Star Dreck

Us Trekkies who want to pretend we're witty and in-the-know just watch Boston Legal and giggle, or just use all the subtle references as a drinking game.

The Unoriginal wrote:

Nihilist wrote:

Trioculus wrote:

I'm still trying to save up the $80 I need to get one of those Polar Lights 1/350 Refit model kits.

It's $62 on Amazon. I'd love to have one myself.

Ooo, not one, but two fellow modelers it seems.

I must have built a half dozen of those old Amt-Ertl Refit ships, but don't have any of them anymore--the pylons and nacelles just weren't very sturdy and broke too easily. And my Mom threw them out. I still have half a fleet of the Amt-Ertl TOS ships in my closet, though. They're a little sturdier, and I hid them from Mom.

I fell away from model building for many years, but back in May, amid aforementioned STXI hype, I bought one of the Polar Lights 1/1000 TOS Enterprises on a whim, and that kind of reawakened the old bug.

What bothers me most about the movie is that we already have an established continuity, and JJ Abrams has to go shit out a (quite frankly, inferior, IMHO) version of it, and call it an "alternate continuity"

It's not Star Trek because it has Kirk and the gang, plus a ship that vaguely resembles the a ship that won't be designed for another decade (but is sized bigger than anything for another century+)

Honestly, the people in this topic are the only ones I know of who dislike the movie. Everyone else I've talked to loves it. Still, it doesn't really sound like it's worth checking out, unless one's a Trekkie.

If anything, it's the other way round. People who know little about the established continuity won't care that it's being tossed aside.

That might be true, it might not be, but every Trek fan I know other than the ones here loved it. Hence my assumption that it might be something you'd have to be a Trekkie to enjoy.

Reminds me that I once built an Enterprise, and I think the Voyager, with my mom.

For someone who has watched all the series and even read a couple of novels, I've never been in the fandom per se. Maybe that's why NuTrek didn't bother me.

Keith Fraser wrote:

If anything, it's the other way round. People who know little about the established continuity won't care that it's being tossed aside.

Eh, you know what? I was a Trekkie for years, and I'd honestly fallen out of love with the franchise over the last couple of movies, the last three seasons of Voyager and all of Enterprise. This gave me the "Star Trek" feel, which was all I was hoping for. So the science is faulty, the ship's too big and the old (and overly bloated) continuity was thrown out the window. So what?

Re: the continuity, that was the only way to proceed with another Star Trek movie anyway without getting people even more riled up or producing a complete and utter shit pile, IMO. A lot of the Trek fans I know thought that all the nifty future tech brought home in the Voyager finale sort of killed anything coming after that in the continuity, as it officially super-powered the Federation. Anything coming before that point would have to struggle to fit into the overall continuity and therefore probably spend more time to get all the little facts right than on actually being entertaining. I actually thought that the reboot was a good idea, even though I wasn't huge on how it was done (Nero and his unreasonable vendetta were one of the things about the movie I considered to be rather weak).

Saleha wrote:

Keith Fraser wrote:

If anything, it's the other way round. People who know little about the established continuity won't care that it's being tossed aside.

Eh, you know what? I was a Trekkie for years, and I'd honestly fallen out of love with the franchise over the last couple of movies, the last three seasons of Voyager and all of Enterprise. This gave me the "Star Trek" feel, which was all I was hoping for. So the science is faulty, the ship's too big and the old (and overly bloated) continuity was thrown out the window. So what?

Re: the continuity, that was the only way to proceed with another Star Trek movie anyway without getting people even more riled up or producing a complete and utter shit pile, IMO. A lot of the Trek fans I know thought that all the nifty future tech brought home in the Voyager finale sort of killed anything coming after that in the continuity, as it officially super-powered the Federation. Anything coming before that point would have to struggle to fit into the overall continuity and therefore probably spend more time to get all the little facts right than on actually being entertaining. I actually thought that the reboot was a good idea, even though I wasn't huge on how it was done (Nero and his unreasonable vendetta were one of the things about the movie I considered to be rather weak).

Thank you for having a brain.

