what I mean is I'm sure star trek will continue take the safe road of make plot sacrifices and write characters to appeal to the hard core trek fan, rather than taking the risker path of actual re-imagining of the characters.

Ok, I think I'm with you now in that the movies would be better if they just dropped the 1960's shtick. I think that The Dark Night is Exhibit A for why reinventing characters and forgetting old continuities can be a great thing.

For the record, I am a huge sci-fi geek, and star trek fan, and I agree with you 100%.

That was a fun ride, good flick, I will definitely get the DVD. Not many of the Trek movies are really that fun.

Um,

regarding the whole drill-to-the-planet's-center-and-insert-red-matter thing ... 1) why go to all that work? Why not just beam down, throw it on the sidewalk, and beam the fuck out? It will still destroy the planet. 2) if you've already got a weapon that will drill to a planet's core, aren't you already doing pretty good on the weaponry front? 3) why does the bit/weapon/whatever have to hang on a long chain partway to the surface? Why can't it just be fired from the ship or reach all the way to the surface?

Apparently not. Are you an expert on red matter? I DIDN'T THINK SO!



I think the drill was a mining tool, not a weapon. But yeah, coming from the future I think they had some damn fine weapons...but the point was to totally vaporize the planets to get full revenge for what happened to theirs.



It probably can't be fired through the vacuum of space. Maybe it could reach all the way to the surface, but then you'd ask why they had to lower it all the way down instead of only part of the way.

If it can't be fired in space, that's one freaking huge drawback for a weapon mounted on a space ship, no?

I think the Romulans are the Rube Goldbergs of space weaponry.

The laser that drills isn't a weapon, it was a mining ship from the future that was upgraded with weaponry.

SB

My guess is that the answer to all your questions is that this a movie. If movies used common sense then they would be pretty boring and or sucky.

I watch a ton of horror movies and if the girl put her pants on and called the police instead of putting on high heels and going out to the garage to see why she hears a chainsaw then the movie would be over pretty quickly.

The effects of red matter are amplified by heat and pressure, like that found in a star or planetary core. If dropped on the sidewalk it wouldn't do much.

Not really, since it's a drill made for mining on planets, not a weapon meant to be used in space. I think it would be a huge advantage for miners to have a drill that not only can be carried around on their ship, but doesn't even have to be set up on the planets they mine.

I think this is the right answer.

I'm just sayin', I like my weapons to be designed for the lazy. If I've got to work to destroy a planet, then something's wrong.

This, too, falls under the "panties and high heels" theory of movie making, but another gaping plot hole:

Nero goes back into the past and sits around for apparently about a hundred years, and AT NO POINT does he call Romulus up and say, "Yo, the sun's going to go supernova. You might want to do something about that."

Also, while a star is going supernova, Romulus, which is no backward agrarian society but has tons and tons of spaceships, does nothing to protect or evacuate its citizens. Spock's says of the planet's destruction, "And then the unthinkable happened." Well, how unthinkable is it, really, that a star could go supernova? And somebody must have thunk it, because he's on his way to do something about it. So it's not a secret that this is happening, nor is it all that sudden, since the Federation knows and is acting, but what are Romulans doing all this time? Knitting?

However, it's a really fun, feel-good movie that was great about introducing the characters and not too ham-fisted about using their iconic phrases. On character and fun, it's four stars; but on plot, barely a one. If it were not part of a franchise but some standalone sci-fi film, that plot would have gotten it savaged by reviewers.

I wonder if you really paid attention at all.

If the amount of time passed that you claimed Nero sat around in the past, Kirk would have been 100 right? He showed up the day Kirk was born, he went into hiding, reappeared 25 years later to catch Spock. It was clearly explained. He also mentions several times why he is there, and the very first time he has contact with anyone from starfleet he says that he isn't with the Romulans. He is there for his own purpose, revenge. Also because he is 100+ years before his own time he wouldn't know anyone on Romulus. He also would have another hundred years to warn them if he felt like it.

They probably did what they could to evacuate, I'm guessing that the details on the evacuation would be left out because they aren't that important to the story.

It's mind numbing geek-out arguments like this that makes time travel so utterly played out in sci-fi movies.

...and now a word from out sponsors

There was nothing difficult or complicated about the time travel in this movie unless you just decided to not pay attention or are looking for something to bitch about.

How many times have you seen this movie? Cuz I didn't get any of that from it. Of course, by that point I didn't care about plot anyway, because it was obvious the writers didn't care about the details, so why should I?

LMAO, I didn't say complicated, I said played out. There was nothing complicated about this movie, just a lot of stupid nonsense that they didn't need.


Also, your argument about it isn't complicated either, just extremely geeky.

yea...

Why couldnt the earth defend itself again st wandering drillers?

I'm going to guess that it was because they got the defense codes from the captured captain and were able to disable the Earth's defenses. They started going down that path then didn't clarify that's exactly what happened after dropping that bug down his throat. I wouldn't be surprised to see that info in a a deleted scene in a directors cut DVD release.

I enjoyed the movie. I personally liked all the throwback lines to the original series.

Came across this video.....it pretty funny. Apparently, the Star Trek plot has been made before....

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1910892

Okay, 25 years. That's still an incredibly crappy explanation of why you would not ever bother to tell your home world that it was due for utter annihilation, especially when you claim your whole reason for being is to avenge that very annihilation.

The screenplay writers can always depend on fanboys to fill in with "I guess.." and "Maybe..." and "Probably because..." statements even the most gaping holes in their lazy-ass plot. I liked the movie's characterizations, too, but this was a sloppy plot, and Abrams is supposedly known for his attention to story.

Final wondering,


if time travel is possible, why not go far enuf into the past before a civilization is advanced , then wiping it out would be much simpler?

/sigh

<geekrant>

They didn't pick how far into the past they went, it was accidental they that they jumped into the past to begin with.

He wanted his revenge to be personal, by showing it to Spock who wouldn't have been alive at the beginning of civilization.

</geekrant>

Is that enuf of an explanation?

FIRE EVERYTHING!

So then it was just an amazing coinkidink that they went to the exact spot in the past to torment spock?


PS Methinks you taking this whole trek thing too serious.

Methinks your mother drank Seagrams Golden Wine Coolers while she was pregnant

Actually she drank Baileys, but I still dont get it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetal_alcohol_syndrome

So you r suggesting that drinking during the preg stages causes star trek fanatacism?

Just another gripe to tilt Jadaki:

After all these years of it being a staple plot point of all the ST series (serii? serieses?), it finally occurred to me that having starship captains know the defense codes for Earth has got to be the stupidest security plan ever.

1. You can land and take off a Federation starship without disabling Earth's security, so why do they need to know these codes at all?
2. They are out wandering about the universe, ripe for kidnapping and torture/brain worms/etc. to get them to reveal the codes. How is that a good idea?
3. What in their job actually requires them to know and use the codes? Even if Earth's under attack, they just gather around and shoot at the enemy -- they're not the ones enhancing or altering the planet's shields.
4. Why would the entire planet have only one code and that code available in full to every captain?
5. Shouldn't they change "the" code every day, or every hour?
6. And shouldn't it be virtually impossible to keep in memory, specifically to foil brain worms/ear mites/whatever?
7. Name a single country in this planet's history that has entrusted every single seagoing captain in its fleet with all the crucial secrets of national defense.

no, I'm suggesting it made you retarded.

Yeah! I mean why would they want ships crewed by thousands of people they've spent years training to be able to return to base without getting vaporized? I'm sure no nuke sub captain had access to radio frequencies, launch codes, or the disposition of the rest of the fleet during the cold war. That would just be crazy.

Okay. Are you seriously suggesting that Earth's defenses vaporized any approaching Federation vessel unless the whole planet's defenses were neutralized? The only settings are "suicide" and "off"? Because that would be even stupider.

And are you suggesting that nuclear sub captains during the Cold War had access to the launch codes of every missile in the US, instead of just their own? Because that would be wrong. In fact, I may be misremembering this, but I'm fairly sure that they didn't even have full access to their own launch codes. In order to prevent a rogue commander from launching an attack, the keys and codes were split among all the senior officers, and they all had to sign in before a launch could be initiated. There is absolutely no way that every captain at sea, nuke or not, had the full launch codes to every single missile in the US. [Nor did they have, in their heads, the frequencies and location of every other ship.]

LOL -- all those defense codes are giving him a headache.

LOL

I can't help but just laugh at where this thread is going...awesome, just awesome

I'm currently tilt proof.

Lebron is the greatest basketball player in the history of hoops.

Now proceed to steam

If Keith posted that it would almost work... but I'm running too good at life right now to give a shit about basketball when the season isn't even close.

You know it's all love. Can't wait for the debate in a few months heading into the 09-10 season. Pleeeeease say you'll join the FCP Keeper League...not having a chance to beat you is just plain wrong.

So I have seen the movie but I've only skimmed the thread. I'm sure when I'm feeling geekier I'll quote a bunch more stuff and have a lot of really geeky opinions, but the bottom line is this: It seems like BigD is on track with his assessment of the film. I say seems like because, as I said already, I haven't read the whole thread yet. Whatever.

Anyways, I enjoyed the first half of the movie more than the second half. There were some truly good parts, and some truly cringe-worthy parts. Oh and I quoted run not only because he said that twice, but because it stood out to me also as being....funny or something. FIRE EVERYTHING! They never say that, because it's stupid. They're usually much more precise, even when going all-out-blasting on some alien bitches. At the very least it should be, 'Fire all weapons.'