Okay. Not a bad flick, but had some annoying shit in it. Spock Prijme claims that the super nova threatened to destroy the entire universe. That's a hell of a super nova.
Scotty in the water supply. This was a Galaxay Quest "Chompers" moment (which made me laugh out loud in the theater when I thought of it). Having a room the size of a football field, three stories tall, full of twisting clear pipes (oddly just large enough for a man to pass through) winding all over and back over themselves served no fucking purpose other than for that scene.
Using the catch-phrases of "Fascinating" and "Damnit, I'm a doctor, not a <insert whatever>" were horribly forced. If a motorized swiveling chair is fascinating to Spock, then we need to dump his stupid ass from Starfleet as soon as possible. He's a retard Vulcan and should have died on the planet with the rest of his kind.
On Spock... I realize this was a writing device to make Spock Prime appear more wise and intelligent, but they dumbed down the other characters to a ridiculous degree whenever Nimoy was in a scene with them. Like a notch above houseplant stupid.
Karl Urban was the awesome.
Star Trek Reboot - Spoilers
The water pipes... I was able to read along one of the pipes... they were some sort of coolant. IIRC. And if that matters. Reminded me of WIlly Wonka's chocolate factory.
Super nova: I dont recall them saying it would destroy the universe, but I am a little surprised that he miscalculated the timing of it destroying Romulus so badly when the entire point of his mission was to keep that from happening.
Super nova: I dont recall them saying it would destroy the universe, but I am a little surprised that he miscalculated the timing of it destroying Romulus so badly when the entire point of his mission was to keep that from happening.
"Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid."
Well, specifically what he said was it would destroy the galaxy. The point of his mission was to stop that and try to get there in time to save the first major populated planet in the way. He didn't, but still saved the rest of the galaxy.
A supernova could in theory threaten many nearby star systems. Not because of the physical wavefront as depicted in the movie - that would only threaten the planets around that particular star - but because of massive amounts of hard radiation. If any of our closest neighbors went off we'd be fried a few years later.
The only way something like that could threaten the whole galaxy is if - and bear with me now, because this isn't really possible but it's the best I can come up with - the black whole in the middle were to somehow cut loose. That's not supposed to be possible. There are a handful of folks that still think that's what Gamma Ray Bursts might be, but they're in the minority that think GRBs are a spherical phenomenon instead of the columnated event they are now commonly believed to be.
Anyway, I agree that was kinda dumb. Well, very dumb. That whole Spoke Prime plot line felt like a flat and silly thing tacked on with all the thought of the sort given to something from the wiz-bang 50's serials. Disappointing.
I'm okay with the water tube. I can imagine a system that might require the water to travel for some time for some reason before entering point A from point B, and thus lead to a longer pipe u-shaped pipe. That's not an uncommon part of refinery structures. And the clear walls may be because it needs to be exposed to light for some chemical purpose. Okay, I'm stretching, but I'm willing to go that far for this movie.
I thought Spock was saying "Fascinating" to the interface he was presented with, not the chair itself. But I agree the "Damnit, I'm a..." was silly, because he immediately followed it up with correctly saying exactly the point Spock was trying to make. It should have been him asking for plain language and Spock responding with such, then it would have made more sense.
I thought the whole cast was quite good. I enjoyed all of them.
Mainly, I'm amazed at what they've done here. This is the first real canonically-consistent rebooting of a major franchise I've seen. Oh, sure, they've "rebooted" lots of them, but that's always just been a matter of ignoring large chunks of what came before and just making them fresh without a canonical reason. Here what they've done with this time-travel plot is spun off a whole new alternate timeline out of legitimate (if badly written) canonical reasons. Amazing. We can go anywhere from here. And considering the first thing we do is kill off six billion of the populace not previously dead, along with many secondary characters like Kirk's dad and Spock's mom, very bold. Traditionally when something goes this horribly wrong in a time travel story the next goal is to "set it all right". But here we're going to ignore that, and use the new alternate universe as it is to tell our stories.
