Exclusive: Sequel Title Confirmed – ‘Star Trek Into Darkness

posted on September 25th, 2012, 4:51 pm

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

I stand with my comparison to journey's end. Insurrection was a plot rip-off of that episode, that's why the comparison is as valid as the claim that Picard and crew rebelling to help the Ba'ku was far over the top. Picard told the leader of the colonists in journey's end, that "there are times when the greater good demands that certain sacrifices are made". If he would have made a similar approach to the Ba'ku/So'na-dilemma, it'd be at the very least in-character.

posted on September 25th, 2012, 5:04 pm

Wouldn't have made much of a film though... which is sort of the quintessential point. I personally though Insurrection felt like just a feature length episode anyway. It just didn't have the feel of a Star Trek Film. Not sure why. However, whilst we all have differing opinions on our favourite characters and like to try and guess what their reactions to situations might be, they are all just that; opinions.

Given his excellent acting pedigree, I would be surprised if Sir Patrick Stewart had major objections to his characters behaviour. I would imagine that if he did, he would have voiced them during the initial script read through. Perhaps he already did? *shrug* Either way it does sort of all come off as fanboy obsession if the man himself had no issue.

[RedEyedRaven]

posted on September 25th, 2012, 5:18 pm

Last edited by RedEyedRaven on September 25th, 2012, 7:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Either way it does sort of all come off as fanboy obsession if the man himself had no issue.

In the case of Sir Patrick Stewart, I think he had a lot of time to play other roles and forget how to act as Picard between the end of TNG and the movies, and if producers like Berman would watch shows they worked on all of these discussions wouldn't be that over-the-top.

posted on September 25th, 2012, 5:20 pm

Yeah I didn't mean to spark debate over Picard's character.
I was just trying to defend the Abrams film by mentioning that defined characters have changed a lot in many Star Trek movies so it was sort of pointless to poke at the fact that the new Kirk isn't a carbon copy of Shatner.

posted on September 25th, 2012, 5:36 pm

On that note, most of the Kirk we see on screen isn't Shatner acting like Kirk, it's Shatner acting after being worn down . It might be a myth, but I read that during both The Wrath of Khan and Undiscovered Country, Nicholas Meyer had Shatner do the same scene over and over until he got the bluster out of his system and acted "normal".

I would repudiate the idea that Sir Patrick forgot how to act like Picard after TNG. He's a Shakespearian Actor, he's acted in many many roles and I am sure very familiar with "picking up a character" after a length of absence

posted on September 25th, 2012, 6:04 pm

Ah, the Ba'ku... the true villains of Insurrection (or so I've heard). What is it with Star Trek and their Elves?

posted on September 25th, 2012, 7:18 pm

I stand with my comparison to journey's end. Insurrection was a plot rip-off of that episode, that's why the comparison is as valid as the claim that Picard and crew rebelling to help the Ba'ku was far over the top. Picard told the leader of the colonists in journey's end, that "there are times when the greater good demands that certain sacrifices are made". If he would have made a similar approach to the Ba'ku/So'na-dilemma, it'd be at the very least in-character.

I'm really struggling to see how you can stand by the comparison when there's such a vast difference between the two scenarios. they are similar only at skin level. they both involve the federation proposing to remove a group of weaker people by force.

the similarities end there, as the space native indians were federation citizens, so there's absolutely nothing stopping the federation moving them whenever and wherever they want. while the baku aren't federation, and hence are protected by the prime directive. that one difference is vastly important.

In the case of Sir Stewart

custom dictates that knights are addressed in the following way: Sir Patrick or Sir Patrick Stewart, never Sir Stewart.

posted on September 25th, 2012, 7:35 pm

the similarities end there, as the space native indians were federation citizens, so there's absolutely nothing stopping the federation moving them whenever and wherever they want. while the baku aren't federation, and hence are protected by the prime directive. that one difference is vastly important.

It is vastly important to make this difference indeed, I'd not argue with that in general. But back to Insurrection:
The movie however does not make the approach to make a difference between federation citizens and formerly space-travelling settlers though. This leads to the conclusion that Rick Berman and friends didn't care while making the movie, so why should I care while watching it?
I care about the Enterprise-crew and I'm supposed to care about the Ba'ku while I end up hating them for their lack of character-/script-/plot-development. It's a great opportunity missed by the movie-makers.

custom dictates that knights are addressed in the following way: Sir Patrick or Sir Patrick Stewart, never Sir Stewart.

Thanks for the input, I corrected my last post.

posted on September 25th, 2012, 8:00 pm

But back to Insurrection:
The movie however does not make the approach to make a difference between federation citizens and formerly space-travelling settlers though. This leads to the conclusion that Rick Berman and friends didn't care while making the movie, so why should I care while watching it?

quite right berman and co didn't care, but i don't see that as a reason for us not to. chalk that up to person differences i guess.

i personally agree with your description of the baku, they are very bland and lacking in any important character qualities.

posted on September 25th, 2012, 8:12 pm

I'd also like to contribute to this discussion and I'm on the side of "J.J. Star Trek" haters. Even though I love How J.J. is making films and the ideas he realized there I believe the reinvention of Star Trek into what it is today was a failure. In the long run we will see a bad down fall of the franchise because the concept is not sustainable. The original concept was born out of a strong relationship with the real world and their problems which made star Trek to a long lasting source of excitement. JJ star Trek on the other hand is a commercial cow dealing with fragile topics such as the destruction of worlds and primitive human emotions such as revenge, hate and lust. The concept of hope for a better future, a fruitful living with foreign culture and more important the finding of such is totally neglected. And as any other franchise dealing with such "superficial" core topics it will end after a relatively short time. Such movies live from immense cash input, strong visual effects and action that compensates for using the brain and by doing so generate an emotional state of excitement and awe inside the spectator. Once this "stimulation" decreases (because our brains work that way) people will no longer be hooked up by that concept.

I tried to watch the previous JJ Star Trek movie two times. and I did never watch the whole movie. I stopped in the middle because it was just not attractive to me - I felt amazed by the effects, by the action, the acting and the beautiful women - but I could not cope with that really bad story set and the concept behind. There was nothing left of from the original Trek but the epicness of Star Ships blown up into a heroic bubble style to compensate for a real glory and honor behind a USS Enterprise.

What cuts me most off this franchise now is the fact that they (CBS etc.) could have really changed the franchise in a sustainable way. The aspect of exploration, the aspect of the prime anti Federation races or a development of a new kind of goal for the Federation. There are tons of possibilities to reanimate an already established idea and flash it out to become a fantastic trilogy or a new set of movies. It always looked like as if the story writers had their brains full of tomatoes when it came to invent something really new - as if the Federation had fully understood the final frontier and had reached it after the crippling of the Borg... nothing new in the universe - that's how it felt. Maybe because of over satisfied people sitting fat in their chairs to write yet another Star Trek story. Well.. this is not how you do something amazing.

For me J.J. was faced with a new set of general topics and he made his job with what CBS gave him. He's not to blame. It's the men and women behind that thought an idea had reached its final day. It certainly had not - you can also start with something new far away from the known places where canon remains in the data banks but does not determine the new place of action.

posted on September 25th, 2012, 11:01 pm

I tried to watch the previous JJ Star Trek movie two times. and I did never watch the whole movie. I stopped in the middle

out of curiosity,
what was the last part you watched?

posted on September 26th, 2012, 10:56 am

What cuts me most off this franchise now is the fact that they (CBS etc.) could have really changed the franchise in a sustainable way. The aspect of exploration, the aspect of the prime anti Federation races or a development of a new kind of goal for the Federation. There are tons of possibilities to reanimate an already established idea and flash it out to become a fantastic trilogy or a new set of movies. It always looked like as if the story writers had their brains full of tomatoes when it came to invent something really new - as if the Federation had fully understood the final frontier and had reached it after the crippling of the Borg... nothing new in the universe - that's how it felt. Maybe because of over satisfied people sitting fat in their chairs to write yet another Star Trek story. Well.. this is not how you do something amazing.

For me J.J. was faced with a new set of general topics and he made his job with what CBS gave him. He's not to blame. It's the men and women behind that thought an idea had reached its final day. It certainly had not - you can also start with something new far away from the known places where canon remains in the data banks but does not determine the new place of action.

I disagree... with the Prime Universe you can't do anything new... everything has been down over and over as I already said in a previous post...
And you (and probably most of you "companions") have a major problem... you don't make money with "Development" and "Exploration"... that is why they needed to reinvigorate Star Trek in the first Place, tried and failed miserably with the last TNG Movies and Enterprise!
And as I said earlier I liked them but I understand why it went the way it did...

Enterprise was a good example... having the new unknown universe, doing the first steps into the final frontier, that was an interesting concept but got cancelled because "Fans" weren't happy, because it wasn't what they had build in their minds or read in third grade backyard books and THAT, in my opinion, is the main problem with the fandom...

We have the Canon, that is as fragmented and incoherent as a broken lamp, and we have a whole range of books and everyone seems to expect that the new movies or series have to take exactly those books and stories into consideration that THEY see as their canon, because they liked the books or whatever...

Oh what discussions or rather simple rants did I hear on why Star Trek Online still had Borg when they were "destroyed" in those horrible Destiny Books (yes I absolutely hate them! The whole Caeliar Stuff was nothing more then a cheap deus ex machina, it all looked like the Authors just wrote something because they hated the Borg Concept and just wanted to get rid of them).

To the last point in the part I quoted... what do you expect?
The Happy Adventures of Neelix?
Star Trek: The Founders?

Star Trek needs to have Humans and the Federation as a main part, it wouldn't attract enough people to warrant a Series and it would just look like a cheap "rip-off" if it were just, say Talaxians and having a "big series" just about them and even they have too much canon behind them to appear new and appealing to Not-yet-Trek Audience.

