Star Trek: Round Spaceships

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Strange Matter: Oct 6, 2009; Ask me about Genocide

Yonic Symbolism posted:

I'm not sure a Star Trek show, even a top notch one, could work today.
It was somewhat slowly paced, a lot of things happened offscreen (battles mainly consisted of people at terminals narrating what was going on), serviceable visuals, and had an optimistic view of humankind.

It's the exact opposite of today's programming.

HBO's going to make some kind of Game of Thrones in Space and that will be as close as you get to a new Trek.

I would be okay with this. Even if it's not Star Trek as I know it at least it would be watchable.

Basically I really, really miss Star Trek on TV, and the longer I go without having my thirst quenched the tastier sea water looks.

# ¿ Dec 7, 2012 14:40

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 09:08

Strange Matter: Oct 6, 2009; Ask me about Genocide

I guess all the sci-fi nerds shifted mediums and are all working in video games now, because it seems like 90% of all games that come out these days are either straight science fiction or have some kind of science fiction bent. Even Assassin's Creed, a series about murdering people in various historical settings, has a sci-fi framing device. Or Mass Effect, which is overtly a pastiche of Star Trek and Star Wars that manages to pull of both better than most of the recent offerings from those respective franchises.

# ¿ Dec 7, 2012 15:16

Strange Matter: Oct 6, 2009; Ask me about Genocide

MikeJF posted:

The thing that defines Star Trek is not the slow paced plots, offscreen action style and mediocre special effects. It can be Star Trek with all those changed. The thing that defines Star Trek is the optimistic future where we're exploring the universe out of the sheer joy of it, and along with it, our own issues in metaphor as well as philosophical and moral conundrums.

Admittedly, it usually wasn't always done very well or with great depth or skill, but just the act of trying meant that occasionally it was amazing, and I do think that you could wrap that concept into a modern-style television series with all the pacing, plotting and visuals a modern audience expects.

That's not what any of the movies are about, though. The movies tend center around singular threats, either against galactic peace as a whole or against individuals or specific factions.

It's more natural to make a TV series about that, because the focus is on character development and world building spread out over a longer time table, whereas films by their nature train themselves on much more immediate developments.

# ¿ Dec 7, 2012 17:30

Strange Matter: Oct 6, 2009; Ask me about Genocide

WarLocke posted:

TMP was probably the closest the movies came to the whole 'exploring the human condition' thing. It's just really slow and plodding.

I thought Generations did a pretty good job too.

# ¿ Dec 7, 2012 18:41

Strange Matter: Oct 6, 2009; Ask me about Genocide

Pioneer42 posted:

All these clips, while admittedly looking pretty awesome at times, still tend to remind me of just how much more I enjoy the suspenseful "submarine" style of starship combat as opposed to the nimble "jet-figher" style. It's just a personal preference, of course, but the more they try to be flashy with the action, the cheesier it looks.

The difference there is that with the submarine style they're going for suspense, but with the jet-figher style they're going for spectacle. Both are good, just depends on what you're after.

If you poo-poo the latter you'd never get Sacrifice of Angels, for instance.

# ¿ Dec 7, 2012 20:55

Strange Matter: Oct 6, 2009; Ask me about Genocide

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

Like it or not, there's all manner of weird poo poo in the "J. J. Trek", that does indeed focus on how these characters' personal philosophies allow them to confront a meaningless universe of "disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence." That nihilism is personified by the villain (who, in turn, personifies Star Trek: Nemesis). It approaches this in an aesthetic way - down to the acknowledgement that there's no sound in space, but, god drat it, we're going to do it anyways.

Are you saying that Nero personifies Star Trek: Nemesis? I'm trying to put the pieces together on that, and all I can come across is that that Nero is a vain, backwards and self-destructive remnant of another reality, whom the protagonists have to execute. And by doing so they not only preserve their reality but lay down its corner stones by establishing the crew.

Also they both have super space ships that are made mostly out of random spikey bits.

# ¿ Dec 9, 2012 03:15

Strange Matter: Oct 6, 2009; Ask me about Genocide

Pops Mgee posted:

Even though it would never happen, this would be amazing. Halfway through the movie, The Sisko pops out of nowhere and starts ACTING everywhere devouring large parts of the sets and lens flares. A man can dream though.

Except he's played by Idris Elba.

# ¿ Dec 17, 2012 21:39

Strange Matter: Oct 6, 2009; Ask me about Genocide

I said come in! posted:

I'll always love the warp core, but this was a pretty cool take on the engine room and it didn't need to be explained to the audience at all, which fit with what the movie was trying to be.

I loved the brewery engine room. It was an interesting dichotomy with sterile apple store aesthetic of the rest of the ship. Everywhere else the ship's moving parts are hidden behind all the shininess, but the engine room is the one place where you need that stuff front and center, and it's presented that way.

# ¿ Dec 18, 2012 16:24

Strange Matter: Oct 6, 2009; Ask me about Genocide

GATOS Y VATOS posted:

Edit: Why the gently caress wouldn't Star Fleet just use those super transporters ALL THE TIME at this point? Also, I hate that Warp Speed means Kronos to Earth in about 15 minutes.

Yeah I was really confused about this. When Scotty finds the docking station for the Vengeance, it seems clear to me that it's still under construction, but then like twenty minutes later it pops into Klingon airspace fully operational. Did, like, several whole days pass in between capturing Khan and Marcus arriving?

# ¿ May 20, 2013 16:30

Strange Matter: Oct 6, 2009; Ask me about Genocide

Apollodorus posted:

I finally saw this, and honestly it felt like someone made a movie out of all of the Star Trek parts of my brain, as well as the grad student in Classics parts. The way different elements of established Trek are incorporated, manipulate, and reinterpreted was extremely rewarding for someone who's been a Trek fan since age 5. Just a few things off the top of my head:

- The Kirk/Spock death scene reversal was, in my opinion, an awesome way to engage with the original ~~text~~ film and demonstrate the depth of characters--we've already seen how Kirk handles Spock's death, now we get to see the reverse (wish they'd incorporated elements of Amok Time as well, but the film was, astonishingly, only 2 hours

I agree with all of your post, but especially this point. I actually think the movie is made better by being a remake-reversal of Wrath of Khan, because the characters are still true to their natures, but when the situations are changed from what we're familiar with or expect, they react interestingly. In WoK, Spock's death makes Kirk understand that there is such a thing as an unwinnable situation that requires sacrifice, and it helps him to mature. In Into Darkness, Kick's death brings Spock face to face with death for the third time in the film; but where in the first time he accepts it as a noble sacrifice, and the second time he views it intellectual curiosity, the third time he comes to understand how death affects the people around him, and experiences emotional apotheosis.

My only complaint about the film's character action is that I don't really think Kirk and Spock got enough screen time together. Pine and Quinto have really good chemistry but given that the emotional climax of the film is Kirk's death, the rest of the movie had them separated for the most part and dealing with their own struggles. Part of what made Spock's death at the end of WoK so powerful was that the audience had 70 some odd episodes of them acting and growing together. Obviously we're never going to have that in these films, but to me that just means the writers should have had them together as much as possible, instead of separating them.

# ¿ May 20, 2013 17:57

Strange Matter: Oct 6, 2009; Ask me about Genocide

Kull the Conqueror posted:

I'm doing my best to sort out my nostalgia and I think I'm doing OK, but it would be disingenuous of me not to mention that I loving love Star Trek II. Like, one of the best films of 80s, no joke. Having said that, I think the failure of the themes at the end of In Darkness doesn't have anything to do with that. I don't think it's much of a stretch to say that if you're trying to express a point about mortality, you lose a lot of gravitas if you don't actually take anything away, permanently.

I don't think that's what the film was about, though. I think it is more about characters experiencing growth by being pushed beyond their personal psychological blocks. For Kirk, his determination to save his crew is hampered by his belief that there is no such thing as an unwinnable situation; in his death, he finally comes to understand what his father knew onbard the Kelvin, which is that sometimes sacrifice is necessary to save the people you care about, and that Spock's adage "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" is more than just cold logic. Spock, on the other hand, comes to terms and accepts the emotions he experienced when Vulcan was destroyed, and understands the impact of losing a friend in death.

With that theme in mind, of course Kirk comes back to life. It's the archetypical Christ analog.

# ¿ May 20, 2013 18:18

Strange Matter: Oct 6, 2009; Ask me about Genocide

Kull the Conqueror posted:

I just don't think it works because Kirk's disbelief in the unwinnable situation doesn't have anything to do with a problem he might have with self-preservation; his problem is that he's about saving his crew, his family above all other considerations. His dying instead of anyone else on the ship teaches him nothing (he's constantly putting himself in these precarious positions anyway), and especially moreso since he's brought back to life anyway. Like I said after the post you quoted, I agree with you that Spock's arc was complete.

You may have a point there, but at the very least is shows that Kirk understands and accepts his father's sacrifice. Remember that the Pike convinces Kirk to join the Academy by telling him "Your father was Captain of a starship for twelve minutes and saved 800 people. I dare you to do better." I do agree that it's a cop-out, but I also feel that it's a cop-out consistent with the theme of the Reboot films. Then again Into Darkness is an inferior movie to Wrath of Khan.

# ¿ May 20, 2013 18:38

Strange Matter: Oct 6, 2009; Ask me about Genocide

computer parts posted:

Unless you're bored of supermen and you don't want to turn Star Trek 3 into Pirates of the Caribbean 3.

Heck they could have just said that one of the differences in this timeline is that Harrison gets defrosted instead of Khan, and but since all of the supermen are pretty much unstoppably freaks he's just as dangerous.

# ¿ May 21, 2013 04:23

Strange Matter: Oct 6, 2009; Ask me about Genocide

Aatrek posted:

Yeah, it kind of bugged me that they were all "the Vengeance can't catch up to us at warp!" Yes it can, idiots, it just goes faster warp.

Yeah and honestly the scene where the Vengeance attacks the Enterprise in warp was genuinely terrifying because I'd never seen anything like that in Star Trek before. So really I'm willing to accept the stretching of canon laws if it leads to that.

# ¿ May 21, 2013 14:32

Strange Matter: Oct 6, 2009; Ask me about Genocide

Cingulate posted:

Phasers shouldn't work at warp though, assuming they're particle beams! Photon torpedos could create their own warp bubble, but a beam can't!

what is happening to me

Obviously they were at close enough range that their warp bubbles fused and could therefore freely exchange fire with conventional weapons.

EDIT: :techno:

Strange Matter fucked around with this message at 15:07 on May 21, 2013

# ¿ May 21, 2013 15:05

Strange Matter: Oct 6, 2009; Ask me about Genocide

Hot Sexy Jupiter posted:

I think that's a valid concern, but the implications you're talking about wouldn't come into play until after the story in this film. Yes, it would be a shame if we didn't hear anything about it again (which unfortunately has a precident in Trek, like the incredible 'game-changing' tech the TNG folks would sometimes stumble across that would then be completely forgotten about). Personally I hope it does factor into the next film somehow. To temper the easy-fix/magic bullet-like aspect of it, one thing they could do is make it so that the blood actually has an adverse effect in the long run, creating a dangerous warp in Kirk's personality, or some unforseen physiological problem, for example.

Star Trek 3 could be a remake of The Enemy Within!

# ¿ May 22, 2013 13:23

Strange Matter: Oct 6, 2009; Ask me about Genocide

The Warszawa posted:

Olmos

I don't want to bring the thread back around to Race Trek again, but I just want to point out that this would have been awesome.

# ¿ May 23, 2013 13:41

Strange Matter: Oct 6, 2009; Ask me about Genocide

Danger posted:

If Khan is the 'diabolical revolutionary' (which is certainly an apt description, and comparison with Zizek's take on Bane), then the message the film gives us regarding the moral responsibility to seek a purer, cleaner capitalism is more insidious in STID. The whitewashing of Khan (and Bane) specifically inverts the expectation of the revolutionary figure as a nomadic war machine (the dangerous Other to the state), depicting instead an aspect of the liberal state that has been appropriated for its own use.

In the past, Kirk would naturally assume for the villain to turn around to face the audience and of course be revealed as the foreign and dangerous Other (Khan as the Indian warlord, Bane as the Hispanic revolutionary felon) but instead finds some British dude in the same role (Batman, likewise, finds a British dude). That the identity of Khan has been appropriated by a British militant is fitting then, in this case. The danger isn't from the marauding foreign invaders, but how they have infected our good liberal state.

Kirk's noble task is to excise this growth in the liberal state, a dangerous side effect of contact with and appropriation of the nomadic war machine (the liberal slippery-slope argument is of course always "but then we're no better than the terrorists!") in order to return to the purer, moral design of the Federation: nineteenth century colonialism.

Why else would the heartfelt post 9-11 eulogy flow seamlessly into a return to the original series' colonialist project.

It's a little unfair to describe the original theme of Star Trek to be colonialism when the ideal Roddenberry tried to espouse is discovery and discovery over exploitation. The whole reason for the Prime Directive is to prevent that kind of interference and to allow less developed cultures to evolve without spacemen coming down to impose their technology and ethical standards. Granted there are probably more instances of the Prime Directive being violated than of it being upheld, but it's always shown as having consequences. That's even the case in Into Darkness-- the Nibiruans or whatever make the Enterprise into their new cultural symbol, Kirk loses his command and Spock gets kicked off the ship.

# ¿ May 23, 2013 19:07

Strange Matter: Oct 6, 2009; Ask me about Genocide

Danger posted:

What are the consequences in the film? Kirk was portrayed as doing the noble, human, thing and disregarded those regulations to save the primitive people which would have otherwise been wiped out if not for the help of the "explorers". Of course his mentor saw this in him and made sure that whatever punishment he faced was neutered, the federation needs folks like that. The original series is just blatant about it, perhaps giving some lip service to the notion while Kirk uses native populations to wage a proxy war against his enemies.

The consequences are that the Nibiruans discarded their old religion and now worship the Enterprise. Kirk irrevocably and overtly changed the course of their cultural evolution. For the most part Star Trek always considers the consequences of interfering with less developed cultures. Sometimes it benefits them, sometimes it screws up their cultural development, and sometimes it's abiguous or unknown because the timeline isn't explicitly shown.

# ¿ May 23, 2013 19:55

Strange Matter: Oct 6, 2009; Ask me about Genocide

It's a pipe dream, but I'd really like the third Star Trek movie to be just like three separate 45 minute stand-alone episodes instead of a single overarching, Earth threatening story. Maybe you can weave them together Pulp Fiction like.

Basically I don't really care about the plot, I just want to see these actors performing together.

# ¿ May 24, 2013 16:19

Strange Matter: Oct 6, 2009; Ask me about Genocide

Gatts posted:

William Riker: Bradley Cooper, "Baby I just wanna live the smooth life but I got this responsibility an' poo poo. What up wid dat?"

This, but ironically.

# ¿ May 28, 2013 18:12

Strange Matter: Oct 6, 2009; Ask me about Genocide

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

Midichlorians own.

Midichlorians are dumb, but they are also awesome because they got a bunch of pedantic sci-fi nerds to rebel against empirical science.

# ¿ May 28, 2013 20:10

Strange Matter: Oct 6, 2009; Ask me about Genocide

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

Kirk's womanizing is associated with his colonial tendencies. Again, Raiders of the Lost Ark is the film's big reference point, where Star Trek 2009 is modeled after Star Wars.

Did you elaborate on this in the thread, because I think I missed that and would like to read it.

# ¿ May 28, 2013 20:18

Strange Matter: Oct 6, 2009; Ask me about Genocide

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:

I have to say I actually thought that was pretty clever to shoot Alice Eve's body in the same way they would lay out a scene of a majestic nebula or something. The real final frontier: a woman immune to his charms. It doesn't work without the requisite "hot green babes" scene, and Zoe Saldana's nonverbal acting showing that Kirk doesn't even cross her mind (the three leads have really good chemistry).

Hopefully this builds to the point in the third film to expose that the only woman Kirk truly loves is the Enterprise.

# ¿ May 28, 2013 20:22

Strange Matter: Oct 6, 2009; Ask me about Genocide

sean10mm posted:

It's just another example how a certain kind of fan ruins everything. They did some funny Star Wars prequel reviews with a serial killer reviewer gag, and now people think they're the last word in movies and link to them as a substitute for thinking about anything. When they got away from the gag Plinkett reviews they got boring, unfunny and often just pedantic.

I think there's also much more to examine as far as the prequels are concerned than just the failure of the film's text and cinematography. A big portion of the RLM reviews, which I sincerely enjoy and which made me appreciate the OT even more, show the behind the scenes process of how the films got that way. The "shot/reverse shot" analysis gets its impact from showing Lucas sitting in his director's chair gloating about his sophisticated film-making process. I don't think that same level of behind the scenes documentation exists for other films that RLM targets, which drains a lot of their punch.

# ¿ May 28, 2013 20:29

Strange Matter: Oct 6, 2009; Ask me about Genocide

1st AD posted:

In Star Trek orthodoxy there was a nuclear World War 3 in the 90's where Khan and other genetic supermen ruled the planet for a while before normal people drove them out of their countries. Following defeat, Khan fled to outer space in deep cryo to be woken up in a future where hopefully humanity forgot about them/had evolved to a point where murderous supermen were A-OK.

To add to this, this was retconned somewhere around TNG/DS9 to be more of a cloak-and-dagger cold war rather than an all out planetary conflict, what with the world not being blown up in 1990. Star Trek likes to quietly brush that part of their canon under the rug, since it was maybe a bit short sighted for Roddenberry to predict WWIII well within the lifetimes of his viewership.

# ¿ May 28, 2013 21:13

Strange Matter: Oct 6, 2009; Ask me about Genocide

Hmm I may have remembered it wrong, but maybe the Trek gurus later decided that Khan's war and WWIII were different things, since I'm almost certain that Space Seed either implied or outright stated that they were the same.

# ¿ May 28, 2013 21:26

Strange Matter: Oct 6, 2009; Ask me about Genocide

Mister Roboto posted:

What was McCoy's character? He never really had any episodes to himself back in TOS. The appeal of TOS's acting was always the interplay between the characters, and that means Spock-Kirk-McCoy.

Sure, Kirk was the main and got solo acts, and sometimes Spock got a few, but that's it. Scotty, Chekov, Uhuru and Sulu never got their own episodes.

TNG started the trend of single-character focused episodes. Since these are movies, we HAVE to have the multiple-character interactions, there's no time for one to have all the spotlight. Besides Kirk and Spock.

McCoy has plenty of episodes where he plays a central role-- First/Second episode (depending on how you count them), the Mantrap, has McCoy front and center because of his relationship with one of the episode's characters.

McCoy's role on the show was to balance out Spock, since McCoy almost always made decisions that were more blatantly emotional.

# ¿ Jun 5, 2013 20:44

Strange Matter: Oct 6, 2009; Ask me about Genocide

Tender Bender posted:

They've understandably shifted much of that to Kirk in the films; in the show Kirk would seek the advice of both and McCoy would be the one bristling at Spock's logic and calling him a pointy eared calculator or whatever. In the film Kirk does that, presumably because it's an easier dynamic and they don't have 3 seasons of television to use as character-building. Establishing and then exploring the full Kirk-Spock-McCoy dynamic in a two hour film would be tough to do if you wanted to spend a significant portion of the runtime on anything else. You could argue that the Abrams characters are on the way to reaching that point, as Kirk has now learned the value of the logical, by-the-book way of doing things.

Yeah I don't really have a problem with shifting away from the Kirk/Spock/Bones dynamic, except for the fact that Karl Urban owns and is easily the best casting move in the whole reboot franchise.

# ¿ Jun 5, 2013 21:18

Strange Matter: Oct 6, 2009; Ask me about Genocide

The Warszawa posted:

Because the idea that "we cannot intervene with the lowly savage for fear that we, in our mightiness, may put him above his station - we must see if he rises on his own to be worthy of our company," and "we cannot reveal our existence, for they simply cannot handle the truth" a) infantilizes the indigenous people and b) sets Starfleet above and separate from the exogenous experiences that undoubtedly shape cultural development.

That's true but is that such a terrible point of view to have when the alternative is "It is our duty as a superior civilization to enforce our ethics and culture upon less sophisticated societies?" Any civilization that undertakes a concentrated campaign of exploration beyond the boarders of its homeland has to figure out which side of that debate they fall on, otherwise they'd just stay home, paralyzed by being too concerned with how history and other civilizations will view them to take any action.

In fact certain episodes of Star Trek directly imply that this is the ultimate evolutionary state of any advanced civilization; "Errand of Mercy" comes to mind, where what appears at first to be a weirdly placid and isolated society infact turns out to be far more advanced than either the Federation or the Klingons, and their reluctance to affect in even the slightest way the concerns of exogenous civilizations is evidence of their enlightenment.

EDIT: Actually DS9 is in large part about the effects of when a supremely advanced civilization interferes with a less evolved society, but from the perspective of that "inferior" society. The younger society (Bajor) views the older race (The Prophets) as gods, and the Prophets in turn kind of look like dicks for not helping the Bajorans out.

Strange Matter fucked around with this message at 18:47 on Jun 7, 2013

# ¿ Jun 7, 2013 18:43

Strange Matter: Oct 6, 2009; Ask me about Genocide

The Warszawa posted:

But is that the only alternative? Are we doomed by fate to "undertake[] a concentrated campaign of exploration beyond the borders of its homeland"? Are we fated to encounter Schrodinger's Pre-Warp Civilization, where the very act of observing (itself by bombarding a planet with sensor radiation) changes that civilization irrevocably? Or is there a way to treat a civilization as an equal, influencing without enforcing? I don't think the film necessarily answers the question, but it certainly raises it and casts doubt in the Prime Directive.

Well the finale of The Next Generation spells that not only is there another alternative but that it's inevitable that advanced civilizations will either realize that there's more to learn by looking inside their own minds than in aggressive, quasi-imperialist exploration or they destroy themselves through their own lack of foresight and understanding. The whole plot of "All Good Things..." hinges on the Federation poking at something they don't understand in what seems like an innocuous manner, and through their ignorance very nearly causing the human race to cease existing, and it's only through Picard opening his mind to new possibilities beyond "use technobabble of the week to solve this problem" that he averts extinction.

# ¿ Jun 7, 2013 18:58

Strange Matter: Oct 6, 2009; Ask me about Genocide

The Warszawa posted:

If the Borg is the dark mirror of the Federation, then Q is the dark mirror of the captain of the Enterprise (so signaled by his donning the captain's uniform) - perpetually exploring, tinkering, toying with "inferior" races - subjecting them to arbitrary and seemingly nonsensical tests (like, say, achieve warp drive before talking to us). The honesty of his intervention is what gives him his power, as opposed to the self-imposed, self-deceptive constraints that Starfleet embraces.

This is a very good point, and it's supported throughout the original series as well. There are at least three times in the first season alone where the Enterprise encounters beings that are for all intents and purposes godlike-- The Squire of Gothos, Arena and Errand of Mercy (I'm sure that I'm forgetting some). In Squire of Gothos, Trelaine treats the humans as playthings; in Arena, the aliens interfere in as small a scale as possible in order to preserve the isolation of their territory; and in Errand of Mercy, the aliens try their best to stay uninvolved but their hands are forced by the Federation and Klingons and they interfere on a massive scale.

Maxwell Lord posted:

But is exploration itself an inherently bad thing? Imperialism being a bad thing doesn't mean that history would have best been served by everyone staying in place.

No, and I think that Star Trek more or less supports this. The Federation acknowledges that it's impossible to explore the galaxy without bumping into civilizations whose worlds would be knocked upside down by a spaceship rising from the ocean, but if the alternative is never leaving their backyard and not learning anything, they decide to take their chances and try to step on as few toes as possible.

Besides, there are just as many episodes of Star Trek where the Federation has to deal with civilizations that are at their level or more advanced than they are, and that comes with its own risks as well. Kirk, Picard and Sisko know they aren't gods because there are Romulans and Klingons hanging around that have all the same tools and abilities that they do.

Strange Matter fucked around with this message at 19:23 on Jun 7, 2013

# ¿ Jun 7, 2013 19:16

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 09:08

Strange Matter: Oct 6, 2009; Ask me about Genocide

Cardboard Box A posted:

To Sell Toys is still the best article on any fan wiki

Hahaha thank you for linking to that, that article is fantastic if only for the picture comments. Is the entire TFWiki that sarcastic?

# ¿ Dec 19, 2013 19:13

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Cinema Discusso > Star Trek: Round Spaceships