Star Trek

[Samwise]

And yet it was miles ahead of the last couple of Trek series in that respect.

[Murgos]

Of course, all that relies on models of the universe that are currently up in the air. Whether or not any form of FTL is possible, energy requirements aside, depends upon understanding the nuts and bolts of the universe -- the math all seems to end up in the very areas we don't understand.

Kip Thorne http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kip_Thorne#Wormholes_and_time_travel has done the math several times (with help of course) and pretty much found that it should be possible, if not very probable to move FTL (by moving through time as well).  I read Black Holes and Time Warps by him long before I had any real math/physics background so it's easy enough to get the gist of what he's saying even if you skip the proofs.

Of course, you need amounts of energy that border on impossible and structures the size of planets to make the wormholes but the math seems to say it's ok.  At least how we currently understand it.

[Morat20]

Of course, all that relies on models of the universe that are currently up in the air. Whether or not any form of FTL is possible, energy requirements aside, depends upon understanding the nuts and bolts of the universe -- the math all seems to end up in the very areas we don't understand.

Kip Thorne http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kip_Thorne#Wormholes_and_time_travel has done the math several times (with help of course) and pretty much found that it should be possible, if not very probable to move FTL (by moving through time as well).  I read Black Holes and Time Warps by him long before I had any real math/physics background so it's easy enough to get the gist of what he's saying even if you skip the proofs.

Of course, you need amounts of energy that border on impossible and structures the size of planets to make the wormholes but the math seems to say it's ok.  At least how we currently understand it.

I'd imagine that if we ever worked something out, it'd probably be an elegant cheat on nature, with relatively low power requirements. (Sure, that might mean "The output of three fusion reactors or an anti-matter reactor -- but that's quantifiable and, frankly, low end for the sorts of things the universe is demanding). Some clever side-step that just avoids the problem all-together.

Then again, quantum mechanics is currently being a real bitch on the subject. It's stubborn refusal to allow information transfer at FTL rates (even with it's spooky action-at-a-distance fun) seems to indicate the universe is dead-set on not allowing temporal changes, which FTL travel effectively IS. Any FTL ship is a time machine, unless Einstein is badly wrong, and so far the universe is stubbornly acting as if his conclusions on that matter are correct.

[Ingmar]

I finally got to see this. Very good, very enjoyable, and they fucked with the old characters far less than I expected.

Holy shit @ Karl Urban, btw.

[stray]

This movie fucking rocked!

Yeah, Karl Urban nailed it. Surprisingly..

[tgr]

Going to latch on to this semi-necro for a bit.

The movie itself was fairly standard fare with a few awkward bits (kirk throwing himself out of the car 3 meters infront of the edge of a cliff in a /classic/ car? I'd have whupped his ass so hard he'd be whining for pillows to sit on when he was 75 years old), but that doesn't matter in the long run in this movie.

What ruined the movie was how much damn *LENS FLARE* there was everywhere. I was expecting even fucking torches to throw lensflare at some point. And what was with the spasticly-shaking/overzoomy/constantly-moving camera? Nearly every scene felt like they thought they had to throw MORE action and MORE movement into it than it really should have, to the point where I thought it was straining. Zoom in on spock/kirk's face, and the camera is constantly moving around. STOP IT. STOPITSTOPITSTOPIT. It sucked in BSG, it sucks in ST. Just stop it with the mtv-generation's need for everything to be CONSTANTLY in motion.

Apart from all that, though, not a bad movie. I'd almost go as far as to say it was enjoyable, even though I felt that the way the storyline itself moved along felt a bit weird, I'd be lying if I said that it was bad enough to really complain about.

But the cameras... gah. I hope that fad stops.

[stray]

Hmm.. Funny. I don't usually like that thing either, but I didn't notice it here for some reason.

[Riggswolfe]

Hmm.. Funny. I don't usually like that thing either, but I didn't notice it here for some reason.

Same here. My anti-shakycam rants are probably well known by now but it didn't bother me in Star Trek that much. I literally have seen the last two Bourne movies only once because of that stupid shit. I wonder why it didn't bother us as much in Star Trek? Maybe J.J. Abrams is just a better director than Paul Greengrass or whatever his name is.

[tgr]

Just rewatched it, and I stand by my rantings. Rather enjoyable film, but some situations just come off unpolished/illogical, so could've used more work. But overall not that bad. 7/10 or so I suppose.

Granted, the camera shake's not nearly as bad as in some situations in BSG, but it's everywhere. But I can live with it I suppose, if I must.

Actually, I believe what pissed me off first was the lens flare everywhere, and once I'd started seeing that, the shakycam started to seriously annoy me as well. I really wish it wasn't the case, as it annoying me as it does really detracts from my enjoyment of the film.