Except this was supposed to be a prequel, so there was no need to deal with the aftermath of Voyager. And the Federation has now been superpowered again, because they can now teleport people across interstellar distances (an ability previously only seen used by Gary Seven in a TOS episode). I know what you're saying, though.

Melissa wrote:

Lapin wrote:

He's supposed to be an American (San Francisco is apparently his hometown) of Japanese descent. (I'm getting a little too involved with Star Trek)

There's a Sulu Sea in the Philippines. Maybe he's Filipino on his dad's side and Japanese on his mom's side. (BTW, why is the country spelled with a Ph and the nationality spelled with an F? I always thought that was kind of strange.)

It would make a pretty good story over beer sometime. "Yeah, my Filipino ancestors came to San Francisco to work and when the guy at the docks said, 'You're not Chinese. What country are you from?' my great-great-grandpa, who spoke pretty good English but with an accent, said, 'The Philippines.' And the immigration guy had no idea where that was, so Great-Great tried to explain that it was on the Sulu Sea, and somewhere in the middle of the conversation our name got written down as Sulu. Actually, Great-Great's last name was Yapchulay and his ancestors came to the Philippines from China. Weird world we live in."

I was under the impression that it wasn't so much a prequel but an A/U fanfic. A big, silly, fun A/U fanfic.

Keith Fraser wrote:

Like a lot of recent Hollywood blockbusters, it tried to have its cake, eat it, and also snort it off a hooker's backside,

Sig please?

Keith Fraser wrote:

gung-ho military chest-pounding

Right. Too often, Hollywood forgets that the only correct use of the military is a faceless mooks to be slaughtered in droves, like the brainwashed drones they are.

I have to say I liked the Star Trek movie, but considering my status as an anti-fan of the original stuff, this is probably a bad thing from a fan's perspective. I went in expecting Star Trek (ham-handed morals, rubber forehead aliens, boring exposition by the metric ton) and instead got a popcorn movie full of space battles and explosions. I was very happy.

@Gai: It was just awesome, right? I went in to snark it and had to practically drag my friend kicking and screaming. (I saw Twilight with that bitch, she owed me)

We ended up staring at the screen in rapt fascination for the entire thing. We didn't even eat our candy.

But I don't like the original all that much either. I thought it was kind of boring, and then it just got more and more high-handed and unbelievably moral and annoying. The fuck? Why did every episode need a lesson about rascism/not judging/war is horrible? Shoot me in the head bitch, I'll take high-altitude swordfights, dumb as they may be, any day.

ZoZo wrote:

I was under the impression that it wasn't so much a prequel but an A/U fanfic. A big, silly, fun A/U fanfic.

Only this fanbrat has been proclaiming that not only is his A/U canon, but that the old canon (all 10 movies and 5 series) is now all A/U.

unskilled78 wrote:

ZoZo wrote:

I was under the impression that it wasn't so much a prequel but an A/U fanfic. A big, silly, fun A/U fanfic.

Only this fanbrat has been proclaiming that not only is his A/U canon, but that the old canon (all 10 movies and 5 series) is now all A/U.

Then he's a schmuck, because most of the people who buy the tickets and so on consider his work the A/U.

And Gai and Lapin, I'm a die-hard Trekkie and went with a couple of die-hard Trekkies on opening night. And we were damn impressed. So I think it works for both fans and anti-fans.

What angers me the most about this so-called "reboot" is that Uhura makes out with the dirty man Vulcan Spock, ruining herself as a symbol of power for all womyn. It makes me want to throw up, I left the theater halfway through because I was so irritated.

The two things that really pissed me off in that film could've been solved by putting a couple of years between the academy scenes and the destruction of Vulcan during which time Kirk had served aboard a different starship.

Then the following could've been avoided:
- Chekov basically being a less annoying Wesley Crusher. Oh, and if he's 17 when Kirk's 25, he's still too old, since he's supposed to be as young, fresh and green from the academy as they come (ie. 21) when Kirk is in his early/mid 30s in TOS. Did Nero's incursion somehow cause his parents to concieve earlier?
- Promoting Kirk from Cadet to Captain. I mean seriously, in Dominion War era DS9 they don't give an officer's commission to a war veteran with nearly 20 years experience in Starfleet (O' Brien) during a manpower shortage, are we really expected to accept that standards were that different 120 in universe years earlier?. And it's not like the whole fleet was wiped out, (since the Enterprise goes to rendevouz with it) and they haven't got a choice.

But they obviously decided that the CONFLICKTT!!! between Spock and Kirk had to be fresh. I mean there was no way we could've have had them start to argue over something other than the Kobiashi Maru, or even had any sort of subtlety and have their differing life "philosophies" drive them apart. Speaking of which, ejecting a guy out of a ship? Don't you have a brig?

There were other stupid tidbits such as rascist Vulcans, Kirk's uncle having a 50s Chevy, the Nokia product placement, Uhura's pointless and plot-line irrelevant fawning over Spock, but overall it was an enjoyable enough movie. They could've done better though.

Waffles wrote:

What angers me the most about this so-called "reboot" is that Uhura makes out with the dirty man Vulcan Spock, ruining herself as a symbol of power for all womyn. It makes me want to throw up, I left the theater halfway through because I was so irritated.

And I shall use this troll as an excuse to post this: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Which I heartily enjoyed reading.

Sakurelf wrote:

And I shall use this troll as an excuse to post this: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Which I heartily enjoyed reading.

How so, may I ask?

Nihilist wrote:

Sakurelf wrote:

And I shall use this troll as an excuse to post this: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Which I heartily enjoyed reading.

How so, may I ask?

There has been a shitton of Uhura wank in the nutrek fandom. Just mentioning her can be cause for wank. Anyone who dosn't like her is a sexist racist. Anyone who likes her with Spock is a sexist who has reduced her to girlfriend status. Anyone who likes her single is a racist because black girls don't deserve relationships on screen.

wank wank wankity wank.

People need to understand that Uhura is not her race and is not her gender. She is a character, with flaws, and whether single or attached to someone's arm, her importance is what she does, not who she is.

Some batshit crazy wrote:

She got to sit in the back and rarely do anything and have her sexuality ignored not because they respected her so much as a colleague and a person, but because she was not a full, real human being and when you're not a full, real human being the idea that actual people would ever desire you or romance you or love you is ridiculous.

Yes, because the majority of the crew was engaging in sexual congress in every episode in plain sight.
Even if they did, she could have decided for herself not to join the orgies.

Quote :

...or even [Nichelle Nichols] recent acknowledgment that they actually wanted to do Spock/Uhura in TOS but it was made impossible by the times.

Source, Pl0x.

Quote :

[Zoe Saldana] is not inexplicably asexual and ignored despite being gorgeous.

I can just imagine Kirk pulling a "JD moment" where he talks to himself, infodumping who we are seeing and reciting a bunch of useless information.
"ah, Nyota. she's gorgeous but every male who ever asks her out is found with a communications earpiece stuck up his rectum, and they never manage to get off a cry for help."

What do they say about people who don't really care if Uhura's in a relationship or not?
I've read that Roddenberry wanted more female crew members on the show, but the execs said "You can't do that! People will think they're fooling around!" Ah, the days before Spirk fic. I think there was one ep of OS Trek where Uhura flirted with Spock, but she seemed to be doing it out of boredom than real interest.

unskilled78 wrote:

Quote :

...or even [Nichelle Nichols] recent acknowledgment that they actually wanted to do Spock/Uhura in TOS but it was made impossible by the times.

Source, Pl0x.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

I don't know where in the video it is because I'm on dial-up and didn't watch it, but the info has a transcript and it's in there, so I'm assuming it's in the video.

Hot Cancer wrote:

are we really expected to accept that standards were that different 120 in universe years earlier?

Much as I disliked the movie, I am going to go out on a limb here and say: Yes.

Nearly a century ago, the US Army Air Corps let NCOs fly airplanes. Then Chuck Yeager, fighter and test pilot extraordinaire, broke the sound barrier with just a high school education. Now you need at least a BS directly related to flight (e.g. aeronautical engineering) and a commission just to be considered.

Not that I'm defending the movie, but a lot can change in a handful of decades, let alone a century.