Monday, May 20, 2013

F This Movie! - Star Trek Into Darkness

Patrick, Mike and Adam Beta (formerly Adam Thas) travel Into Darkness and experience some major déja vu.



Download this episode here. (36.2 MB)

Email F This Movie! at fthismoviepodcast(at)gmail.com.

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Also discussed this episode: Cloud Atlas (2012); Life of Pi (2012); Monsters (2010); Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008); Parker (2013); Kill List (2012); Sightseers (2013); Black Rock (2013)

75 comments:

  1. First, it's GREAT to hear Mike and Alex Beta for the first time in a long time. I missed you guys.

    You all did a wonderful job representing my opinion as a long time Star Trek fan. You asked the questions I was asking, such as...

    ***
    SPOILERS
    ...who is this movie for? You reboot the timeline just to re-tell one of the most famous and beloved stories in all of Star Trek? And then the sacrifice at the end...that wasn't earned. We have very little history with this new cast, and even if they WANTED to do the Khan and the radiation thing, they didn't earn that meaning ANYTHING. We've only spent a few years with these characters. Who is this movie for? It's not for me, the die hard Star Trek fan. It's not for the non-Star Trek fan, because they don't get it. My wife hasn't seen Wrath of Khan, and when we came out of the theater, she said "wow, the end of that movie was really sloppy." After I explained how the bastardized the whole Khan thing from a better, more loved movie, she said "why would they do that? It made the movie so much worse."

    But for most everyone, it seems to be working. When the Khan twist was revealed, it was like the air got sucked out of the theater. There was an audible gasp from about a dozen people. Is this because Khan is popular enough that his name is recognizable, but not his actual character?

    This movie really offended me. It was actively lazy and derivative, and I do not understand why it exists. So we invented this new series of films to (badly) retell beloved Star Trek stories? This movie didn't have to try very hard to succeed because it has the affection and goodwill of almost everyone. And, amazingly, they still do.

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  2. Oh, I have more. The first 10 minutes. That's so good, right? The whole movie should have been like that first 10 minutes. It feels like they had no idea how to continue that 10 minutes into a whole movie. The five year mission doesn't start until the end of the movie? Shouldn't the 5 year mission have been underway at the beginning of this movie? So even now, at this point, after two movies, we're still not to the point where the original series STARTED out? They were well into their mission when the show started.

    So we can assume, if there is a part three (which I'm not sure I even want to see), there will be an excuse to have Kirk separated from the Enterprise, to have problems between he and Spock, and to keep us from doing the actual thing that Star Trek is actually about: exploring space, seeking out new life, etc.

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    1. The first 10 minutes...Kirk really lucked out that not only the men of the village chased him but even women carrying their babies(???)or they could have made that planet into Fire Island.

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  3. I applaud you all for bringing me to my senses on this movie. I came out of it thinking "wow, I really liked that. It was great, even." But now, really thinking about it, I see a lot of its script problems and plot holes and such. Now I think "eh, that was fun, and the cast still rules, but the movie is very problematic." Thank you.

    Dear J.J. Abrams,

    if you make a third Star Trek movie, please cool it with the references and fan service and make something completely new, preferably like the first 10 minutes of Into Darkness, while retaining the sense of fun and excitement and humor you've established in your reboot thus far.

    That would be great.

    Sincerely,
    John Murphy

    p.s.: I'm still eager to see what you can do with Star Wars. That franchise seems more suited to you.

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  4. To clear up a few things in the podcast:

    That wasn't the Enterprise crashing into San Francisco. It was the warship with Khan. He was trying to hit Starfleet Headquarters (and nearly hit the Enterprise on the way).

    Khan tells Kirk that he blew up the building with the weapons he designed and attacks the meeting because he assumed that Marcus made good on his threats and killed his crew when he escaped. That's why Khan surrenders when he learns they have the number of torpedoes that they have.

    (More about these later.)

    Two Trek related things and then stuff that would apply to any movie -

    1) We've heard over and over in the first movie this is a "alternate timeline". Which means that time changed at the point Kirk was born on but not hundreds of years before when Khan and his crew goes into cryo. So this Khan should be the exact same Khan. Everything about Khan should have been exactly the same - he's just waking up to a different Starfleet.

    Ignoring the casting, if it's the same Khan as the Khan of TWoK shouldn't he have had the same "Magic Blood"? If so, why didn't he save his wife when she died on Ceta Alpha V? Why not his people who died on Reliant?

