Exclusive: Sequel Title Confirmed – ‘Star Trek Into Darkness

posted on September 22nd, 2012, 2:05 pm

Dare I step in at this point and say:-

They are just films! If you don't like the latest film or latest 10 films, if you think that none of the films and only TOS is the "real trek" then simply limit yourself to watching that. No-one is forcing you at gunpoint into a cinema, forcing you to pay for a ticket and sit next to you in the film threatening that "If you don't enjoy it, i'll blow your brains out!"

Watch what you like, read what you like, play what you like. Don't watch what you don't like etc

It's like myself and James Bond. I love the "Connery" films, and even the Timothy Dalton ones are good. The Roger Moore ones are well, a bit weak I think, but conversely I greatly enjoy the early Pierce Brosnan ones. I haven't seen any of the Daniel Craig films, as personally I saw the trailers and such and they don't appeal to me. I didn't go and see them, then feel the need to mindlessly rant on an internet forum about how they were destroying the series past present and future.

posted on September 22nd, 2012, 4:27 pm

How was First Contact or Nemesis any different? They reduced Picard to a vengeance driven madman who wanted to commit genocide on the Borg. Remember how he had a chance to kill all the Borg in TNG with Hugh? But he did not because he's you know, intellectual and all that? Well guess what, First Contact reduced him to a mindless brute who killed Borg by the dozens, even killed his own crew before the assimilation process was complete.

I don't really want a part in this discussion, but I do have to say a few things:

• Picard himself admitted in the show that not wiping out the Collective was the moral choice, but very likely wasn't the right one. There's nothing strange about him protecting his ship from a small group them.
• Killing people assimilated in the middle of a losing fight (where you can't get them back) is something a captain who cares for his crew would do, otherwise you're willingly condeming them to one of the most painful experiences there is (including having limbs and even eyes removed and replaced while still awake then being trapped ion your own mind as the body moves by itself). Picard knows exactly what it's like, physically and emotionally, and no-one would be foolish enough to think they're better off that way.

I'm just saying you're critisizing FC Picard for the wrong reason. It's the Moby Dick-like revenge obsession that's out of character. He should have already come to terms with what they did.

posted on September 22nd, 2012, 8:10 pm

I'm just saying you're critisizing FC Picard for the wrong reason. It's the Moby Dick-like revenge obsession that's out of character. He should have already come to terms with what they did.

He just seemed strangely angry and overly aggressive in how he handled the whole situation in FC I suppose. To me there's a fine line between defending the ship against the Borg and the going out of your way to slaughter them and then break the Borg Queen's spine like an angry child when you could have took her back to the Federation for scientific study. I guess maybe he was still upset over his brother's death and losing the Enterprise D to a little Bird of Prey?

posted on September 22nd, 2012, 8:18 pm

And have you noticed how it all went down the drain as soon as Roddenberry died?

Its as if they thought that, after the old man passed, they could just thrash out and turn ST into gangsta's paradise!

Sickening... Barbaric!

posted on September 23rd, 2012, 4:43 pm

[list]
[*]Picard himself admitted in the show that not wiping out the Collective was the moral choice, but very likely wasn't the right one. There's nothing strange about him protecting his ship from a small group them.

In the case of First Contact, he didn't just defend the ship. There are several examples of him being totally reckless while trying to get rid of the Borg.
When he briefs a security team for taking back the engine room, he instructs them that puncturingthe containers next to the warp-core (you know, the ones with that stuff that in the end neutralizes the Queen) is what he plans them to do, saying that using phaers in the engine-room is too risky because they could hit the warpcore. But puncturing containers with flesh-ripping gas or whatever is absolutely okay for him.

When Picard leads a team outside the ship he tells to not shoot at the deflector because they could destroy half the ship, whle just a few seconds later he doesn't care and fires a hole in the hull dangerously close to the anti-proton-charged dish.


On the show, Picard displayed a behaviour far far away from this. In FC he doesn't care about violating his direct orders (which are stupid anyways as he always proved loyal to the federations principals and directives with or without Borg involved after he was saved from the collective), he doesn't care about dying crewmen except for shooting them and delivering lines like "you'll do them a favor" (while he was actually rescued and proved that a Borg-drone can be saved). He also forgot that he actually spared the collective itself and an entire renegade population of drones some time earlier on the show.

While watching Nemesis I seriously thought (when Shinzon told Picard about the obsolete plans to replace Picard with him) that Picard already WAS replaced by someone else since Generations.

posted on September 23rd, 2012, 7:11 pm

i dont quite get the problem with how he tackled the borg in first contact. if he didnt take them out all humans and the whole federation would be assimilated. yes they could be converted back but trying to do that when they are assimilating the crew left right and center wouldnt be possible. he had to do what he did for the greater good

posted on September 23rd, 2012, 7:23 pm

In the case of First Contact, he didn't just defend the ship. There are several examples of him being totally reckless while trying to get rid of the Borg.
When he briefs a security team for taking back the engine room, he instructs them that puncturingthe containers next to the warp-core (you know, the ones with that stuff that in the end neutralizes the Queen) is what he plans them to do, saying that using phaers in the engine-room is too risky because they could hit the warpcore. But puncturing containers with flesh-ripping gas or whatever is absolutely okay for him.

When Picard leads a team outside the ship he tells to not shoot at the deflector because they could destroy half the ship, whle just a few seconds later he doesn't care and fires a hole in the hull dangerously close to the anti-proton-charged dish.

I never said he wasn't acting out-of-character, only that killing people to protect your ship isn't out of character. He knows the Borg cannot be reasoned with.

The post I was replying to claimed fighting to protect his ship wasn't in-character for Picard (I think). You did see the part where I said the revenge obsession is what they should critisize?

he doesn't care about dying crewmen except for shooting them and delivering lines like "you'll do them a favor" (while he was actually rescued and proved that a Borg-drone can be saved). He also forgot that he actually spared the collective itself and an entire renegade population of drones some time earlier on the show.

The 'save the drones' idea also doesn't work because of the situation; BoBW had the Enterprise either hiding from or ignored by the Cube and they could keep him sealed away in a secure part of the ship. First Contact had an army of drones activly assimilating the ship one deck and handfuls of officers at a time, with a shrinking crew losing badly. Death and Assimilation are the only options in that sort of situation.

i dont quite get the problem with how he tackled the borg in first contact. if he didnt take them out all humans and the whole federation would be assimilated. yes they could be converted back but trying to do that when they are assimilating the crew left right and center wouldnt be possible. he had to do what he did for the greater good

The only problem is the obsession with exterminating every last one overriding his common sense, such as choosing to keep fighting instead of using self-destruct. He's not meant to be a 24th century Captain Ahab...

He also forgot that he actually spared the collective itself and an entire renegade population of drones some time earlier on the show.

An action Picard himself admitted might not have been the right choice (the Collective, not the renegades). He only seemed to consider it the moral one, probably because they were as much innocent victims as the people the attack.

Again, the problem was he became Captain Ahab despite already having gotten over what they did to him in the show. Being willing to kill people they couldn't save under the circumstances isn't at fault.

posted on September 23rd, 2012, 8:35 pm

Again, the problem was he became Captain Ahab despite already having gotten over what they did to him in the show.

That's pretty much what I was trying to point out and criticize, not the fact that he attempted to defend the Enterprise. I was trying to point out that defined characters such as Picard in the past have already been portrayed differently from movie to movie to the point of breaking character, so saying the new Kirk is out of character in the Abrams film is kind of pointless. It becomes even more pointless when you realize it's a much younger and immature Kirk than the one from TOS, so it's not a far stretch that he'd be portrayed as such.

posted on September 23rd, 2012, 8:46 pm

Must have misunderstood the second half, it looked like you were talking about him being willing to kill the attackers... looking back, the first part with 'revenge-driven' in it probably should have clued me in.

Considering the 'new' Picard, I wonder if he killed the assimilated crew because he knew it was better for them or really because they were part-Borg (and valid white whales to his Ahab)?

posted on September 24th, 2012, 7:49 am

Well, Picard's behavior in first contact could be explained by him being deeply scared by his experience by the borg, after all, one of the episodes in TNG sees him collapsing like a sack of bricks, right the next episode after the borg encounter.

May I also say that starfleet itself was worried that having him join the battle would "introduce an unstable element to a critical situation". You know the rest lol!

posted on September 24th, 2012, 10:59 am

Well, Picard's behavior in first contact could be explained by him being deeply scared by his experience by the borg, after all, one of the episodes in TNG sees him collapsing like a sack of bricks, right the next episode after the borg encounter.

May I also say that starfleet itself was worried that having him join the battle would "introduce an unstable element to a critical situation". You know the rest lol!

Gonna focus on this one point, it's rubbish. look at TNG: "I, Borg", tell me where he's quoting ahab in blind rage. he isn't. he's the intellectual captain, he dealt with his emotions before that. When writing FC they clearly didn't care that the show had already established picard's emotional state with respect to the borg. Maybe they hadn't watched that episode.

posted on September 25th, 2012, 6:08 am

Well, just because someone seems to have dealt with a traumatic experience doesn't mean they actually have. Sure, he could "hide" from his feelings after the Borg were dealt with in BoBW, but it wasn't until First Contact that he was forced to actually deal with them now that the situation meant he could not avoid them any further.