And I bet they are going to be grittier stories. I can't foresee a shiny happy hippie Next Generation coming along quite so quickly in this universe, it's been beaten up a bit more. This Federation is going to be a just a tiny bit more wary, maybe not make new friends quite as easily, and perhaps lead to different conflicts. I just hope they don't bring in all that Time War crap from the Enterprise series anytime soon, that got out of hand.
I admit there are problems. I was a bit annoyed at how fast and loose they were playing with the chain of command for example, just how quickly Pike turned a raw cadet into his First Officer for no real reason considering he was sending him right off the ship. But then again that's sort of in parallel with the original series in a way, when they were a bunch of 20-somethings (okay, 30- and 40- somethings but acting like 20-somethings) roaming the universe. Even if the details are quite sloppy and the plot is rather thin in places, the spirit is there. And the spirit is what we lost in the following TV shows and movies. This is closer to that young and adventurous spirit than anything that has come since.
And I liked it. A lot.
A supernova could in theory threaten many nearby star systems. Not because of the physical wavefront as depicted in the movie - that would only threaten the planets around that particular star - but because of massive amounts of hard radiation. If any of our closest neighbors went off we'd be fried a few years later.
The only way something like that could threaten the whole galaxy is if - and bear with me now, because this isn't really possible but it's the best I can come up with - the black whole in the middle were to somehow cut loose. That's not supposed to be possible. There are a handful of folks that still think that's what Gamma Ray Bursts might be, but they're in the minority that think GRBs are a spherical phenomenon instead of the columnated event they are now commonly believed to be.
Anyway, I agree that was kinda dumb. Well, very dumb. That whole Spoke Prime plot line felt like a flat and silly thing tacked on with all the thought of the sort given to something from the wiz-bang 50's serials. Disappointing.
I'm okay with the water tube. I can imagine a system that might require the water to travel for some time for some reason before entering point A from point B, and thus lead to a longer pipe u-shaped pipe. That's not an uncommon part of refinery structures. And the clear walls may be because it needs to be exposed to light for some chemical purpose. Okay, I'm stretching, but I'm willing to go that far for this movie.
I thought Spock was saying "Fascinating" to the interface he was presented with, not the chair itself. But I agree the "Damnit, I'm a..." was silly, because he immediately followed it up with correctly saying exactly the point Spock was trying to make. It should have been him asking for plain language and Spock responding with such, then it would have made more sense.
I thought the whole cast was quite good. I enjoyed all of them.
Mainly, I'm amazed at what they've done here. This is the first real canonically-consistent rebooting of a major franchise I've seen. Oh, sure, they've "rebooted" lots of them, but that's always just been a matter of ignoring large chunks of what came before and just making them fresh without a canonical reason. Here what they've done with this time-travel plot is spun off a whole new alternate timeline out of legitimate (if badly written) canonical reasons. Amazing. We can go anywhere from here. And considering the first thing we do is kill off six billion of the populace not previously dead, along with many secondary characters like Kirk's dad and Spock's mom, very bold. Traditionally when something goes this horribly wrong in a time travel story the next goal is to "set it all right". But here we're going to ignore that, and use the new alternate universe as it is to tell our stories.
And I bet they are going to be grittier stories. I can't foresee a shiny happy hippie Next Generation coming along quite so quickly in this universe, it's been beaten up a bit more. This Federation is going to be a just a tiny bit more wary, maybe not make new friends quite as easily, and perhaps lead to different conflicts. I just hope they don't bring in all that Time War crap from the Enterprise series anytime soon, that got out of hand.
I admit there are problems. I was a bit annoyed at how fast and loose they were playing with the chain of command for example, just how quickly Pike turned a raw cadet into his First Officer for no real reason considering he was sending him right off the ship. But then again that's sort of in parallel with the original series in a way, when they were a bunch of 20-somethings (okay, 30- and 40- somethings but acting like 20-somethings) roaming the universe. Even if the details are quite sloppy and the plot is rather thin in places, the spirit is there. And the spirit is what we lost in the following TV shows and movies. This is closer to that young and adventurous spirit than anything that has come since.
