Star Trek Into Darkness

[Totenkindly]

You mean, where did they get the number 72 in the first place? I didn't consider it, but really, it's up to Kirk to question it since they are being loaded onto his starship, and he conveniently didn't question anything.

And there was also this:

How was a tribble brought back to life by human blood?

AUUGGHH!!!! ZOMBIE VAMPIRE TRIBBLE!!! UNDEAD UNCLEAN!!

"The Fluffy Dead" -- the new AMC series.

 

[tinker683]

Big Trek fan here, I grew up with it as did my Dad before me. We all went to the IMAX to see it. Overall, I liked it. It's not as DEEP as the previous Trek franchises were but I can understand they're trying to appeal to a new audience and my attitude is that if these movies reinvigorate interest in the franchise as a whole, I'm all for it.

That being said, I have some thoughts on the 2nd movie

-I was a little disappointed that the Klingons had ridges. I was somewhat expecting them to look like their old, TOS mongolian-looking counterparts. Oh well

-I really liked how they kept you guessing who the villain was. The studios did a good job obfuscating that, My Dad and I thought it was going to Mitchell from the TOS pilot (the 2nd one, not the first one where Spock actually smiles). Cumberbatch did a terrific job as a antagonist, and no offense to Shatner but I like the new Kirk, very entertaining guy and I get the feeling when I see his character on screen the poteintal for the legendary greatness

-Kirk's future baby momma is HAWT

-The one thing I dislike about both movies is that, while they are entertaining, I feel they somewhat lack the underlying philosophy and spirit of the TOS and TNG franchises. Again, this isn't to say they aren't entertaining forays into Trek storytelling, but I almost feel in the pursuit of making Star Trek more 'modern' that they are slowly losing it's soul along the way.

-My brother and I were snickering that Admiral Badguy was Robocop

-I felt like the Juggernaut was a bit of a ripoff of Nemesis. Did they really have to go with black and couldn't they have made the ship look...I dunno...less like the Enterprise E?

-I'm interesting to see how the Law of Unintended Consequences plays out since Future Spock introduced Scotties transwarp theory to the past and now in this movie we see it being used in a very destructive way. Me wonders how this technology, which doesn't belong at this point in Trek history, will effect this alternate timeline.

-I was half expecting someone to open a compartment and a bunch of tribbles fall out at the end after they revivied the one tribble. I was a little sad. They are so cute!

As I said though, I enjoyed it overall, and had no issue with the references to prior Trek movies. I'm hoping they'll introduce the Genesis Probe in the next movie

 

[Mal12345]

AUUGGHH!!!! ZOMBIE VAMPIRE TRIBBLE!!! UNDEAD UNCLEAN!!

"The Fluffy Dead" -- the new AMC series.

Imagine original Kirk opening the hatch and slowly being nibbled to death in The Trouble With Tribbles.

 

[Totenkindly]

Imagine original Kirk opening the hatch and slowly being nibbled to death in The Trouble With Tribbles.

...And then he comes back... all hairy and nibbley!

I wish I had my own production/animation studio; I'd do it.

PS. Did someone actually mention the "Genesis probe"?
*cough*

"And in the beginning, there was the rubber glove, and the rubber glove was god, and the rubber glove was with god."

 

[tinker683]

PS. Did someone actually mention the "Genesis probe"?
*cough*

"And in the beginning, there was the rubber glove, and the rubber glove was god, and the rubber glove was with god."

Fine, Genesis Device

You dirty, dirty girl....

 

[Totenkindly]

Fine, Genesis Device

You dirty, dirty girl....

uhhh..... thank you?

 

[Winds of Thor]

You mean like the U.S.S. Enterprise flying into a butt? Hahahaha

 

[Totenkindly]

You mean like the U.S.S. Enterprise flying into a butt? Hahahaha

You know how people are, it had to happen some day -- those warp drives create some pretty intense stimulation.

 

[Winds of Thor]

You know how people are, it had to happen some day -- those warp drives create some pretty intense stimulation.

But might happen something like this with all the methane!

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Saw it. Like it.

Not getting the "Wrath of Khan" ripoff vibe, which is what I most worried about. Of course there were definitely shout-outs. They sort of used them to play with my expectations, actually, and I liked that. If Spock had sacrificed himself, that would have been too much. Kirk's survivial didn't come out of left field, either. I saw Chekov's gun twice. Maybe as "science" it doesn't make sense, but made up "science" is honestly nothing new for Star Trek. Chekov's gun (heh) was satisfied. The groundwork was laid for it, and this wouldn't be the first appearance of made up science to solve problems


Plus, Tribbles! Sorry, can't hate anything with Tribbles in it. That would be highly illogical.

They also referenced Nibiru, one of my favorite idiotic conspiracy theories.

I'm really, really excited to see what J-dawg does with Star Wars now.

 

[Mal12345]

Saw it. Like it.

Not getting the "Wrath of Khan" ripoff vibe, which is what I most worried about. Of course there were definitely shout-outs. They sort of used them to play with my expectations, actually, and I liked that. If Spock had sacrificed himself, that would have been too much. Kirk's survivial didn't come out of left field, either. I saw Chekov's gun twice. Maybe as "science" it doesn't make sense, but made up "science" is honestly nothing new for Star Trek. Chekov's gun (heh) was satisfied. The groundwork was laid for it, and this wouldn't be the first appearance of made up science to solve problems

Plus, Tribbles! Sorry, can't hate anything with Tribbles in it. That would be highly illogical.

They also referenced Nibiru, one of my favorite idiotic conspiracy theories.

I'm really, really excited to see what J-dawg does with Star Wars now.

Thanks. Just for that, I'm posting my brief review of the RedLetterMedia review I posted here.

Worst review yet. Spock's character grew in this movie by developing his human half. He "betrayed" Kirk by telling the truth, and in the end he saved Kirk by telling the truth - half the truth. ("Yes, they are YOUR torpedoes." And by the way, those are not "missiles.") In the end, Spock does the illogical, human thing - seeks revenge - while Kirk obeys the Vulcan dictum "the good of the many outweighs the needs of the few, or the one."

This isn't a spoiler - but geeeez, come on, they called photon torpedoes "missiles" in their review. They need to put out more Plinkett material before they start losing fans.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I just liked seeing Spock's ENFP qualities come into conflict with Kirk's ISFJ. That was awesome.

 

[Totenkindly]

Saw it. Like it.

Not getting the "Wrath of Khan" ripoff vibe, which is what I most worried about. Of course there were definitely shout-outs. They sort of used them to play with my expectations, actually, and I liked that. If Spock had sacrificed himself, that would have been too much. Kirk's survivial didn't come out of left field, either. I saw Chekov's gun twice. Maybe as "science" it doesn't make sense, but made up "science" is honestly nothing new for Star Trek. Chekov's gun (heh) was satisfied. The groundwork was laid for it, and this wouldn't be the first appearance of made up science to solve problems.

shout outs? They literally cut up the old script and just rearranged the lines, out of context, for probably the best five minutes within the entire Star Trek movie cannon released so far -- that's, like, what, ten movies worth? And that original scene was set in the context of aging and decline; I'm glad they at least killed off Pike, because otherwise this script would have little to do with Kirk confronting death. And the problem I had was that Kirk's survival didn't come out of left field, as you have noted, it was obvious that the whole "death scene" would have no cost and Kirk would live. That is not what happened in the original; when Spock died, no one knew whether or not he'd be back, it seemed like the permanent end to a character who had been around 13 years or more with that actor. That kind of contrivance in this movie really came off as cheap to me. Even Spock's cry, "Khan," was way out of context of the original and felt very forced, rather than organic.

This reduced it to a nice popcorn movie, rather than a solid dramatic piece. Which has its place as I suppose, but not a lot of longevity.

I just liked seeing Spock's ENFP qualities come into conflict with Kirk's ISFJ. That was awesome.

I liked it when Kirk made cupcakes, and Spock painted the room with rainbows and stars and triumphant unicorns while heckling Kirk's leaving the plastic on the Enterprise upholstery.

 

[Magic Poriferan]

Well, what a spirited discussion. Here's something to consider.

Made you look!

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

shout outs? They literally cut up the old script and just rearranged the lines, out of context, for probably the best five minutes within the entire Star Trek movie cannon released so far -- that's, like, what, ten movies worth? And that original scene was set in the context of aging and decline; I'm glad they at least killed off Pike, because otherwise this script would have little to do with Kirk confronting death. And the problem I had was that Kirk's survival didn't come out of left field, as you have noted, it was obvious that the whole "death scene" would have no cost and Kirk would live. That is not what happened in the original; when Spock died, no one knew whether or not he'd be back, it seemed like the permanent end to a character who had been around 13 years or more with that actor. That kind of contrivance in this movie really came off as cheap to me. Even Spock's cry, "Khan," was way out of context of the original and felt very forced, rather than organic.

This reduced it to a nice popcorn movie, rather than a solid dramatic piece. Which has its place as I suppose, but not a lot of longevity.

True. The character development didn't feel quite organic to me, so I think it's fair to take issues with it for those reasons. If I'd had the longstanding attachment to Trek I did with Star Wars, I might have more issues. Trek is something I've only recently started getting into. As a popcorn movie, though, it was incredible. There were also stylistic directorial choices I really liked, such as the wordless montage towards the beginning (as a non-action scene example).

The criticisms of the movie aren't entirely boundless, in that the characters seem to move around to different spaces on the chessboard for reasons that don't really make sense and get resolved too easily. This seems like a large part of that could just be because of the script. I think some of the same guys wrote Transformers, which I wasn't thrilled with (and Bay is a shitty director on top of it.).

Since Star Wars is going to have different script writers, and was always a bit more action-adventurey anyway, this gives me really high hopes for Star Wars 7. If the writers can give the movie more of a "heart", so to speak, to combine with the awesome action scenes, it would win over a lot of cranky fans.

I liked it when Kirk made cupcakes, and Spock painted the room with rainbows and stars and triumphant unicorns while heckling Kirk's leaving the plastic on the Enterprise upholstery.

LOL. In all seriousness, I peg Spock as more of an INTP than an INTJ. He's a Ti dom, not a Ni dom. He's just a 5w6 (which can be very "by the book" at times), not a 5w4. (In other words, I "get" Spock more than I probably should.)

 

[Totenkindly]

[star wars]

Yeah, I really don't have any problems with envisioning a decent Star Wars. Like I've said before, the prequels were so awful dramatically that even a little bit of consistency will make me happy. Standard Abrams fare typically at least has an emotional thru-line, and with Star Wars he'll basically be generating his own characters / not trying to recreate the old ones. He's done decent enough with ST effects, so as long as there's still some incredible jedi action sequences, it should be more than acceptable.

LOL. In all seriousness, I peg Spock as more of an INTP than an INTJ. He's a Ti dom, not a Ni dom. He's just a 5w6 (which can be very "by the book" at times), not a 5w4. (In other words, I "get" Spock more than I probably should.)

yeah, I don't know myself and it's not a big issue to me. He's basically just an emotionally repressed T type in how he's portrayed regardless of era, and I identify with him on that level without having to assign him an actual MBTI type. I actually get him better than Kirk, although I don't consider Kirk difficult to follow -- he's just so darn brash and out there.

 

[93JC]

A: 'cause if killing something ONCE is good, killing it SEVENTY-TWO times is even better!!!!

You know, I just had a hard time wondering where the number 72 came from. Isn't that an odd number? Why would a starship need 72 of anything? You think that might have run a bell in someone's head? Especially if they were, well, in the know about Harrison? I'm so confused. I need to watch the movie again, just to get the details right for the background.

The point of having 72 of them was not to "kill something 72 times over". Khan was so insistent on knowing the precise number of torpedoes they had because he knew that if Kirk/Spock/Uhura answered "precisely 72" then Marcus had given them Khan's crew. Khan didn't surrender because they were going to fire 72 torpedoes on him, he surrendered because he knew that "precisely 72" torpedoes meant that the Enterprise would be unwittingly killing Khan's people.

 

[Totenkindly]

The point of having 72 of them was not to "kill something 72 times over". Khan was so insistent on knowing the precise number of torpedoes they had because he knew that if Kirk/Spock/Uhura answered "precisely 72" then Marcus had given them Khan's crew. Khan didn't surrender because they were going to fire 72 torpedoes on him, he surrendered because he knew that "precisely 72" torpedoes meant that the Enterprise would be unwittingly killing Khan's people.

I got that point. I think I'm a little unclear as to how the 72 was arranged in the first place, aside from the person you discuss in your comment. I've only seen the movie once, so it's possible i missed a few crucial lines.

 

[93JC]

I got that point. I think I'm a little unclear as to how the 72 was arranged in the first place, aside from the person you discuss in your comment. I've only seen the movie once, so it's possible i missed a few crucial lines.

Of the 73-person crew of the Botany Bay (Khan's ship), Khan was the only one who was revived from cryogenic stasis. It was said that Adm. Marcus was keeping the other 72 "on ice" so to speak, as a bargaining chip to keep Khan in line. Khan stole the cryogenic stasis pods from Marcus at some point before the events of the movie and hid the pods inside the torpedoes. Marcus discovered this (again, at some point before the events of the movie).

On Kronos, Khan got the message from Sulu saying "We have a bunch of long-range torpedoes and we'll fire them all at you unless you surrender." He put two-and-two together and realized it was probably Marcus who was putting the Enterprise up to it and had given them the torpedoes containing his frozen crew. He demanded to know EXACTLY how many torpedoes in order to confirm his suspicions. When Spock told him 72 his suspicions were confirmed and he immediately surrendered.

I'm not surprised you don't recall exactly what happened. Frankly I felt the movie was like a bunch of rehashed scenes from "old Trek" tied together with relatively mindless action scenes. I think everybody involved in the production did a great job except the writers. Lindelof, Orci and Kurtzman shouldn't touch this stuff, they're not all that good at it.

 

[Totenkindly]

Of the 73-person crew of the Botany Bay (Khan's ship), Khan was the only one who was revived from cryogenic stasis. It was said that Adm. Marcus was keeping the other 72 "on ice" so to speak, as a bargaining chip to keep Khan in line. Khan stole the cryogenic stasis pods from Marcus at some point before the events of the movie and hid the pods inside the torpedoes. Marcus discovered this (again, at some point before the events of the movie).

On Kronos, Khan got the message from Sulu saying "We have a bunch of long-range torpedoes and we'll fire them all at you unless you surrender." He put two-and-two together and realized it was probably Marcus who was putting the Enterprise up to it and had given them the torpedoes containing his frozen crew. He demanded to know EXACTLY how many torpedoes in order to confirm his suspicions. When Spock told him 72 his suspicions were confirmed and he immediately surrendered.

Another question, then. Carol Markus went along,and she changed her name presumably to hide from her father, who did not know she was on board. She was not supposed to be on that ship. Yet she did not know the Botany Bay crew was inside those torpedoes, she honestly thought they were live weapons until she opened one. So what was her goal in slipping aboard the Enterprise, exactly?

I'm not surprised you don't recall exactly what happened. Frankly I felt the movie was like a bunch of rehashed scenes from "old Trek" tied together with relatively mindless action scenes. I think everybody involved in the production did a great job except the writers. Lindelof, Orci and Kurtzman shouldn't touch this stuff, they're not all that good at it.

Now I'm wondering how much of the shit that happened in the last season of LOST was Lindelof's fault. So far he has screwed up Prometheus as well as Star Trek.