I think that was the point as well, the fact that he went on a total bender until Lilly pointed out what he was doing. She could say stuff to him that no crewmember would.

posted on September 25th, 2012, 12:33 pm

Well, just because someone seems to have dealt with a traumatic experience doesn't mean they actually have. Sure, he could "hide" from his feelings after the Borg were dealt with in BoBW, but it wasn't until First Contact that he was forced to actually deal with them now that the situation meant he could not avoid them any further.

bollocks, I, Borg was as clear as day, he was at peace with what happened. no desires for revenge, no weird freaky emotions. he was rational, and he had a choice where he could destroy all the borg collective, getting perfect revenge on those who wronged him, and he eventually made the decision not to because it would violate his morals. he didn't avoid anything in I, Borg, he interacted with hugh to help him reach his decision.

all his emotion stuff was handled on earth after BoBW. he didn't hide his feelings for long, he released to his family.

he also dealt with borg again in descent. starfleet were happy to have him deal with the borg situation (they didn't know the borg were rogue yet). he wasn't an unstable element at all. he approached the rogue borg situation with his trademark level head.

first contact's writers were lazy, they were looking to make some personal conflict for action movie picard, and they lazily made him wanna go ahab on the borg. first contact maybe be respected as a good movie, but it has some bad flaws. insurrection actually had a picard that was closer to TV picard, he made a moral decision to help the underdog people. still, eventually it ended up with him fighting rofl 1v1 in a cliché climax.

posted on September 25th, 2012, 2:33 pm

insurrection actually had a picard that was closer to TV picard, he made a moral decision to help the underdog people

TV-Picard wouldn't have acted this way at all. The first scenes on the Enterprise in Insurrection were indeed more like the original, but as soon as the Enterprise established contact to the Ba'ku, Picard turns into someone else again. In Insurrection, you have another opposite-Picard from a TNG-episode. This time it's "Journey's end", where Picard tried to talk the federation colonists into leaving their planet because it now belongs to the cardassians by treaty.

The Ba'ku were on a federation-planet. The radiation of the planet was intended to be used for medical research after its discovery. TV-Picard would have called the Ba'ku selfish for not seeing that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
Also, as soon as Picard would have noted that Son'a and Ba'ku are the same, he would have told the admiral and he would have ordered the Enterprise to leave because of the prime directive. Son'a willing to have revenge or not, the Ba'ku COULD have technology to defend (for all Picard knows, they could have hidden weapons and other tech-leftovers somewhere underground). Also there is no evidence the Son'a were leaving out of their free will (by their appearance and Ruafo's anger I tend to say they were banned by force because they like technology or something stupid like that).

The holo-ship, Picard rebelling, Data being stupid, a colony of people who didn't grow in population that much since they settled there... that's all just manipulation towards the audience, so that people might think there's a conspiracy and a mystery-plot somewhere. Hiding a cloaked holoship in water while it has long-range transporters just makes me laugh.

posted on September 25th, 2012, 4:36 pm

TV-Picard wouldn't have acted this way at all.

firstly, you'll notice i said 'closer' and not identical. insurrection was by no means perfect. picard in FC was much further from the TV show than insurrection picard. mainly because picard in FC was a ridiculous caricature. insurrection picard still wasn't good enough, he still behaved a bit too action-y for me, not enough thinking. but i think his actions of helping the baku would have been the same (considering all the points i will make throughout this post).

The first scenes on the Enterprise in Insurrection were indeed more like the original, but as soon as the Enterprise established contact to the Ba'ku, Picard turns into someone else again. In Insurrection, you have another opposite-Picard from a TNG-episode. This time it's "Journey's end", where Picard tried to talk the federation colonists into leaving their planet because it now belongs to the cardassians by treaty.

A very poor comparison. the tribes in journey's end were federation citizens, and hence the federation government has authority over them, and can order them relocated (moral issues aside).

the baku are not federation citizens, unless the federation routinely annexes worlds whenever it pleases, which it doesn't. the baku moved into the briar patch in the 21st century. in the 23rd century, the briar patch wasn't yet in federation space. it was the site of a famous klingon victory over the romulans, called the battle of klach d'kel brakt, it might have been klingon, might have been romulan. it was probably neutral, as it's not really prime real estate.

so either the federation didn't know the baku were there when they made their claim for the briar patch (unlikely, ships had visited) and their claim to the baku world is a mistake that they later corrected or they did know the baku were there and they claimed most of the briar patch, but not the baku planet.

hence the federation have no legal right to relocate the baku, as the baku aren't federation citizens. in fact the Prime Directive protects the baku from interference by starfleet.

another big difference is that the baku planet sits within federation borders (even if it's not fed territory), the planet in journey's end was soon to be in cardassian territory, outside of federation jurisdiction. picard probably ordered the people removed in order to prevent the cardassians straight up murdering the them. that episode also has everyone holding the idiot ball until the end, that is to say, everyone is incredibly stupid until they realise there's an obvious option of leaving the people there but having them give up their status as federation citizens (which they presumably had the right to do all along, just nobody mentioned the idea).

The Ba'ku were on a federation-planet.

already mentioned earlier that the only way this is possible is for the federation to annex their world against their wishes. the baku planet has to be independent.

The radiation of the planet was intended to be used for medical research after its discovery. TV-Picard would have called the Ba'ku selfish for not seeing that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

have you even watched TNG? even if he was drunk he wouldn't do something like that. forcibly relocating a non federation race (and hence breaking the PD in a way not even janeway could condone) could never be justified by "the needs of the many", that's not how picard or the feds behave. and it's not really the needs of the many either. the radiation MIGHT possibly lead to healing some medical problems. not guaranteed, and failing to get the radiation isn't a guarantee that anybody will die. also the baku are currently enjoying heavy effects from that radiation, it's keeping the really old people alive and young. taking them away from it would have a guaranteed negative effect on the baku.

Also, as soon as Picard would have noted that Son'a and Ba'ku are the same, he would have told the admiral and he would have ordered the Enterprise to leave because of the PD.

Actually it's more likely that the sona would be ordered to bugger off. the only way to get to the baku planet is to travel through federation space, hence the federation can ban the sona any time they like. france isn't going to invade portugal by land without having to drive their army through spain first. the fact that the sona and baku are the same race is not important, they are (at face value) different sovereign entities.

EDIT: also he only found out that the sona and baku were the same genetically after the enterprise had left to complain officially to the feds, and doherty was dead. the fight had already begun, picard couldn't leave or stop it as the sona now wanted to kick his arse too. also as i said earlier the PD stops the feds from interfering with the baku as well as the sona.

Son'a willing to have revenge or not, the Ba'ku COULD have technology to defend (for all Picard knows, they could have hidden weapons and other tech-leftovers somewhere underground).

all irrelevant, regardless of their intentions, or their capability to carry out their acts, the sona still need the federation's permission to go through fed space to do anything at planet baku.

Also there is no evidence the Son'a were leaving out of their free will (by their appearance and Ruafo's anger I tend to say they were banned by force because they like technology or something stupid like that).

1) there's no way to know whether they left with or without a fight, or the severity of any fight. rofl seemed like a generally dickish and petty guy, he could be angry over a perceived slighting, rather than an actual one.

2) it's also irrelevant, about a century has passed since the split, long enough so that if the sona claimed to still be part of the same sovereign entity as the baku, it would take months to resolve. the sona in fact made no claim to be baku, in fact they kept it secret. the federation would treat them as separate sovereign entity, not as part of the baku. so as a separate sovereign entity from the baku, they would need federation permission to travel through fed space.

The holo-ship, Picard rebelling, Data being stupid, a colony of people who didn't grow in population that much since they settled there... that's all just manipulation towards the audience, so that people might think there's a conspiracy and a mystery-plot somewhere. Hiding a cloaked holoship in water while it has long-range transporters just makes me laugh.

these are things that are bad about insurrection. i made no claim they weren't. they aren't really important to the topic of insurrection picard vs FC picard.

a large amount of the plot is stupid as the federation should never have signed off on this ridiculous relocation nonsense. it violates the PD (as the baku aren't federation citizens). especially since they thought the baku were prewarp (they didn't know the baku were just space amish). the very idea flies in the face of what the show established as federation behaviour.

i've been thinking about the possibility of doherty tricking the federation into giving permission/resources, but it's hard to imagine the feds being that stupid, he had a small base on the planet, and several starfleet crew that had to be assigned. also he had a holoship (with an illegal cloaking device too). the enterprise had detailed files on the area.

it is my belief that picard's defence of the baku is something that TV picard would have done as well (assuming the ridiculous premise of the federation allying with the sona and ignoring the PD). he valued riker because he didn't blindly follow orders, and he wouldn't stand by and follow orders that were so wrong. he'd kick up a right old stink until the project became notorious throughout the fed and untenable. which is pretty much what happened. presumably after the film, the federation found out doherty was dead and wanted the project to silenty be swept under the rug.

tl;dr - nu uh