And I liked it. A lot.
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Also, I have to wonder if in 129 years Spock will still be willing to try to save Romulous. And if he does - and this time succeeds having some prior knowledge of what is to come - will this whole new series blip out of existence?
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Don't have a problem with it. We can travel faster than light... I'm sure there are a few new alloys and shit that dissipate heat better, now.Vince wrote:Oh yeah, forgot about the atmospere penetrating dive they all did in which they didn't even break a sweat inside their suits, much less become cinders.
Don't have a problem with the "red matter." Same reason. I also liked the... whatever-chamber that was that kept the red matter from touching the sides.
As far as Spock not saving the Romulans this time.... I think nothing will ever change that branch of history. We're getting into the old time paradox discussion here, but you know. Shatner's Star Trek still happened, but now that was a different timeline. This timeline will always have a destroyed Vulcan. God forbid reboot movie 2 and 3 try to fix it from happening, Back to the Future-style.
"Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid."
That Spock/Uhura thing threw me at first... then on the way home I realized... they must have been doing it for a long time. First she demands the Enterprise instead of Farragut like a girlfriend instead of a subordinate, and Spock says something about avoiding the perception of favoritism.... this is because they were already doing it.
Naughty naughty.
Also, I loved how Scotty was geeking out over things. "I've never transported 3 people from 2 different places to 1 transporter pad, before! Did you see that???" Had me cracking up.
Also, I read some of the film was shot in a Budweiser plant... I'm guessing the bits that looked like a factory with a bunch of stainless steel vats. Also explains the "Budweiser Classic" for sale at the bar early on.
Naughty naughty.
Also, I loved how Scotty was geeking out over things. "I've never transported 3 people from 2 different places to 1 transporter pad, before! Did you see that???" Had me cracking up.
Also, I read some of the film was shot in a Budweiser plant... I'm guessing the bits that looked like a factory with a bunch of stainless steel vats. Also explains the "Budweiser Classic" for sale at the bar early on.
"Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid."
Apparently a new alloy brought about due to the time split since re-entry heat has been adressed in TOS and TNG (and maybe others as well).GORDON wrote:Don't have a problem with it. We can travel faster than light... I'm sure there are a few new alloys and shit that dissipate heat better, now.Vince wrote:Oh yeah, forgot about the atmospere penetrating dive they all did in which they didn't even break a sweat inside their suits, much less become cinders.
"... and then I was forced to walk the Trail of Tears." - Elizabeth Warren
GORDON wrote:Don't have a problem with the "red matter." Same reason. I also liked the... whatever-chamber that was that kept the red matter from touching the sides.
I told you not to get me started, but okay.
So, the "red matter" creates a black hole and eats a planet in a matter of minutes, eh? So, must be heavy stuff! Let's consider that.
If it were pure neutronium - a fictionalized name for the stuff of a neutron star, and also about the densest you can get without already being a black hole - that droplet would have been roughly 5.3 × 10^11 tons. That's a lot of tonnage on a human scale, and would have been quite hard to handle. That whole big sphere would have been so heavy as to be far beyond the technology of Next Gen's the time as previously depicted (that being when those events happened, shortly after the last Star Trek movie).
Even so, it's so small that if you successfully made it into a black hole it would likely dissipate as Hawking Radiation. Or if not it would only be able to swallow what it could reach as it orbited underground near the center of Vulcan and would take a minimum of decades (it's to late at night to do the math on that one, it could conceivably be millions of years) before it ate enough matter to become a noticeable threat to the planet. Not minutes.
5.3 × 10^11 tons may sound like a lot, but it's tiny on a planetary scale. It puts in about in the same league mass-wise as 4660 Nereus, a near-earth asteroid about one-quarter the size of the "dinosaur killer".
The events depicted in the movie were in no way related to black holes. Not in the slightest.
Shatner's Star Trek still happened, but now that was a different timeline.
