DARTH SABER
Master Member
LOL, yet ANOTHER exception for TOS.
Star Trek Fan Rule #1,256- "earth may be depicted in TOS......as long as it is earth OF THE PAST"
Gotta love these "on-the-spot" rules! It just gets sillier and sillier.
Star Trek Into Darkness (Pre-release)
- Thread starter Dave Porter
- Start date
LOL, yet ANOTHER exception for TOS.
Star Trek Fan Rule #1,256- "earth may be depicted in TOS......as long as it is earth OF THE PAST"
Gotta love these "on-the-spot" rules! It just gets sillier and sillier.
Yes, he really did stick it to Courage. He was certainly an agnostic and I think his vision for the future was certainly reflected in Star Trek.
But this is page upon page of rehashing an old debate about a different film, how about talking about the new film some more?
Some new comments from Cumberbatch and Abrams in Empire Mag:
“He’s sort of superhuman, pretty much unbeatable,” Benedict Cumberbatch tells Empire of his role in “Star Trek: Into Darkness.” “Brainy and brawny. He manipulates situations. He’s incarcerated when Kirk is talking to him and yet he still gets Kirk to do his work for him. He pushes him into a corner where the only route to salvation is cooperation. There is a real Hannibal Lecter quality to him.”
“He was within Starfleet and has now turned against the organization and is hell-bent on revenge,” director J.J. Abrams tells Empire. “He’s responsible for a very violent, horrific attack in London and then one in the States. He believes he and others were wronged and is focused on destruction. He’s an incredibly brilliant strategist who is aware of various truths that Kirk is not privy to.”
“He is just as intelligent and logical as Spock, but is also one very bad mother***er,” franchise star Chris Pine adds.
But this is page upon page of rehashing an old debate about a different film, how about talking about the new film some more?
Some new comments from Cumberbatch and Abrams in Empire Mag:
“He’s sort of superhuman, pretty much unbeatable,” Benedict Cumberbatch tells Empire of his role in “Star Trek: Into Darkness.” “Brainy and brawny. He manipulates situations. He’s incarcerated when Kirk is talking to him and yet he still gets Kirk to do his work for him. He pushes him into a corner where the only route to salvation is cooperation. There is a real Hannibal Lecter quality to him.”
“He was within Starfleet and has now turned against the organization and is hell-bent on revenge,” director J.J. Abrams tells Empire. “He’s responsible for a very violent, horrific attack in London and then one in the States. He believes he and others were wronged and is focused on destruction. He’s an incredibly brilliant strategist who is aware of various truths that Kirk is not privy to.”
“He is just as intelligent and logical as Spock, but is also one very bad mother***er,” franchise star Chris Pine adds.
DARTH SABER
Master Member
Not sure he himself was a socialist but his structure for the fictional world if Star Strek was very socialist.
And here's one of the highlights.
*A ship carrying a planet killing plague is headed towards an inhabited planet and isn't responding to hails*
Tasha Yar: I'm sure I can disable their ship with phasers Captain.
Picard: And than Lieutenant?
Tasha Yar: .....
About that part where the crew are given things to be good at instead of him. Tasha Yar suggests disabling the ship before it gets into range of the planet, and Picard openly refutes her by asking her what good it will do. Well, how about the fact that if the ship was disabled, it wouldn't be a threat to the planet, or any other planet? But no, the writers decided that in order to make Picard appear awesome, his entire crew have to act like idiots. This is especially the case when Picard and ONLY Picard is the one who thinks about using the tractor beam, and only at the last minute. Because hey, if the tractor beam didn't work, they wouldn't have time to disable their ship with phasers, would they?
And yet Gene Roddenberry kept insisting on the fact that mankind is 'perfect' and that there are no conflicts or sadness in our race. Earth is a paradise and death is such an openly accepted part of life that children no longer weep over their recently deceased parents. And really, the only character growth that Gene wanted out of Picard was so that he would accept Wesley Crusher as a bright, intelligent boy who can achieve wonders only because Wesley was Gene's Mary Sue.
Like TNG as a whole, Picard's character didn't start becoming interesting until (and it does bug me that it had to come to this) Gene was out of the picture.
Doesn't really sound much different than Nero. And I can almost guarantee you that, like Skyfall, they're going to play The Dark Knight Joker card to a tee. He does something horrific, he gets captured, he manipulates his captors into a false sense of security, tricks them and escapes to do more bad things.
Mola Rob
Sr Member
See post #1123
DARTH SABER
Master Member
Well of course you can guarantee it...it's the basic template used in 90% of stories. Such as Space Seed, Charlie X, Where No Man Has gone before....but we won't complain about TOS using those templates. We'll just complain about New Trek using those template.
Basic template, but this is much more specific. In regards to Into Darkness, everyone in the high court has specifically stated that "The Dark Knight" was a source of inspiration in how they wrote the sequel. Skyfall said the same thing, and instead of getting a Bond Villain, we got a Joker knock off instead. Both the Joker and Silva are terrorists who bomb buildings, manipulate the people who have apprehended them into furthering their own agenda and try to cause as much chaos as they can. What has Benedict Cumberbatch's character been described as?
Cumberbatch:
- He is an extraordinary terrorist of sorts.
- He manipulates situations. He’s incarcerated when Kirk is talking to him and yet he still gets Kirk to do his work for him.
Since the bad guys in Skyfall and Star Trek aren't going to make a 100% copy of the Joker (Joker's only motive is that he can), both films are giving their terrorists motives about how their own organization have wronged them. And don't forget the blowing up buildings part. His work in that has dawned the film's first poster.
As for Space Seed, Khan is not a terrorist and he was only trying to fulfill his goal of wanting to build his own empire. Charlie from Charlie X isn't a terrorist. He's just an adolescent person who didn't fully comprehend his own powers nor understand how damaging his actions were. When he's begging and pleading not to be taken away and how sorry he was for everything he did, I actually felt sorry for him. Where No Man has Gone Before is a tragic tale of Kirk's best friend being turned unwillingly into this super god like being who loses his humanity in which Kirk is forced to confront and kill him. They're not the same.
Now this portrayal of Benedict's character might work for Star Trek. I don't know. All I'm saying is that the source of inspiration is pretty freaking obvious and it's not like anything that those original series episodes you've listed have done.
DARTH SABER
Master Member
Let me see if I got this right- the fact that Cumberbatch is a "terrorist" like he one in the Batman movie is the new issue?
The fact that TOS rehashed several episodes involving a god-like villain with omnipotent powers is perfectly Ok, but basing this villain on a template which has, according to you , has only really been used in two other films is a no-no?
Had New Trek gone with a commonly used villain type it would have been blasted for rehashing an over used concept, but now that they're using a villain which is comparable to maybe one or two other films and t still gets blasted?
Have you even noticed the non-stop goal post pushing thats been going on in this thread?
Every time an argument supporting TOS is shot down, another excuse pops up.
Complaints about New Trek taking place on earth.
When the comparison to TOS is made it is given a free pass because Earth was used in TOS the "fan-approved" amount of times.
When that argument is shot down, another free pass is given because it took place in the "earth of the past".
Now the New Trek villain is based on a common template for villains (just like many of the villains in TOs) but TOS is given a free pass because they weren't specifically terrorists?
Pretty soon the villains in TOS will be given a free pass because they didn't have the same hairstyle as Cumberbatch....these on-the-spot excuses are really getting ridiculous.
I wouldn't be making these on-the-spot excuses if your points weren't so disingenuous. I mean, you say that the Wrath of Khan has more action in it than any episode of the original Star Trek series. Based on what statistics? The amount of action per minute? What percentage of the end product actually has action? Or for that matter, what qualifies as an action moment?
Star Trek II is not an action packed movie, even when compared to the original series. That list of episodes I gave you are fine examples of episodes that have action for a good chunk of the episodes. Some involving phaser fights, hand to hand combat, cat and mouse space battles, sword fighting, western style showdowns (literally), ship hijacking, arena fights ect. Wrath of Khan had two space battles, where as Balance of Terror was one long space battle.
jlee562
Sr Member
Roddenberry's utopian vision was a world beyond money. I don't know that I would call that socialism per se.
Zuiun
Sr Member
There was very little open-minded about the notion of alien life in Star Trek. The entire premise of the series was human-centric. Aliens were almost always humans with bumpy heads or funny makeup. Even when the technical aspects of creating Star Trek stories surpassed the requirements to keep things simple, aliens were *still* just people with bumpy heads or funny makeup.
Alien "problems" were, with very few exceptions, human-centric problems and the stories were told as allegories to human problems.
Star Trek always has been a show about humans -- that just happened to use "aliens" as a means to make an uncomfortable truth about humans an easier pill to swallow.
PotionMistress
Sr Member
Darth Sabre, I don’t know why you keep referring to everyone implying that TOS could do no wrong. I don’t think that is the point at all. I mean those shows were over 40 year ago, and the fact that the storylines have not progressed much in 40 years is the point, not that what was somewhat trend-setting 40 years ago should be judged by today’s standards. Can you fault TOS for how we might judge a movie by today’s values? You have to see them in the context of their time.
But these new movies should show something…..I don’t know…… NEW? (hey, weird concept!)
But these new movies should show something…..I don’t know…… NEW? (hey, weird concept!)
But why should we assume that just because aliens share some similar traits as us that it should be directed back as 'human' problems? When you look at these problems at face value, it's all about trying to over come an obstacle. Animals in nature struggle to over come obstacles all the time, but we never label that as 'human problems'. Some animals even try to solve problems on a social level.
Now I'll grant you that many stories of Star Trek do stem from real world struggles such as the Vietnam War (Private Little War), racism (Let That Be Your Last Battlefield) and even the Chernobyl disaster (Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country). But I never looked at those events in Star Trek as human issues because they involve other races. And if that told me anything, it's that these issues aren't exclusive to the human race. Sure, alien cultures in Star Trek may appear different and have different means of doing things, but the struggles that they have shouldn't be looked at as human, but as what they are. A natural function of living things in general.
jlee562
Sr Member
Because ST was always allegorical. I would argue that ST is implicitly supposed to be understood as allegorical.
And that, regardless of product, is awesome.
That's exactly why I don't like the Abrams prize... it looks like a bad comic book drawing done by somebody who's never seen the ship before. :lol
In fact the costumes have that same quality... they look like what you might THINK they look like and not actually what they do look like.
Those equipment belts and rank stripes are right off the Mego figures... :rolleyes
Apologies if this has been covered before, I didn't feel like digging back thru the thread. :lol
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