SPOILER thread for Star Trek with SPOILERS IN IT

[Zylon]

I expect that throughout film history people have reacted against developments in style, from talkies to steadicam to computer animation. Those people eventually either adapt to the change in artistic language or get left behind by mainstream film.

Or, the stylistic developments turn out to be passing fads. Remember how popular splitscreen effects were in films produced during the 70s? Or cheesy synth scores in the 80s?

My money is on the current love affair with shakycam ending soon. It won’t disappear entirely, but it will settle down into a more practical, less headache-inducing form as the people using it move beyond the PhotoShop Lens Flare stage of integration into their visual vocabulary.

In the meantime, it’s bemusing to observe the vitriolic responses directed at me here. If this were a film that the Hive Mind didn’t like, the level of cynicism and hyperbole that I’ve directed at Star Trek would pale by comparison to what’s normally dished out.

[caesarbear]

Question? For us that love the film are we supposed to read your posts and hate it? I dont get this stuff in discussions of games either. Trying like hell to get people to not like something you dont like. Ton of stuff I hate, but to each his own. Im sure there are movies you love that I cant stand, but I could give a rats butt! :)

Well it’s really only because his strong opinion differs from the hivemind that it’s causing a stir. If everyone hated this and Zylon was the lone enthusiast, it would be pretty much the same.

[MattKeil]

Discussion is one thing but just to put something down for the sake of dumping on it is another. Whats wrong with fans gushing over something?

It’s just as one-note and boring as Zylon’s ranting? A discussion generally requires more than one side to be interesting.

[Creole_Ned]

There’s been plenty of good discussion in this thread, so I don’t see an issue. Zylon’s admitted that his criticisms amount mostly to nitpicks and that’s fine. I actually agree with him on the lens flare and a few smaller details. His tone seems needlessly aggressive, though, and that predictably gets the backs up of people who really liked the movie. And so it goes in the land of Qt3.

[Bill_Dungsroman]

Yes, I meant both those things. That’s why I said them. Did you just read the odd-numbered sentences?

Actually, I didn’t read anything in your post, you insufferable twat. I stared at two bugs fucking on the ceiling instead.

Lens flare is a flaw. Unsteady camera work is a flaw. These things look bad, which is why the film industry has done everything in its power to eliminate them. The fact that Abrams included them on purpose doesn’t magically make it look good. I realize this sort of camera work is in vogue right now, but frankly, I hate it. BSG pushed this gimmick about as far as I could tolerate, and even it looks like a model of restraint compared to Star Trek’s manic gyrations.

Shaky camera shots and lens flare are two film-making gimmicks that barely even register with me. I’m frankly amazed at all the whining that has gone on over either of them. God, it’s lens flare, who gives a fuck.

The fact that one could tell what was broadly happening in the battle sequences can quite happily coexist with the fact that they were choppily edited.

Yeah, by whatever subjective metric you’re using for what constitutes choppy. You only care and are pointing it out for this film because you didn’t like this film, and you will never like this film.

Any hack writer can walk into an established franchise and say “Hey! Let’s kill off __________!”. You may find that sort of thing interesting. I find it lazy. And before anyone trots out Spock’s death in Wrath of Khan, I remind you that killing off Spock was what it took to get Nimoy to appear in the film.

Like that validates the decision. What if the only way to get Nimoy to appear in the new film was to have Vulcan destroyed? What, that magically makes it acceptable to you?

Except that I did like Wrath of Khan, Voyage Home, Undiscovered Country, and First Contact. Even Search for Spock and The Motion Picture had their moments. So there goes that theory.

What theory? I already told you like the older films so much that you can’t accept a contemporary revision.

Listen, howler monkeys. I’m fully aware that very much of what I’ve pointed out is nitpicking. Every movie can be nitpicked to some degree. But nitpicks add up, and Star Trek has so very many little and not-so-little flaws and irritants (culminating with a principle villain whose actions don’t make any sense) that they added up to me not particularly caring for it.

The only person acting like a howler monkey in this thread currently is you. Your posts are so shrill they could shatter a wine glass.

[Bill_Dungsroman]

In the meantime, it’s bemusing to observe the vitriolic responses directed at me here. If this were a film that the Hive Mind didn’t like, the level of cynicism and hyperbole that I’ve directed at Star Trek would pale by comparison to what’s normally dished out.

Yes, they’re all full of vitriol and hate. Wait, did you mean other people’s posts or yours?

[Zylon]

Well, I can see this discussion is shaving IQ points off Bill at a geometric rate, so I’d best stop responding before he forgets how to breathe.

[sinfony]

You should probably tell Steven Soderbergh and Emmanuel Lubezki, among others, that shaky camera work is “a flaw” and “looks bad.” I bet they would like to know that they’ve been doing it wrong all these years; all those awards just led them astray.

[Shmtur]

Well, I can see this discussion is shaving IQ points off Bill at a geometric rate, so I’d best stop responding before he forgets how to breathe.

To translate: “Shit, I lost, better leave.”

[Falcon554]

How in the hell is a directors choice a flaw? Totally makes no sense, you may not like it but JJ does and he gets paid millions do make movies.

[Bill_Dungsroman]

Well, I can see this discussion is shaving IQ points off Bill at a geometric rate, so I’d best stop responding before he forgets how to breathe.

[Mordrak]

How in the hell is a directors choice a flaw? Totally makes no sense, you may not like it but JJ does and he gets paid millions do make movies.

This makes even less sense. Just because someone gets payed millions of dollars, it doesn’t mean they make flawless decisions in their chosen field. I’m not criticizing whatever particular decision Zylon had a problem with, but your justification is worse.

[Malcolm_Tucker]

Or, the stylistic developments turn out to be passing fads. Remember how popular splitscreen effects were in films produced during the 70s? Or cheesy synth scores in the 80s?

My money is on the current love affair with shakycam ending soon. It won’t disappear entirely, but it will settle down into a more practical, less headache-inducing form as the people using it move beyond the PhotoShop Lens Flare stage of integration into their visual vocabulary.

Well, I hate to pick the nits out of your nitpick, but both of those techniques have been incorporated into successful movies ever since. Splitscreen, especially, is pretty common - Wall Street, Snatch, Rules Of Attraction*, Requiem For A Dream, and upon checking Wikipedia I find many more - Ang Lee’s Hulk, Multiplicity, The Virgin Suicides, That Ellen Page movie The Tracy Fragments, a bunch of Brian de Palma movies and Sideways, for example.

I don’t pay enough attention to movie scores, so I can’t come up with any recent synthy ones apart from Napoleon Dynamite and The Life Aquatic. This link from Wikipedia led me to few more examples, like Fight Club, Gattaca and Irreversible.

*Here it is, a very neat trick and worth the six minutes it takes to watch.

[Brad_Wardell]

In terms of how Star Trek (this movie) compares to the other movies there’s plenty to nitpick here.

But let’s remember that this movie is trying to fit in with the existing Star Trek universe.

In the first Star Trek movie, a barely functional Enterprise, at Earth, is sent against a space cloud because it’s “the only ship in the quadrant.” Apparently the Federation is hard up for ships.

Star Trek II, my favorite movie, still revolves around a magical genesis device that can “create life from lifelessness”. I loved the movie.

Star Trek III involves the bridge crew plus Scott managing to steal the Enterprise, pilot it and even fight a battle. If we’re going to pick on the technical issues of the new Star Trek movie, let’s bear this issue in mind along with the fact that Genesis managed to bring Spock back to life and ends with McCoy handing over Spock’s soul that he had been storing.

Star Trek IV’s plot rests on time travel being apparently no big deal and the ship going back in time to pick up some wales which, apparently, requires the crew to go through a lot more hoops than one would ever imagine.

Star Trek V. Let’s just not talk about it.

And so on.

Personally, having thought about it for awhile, I am hard pressed to decide whether I like this new Star Trek movie better than Star Trek II or not. I think both are excellent.

The new Star Trek movie is certainly better than any other movie I’ve seen this year. Having just gotten back from Terminator Salvation, my wife and I wished we’d spent that time to watch Star Trek again.

But any Star Trek movie can be nit-picked to death just like any future fantasy sci-fi movie can be. At the end of the day, my view is whether the plot holds up well enough (good enough for me), are the character interesting (yes!), and is it entertaining (yes! yes!).

I mean hell, if we really want to poke holes in the Star Trek plot we can point out that the only time there was a lightning storm in space was when the Romulan ship first came through the wormhole. There wouldn’t have been a second one at Vulcan which means Kirk would have had no reason to think that the Romulan ship was at Vulcan which unravels the whole plot. :)

[MikeJ]

I mean hell, if we really want to poke holes in the Star Trek plot we can point out that the only time there was a lightning storm in space was when the Romulan ship first came through the wormhole. There wouldn’t have been a second one at Vulcan which means Kirk would have had no reason to think that the Romulan ship was at Vulcan which unravels the whole plot. :)

I thought the second lightning storm was associated with Spock coming back. It’s pretty foggy in my mind. We have the second lightning storm, Spock coming back, the destruction of a pile of Klingon vessels and the fake distress signal sent from Vulcan. I’m just not sure which of these happened together.

[Falcon554]

This makes even less sense. Just because someone gets payed millions of dollars, it doesn’t mean they make flawless decisions in their chosen field. I’m not criticizing whatever particular decision Zylon had a problem with, but your justification is worse.

But its there movie there choice, its there vision not ours. You can like it or not but it does not make it wrong. You can not like it all day long but you cant say its wrong.

My point is that JJ made the movie he wanted to make, lens flare and all. Its his choice, like it or not.

[linger]

Why don’t they put seatbelts for all the seats in the command deck of the Enterprise?

[Andrew_Mayer]

Why don’t they put seatbelts for all the seats in the command deck of the Enterprise?

A bigger question is why the Federation has a policy of packing the control panels with explosives…

[MattKeil]

Why don’t they put seatbelts for all the seats in the command deck of the Enterprise?

Because then you wouldn’t know which way the ship was lurching.

[Brandon_Clements]

A bigger question is why the Federation has a policy of packing the control panels with explosives…

Those redshirts don’t kill themselves*, you know.

*With the exception of Dipshit WontOpenMcParachute.