Re: New STAR TREK 3
No. The Alien worlds served as a meager backdrop. Earth is treated as an important location where anything that happens to it is taken very seriously. All of this film's important moments all take place on it. Kirk gets demoted than promoted on Earth, Khan bombs London (not before following a human family going through their lives in London), Starfleet has an important meeting on Earth, Pike dies on Earth, Kirk wants to bring Khan to Earth, the Enterprise almost crashed on Earth, Kirk dies while the Enterprise is literally at Earth, the Vengeance crashes in SF, Khan is defeated on Earth, and Kirk gives a speech on Earth. If you really want to sell the idea that Earth isn't the center of the universe where a majority of the story must take place there, do what a lot of the other Star Trek series did by not having Earth in every one of your stories, especially one where the bad guy wants to attack it.
And it doesn't matter if Khan's attack on Earth was planned or spur of the moment. We're three films in a row where the bad guys specifically target Earth. If you want to bring up the whales again, know that Star Trek IV had two films before it that didn't involve Earth being in trouble, and the three films after IV followed suit.
First of all Jeyl, it's disingenuous of you to cut off half of my argument. I assume attributing my words to Riceball was accidental.
Everything that you described, is earth serving as a backdrop to the story.
With Nero, his idea is to destroy earth. Khan has no such designs. STID isn't about earth. It's about the crew of the Enterprise unwrapping the Marcus/Khan conspiracy.
Starfleet has an important meeting on earth because that's where cannon has established Starfleet Headquarters is. The writers didn't put that meeting on earth solely in service of the story. Likewise, Pike dies on earth because that's where the meeting is, not because it services the story by having him on earth.
Conceptually, this is completely different than Trek IV where the entire emotional weight and urgency of the film is because it's earth that's being threatened.
Pointing out that things happen on earth in STID is not a cogent argument to the point that the film is really about earth.
To that logic:
TMP: Earth is threatened. V'ger was created by Earth.
II: The simulator is on earth.
III: McCoy starts acting crazy in earth orbit. Spacedock is at earth. Enterprise gets decommissioned at earth. Sarek talks to Kirk on earth.
IV: No need here...
V: They were camping on earth. "God" appears as earth's God.
VI: Meeting on earth. Spacedock is at earth. Crew leaves from earth. Earth authors are quoted. Earth actually plays a critical role in the plot in a counter-intuitive way in that they cannot return to earth.
Point being, yes, earth features in STID. But the plot is not about saving earth per se. The conflict in the script is between Marcus/Khan and the crew of the Enterprise. TMP and IV were the films that were "earth in peril," as was ST09. STID involved earth, but only to the extent that would logically flow from cannon (I.E. Starfleet headquarters is on earth). Why would Kirk bring Khan back to another planet if Khan blew up an earth city? That doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
And sure, you could make the argument that half of the film could have been set somewhere else (Khan could have blown up a remote Federation research center in system X, and the last act could have taken place on any planet), but you still would have seen elements of earth. But that doesn't mean that the story was really about earth. Earth is just a setting in the film.