    2) But now Abrams treats this as an "alternate universe". So this Khan is different..until Abrams wants a cameo by Nimoy. Because what the hell can "Spock Prime" tell Spock about this Khan if he's not the same one that Kirk woke up? This Khan may have learned many things the Khan that Spock fought didn't!

    Okay....the regular movie stuff:

    Khan tells us that he only helped Marcus make weapons of mass destruction because Marcus was holding his crew hostage. And yet, it would appear that Khan had full access to his crew - odd way to run a kidnapping - but also enough unsupervised time and the resources to move all 72 of his people into those torpedoes.

    If he had that kind of time alone with them, why not just wake them all up and they could escape together? Or take over where they were being held?

    Was Marcus expecting Kirk to fire all 72 torpedoes at Khan on Kronos? I'm no physics major but I would think that that many weapons of that kind fired at one spot at one time might have solved their "Klingon Problem" with one fell swoop by causing a cataclysm that would take out he population.

    That planetoid they went to to examine the torpedo...it looked like just a rock in space. How would it have oxygen and atmosphere for McCoy and Carol Marcus to walk about without spacesuits?

    Khan can transport from Earth to Kronos (with I would think many things like planets and such in between the two). But they can't transport Spock out of the volcano because of the volcano's wall? Even though the man who invented the long range transport is part of your crew (and did it in the first movie with no special equipment)?

    In Abrams' Trek you can take a ship built for zero atmosphere anywhere as long as it has shields. Except in the first scene Scotty is having kittens about the ocean's effect on the Enterprise even mentioning rust...so shields don't work underwater? And how many metric tons of water do you think that ship entering the ocean on that planet would have displaced? And the effect as they left. Can you say "tsunami"?

    They've just had an attack by a terrorist and all the Captains and First Officers are meeting in one place...but there isn't ANY air security around that building just in case?

    Again, Khan says he started his killing spree originally because he thought his crew were dead. The torpedoes he wants blow up his ship but he doesn't know his people were removed. Maybe take the time to give him a heads-up about that so that he doesn't - oh, I don't know - maybe play kamikaze with this huge warship he has, crashing into San Francisco and kill thousands more people because he again thinks he has nothing to lose?!?!?!?

    And there's more but why bother?

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    1. Good call re: the warship crashing into San Francisco. Don't know how I missed that.

      I did understand Khan's motivations in terms of wanting "revenge" agains the Federation -- I just don't think they work in a clear way. Having a character state them out loud is not the same as making us understand them, if that makes sense.

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    2. Nothing about Marcus and Khan worked - in a "clear way" or otherwise.

      Marcus is an Admiral. Khan says he was found by Marcus himself a year before (and nothing in the movie made Khan look like the liar in this scenario). Did an Admiral take a ship out a year ago and find the Botany Bay? If Marcus is the sole "bad guy" how did he hide Khan from the rest of Starfleet much less his ship's crew and still get him the resources to work on these weapons? He's an Admiral, not a dictator.

      They couldn't have been keeping Khan in "Section 31" or wouldn't the guy he got to bomb the place have known him as John Harrison? And why even give him a fake name if he was being held captive somewhere? Were they keeping him in the facility where they had the warship and that's why he knew the location? But how did he escape (well, the security really sucked there and their pilots are blind otherwise how did Scott just fly in right in front of them)?

      Speaking of Red Shirts...we saw the two they took to Kronos come off the shuttle firing and did we ever see them again? Did they get back with the rest? Did the Klingons kill them? Did Khan? Did Kirk just forget them there?

      And I am SO glad you mentioned Kirk stopping mid-conversation with Khan to ask McCoy what he was doing. That was the most asinine, tone-deaf, flat-footed, artless thing I think I've ever seen in a movie. And I saw "A Talking Cat?!?".

      I've kind of known all along that Cumberbatch was playing Khan no matter what they said. But - going by the trailers - I thought there was a chance of something good if Khan had a reason to say they'd "gone too far". I was thinking 1) Starfleet made a weapon so awful that even Khan found it inhuman and/or they'd been using little planets like the one with the volcano as testing grounds for weapons or 2) Marcus was trying to use Khan's genetics to make regular humans super-warriors but the results were so awful...? Which again isn't Star Trek but Star Wars. But it wasn't even that interesting.

