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A Steampunk Gent posted:Also the last film which centred on space battles was Nemesis. Turns out 'his spaceship's power level is maximum' does not make an interesting film. STID's space battles were decent.
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May 5, 2015 20:40
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The opening to In Darkness was delightful and it would have been great to see a ToS throwback all poo poo that bright and pretty and actioney but oh well. I think Pegg really gets it, hope he does a good script
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May 5, 2015 20:40
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A Steampunk Gent posted:Of course it'd be cool if 'Beyond' referred to going beyond the faux-utopia of Starfleet, meeting up with V'Ger and establishing The Culture. Into Darkness got alot of stick but it was one of the rare times Star Trek really dealt head on with authoritarian militarism that's always been implicit in the background of the series, I'd love to see a film which actually dealt with how they try to resolve the issue on a structural level rather than dealing with the Bad Admiral of the Week and assuming it'll never be a problem again. I dunno, this strikes me as being similar to "yeah, it's nice they can get from star system to star system, but just how exactly do they warp spacetime?" They got super-physics, they got super-sociology. Star Trek shouldn't be about how the warp drive works and it shouldn't be about how the Federation functions. Cingulate posted:STID's space battles were decent. I thought STID's "space battles" were just the ISS DEATHBOAT kicking the crap out of the Enterprise again and again 
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May 5, 2015 21:13
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:I thought STID's "space battles" were just the ISS DEATHBOAT kicking the crap out of the Enterprise again and again Cingulate posted:Well there aren't any real space battles in Into Darkness, it's just the big ship beating up the little ship, then some talk, then more beating up. It was like that in the last one, too - no real space battles because the evil ship is simply superior. Nero never really fought the Enterprise, it was only ever all or nothing. There's never a battle that could go either way, the only options are: the Enterprise is killed off instantly; the Enterprise survives narrowly. It's never Enterprise wins vs. Evil Ship wins. Khan isn't killed with phasers either.
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May 5, 2015 21:16
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Also, ISS DEATHBOAT is totally the official name of that thing.
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May 5, 2015 21:17
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Trump posted:But I want it to be shown on screen, as you very well know. Can you shut up now? You didn't see it on screen for most of Star Trek because they didn't have very good CGI.
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May 5, 2015 21:29
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:I dunno, this strikes me as being similar to "yeah, it's nice they can get from star system to star system, but just how exactly do they warp spacetime?" Well for one thing the series invites the examination itself, episodes like The Drumhead, Paradise Lost and the like basically point out Starfleet top brass is full of fascists, they just never follow it on with 'therefore ...' Also as stories they lose meaning if they have no point of comparison with reality, it'd be a bunch of disconnected nonsense if it didn't try and place a comparison between what happens on screen and our own world. The fact those aforementioned episodes exist is because on a basic level that is what the writers were trying to do. Cingulate posted:The space battles were by far the best part of Nemesis. Not because they were any good, but everything else about that movie was so unbelievably bad. Or maybe ... Nemesis was bad because it thought that's all it needed to deliver to be a good film?
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May 5, 2015 21:33
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A Steampunk Gent posted:Or maybe ... Nemesis was bad because it thought that's all it needed to deliver to be a good film?
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May 5, 2015 22:04
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Cingulate posted:No. The movie was full of sibling symbology, a new Romulan Slave Race, heroic self sacrifice, and dune buggy car chases. All of which were extremely awful. Nemesis is Exhibit A as to why you don't let fans (John Logan) and the actors (Spiner) write the movies. Insurrection is Exhibit B.
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May 5, 2015 22:23
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Snak posted:Well yeah. I mean, I recently went a long rant in the Star Trek TVIV thread about how Trek's only prayer for quality is a return to TOS ideas, since the politics of the TNG era are just completely unsalvageable. It sounds like you and Pegg may be on the same page. As I said, I did appreciate Into Darkness for really shining a light on the problem of Starfleet, but I would be pretty happy with TOS throwback adventure too. Zachary Quinto should stop getting mad about emotions and just get high off spores Cingulate posted:No. The movie was full of sibling symbology, a new Romulan Slave Race, heroic self sacrifice, and dune buggy car chases. All of which were extremely awful. Okay, in this case I am willing to concede Nemesis was bad for myriad reasons ...
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May 5, 2015 22:41
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A Steampunk Gent posted:Well for one thing the series invites the examination itself, episodes like The Drumhead, Paradise Lost and the like basically point out Starfleet top brass is full of fascists, they just never follow it on with 'therefore ...' Yeah, because the Federation isn't real. No, I'm not making a flip "nothing is real and therefore doesn't matter" remark, I mean that Starfleet and the Federation were not (and arguably still are not) firmly defined at all beyond being that organization where Our Heroes come from. They were background dressing meant to serve the needs of the immediate story, not to build a firmly self-consistent setting. In one episode they might be a pacifist organization willing to relocate its colonists (at no expense to them, to any planet they choose, or even to a not-yet-discovered planet of their specification that the Federation will send Starfleet out to find) in order to end a war whose deaths were measured in thousands. In another episode they might be willing to give a starship captain the authority to charge into the Neutral Zone and launch a preemptive attack against a suspected secret Romulan base which has a high likelihood of precipitating a war which would devastate both interstellar civilizations. It's interesting to say "well, if we follow this to the logical conclusion, the Federation is actually a bunch of hallucinatory, psychotic fascists that somehow tend to be benevolent overlords half the time (and yet the only people who seriously call them out as such are racist warmongers)", but it's kind of a hollow achievement because the Star Trek setting is really contradictory. If you want to make a meaningful story about how people could attempt to build a structurally ethical society, or about how a society could portray itself and even believe that it is ethical while actually being violently fascist, I think you'd be better off using or constructing a setting that's more consciously designed from the beginning to serve the purposes of that story, as well as not being burdened by the baggage of expectations of what the story format should be. I wouldn't be opposed to a new series (or the next movie, or whatever) sitting down beforehand and really seriously thinking out how the society that Our Heroes come from works (and how it doesn't), and deliberately showing more of that structure over the course of stories could be entertaining and thought-provoking, but I'm still firmly opposed to any movement towards making Star Trek specifically about the Federation.
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May 5, 2015 23:57
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:
What do you think Star Trek is about then?
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May 6, 2015 00:08
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computer parts posted:What do you think Star Trek is about then? The conflicts we must resolve to better human society?
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May 6, 2015 00:09
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Snak posted:The conflicts we must resolve to better human society? And how is the Federation not about solving those conflicts?
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May 6, 2015 00:11
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computer parts posted:And how is the Federation not about solving those conflicts? Well, because Trek is about allegories for modern society. In concept, the Federation is the society we want to change into. We can't actually quantify it or we will be making a concrete political statement and get bogged down in trying to define the perfect society. Captain Kirk takes the Enterprise out the fringes of known space and learns and teaches there, where moral allegories can flourish without the inherent contradiction of a society that is better than ours while still having all the same problems.
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May 6, 2015 00:16
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Snak posted:Well, because Trek is about allegories for modern society. In concept, the Federation is the society we want to change into. We can't actually quantify it or we will be making a concrete political statement and get bogged down in trying to define the perfect society. Captain Kirk takes the Enterprise out the fringes of known space and learns and teaches there, where moral allegories can flourish without the inherent contradiction of a society that is better than ours while still having all the same problems. The problem with that is that the concept of being an inspiring force to lesser civilizations is itself full of the trappings of colonialism and other nasty cultural artifacts (because those sorts of stories are based on real life adventures from the colonial era, eg Cook et all).
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May 6, 2015 00:37
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At this point I think I'd be impressed if they just managed to not make the next movie another boring revenge plot. Bonus points if the movie passes the Bechdel test. And ideally they won't have another moment where a 200 year old man is a brilliant scientist or where somebody sneaks a shuttle craft into the cargo bay of a top secret state of the art military spaceship. I'm not gonna hold my breath for the last one though. Farmer Crack-rear end posted:Yeah, because the Federation isn't real. No, I'm not making a flip "nothing is real and therefore doesn't matter" remark, I mean that Starfleet and the Federation were not (and arguably still are not) firmly defined at all beyond being that organization where Our Heroes come from. They were background dressing meant to serve the needs of the immediate story, not to build a firmly self-consistent setting. In one episode they might be a pacifist organization willing to relocate its colonists (at no expense to them, to any planet they choose, or even to a not-yet-discovered planet of their specification that the Federation will send Starfleet out to find) in order to end a war whose deaths were measured in thousands. In another episode they might be willing to give a starship captain the authority to charge into the Neutral Zone and launch a preemptive attack against a suspected secret Romulan base which has a high likelihood of precipitating a war which would devastate both interstellar civilizations. I dunno man. If we adopt this common sense point of view then what would the film school drop outs and wanna be critical theorists jerk off about? computer parts posted:What do you think Star Trek is about then? Roughly speaking it's about 1) making money, 2) telling an entertaining story and 3) meditating on political or philosophcial topics (though really, most of the time I feel like 3 is mostly window dressing intended to enhance objectives 1 and 2).
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May 6, 2015 02:17
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Helsing posted:At this point I think I'd be impressed if they just managed to not make the next movie another boring revenge plot. Bonus points if the movie passes the Bechdel test. ST is about 0.) three men who're, like, Bros, shooting the poo poo. In space. On a vaguely feminine space ship. The rest is paraphernalia.
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May 6, 2015 02:29
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This got really deep..
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May 6, 2015 09:40
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computer parts posted:The problem with that is that the concept of being an inspiring force to lesser civilizations is itself full of the trappings of colonialism and other nasty cultural artifacts (because those sorts of stories are based on real life adventures from the colonial era, eg Cook et all). Next show should be about the First Federation and have babby captains
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May 6, 2015 15:59
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computer parts posted:The problem with that is that the concept of being an inspiring force to lesser civilizations is itself full of the trappings of colonialism and other nasty cultural artifacts (because those sorts of stories are based on real life adventures from the colonial era, eg Cook et all). Yeah, and I'm not saying it should be like that. In TOS, I felt like it wasn't the whole Federation/Starfleet that was a beacon of shining hope and superiority, but Kirk and his crew. TOS is littered with Federation/Starfleet failures. Nazi Planet was a failed Starfleet colony. The guy in "Conscience of the King" was the leader of a federation colony and he murdered half his population to make the food last longer for the remaining population. TOS never didn't make as bold of claims as TNG did with respect to society's problems being solved, and left the actual nature of this future society nebulous, instead focusing on the exploits of a good man and his good crew doing the right thing in the face of moral dilemmas. I agree that it's hugely problematic to start from the premise that Starfleet/The Federation is a perfected society and it sends ships out to show others the light. I think the premise should be more along the lines of "The Federation is an improvement of our 20th(21st, now) century society" but rather than explicitly saying why, so examples of good people from that society doing good works. Like I said before, if you try to quantify the ways in which the Federation is superior to 21st century technology you end up trapped endorsing specific modern political agendas and ideologies. The "out on the (final) frontier" setting of TOS lets them explore ethical quandaries in a relative vacuum rather than make sweeping political statements about how a huge society should be governed. So yes, the big potential problem here is that you end up substituting "Space" for "Darkest Africa". So you have to be careful to portray aliens you encounter as beings with depth and relateable motivations and needs. The best trek does this, the worst trek doesn't. At their best, aliens in trek represent aspects of humanity, and explore the pros and cons of those aspects. Bad trek is like when Vulcans are represented and strictly inferior to humans because they are unfeeling. DS9 and ENT basically entirely waste the concept of Vulcans, turning them from a min-maxing of one type of human philosophy into a statement that utilitarianism is always flawed. TOS was a product of its time, and so it's "celebration of diversity" was often problematic or poorly executed, but today there is a lot of potential to handle these things well. Unfortunatly, the show runners that ran TNG onward were actually not interested in diversity and wanted instead to espouse the most generic WASP values as the most enlightened culture in the universe.