What do you think you can do? In a way, after the last Voyager Episode it was literally the Endgame...
They had nothing left to do, they had beaten enough Space Animals, they had battled enough with the Klingons, the Romulans never were a great threat after TOS, Cardassians were essentially space germany after WWII, Ferengi... seriously? Gorn and Tholians would never ever live up to what we made up for ourselves and it would end as fast as TOS and Enterprise (even if I might like it), countless other realities have been visited and/or saved, time travel seemed as prevailant as waiting for the bus...

Have another Federation ship go deeper into the Alpha Quadrant? As far as Maps go it would take them to long to go "over" another race to even reach new unknowns.
And what should they do there? See, we have this Problem with the Titan books... they want to show something new, but everything has been done and so they need to size everything up ten times...
It doesn't read like a bold new ship going out to explore, it is just like they are superheroes, saving whole planets, times, dimensions and races on a daily basis as if it were nothing.

For a movie it does work, for usually there passes a considerable amount of time between each movie, but for a Series (no matter if Book or TV), where there shouldn't pass that much time (only days, maybe some weeks or bit more between each season) between episodes it just looks wrong and on a greater scale just weird and grows boring quite fast.

And to close my post:
As I said... exploration and development wouldn't work, sure some "hardcore fans" might watch it but unless they want to pay 1000$ per Ticket it wouldn't work financially...
Even I don't want to watch a ship for 2 Hours circling a nebula taking scans and the crew discussing its properties.
Not even TNG had this... they always had some kind of antagonist, be it space animals, a crazed scientist or an evil robot twin.
And I can't even think about something with a 'Development' Theme.

All these problems come from the over abundance of "canon" or what "Fans" perceive as canon that for one is hindering anything really new, because you always have to have all this "canon" behind it and second this is the reason it is not considered "cool" or "innovative" outside of a very strict and rather small community.
With the New Universe or as I call it "Second Reality" they were able to shove the first part of the problem out of the window and the second part was (obviously, seeing the numbers) amended with the new style and approach.

And for the last... JJvers, New Universe, Newiverse are obviously not the right names as people still confuse the New Reality with having overwritten anything after Enterprise, which is not the case...

It is just a different reality, the Prime Reality still exists (without Romulus of course) and goes on, just as the Secondary Reality.

posted on September 26th, 2012, 1:13 pm

as people still confuse the New Reality with having overwritten anything after Enterprise, which is not the case...

It is just a different reality, the Prime Reality still exists (without Romulus of course) and goes on, just as the Secondary Reality.

did it say that in the movie somewhere? or is it just wanting it to not have done so? (personally id rather it didnt wipe the old stuff, only thing i can imagine says it hasnt is the trailer to star trek online voice over by spock)
but remembering first contact when the enterprise was caught in a rift as the borg just wiped the history right in front of them (which is why they had to restore it)

posted on September 26th, 2012, 1:26 pm

I don't know if it was in the movie, but that universe was already different before the movie started; the ships new visual style already existed and the prime universe wouldn't have a 3-digit registry start with 0 so that it has 4 numbers.

One of the screenwriters apparently used TNG: Parallels as proof that the new universe didn't replace the old.

posted on September 26th, 2012, 1:41 pm

I disagree that the "prime" universe has nothing more to offer. I think producers have looked at it the wrong way. They are always pushing further and further into the future. There are plenty of "gaps" left there to be filled. I am not suggesting another "Enterprise"; I personally feel that was handled badly, but outside of established characters and such there are still stories that can be told.

I think that even newcomers to the series would be interested to see the clash of ideals between the older 'Kirk' type Officers who favour firing first and asking questions later, and the upcoming (at the time) 'Picard' types who engage in diplomacy, negotiation etc. If you really had to shoehorn in existing characters, you could easily have both eras feature, with guest/cameo appearances by Walter Koenig or George Takei as older versions of their characters, and younger actors portraying say a Lieutenant Picard or Ensign Riker etc. Storyline wise you could easily have Cold War situations with the Klingon Empire, as things still weren't rosy even after Khithomer, the rising tensions with the Romulans (which have always been a good standby in TOS and TNG) older TOS races such as the Gorns and Tholians. First contact with the Cardassians and the Ferengi.

All a pipe dream though I suppose.

Regarding the new films, well, I admit I was hesitant to see them. As a Star Trek film, I have to concur with others who do not like J J Abrams view of things. Only Nimoy as an older Spock even really reminded me it was Star Trek at all. However, as a standalone effort, a film in it's own right, it's not bad. I liked some of the characterisations, particular Simon Pegg as Scott. I thought that the character of Uhura was a step back from TOS, going from what was a very brave step in the 1960s (an independent, intelligent Afro-American woman who was a vital part of the crew) to a sad stereotype (sassy black girl) Perhaps it was a "minority" thing since they kind of did the same to Chekov, who just became the crazy Russian guy. Karl Urban was a great choice for McCoy though. They captured the friendly antagonism between him and Chris Pine/Kirk brilliantly. I even quite liked Spock. I guess it was one of those weird situations were individual bits were spot on, but the whole just felt, muddled.