      And as for Khan's "one dimensionalism", the way that was written (and possibly directed) I'm even more impressed with Cumberbatch that he kept the whole thing from becoming cartoonish (which it almost did when Kirk's talking about the plunge over Vulcan to Khan).

      And about that..(here I go again)...Scott already mentions how small that door is and yet he takes the chance of having the security guard sucked out through the door at the same time as Kirk and Khan are supposed to be coming in...shouldn't that have looked like bugs "meeting" on a windshield?

      Even Kirk "fixing" the engine...it needs to line up by moving sideways and Kirk keeps kicking down on it.

      And why does Khan bother to pick up that coat as he walks away from the crash? "I'm a tall,white guy you could probably pick out in a crowd but if I put on this long black coat like the other long black coat I was wearing when I surrendered they'll never recognize me!"

      And why the fuck does Robocops' daughter have a British accent?!?!?

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  5. I hope the NEXT movie is about a search for Spock but like, they've gotten separated at a really big shopping mall. Sorry, a SPACE shopping mall.

    I just watched it this afternoon and I am so on the same page as you guys. I would think most people as smart (and handsome) as we all are will probably feel the same way about it because, as occasionally fun as it is, there are some glaring, just stupid problems with it that only stupid (or blindly forgiving) people won't notice. It's FINE - a 7/10 kinda summer blockbuster experience - and I think people should go see it, just prepare to have your intelligence insulted. And prepare not to like a lot of things as much as you did when you saw them the first time in either Star Trek (2009) or [REDACTED FOR SPOILER]. e.g. Yes the Enterprise looks pretty cool rising out of misty substances, we get it.

    All that being said, I do look forward to the inevitable sequel because it is such a great cast and christ, we'll finally get to the 5-year mission that I thought was starting at the end of the last one (and that they seemed to be on at the beginning of this one)!

    SPOILERS AHEAD...

    Towards the end when Bones is like, "Bring me a cryptotube!" was I the only one who assumed he was just going to use the blood from one of Khan's pals and not just freeze Kirk while pointlessly getting blood from Khan?

    And when Chekov is all like, "I can't get a lock on them because they're moving!" YOU were the one who's like stand-out move from the last movie was knowing how to teleport someone who was moving. In fact, the rules of transporters in general were fucking ridiculously inconsistent - I have no idea when I can expect them to work or not really.

    Also, Kathy is right, that was Khan's ship crashing at the end.

    Anyway, it was nice to have this podcast to listen to right after watching the movie - you did a lot of venting for me (my wife thanks you as well)!

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  6. Patrick, I feel like crap now, because I got you excited for this movie, and now even I am like Ehh. I'm at work so don't have enough time to read all the posts here, so if I say something that somebody else said forgive me.

    (Spoilers)

    But My problem with Khan being in this movie, is the timeline broke at Kirk's birth. Khan would have been light years away on the Botany Bay. How did they find him? Why is there no mention of him being a war lord or the Eugenics Wars? He was suppose to be from South West Asia, Why does He look like Sherlock Holmes.
    That's where they screwed it up for me. If he would have been another Augment from the past in cryo all these years. That would have been plausable, and they could have made him a brother or an adversary of Khan's. And then in the third or fourth movie they find Khan, and all hell breaks loose.

    I still liked the movie as a movie, maybe better than the first, or a better version of the first. But you are right they really didn't go anywhere with this one. I wanted them to be on the five year mission and to be exploring. And have the action come from that.

    And here's one thing that bugs me. Why the F*^K was the Enterprise submerged in the begining? Did these natives have satelites or sensors that would pick them up from space?

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  7. Oh, I forgot.

    This movie kind of proves that Orci and Kurtzman are hacks, and maybe even JJ. They don't ever seem to come up with anything new, or at least when they do they immediatley do something that makes no sense, just because they can like Promoting Kirk from Cadet to Captain. I still can't wrap my head around that.

    But hey, what can you say about two guys that wrote Transformers, oh and that other Michael Bay Movie.... THE ISLAND. I think we've already talked about how original that one was.
    (103 points of similarity to Parts: The Clonus Horror.)

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  8. Well, I am truly fucked! The Our Favorite Superhero Movies and Green Lantern podcasts are among my top 5 favorite podcasts of all time. Now here's a spanking brand new one, reuniting the it's-been-too-long-and-they're-not-too-old-for-this-shit trio of Patrick, Mike and the original Adam 1.0 (Beta?!?! :-P)... good times!

    But no, it's a "Star Trek" podcast! And I haven't even seen the 2009 one. So, I either have to spoil not one but two movies I may want to catch on cable in a few years on a rainy Sunday afternoon in order to get my full dose of the 'Three Amigos'' witty rapport... or I'll have to blow dough I didn't want to spend watching both "Star Trek" '09 and "ST:ID" '13 so I can get the full dosage of the podcast (stopped listening right at the spoiler part).

    -sob sob- :-(

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  9. I think overall my sentiments are on par with what this episode represents. Enjoyable but quite flawed.
    This episode is an illustration of what its like when you lay all those flaws end to end, its quite overwhelming. But lets not let that cloud the fact that there is an enjoyable movie in there too.
    I dont think I was as let down as Patrick was though because Im not in love with the first one. I find the whole "make Star Trek new while still appeasing the existing fanbase" mentality that is driving this franchise really quite unnecessary. If you want to reboot, then reboot, if you want to continue the story and/or tell a prequel then do it, but this middle ground that they have forged is quite odd. And I think Darkness illustrates the trap they have made for themselves. Kind of "a greatest hits compilation with a predictable twist", plus now always having to explain how the issue of Spock Prime will be addressed as he will potentially hold the answer to every problem they come across.


    but an enjoyable movie none the less.


    and, what the fuck is a tribblette?

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    1. Thanks, Brad. I'm with you that there is an enjoyable movie in there; for me, the problems tended to overwhelm the enjoyment, whereas with the first movie my enjoyment overwhelmed the problems.

      You're absolutely right that the filmmakers should pick a path and stick with it. I felt like they way they appeased the fanbase in the '09 version was by a) being respectful of the characters (if not the universe) and b) creating the alternate timeline nonsense so as to not wipe away 40+ years of history. Then they kind of did their own thing. I would have liked more of that in this movie, because the nonstop fan service was obnoxious and, I thought, to the detriment of the movie.

      The inclusion of Spock prime in this movie makes no sense. At least in '09, he was there to explain how the timelines split and to tie the old series into the new franchise. Now, like you said, he's there to tell them what to do. "I vowed never to share information with you...having said that, here is the information I vowed never to give you." Vulcan resolve!

      Lest anyone misunderstand, I am not arguing with Brad. Brad is the coolest. I'm continuing the conversation. That's how this works.

      I need to be clearer about it these days.

      My hope is that the more times I see it, the less I will be bothered by the things that bother me and the more I'll be able to watch it on the level of the '09 version.

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    2. No, you are...nooooo, you are, you cheeky muggins.


      I was on board with '09 up until Planet Bullshit (the only place in the Universe where everything that happens makes you call "Bullshit!"). You can see the writers saying "Goddammnit! we started this thing with our two main characters in opposite places from where we know them to be because it would be cool to see them slowly move all into place, right? but how the hell do we do that? I know, three quarters through our movie Spock will just tell Kirk, then Kirk will make it so! Done! oh and Scotty is just over there."
      The more I see it the more it irritates me.

      Now to boldly go where no man has gone before, towards a good modern Superman film!

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    3. I love it when you talk schmoopy to me.

      That is the worst scene in the movie, and the one that really reveals just how sloppy the construction of the screenplay is. In STID, that scene for me was Kirk/Spock in the engine room -- it was clear that the movie hadn't earned that moment, and that it was only there to call attention to a previous, better movie. It's a bigger problem in STID because it's the emotional climax of the movie, not just a shortcut to move the plot along.

      But I'm glad you have come up with a title for the next movie -- Star Trek: Planet Bullshit. Let's start writing it now.

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    4. SPOILERS (and I'll add this little preamble so that nothing shows up in the little comment preview on the main page - been burnt by that before) ...

      I'll probably get some flak from the Trekkies on this one, but I'm not sure Khan really earned his status as a great villain of Star Trek. Last night I watched the "Space Seed" episode from the original series and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and they (especially the movie) are great, but really Khan is a bit of a twat being so angry with Kirk. He's pretty agreeable to being left on that planet to start a new empire at the end of "Space Seed" but then in TWoK he's all bitchy that Kirk didn't come back and check on them? Really, Mr. