Star Trek Into Darkness Discussion

Calixar wrote:

But still, Rust's breakdown of the synopsis is good stuff.

Oh, no doubt.

Rust wrote:

Have to agree. Unless the Trailers really "wow" me, this sounds like a phoned in sequel.

Personally, I wish they'd find the balance they had back in Star Trek VI. A action-thriller for the general movie crowd, but with enough character moments and in-depth look at the universe to sate the fan's appetite for geekitude. For myself, Star Trek VI is when the movie franchise peaked.

That's what I mean, Trek 2009 did not do that for me, all it did was go for the mass crowds, it felt nothing remotely Trek to me, it felt more like Star Wars, just with a very forgettable bad guy, and the main characters more like caricatures. The first Trek film will always be my favorite.

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I remember a Trek book I read where a group of evil aliens secretly planted nanobots at various starbases, and over the course of a year, they spread to almost the entire fleet. They were designed to de-stabilize the dylithium crystals, destroying the ships. They were so small there was no way to detect them, and the damage they did was almost undetectable as well. Perhaps if Cumberbatch's character is in a position like a Section 31 leader, he presumably could have sabotaged large numbers of ships.

There definitely have been some darker undercurrents of Starfleet secrets in the comics line. Admiral Pike has been warned in no uncertain terms that Kirk is wandering too close to certain things that must remain secret. And Scotty has mentioned several times that the Enterprise is way overdue for engine maintenance. Maybe their busy schedule will save them from whatever calamity will 'detonate' the other ships.

Personally, all that secrecy is what will probably bite starfleet on it's now militant ass (JJ Star Fleet feels very military to me) and that engine maintenance better involve dumping that stupid brewery/factory. It looks bad and disappointing in the original V, and looks bad, now.

Though a new episode of Phase 2 is coming soon, and I'm looking forward to that, since the Enterprise is now going to be in its Phase 2 configuration, and it being a test bed for new prototype engine pods, and a new exploration mission, I look forward to that.

I hope Barbra Luna shows up again in Phase 2, she made a good villianess and a hot wifey for commodore Decker in the 20th century.

The Castellan wrote:

That's what I mean, Trek 2009 did not do that for me, all it did was go for the mass crowds, it felt nothing remotely Trek to me, it felt more like Star Wars, just with a very forgettable bad guy, and the main characters more like caricatures. The first Trek film will always be my favorite.

As a movie, Trek 09 is a fun popcorn diversion. Better and less pretentious then First Contact in that regard.

As a part of Star Trek history...the reason I personally enjoy Trek 09 is because by some dark sorcery, they actually managed to recapture the spirit of the original show. I'm speaking as someone who watched probably more of TOS VHS tapes when I was younger then was probably healthy, and while I grew up in the TNG era, Kirk and crew were always my personal favorites.

Trek 09 felt like TOS. This is where you and I will disagree with each other, but to me The Motion Picture was trying to hard to emulate 2001. Star Trek to me was always more of a high octane adventure show. My VHS collection included the likes of A Piece of the Action, Obsession, Spock's Brain, A Wolf in the Fold, The Trouble with Tribbles, and The Cage (Not The Menagerie but the actual honest-to-God first pilot of the show, restored for one of Trek's anniversaries with an opening by Gene himself).

So in that sense, Trek 09 punched all the right buttons for me, where as watching TMP has to be a dedicated effort on my part for how "un-Trek" it is in its presentation.

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Personally, all that secrecy is what will probably bite starfleet on it's now militant ass (JJ Star Fleet feels very military to me)

Actually, that's something I wish these people would sit down and actually address - exactly what is Starfleet. It pinballs back and forth from a casual scientific organization to a more structured, disciplined one and it's getting goofy.

In Trek 09 you've got a Cadet that is bumped automatically to Captain, and in Star Trek Online they've got Ensigns in the Captain's chair.

The whole concept of "rank" flies out the window in both instances.

Then again, I wish any writer of Trek would sit down and write out a definitive "tech manual" for how stuff works and stop relying on Technobabble to save the day (A fatal flaw of both Voyager and Enterprise).

Rust wrote:

The Castellan wrote:

That's what I mean, Trek 2009 did not do that for me, all it did was go for the mass crowds, it felt nothing remotely Trek to me, it felt more like Star Wars, just with a very forgettable bad guy, and the main characters more like caricatures. The first Trek film will always be my favorite.

As a movie, Trek 09 is a fun popcorn diversion. Better and less pretentious then First Contact in that regard.

As a part of Star Trek history...the reason I personally enjoy Trek 09 is because by some dark sorcery, they actually managed to recapture the spirit of the original show. I'm speaking as someone who watched probably more of TOS VHS tapes when I was younger then was probably healthy, and while I grew up in the TNG era, Kirk and crew were always my personal favorites.

Trek 09 felt like TOS. This is where you and I will disagree with each other, but to me The Motion Picture was trying to hard to emulate 2001. Star Trek to me was always more of a high octane adventure show. My VHS collection included the likes of A Piece of the Action, Obsession, Spock's Brain, A Wolf in the Fold, The Trouble with Tribbles, and The Cage (Not The Menagerie but the actual honest-to-God first pilot of the show, restored for one of Trek's anniversaries with an opening by Gene himself).

So in that sense, Trek 09 punched all the right buttons for me, where as watching TMP has to be a dedicated effort on my part for how "un-Trek" it is in its presentation.

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Personally, all that secrecy is what will probably bite starfleet on it's now militant ass (JJ Star Fleet feels very military to me)

Actually, that's something I wish these people would sit down and actually address - exactly what is Starfleet. It pinballs back and forth from a casual scientific organization to a more structured, disciplined one and it's getting goofy.

In Trek 09 you've got a Cadet that is bumped automatically to Captain, and in Star Trek Online they've got Ensigns in the Captain's chair.

The whole concept of "rank" flies out the window in both instances.

Then again, I wish any writer of Trek would sit down and write out a definitive "tech manual" for how stuff works and stop relying on Technobabble to save the day (A fatal flaw of both Voyager and Enterprise).

Don't care for popcorn flicks, bad enough television is like that, now. And i'll take first contact over "Star Trek" 2009 anytime. And it felt nothing like the show from the 60's. Did not feel the chemistry between the main three at all. Personally, the TNG era I really enjoyed. Encounter at Farpoint, Where No One Has Gone Before (Traveler's one of my fav characters, I relate to him so much plus I love the story), Home Soil, Where Silence Has Lease, Time Squared, The Royal, Contagion, Ensigns of Command, Evolution, Booby Trap, The Inner Light, Masks, and so on are the types I enjoy, and doubt we'll ever see again, especially if you got JJ running things. Loved TNG's stories, mos of them, anyhow, and Picard's always been my fav captain.

As for TMP, it felt very Trek to me, since it was going to unknown places, and V'ger was a very fascinating character, and so on. "High Octane" is not what I would describe for Trek. I only seen 2009 twice, one with that advanced DVD I was given and once when mom wanted to see it, and she was not too thrilled on it, either. She did not like Kirk at all in it. "Someone please slap that jerk, someone!" she'd go. Trek 2009 hit all the wrong buttons for me, only good thing it had was the music in the trailer....and that was it, finito. Until we see Trek stories back in the original universe (like Star Trek Online is based upon), I'm not going to watch any of it. "Enterprise: The First Mission" novel would have made for a better prequel film, I think. To me, Starfleet is like a Swiss knife with all the things in it....they do the scientific, exploratory, diplomatic and defense based stuff. I am GLAD you don't have Starfleet guys going, "SIR, YES SIR!" every second to some fat ass, over the hill Sergent, giving everyone buzzcuts and giving them intimidating uniforms/armor (Section 31 had more than enough of that , and I always hated Section 31 and what it stood for).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm04InnA7bw cool video with Mr. Cawley and M. Richter.

The Castellan wrote:

Don't care for popcorn flicks, bad enough television is like that, now. And i'll take first contact over "Star Trek" 2009 anytime.

To each their own. Personally I've felt First Contact was a severely over-hyped and overbloated film that did nothing but damage the Trek franchise. To say nothing of totally invalidating the Borg as a threat by putting a literal face onto the whole of the Collective with the stupid Queen nonsense. Plus that's when the show's continuity basically became invalidated - as the movie ignored Picard's interactions with the Borg post-Best of Both Worlds in order to give him a complex.

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And it felt nothing like the show from the 60's. Did not feel the chemistry between the main three at all.

Again - to each their own. When I first saw the film, one of the first things I remarked about it was how well it captured the spirit of the original show. So for me, Trek 09 was brilliant in that regard.

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Personally, the TNG era I really enjoyed.

Now see, this is amusing to me - our differences. While I grew up on TNG as well, it hasn't aged nearly as well as TOS in my opinion. TOS has the 60s Camp armor to preserve it in that sense - it's outlandish and doofy plots and production values can be shrugged away as a byproduct of the 60s. TNG - especially the first two seasons - are generally bad television. Trying to be the original series but without the 60s charm. Now the third through sixth season pretty much alleviate this as the show found its own footing and stopped being under Gene's direct control. But most of the run is still wildly campy.

I'd put my favorite TNG adventures down as The Arsenal of Freedom, Loud as a Whisper, The Royale (It reminds me a lot of A Piece of the Action), The Best of Both Worlds, Chains of Command, The Inner Light, Power Play, and Ship in a Bottle.

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Picard's always been my fav captain.

Oh Picard was a great captain. I think I ended up liking Archer more, but that's mostly due to the TNG Movies discarding what made Picard Picard and turning him into a action hero (Which was mostly because Stewart wanted to do more action stuff...nevermind the fact that's not Picard's style).

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As for TMP, it felt very Trek to me, since it was going to unknown places, and V'ger was a very fascinating character, and so on.

As I said - to each their own. TMP tends to be a bit of "Love It/Hate It" in Trekdom. The one thing I think everyone can agree on is at least those uniforms didn't stick around. They could digitally edit out "Happy Decker" and I'd be fine with it.

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"High Octane" is not what I would describe for Trek. I only seen 2009 twice, one with that advanced DVD I was given and once when mom wanted to see it, and she was not too thrilled on it, either. She did not like Kirk at all in it. "Someone please slap that jerk, someone!" she'd go.

I think that's what they were going for with Pine's performance. It was supposed to be a fundamentally different Kirk simply because he had such a different childhood then Prime Universe Kirk. He was just as smart - Pike remarks to Kirk in the bar that he routinely aces all aptitude tests - but he lacked that sense of moral grounding that his father obviously provided.

But then again, when your father is THOR, GOD OF THUNDER that loss is going to be felt even harder.

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Until we see Trek stories back in the original universe (like Star Trek Online is based upon), I'm not going to watch any of it.

That might be a long wait, actually. Voyager and Nemesis did the franchise a lot of harm - I'd even go so far as to say a mortal wound. And yeah, I pointed to Voyager as the culprit for the death of Trek on TV rather then Enterprise. SF Debris does Trek video reviews, and there's an episode he singles out - Alliances - as being the moment Star Trek "died" as a Franchise - where no more risks would ever be taken and the status quo would be preserved at all costs. I agreed with him there. The element of risk just evaporated from the franchise after that. Nemesis was just a startlingly bad attempt at a movie. Honestly, I'm still not convinced it wasn't a deliberate scuttling on Berman and Braga's part. "Poisoning the Well" as it were.

I also find it interesting you'd want them to go back to the Prime Universe like STO does, because STO is a pretty grim future, all things considered. All out war between the Federation and the Klingons, Romulan survivors who have nothing left to lose, the Cardassian True Way terrorists, the Undine infiltration, the renewed Dominion offensive, Tholian attacks, Mirror Universe attempts at conquest, the Iconians being behind pretty much everything, to say nothing of the hyper aggressive conquest of the Alpha Quadrant by the Borg.

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To me, Starfleet is like a Swiss knife with all the things in it....they do the scientific, exploratory, diplomatic and defense based stuff. I am GLAD you don't have Starfleet guys going, "SIR, YES SIR!" every second to some fat ass, over the hill Sergent, giving everyone buzzcuts and giving them intimidating uniforms/armor (Section 31 had more than enough of that , and I always hated Section 31 and what it stood for).

The problem is, Star Trek uses naval ranks and designations which indicates a table of organization. Heck, TOS established the concept that a Starfleet officer can be court martialed.

So it boils down to what the heck Starfleet is and how disciplined they actually are. And given the fact Space is a inherently dangerous place to be, you need some form of discipline in order to maintain control. It'd just be nice if they sat down and determined exactly what that is.

Preserving Gene's vision is all well and good, but frankly his idea of a "Evolved sense of humanity" was jettisoned whenever the plot called for it anyway. Indeed, it was the fact Kirk and company weren't perfect that made TOS so engaging in a way the "Holier-than-thou" first two seasons of TNG weren't. So glad when Berman and Braga were brought onboard they promptly removed the stick out of the TNG crew's collective rectums.

Throughout TOS, there are references to The War that just recently ended... that Kirk fought in as a member of Starfleet. Like it or not, it is a military organization that, in the advanced human society, operates as exploratory and scientific in times of peace.

Let's not stray too far off-topic, please.

This thread is for Star Trek Into Darkness.

There is a seperate thread for general Star Trek discussion.

SeaDevil wrote:

Let's not stray too far off-topic, please.

This thread is for Star Trek Into Darkness.

There is a seperate thread for general Star Trek discussion.

I understand that, it's just that it's difficult to discuss the new Trek without bringing up elements of the old. Kinda like discussing New Who without ever mentioning the Classic series.

As for Into Darkness, all I can say is I really hope the team keeps up the good work in making Star Trek appealing to the masses again. Love it or hate it, Abrams movies are all that is keeping the franchise afloat, and its continued financial success may one day inspire Paramount to try their hand at a TV series again.

I do miss Trek on the small screen. And we've hit one of those shifts in TV programming where the sci-fi genre isn't hugely represented. It'd be a good time for Trek to make a comeback.

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As I said - to each their own. TMP tends to be a bit of "Love It/Hate It" in Trekdom. The one thing I think everyone can agree on is at least those uniforms didn't stick around. They could digitally edit out "Happy Decker" and I'd be fine with it

I was fine with 'em, did not feel military. The TWK uniforms I did not like, looked too military and too much like a dress uniform, plus just imagine being out on a hot day in those.

If JJ type Trek is what would be on TV, I'll pass. Especially when you consider that stuff like Jersey Shore, the Kardasians, X-Factor, and Honey Boo Boo is what makes the jist of television today, no thanks. Like what Batmanmarch said, "Most of what's on television is CRAP." We need not throw another poop log onto the fire, so to speak.

Rust wrote:

SeaDevil wrote:

Let's not stray too far off-topic, please.

This thread is for Star Trek Into Darkness.

There is a seperate thread for general Star Trek discussion.

I understand that, it's just that it's difficult to discuss the new Trek without bringing up elements of the old. Kinda like discussing New Who without ever mentioning the Classic series.

Oh yes, I know, but it was starting to steer into those age-old discussions of Starfleet being military, what killed it for TV, and the like.

It's ok to contrast and compare the new movie with what has come before, but the discussion should be rooted in these things as they relate to Star Trek Into Darkness, please.

Thanks.

The JJ Trek comic series continues to bridge the gap to Into Darkness. Current issue features the mirror universe, and still has more repercussions from Nero's incursion. Overall, this has been a really good series, and I can't wait to see their official 'Countdown to Darkness' comic.

I need to read that series. I've gotten out of the comic-reading habit. I still have a ton of issues of IDW's Doctor Who series to read too. But I was intrigued by that series, and I like to get them for my iPad.

mattmanw54301 wrote:

The JJ Trek comic series continues to bridge the gap to Into Darkness. Current issue features the mirror universe, and still has more repercussions from Nero's incursion. Overall, this has been a really good series, and I can't wait to see their official 'Countdown to Darkness' comic.

JJ Trek feels more like the mirror universe

Star Trek: The Dark Knight!

That's what the poster reminds me of.

Still, awfully Borg-looking debris making up that Starfleet symbol. Makes me wonder if the "Weapon of Mass Destruction" bit involves salvage from the Narada (Which was upgraded with Borg tech even though that was never stated in the Movie).

Star Trek Into Darkness alonside Benedict Cumberbatch as Gambit the ragin' Cajun!

Enough Batman similarities, already.

Chill, if he's singelehandely detonating Starfleet whilst wearing a trenchcoat he's gotta be Gambit. The poster is just a trick to get Nolanites in seats.

Great, first star wars, now super heroes shoving their crap into Trek.


Instead of the Utopia of the Trek future I loved, it's another cyber punk dystopia.

I give up.

To quote Ben Sisko: "It's easy to be a saint in Paradise."

Earth may very well be a utopia, but that doesn't mean the entire galaxy follows the same path of enlightenment. Indeed, a big theme of First Contact was the 21st Century Apocalypse survivor calling bullpocky on the 24th Century's claim to a "evolved sensibility".

Heck, TNG gave us the Maquis, a group of Federation Citizens whose worlds were forfeited by the Federation just to keep the peace.

I like Gene's vision of a better tomorrow too, but in implementation there's very little sign of it among all the Blood Sucking Cloud Monsters, Salt Vampires, and Omnipotent Beings that want to mess with lower lifeforms.

It's just a poster...

I'm not getting too worked up about it.

SeaDevil wrote:

It's just a poster...

I'm not getting too worked up about it.

I try not to judge a movie until I see it. Posters mean very little to the plot of the film.

SeaDevil wrote:

It's just a poster...

I'm not getting too worked up about it.

It looks like a smeggin' Mad Max poster. Put an image of space with a few ships or something, a few close ups of characters. Follow some sort of tradition for goodness sake.

Seeing as how it's a JJ film, at least I'm not going to see it, anyhow.

The Castellan wrote:

Seeing as how it's a JJ film, at least I'm not going to see it, anyhow.

You have made your opinion abundantly clear on multiple occasions about how you feel about his version of Star Trek.

We get it.

Could you you please show those of us who do like it a little courtesy by not pooping on everything we say about it? Or what we like about it? Or how much we are looking forward to the sequel?

We are fans, too. Please enjoy the kind of Star Trek you like in the General ST thread and allow us to enjoy our fandom of the new ST here..

And before you ask, I've been watching ST since before I could speak or walk. The original crew are my childhood heroes and I cherish them.

...and I loved the 2009 movie.