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May 6, 2015 16:22
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I'd actually like a Star Trek movie that isn't just some REALLY ANGRY VILLIAN and cheesy boring typical action movie poo poo IN SPACE. I'd much rather they did something more in tune with the "adventure" sort of feel.
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May 6, 2015 16:39
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AlternateAccount posted:I'd actually like a Star Trek movie that isn't just some REALLY ANGRY VILLIAN and cheesy boring typical action movie poo poo IN SPACE. I'd much rather they did something more in tune with the "adventure" sort of feel. A big issue is that, since it started, Trek has played things progressively safer and safer. TOS was like "There's a Russian on the bridge, he's a good guy. There's a black woman as a main character, also an interracial kiss". TNG was like "Being into an androgenous person is okay, and also life on earth was seeded by aliens". Now we're really solidly in the "there's no gays in the future, definitely don't contradict religion". Take the premise of "The Chase" and make it not lovely, there's your movie. Put a gay character on the bridge, and have a Muslim science officer. Trek needs to push boundaries again or it will never be anything but mediocre. Show that diversity and communication are strengths. The reboot films have literally shown the opposite: Spock was a weak failure until he succumbed to peer pressure to be more human. Uhura's attempt at diplomacy with the Klingons was shown as foolish and dangerous. I'm not interested in Trek that isn't about overcoming the difficulties of diversity and peace being worth the risk. Snak fucked around with this message at 17:10 on May 6, 2015 |
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May 6, 2015 16:48
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Snak posted:A big issue is that since it started, Trek has played things progressively safer and safer. TOS was like "There's a Russian on the bridge, he's a good guy. There's a black woman as a main character, also an interracial kiss. TNG was like being into an androgenous person is okay, and also life on earth was seeded by aliens. Now we're really solidly in the "there's no gays in the future, definitely don't contradict religion" Absolutely, 100% Berman. He was a huge conformist homophobic let's keep it family friendlier. Roddenberry tried to get gays into an episode of TNG in season 1, back in 1989, but Berman and Maizlish managed to convince him it'd get the show cancelled. MikeJF fucked around with this message at 16:57 on May 6, 2015 |
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May 6, 2015 16:54
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Snak posted:A big issue is that, since it started, Trek has played things progressively safer and safer. TOS was like "There's a Russian on the bridge, he's a good guy. There's a black woman as a main character, also an interracial kiss". TNG was like "Being into an androgenous person is okay, and also life on earth was seeded by aliens". Now we're really solidly in the "there's no gays in the future, definitely don't contradict religion". This is a good post. Everybody read it again. e: Updated quote to get rid of 
WarLocke fucked around with this message at 17:17 on May 6, 2015 |
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May 6, 2015 16:59
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WarLocke posted:This is a good post. Everybody read it again. oh god except for all the typos. I'm going to go fix my original post, if you don't hate me, please update your quote to make me look less illiterate. But thanks, I'm glad you some likes the fruits of all the time I waste thinking about Star Trek...
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May 6, 2015 17:09
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The fact that Doctor Who- which has never had a reputation as a progressive show- beat them to LBGTQ representation is just insane. If any of the new Star Wars movies manage it before they do, their humiliation will be complete.
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May 6, 2015 17:09
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I think that's simply a symptom of British culture being more progressive than American culture, at least in some ways.
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May 6, 2015 18:56
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Snak posted:I think that's simply a symptom of British culture being more progressive than American culture, at least in some ways. Also Doctor Who being run by a Big Gay Welshman while Star Trek was run by a repressed homophobe.
