and Chekov sat next to each other for years of TOS and several movies and have never actually interacted except for exchanging a glance or two. I doubt they've even SPOKEN to each other - only to Kirk and Spock, and FAR less with McCoy, Scott, Uhura. And even then their interactions were overwhelmingly, yessir, nossir, and oh-my-god-what-is-that-thing or I-don't-understand-can-a-major-character-explain-it-for-the-audience-instead.

It can be excused during TOS because, that's just how TV worked (& often still works). The movies did little more for them than the series did, if anything. But clearly the original characters and setting have MUCH more to offer that has gone unexplored onscreen. Uhura has a relationship with Spock? Okay, so it's not the relationship with Kirk that everyone was expecting but at least UHURA now has an actual relationship - yes?

THAT'S the sort of thing that comes of a reboot and I want more of it. Temporal mechanics and logical command hierarchy be damned. Full warp speed ahead I say.

Yes, I think that's actually what I, as a (dare I say that) Trekkie would want to have in a reboot.

All those missed opportunnites can now finally be explored - and they can be fresh, interesting and exciting to the "die hard fans" as well as to a new one.

 

[Mallus]

Yeah, I know, you can't get that from the movie, unless you read between the lines when they're describing the Narada attacking a Klingon prison planet. My understanding is that those scenes were there, but were cut.

They definitely were. A friend of my wife worked on the film (He does special special fabric treatments for costumes and set decorations. In fact, he's in our town to work on Avatar: the Last Airbender). At dinner last week I had to explain to him those scenes, which were the only ones he contributed to, weren't in the final cut.

 

[drothgery]

I always LIKED the look of the single-nacelle destroyer and was sorta frustrated that it was not accepted as canon. So, yeah, I geeked a bit.

Didn't the Kelvin have two nacelles? Just 'above' and 'below' instead of left and right?

Also, the 'future Entrerprise' from the TNG finale had three nacelles.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Didn't the Kelvin have two nacelles? Just 'above' and 'below' instead of left and right?

Nope, only one was a nacelle. The other was the "cylindrical" section of the ship, like the section of the Enterprise that connects the warp nacelles with the saucer section's "neck."