I must be getting old and grumpy. :(

[schild]

Hmm.. Funny. I don't usually like that thing either, but I didn't notice it here for some reason.

Same here. My anti-shakycam rants are probably well known by now but it didn't bother me in Star Trek that much. I literally have seen the last two Bourne movies only once because of that stupid shit. I wonder why it didn't bother us as much in Star Trek? Maybe J.J. Abrams is just a better director than Paul Greengrass or whatever his name is.

Cloverfield.

[Sir T]

Shakycam is the reason I never watched more than one episode of BSG (the pilot)

[Tannhauser]

Shakycam is the crack for directors.  First hit's for free!

[Bunk]

Controlled use of shakey cam can be effective when used to set a tone - I liked it in BSG. Using it strictly to make what should be an exciting action sequence "more exciting" is just crap - see recent Bourne/Bond movies. Movies like Cloverfield and Blair Witch, it was basically integral.

I don't care whether you though Blair Witch was complete horeshit or not, you have to admit the handheld is what made it "work".

I didn't find it bothered me much in Star Trek. My view is, if I don't specifically notice it, it wasn't an issue.


addendum: worst ever use of Shakey Cam to "enhance" an action sequence: the first Transformers movie. How the hell does a completely animated fight sequence require camera tricks to enhance it?!

[Rishathra]

My vote for worst ever use of shakycam is from Bourne Ultimatum.  There's a scene with Joan Allen and David Strathairn, sitting in an office, talking.  That's it.  Bourne isn't outside, assaulting the compound.  It's literally just two people talking.

[Khaldun]

Shakycam in Star Trek didn't bug me. The lens flare on the bridge set and in space sometimes did.

[Ratman_tf]

Rise.

I got around to seeing this a few weeks ago. I really don't know how to feel about it. A lot of people are gushing over this movie, but I thought it was easily one of the most boring movies I've seen.
I was expecting a fun space adventure, and got Revenge of the Fallen meets Star Trek 90210.

[stray]

Lay off the weed.

[apocrypha]

Lay off the weed.

I watched it stoned as a date and enjoyed it greatly.

[lamaros]

I enjoyed watching this but honestly it worked better as a comedy and playing off general Star Trek stuff than anything else. The plot was really really boring, the fight scenes worse, etc etc.

But I enjoyed it, if only for the good jobs nearly all of the actors did, getting it right without pushing it in to parody.

Zoe Saldana was fucking awful though.

They need to go somewhere with the sequal plot-wise though; clever acting and hip rebranding wont carry another film.

[NowhereMan]

I'm kind of hoping that the light plot stemmed from trying to sell this as a relaunch and focusing more on the characters for people who are newish/introducing some subtle differences and that the next films will actually be about stuff rather than a fairly paper thin plot that gave the actors space to play their parts. If they keep the cast and get some good writing we could be getting a couple or more awesome movies. Alternatively they just descend into parody and have Simon Pegg pop up every 20 minutes being a cheery Scotsman.

[stray]

There was some comedy, but this was still the best action movie of the year imho.

Best funny part to me was subtle... Which was just Eric Bana in general. So sloppy and informal for a space villain. "Hi Christopher. I'm Nero." I'm used to melodrama but he was just a pissed off working class schlub -- From teh future! Possibly the most dangerous of the Trek villains.  

[Riggswolfe]

There was some comedy, but this was still the best action movie of the year imho.

Best funny part to me was subtle... Which was just Eric Bana in general. So sloppy and informal for a space villain. "Hi Christopher. I'm Nero." I'm used to melodrama but he was just a pissed off working class schlub -- From teh future! Possibly the most dangerous of the Trek villains.  

This was actually one of my favorite parts. To steal from the Incredibles: Nero would never get caught monologuing. He didn't have grand schemes. He was in pain and wanted other people to hurt like he did. The end.

[Venkman]

Yea, mine too. I got the sense that this guy was just becoming more and more unhinged the closer he got to his goal, after setting himself up for brain fail after sitting around for 25 years doing nothing but waiting. And once he destroyed Vulcan (allegorically similar to Moby Dick imho), he really had nothing better to do but to keep destroying shit. I'm just surprised they didn't go the route of destroying Romulus so that the Nero of this time stream would be saved the pain of overwhelming loss.

If it were me, I'd have become unhinged much sooner during that 25 years and just pulled a Terminator on Sarek and Amanda rather than waiting all that time so their son could grow up and ram red matter up my ship.

Still hate the term "red matter". That just sounds like non-Trek, like the committee decided the lowest common denominator audience couldn't handle anything more techy... in a move with phasers, time travel, teleporters and so on.

I am glad they skipped the whole back story on how Nero got all that fancy weaponry on his mining ship though. Seems like after the 24th century just about anyone is one transporter malfunction away from time travel and every Vendor in the galaxy is selling Borg spare parts. Both of which are the primary reasons I was such a big fan of this IP reset.

[stray]

Hmm, well the drill was just a miner tool. The rest of the weapons just seemed liked phasers and torpedos. Considering that he's also Romulan (who are nearly as warlike as the Klingons), it seems like no big deal he'd have his shipped equipped. It just more powerful than usual because he's going back in time some 100 years (or something! I'm a halfassed trekkie. I don't do stardates ;)

[Venkman]

Yea. Awhile back there was some debate as to why that didn't look much like a mining ship, and the throwaway line Scotty had ("if the ship makes any kind of sense") was supposedly homage to the fact that the ship was designed to look cool very separately from being designed to perform a mining function.

I think that's why the backstory (all the plot that  lead up to Spock being dumped on Hoth pre-movie) was retrofitted with "welp, he just got Borg stuff in the 24th century". Because ya need to justify that stuff to trekkies

[Ratman_tf]

Nero sucked because he only existed to motivate the heroes. And by that, I mean they threw him in a closet for 20 years! Patience is one thing, but sitting on your thumbs for two decades just floating out there like a dipshit is dull as dishwater.

Sloppy writing for a shit movie.

[ahoythematey]

He was in the klingon prison Rura Penthe for most of the time between his and Spock-Prime's arrival.

[Ratman_tf]

He was in the klingon prison Rura Penthe for most of the time between his and Spock-Prime's arrival.

I'm sorry. According to a scene that was never in the movie, he spent 20 years in a Klingon mine. That makes it all better! 

[Venkman]

Wait. Who "he"? Are you saying Nero spent time in a prison or a mine for 20 years? What'd his ship and shipmates do and/or how did they escape to a 24th century ship? And/or how did they let themselves get captured/imprisoned in the first place?

[Tannhauser]

Their ship was damaged after the battle with the U.S.S. Kelvin.  They strayed into Klingon space and were taken prisoner.  Yes, it's a deleted scene.  I thought the Klingons looked kinda cool, all masked, reminded me of Planet of the Apes.

[ahoythematey]

I'm sorry. According to a scene that was never in the movie, he spent 20 years in a Klingon mine. That makes it all better! 

I was under the impression you were actually trying to rationalize the behavior of an irrational character, so I figured the deleted scene stuff might shed some light on why Nero wasn't tearing ass across the quadrant, ripping the shit out of federation planets.  The scene was removed for pacing purposes, but that doesn't mean it's suddenly no longer a part of their world and its stories.  That would be like discounting all the things mentioned in the appendix of The Lord of the Rings as non-canonical.

[Venkman]

Their ship was damaged after the battle with the U.S.S. Kelvin.  They strayed into Klingon space and were taken prisoner.  Yes, it's a deleted scene.  I thought the Klingons looked kinda cool, all masked, reminded me of Planet of the Apes.

Jeezus. I was happier thinking they were just sitting around blowing up remote/deep-space planets or some shit. This spawns more questions than answers, including the whole how'd-they-get-rescued thing.

[AutomaticZen]

Their ship was damaged after the battle with the U.S.S. Kelvin.  They strayed into Klingon space and were taken prisoner.  Yes, it's a deleted scene.  I thought the Klingons looked kinda cool, all masked, reminded me of Planet of the Apes.

Jeezus. I was happier thinking they were just sitting around blowing up remote/deep-space planets or some shit. This spawns more questions than answers, including the whole how'd-they-get-rescued thing.

They didn't.  Jailbreak.

[Venkman]

Is there more to this cut backstory than the wiki? Still want to know how they escaped 20 years of imprisonment and found the Narada again. Somehow I doubt the Klingons spent 20 years pulling the ship apart for research only to have a few dozen future Romulans show up to take it back. Maybe that's the 5 years between their escape and the encounter with the Kelvin. Heck, maybe this is in the novelization? Not that I'd buy it of course. Not a good enough story to read it. But I would skim at Barnes & Noble

Oh, and another thing, why would anyone think a 2nd movie with Khan would make any sense? They'd have to redo Space Seed first, which happens in the middle of a five year mission they still have yet to tell at all. And even then, was that really a fan favorite episode or did it just occur to N Meyer to go that route because it allowed for a great use of Moby Dick and superweapons? Kirk's had much more powerful enemies, but back then going with the throwback allowed for allegories to the cold war and people unable to change.

THIS Kirk needs to establish a stronger backstory before he can have past villains show up to hunt him down. And they already wasted that concept on Nero.

Edit: to add the Khan stuff

[Pennilenko]

You all brainfuck this shit too much. I went to go see a star trek movie, and I as happy with it. Sheesh, hang up the neck beards for five seconds so you can enjoy something every now and then.