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May 6, 2015 19:27
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Y' know, we generally mock the way they looked but on a certain level you gotta admire TNG putting background men in the Starfleet miniskirt and gently caress-me-boots uniform as no biggie. (Again something Berman abolished)
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May 6, 2015 19:39
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It was cool when Dax kissed her wife.
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May 6, 2015 19:43
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Snak posted:Put a gay character on the bridge, and have a Muslim science officer Deservedly so. A middle eastern guy however? Surely. Or an Indian woman. Or a bald dude ... Adding to the general theme ITT right now: TNG started a terrible trend, perfected in ENT, where humans were the bestest at everything. All Data could ever strive for was being a real human, human morals are the best, humans win all wars, and basically, for all the claims of Vulcans being perfectly rational, all throughout ENT, they were actually completely driven by passions, and violent ones, too, and all their "rationality" stick manifested itself in absolutely nothing but ridiculous arrogance. T'Pol being a bit of an exception, but the higher-up a Vulcan was, the more he was a violent maniac. STII was probably the strongest in the series in that regard, with Spock's utilitarian sacrifice. And I actually like STIII for driving the point home; sure, putting the needs of one above those of the group, if the group willingly chooses so, is irrational in the sense of not being utilitarian, but well, maybe we humans simply happen to not be utilitarians and that's okay. It was making a point about being human that wasn't "(white, male) humans are the best".
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May 6, 2015 20:01
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Tell Sisko and the Bajorians that religion is dead.  And actually, one of the things I enjoyed about ENT was its optimism regarding humanity. I liked that it was our desire for peace and unity that forged the Federation. I liked that it said we had something to offer to these aliens who were more advanced than us mentally, physically, and intellectually. It seemed to reembrace Roddenberry's vision in that regard.
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May 6, 2015 20:54
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Cingulate posted:In the future, religion is dead. Except that it's not, and that's a stupid attitude to have when the show is really about addressing issues in the present. Trek is full of religions, like Klingon, Bajoran, Ferengi, and Dominion religions. And even humans in Etarfleet have religions, like Chakotay. Vulcan philosophy exhibits elements of ascetic spiritualism and rituals similar some Earth religions. I'm not saying make the fact that a character is a Muslim a plot point, specifically the opposite. He or she would just be a regular Starfleet person who happened to be a practicing Muslim as part of their personal life. The wouldn't have to constantly be bringing it up or pointing out how "their religion" teaches such and such. Just like how Checkov being Russian wasn't ever a plot point and everyone just accepted it. Probably shouldn't use the first Muslim character in Trek as comic relief constantly mocking their beliefs though.
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May 6, 2015 21:49
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:Yeah, because the Federation isn't real. No, I'm not making a flip "nothing is real and therefore doesn't matter" remark, I mean that Starfleet and the Federation were not (and arguably still are not) firmly defined at all beyond being that organization where Our Heroes come from. They were background dressing meant to serve the needs of the immediate story, not to build a firmly self-consistent setting. In one episode they might be a pacifist organization willing to relocate its colonists (at no expense to them, to any planet they choose, or even to a not-yet-discovered planet of their specification that the Federation will send Starfleet out to find) in order to end a war whose deaths were measured in thousands. In another episode they might be willing to give a starship captain the authority to charge into the Neutral Zone and launch a preemptive attack against a suspected secret Romulan base which has a high likelihood of precipitating a war which would devastate both interstellar civilizations. Well the thing it it really permeates the entire setup of the series (again, particularly TNG and Voyager). As myself and others have pointed out, a tremendous number of episodes are in one way or another about the inherent superiority of Starfleet and humanity, it's a constant overriding theme that their society is organised in the best way and their morality is superior to all others; the episodes that directly address the structure and inequities of the organisation just bring the issue into focus and show the crew what it's like when the boot is on the other foot. I mean there's a fifteen minute compilation video of Worf getting shut down on TNG because the defining character trait the show gives him is 'irrational, violent alien', the irony being he's normally warning the crew about other irrational, violent aliens and he's invariably right. Snak's take on TOS in that respect is pretty good, the show didn't even try and pretend it was a utopia and was quite upfront about Starfleet loving things up and being in the wrong on occasion. While it was still far from perfect, the protagonists didn't act as Great White Saviors on quite such a regular basis whilst obviously having their own not-inconsiderable unadressed societal issues. Anyways to bring this back to the new film, while I doubt they're going to go full self-criticism and try and rebuild the world as a logically coherent leftist utopia it'd be interesting if they continued to acknowledge Starfleet's dual and often contradictory role as a nominally pacifist exploration and aid organisation and a hierarchically organised military body and what that actually entails for the crew if they want to be part of that organisation. Into Darkness was pretty on the nose with the whole in presenting them unambiguously as the armed forces but it was pretty pessimistic in tone and didn't really have anything to add past 'well we stopped this one crazy Admiral AGAIN' Snak posted:A big issue is that, since it started, Trek has played things progressively safer and safer. TOS was like "There's a Russian on the bridge, he's a good guy. There's a black woman as a main character, also an interracial kiss". TNG was like "Being into an androgenous person is okay, and also life on earth was seeded by aliens". Now we're really solidly in the "there's no gays in the future, definitely don't contradict religion". Echoing this is a good post
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May 6, 2015 22:15
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Snak posted:Except that it's not, and that's a stupid attitude to have when the show is really about addressing issues in the present. Trek is full of religions, like Klingon, Bajoran, Ferengi, and Dominion religions. And even humans in Etarfleet have religions, like Chakotay. Vulcan philosophy exhibits elements of ascetic spiritualism and rituals similar some Earth religions. Also, Spock blows up God.
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May 6, 2015 22:28
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Trump posted:But I want it to be shown on screen, as you very well know. Can you shut up now? There was a lot of space combat in the new Treks, so much so that many fans say they resembled Star Wars. Why doesn't the awesome boarding action sequence in Darkness count?
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May 7, 2015 03:10
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For god's sake, he's talking about starship pew pew, don't be dense.
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May 7, 2015 03:46
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MikeJF posted:For god's sake, he's talking about starship pew pew, don't be dense. Yeah, but I don't understand the complaint. JJTrek films have the most star trek pew pew trek has ever had. So it's kind of like wanting the Next Trek movie to be even less like Star Trek. I'm not entirely against that idea. What Trek needs more than anything, going forward, is a clear cut identity. I've made it pretty clear what I think Star Trek should be about and what makes it good, but, putting that aside for a second, what Trek needs is to define itself. JJTrek looks pretty, and it has some good intensity, but it's kind of just "generic scifi adventure" with familiar names. The second one was kind of vaguely political, but pretty unfocused. Look at successful franchises, they all have a thing. The Bourne movies are high tension spy thrillers with tight fast action sequences. The Fast and Furious are testosterone fueled sex engine explosion movies, Transformers is basically just giant robots destroying buildings. Taken is Liam Neeson brutally killing bad guys like he's the ghost of Charles Bronson. Star Trek is now just a sequence of unrelated Things From Star Trek. How is anyone supposed to connect with or get into that? I don't hate fun, I liked both JJTrek movies because I'm a drat trekkie. But my thought process is also "Let's watch a movie that has people named kirk and spock and the also the guy who played spock and a shiny new take on the Enterprise." Cause I'm sure as loving not getting anything interesting. Remember the Matrix Sequels? The JJTrek films are the matrix sequels to the Star Trek television franchise. Give me something I can be in the mood for.
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May 7, 2015 04:07
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Snak posted:Just like how Checkov being Russian wasn't ever a plot point https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVOIig2xLq8
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May 7, 2015 04:19
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