[Trailer] Star Trek - Into Darkness

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

The new Star Trek trailer looks more up-beat than the other trailers. And rebooted Trek is just action adventure, not science fiction. However, it is good and high energy action adventure.

 

[Mallus]

And rebooted Trek is just action adventure, not science fiction.

I don't know... action adventure stories with spaceships, aliens, ray guns, and time travel qualify as science fiction. It's a big-tent genre. Always has been. From Confederate swordsmen on Mars to stories examining the effects of and anxieties associated with rapid technological/social change to meditations on God (often found IN SPACE!) to a allegories of every stripe to whatever it is the French come up with when they make SF.

And then there's all the stuff with the laser swords, dinosaur chases, and spaceships blowing up!

 

[Raunalyn]

And, unlike you, I have a lot of respect for Abrams as a storyteller and I'm excited to see what he decides to weave next.

Not only that, but the new movie has an actor with the potential to be as good of a villian as Khan (a good friend of mine says his name is so British that he had to affectionately change his name to Bandersnatch Cumberbund to make it sound less so). I'm excited about this movie, something I cannot say about the Star Trek movies between The Undiscovered Country and the 2009 reboot.

 

[Mallus]

... um, you do know what a paradox is, right?

Yes!

By invalidating their reason for traveling in time by changing the past, they don't have a reason to travel back in time.

This is why traveling backwards in time is impossible, ie causality violation paradoxes, often stated as the "Grandfather Paradox". Time-travel (backwards) stories are, by definition, nonsense. Unless you accept Everett's "Many Worlds" hypothesis, in which case traveling back in time is okay, but you end up creating a separate universe (which still means stories about "fixing" the timeline are nonsense).

Of course, this doesn't stop people from writing time travel stories. Which is a good thing, 'cause I like them. You just can't ask too many questions -- or at least the wrong questions.

If you change it, it catches up to you.

No, it doesn't. That's nonsense.

Marty McFly started to fade away, because he had never been born.

Marty fading away is a very clever cinematic conceit. The real reason it happens is to allow the Marty, and the audience, to *see* his time running out. It's a way of increasing tension in those scenes. The fading also serves as a "guide" for Marty, so he tell what actions help preserve his existence. Put another way, the fading only makes sense in the context of a movie, as a supposed depiction of some real, timey-whimey phenomena, it's nonsense. Time doesn't work like that.

All it does is establish that Kid Kirk is a worthless spoiled brat...

OK. Like I said, I think the tone of the scene does a lot of important and interesting work -- but I admit, I care about things like tone a lot more than most of the other SF fans I've talked to.

The backstory where he was trying to take pressure off his 1/2 brother's back and stick it to his step-father made that scene worthwhile.

So you hate Trek 2009 so much you've either watched the deleted scenes or read the novelization? Sometimes SF fans can be real gluttons for punishment. I should know -- I can't count how many made-for-SyFy channel movies I've seen (though my wife's partially to blame for that. She loves them).

Future Spock should still fade away--his "past" has essentially been erased by the completely different path his life took.

Future Spock should only fade away if he traveled back into Back to the Future. Time doesn't work that in the Trek universe.

It has lots of spikey bits, and that mining arm, but what does it look like?

Kinda like an elongated, cylindrical Shadow vessel from Babylon 5.

Plural of Katana is still Katana. Japanese root word.

"Why I say son, I was making a joke you see, a joke! I know you can't pluralize a Japanese word by slappin' an 'e' on the end like it was the Pope's own Latin!" (this previous sentence is also a joke, but it's funnier if you say it out loud in the Foghorn Leghorn voice).

Fencing is Fencing

Tennis today is really 'lawn tennis'. The original game, sometimes called 'real tennis' is another racket sport which is sort of weird and played on indoor courts. In the 19th century, 'tennis' referred to this game, not the one played by Roger Federer and Raphael Nadal.

So maybe in the 23rd century, the word 'fencing' will describe a sport that includes katanae, and maybe even lazor-swords. It's as plausible as anything else in Star Trek.

Even the most baudy of the Orion Slave Girl scenes was barely past the cutesy Harem-girl wanna-be Dream of Genie belly-dancing.

Yes, but even in a cutesy harem outfit, an Orion *Slave* Girl is still a kind of coerced sex worker. The operative word here is "slave".

Oh, I'm sorry. I mentioned the computer/machine instead of the title of the episode. Obviously all my comments and arguments are flawed beyond redemption.

I was just teasing you a little. It's funny that you muffed the name of one of the most famous Trek episodes.

 

[Dannager]

Not only that, but the new movie has an actor with the potential to be as good of a villian as Khan (a good friend of mine says his name is so British that he had to affectionately change his name to Bandersnatch Cumberbund to make it sound less so). I'm excited about this movie, something I cannot say about the Star Trek movies between The Undiscovered Country and the 2009 reboot.

Around here we affectionately refer to him by his proper name: Benedict "I s!*% the queen" Cumberbatch

 

[sabrinathecat]

No, when I expressed my disappointment with the movie to a friend of mine (who is a total fan-boy in that "oh god make it stop" painful sort of way), he provided the information.
And yet 85 years later, Picard was in traditional fencing gear that had barely been modified from it's current form?
And yet you do it again.

I am trying to remember any other time travel/cross dimensional barriers episodes. The only thing I can think of is the Enterprise story where the constitution-class vessel from Tholian Web (sorry, can't remember the specific name of the ship) ends up in the Mirror/Mirror universe during Enterprise's time frame (what, 80 years before?).

 

[RangerWickett]

Guys! It's a movie. You're on the internet, arguing about a movie! More specifically, arguing about the continuity of a movie as it relates to a 47 year-old TV franchise.

It's a waste of time. Go to Wikipedia and read something educational. No, not about Star Trek. Here, how about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dracunculiasis

 

[Mallus]

You're on the internet, arguing about a movie! More specifically, arguing about the continuity of a movie as it relates to a 47 year-old TV franchise.

Spoilsport.

 

[Nellisir]

Guys! It's a movie. You're on the internet, arguing about a movie! More specifically, arguing about the continuity of a movie as it relates to a 47 year-old TV franchise.

Well, duh. Where else would they do it? And isn't that the point of the internet? (Well, and cats. And...no, let's go with cats.)

 

[Mallus]

And yet 85 years later, Picard was in traditional fencing gear that had barely been modified from it's current form?

Picard is a traditional sort of guy (aside from his no-strings-attached, post-coital breakfasts with Dr. Crusher). It's fitting he would indulge in an antiquated version of the sport. Who's to say Wesley doesn't prefer to fence with a katana, laser-katana, or Klingon K'Tana?

Also, you seem to be kinda fixating on this fencing thing, are you perchance an épéeophile?

I am trying to remember any other time travel/cross dimensional barriers episodes.

There are a lot of them. From memory, in TOS alone there's:

"Tomorrow is Yesterday" (time travel)
"City on the Edge of Forever" (time travel)
"Assignment: Earth" (time travel)
"All Our Yesterdays" (time travel)
"Mirror, Mirror" (parallel universe)

There are some good episodes in the later series, too: "Yesterday's Enterprise" (TNG), "More Tribbles, More Troubles" (DS9), "Children of Time" (DS9), "Year of Hell (Voy!!?). This is by no means a complete list.