A vastly different one. In the original story Kirk didn't board the Enterprise until 16 years after entering Starfleet Academy, here he becomes it's Captain in just 3. Likewise all these main characters didn't previously come together until over a decade later. That's a whole decade of history for these characters taken away before their voyage begins. Adding in the destruction of one of the major races of the Federation will make huge differences. Spock may remain the only Vulcan in Starfleet, since the rest will be too busy breeding. That alone takes a lot of characters from the movies and other series out of the picture.
On the butterfly wing-flapping scale of secondary effects, this is likely best described as 1.6 million tera-butterflies of power.
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Damn, dude... and you still managed to enjoy the movie?TPRJones wrote:I told you not to get me started, but okay.GORDON wrote:Don't have a problem with the "red matter." Same reason. I also liked the... whatever-chamber that was that kept the red matter from touching the sides.
So, the "red matter" creates a black hole and eats a planet in a matter of minutes, eh? So, must be heavy stuff! Let's consider that.
If it were pure neutronium - a fictionalized name for the stuff of a neutron star, and also about the densest you can get without already being a black hole - that droplet would have been roughly 5.3 × 10^11 tons. That's a lot of tonnage on a human scale, and would have been quite hard to handle. That whole big sphere would have been so heavy as to be far beyond the technology of Next Gen's the time as previously depicted (that being when those events happened, shortly after the last Star Trek movie).
Even so, it's so small that if you successfully made it into a black hole it would likely dissipate as Hawking Radiation. Or if not it would only be able to swallow what it could reach as it orbited underground near the center of Vulcan and would take a minimum of decades (it's to late at night to do the math on that one, it could conceivably be millions of years) before it ate enough matter to become a noticeable threat to the planet. Not minutes.
5.3 × 10^11 tons may sound like a lot, but it's tiny on a planetary scale. It puts in about in the same league mass-wise as 4660 Nereus, a near-earth asteroid about one-quarter the size of the "dinosaur killer".
The events depicted in the movie were in no way related to black holes. Not in the slightest.
And BTW... do the words NEUTRONIUM ALCHEMIST mean anything to you?
"Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid."
Sure, it was a great movie! I can look past some minor problems and still enjoy a good flick. In this case I pretended it was something entirely different, like a strangelet. And tried to ignore the black hole comments.
What's NEUTRONIUM ALCHEMIST?
Edited By TPRJones on 1242010713
What's NEUTRONIUM ALCHEMIST?
Edited By TPRJones on 1242010713
"ATTENTION: Customers browsing porn must hold magazines with both hands at all times!"
I'm pretty much of the same view as TPR. I was able to just set the things aside that annoyed me for a while and enjoy it. If they decide to continue the franchise (as they probably will) I see a CSI effect coming on for me. I had to stop watching any of those series because the science got way too stupid. If you're watching a show about science and the science is stupid, then the series becomes stupid.
I could see the same thing happening here. If the science becomes too stupid, then it's no longer science fiction for me. It becomes a Flash Gordon lark. But without the charm of Flash Gordon's knowing it was a lark.
I could see the same thing happening here. If the science becomes too stupid, then it's no longer science fiction for me. It becomes a Flash Gordon lark. But without the charm of Flash Gordon's knowing it was a lark.
"... and then I was forced to walk the Trail of Tears." - Elizabeth Warren
One thing I'd have liked to have been different was Kirk's Kobyashi Maru scenario. It was much better done in the book Kobyashi Maru, in my opinion.
Though, it is forgivable since in this movie/timeline Kirk grew up without a father and bitter.
Edited By GORDON on 1242043021
Though, it is forgivable since in this movie/timeline Kirk grew up without a father and bitter.
Edited By GORDON on 1242043021
"Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid."
Series by Peter Hamilton starting with "The Reality Dysfunction." I think it is called the "Night's Dawn" trilogy. Three hardbacks were cut into 6 paperbacks.TPRJones wrote:Sure, I'm always up to adding some good books to my reading list. I'll check them out.
Sci fi. To give you a plot summary would sound silly... just trust me when I say it is a worth-while read, with a very interesting and fleshed-out universe. Something like 500 years from our present.
"Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid."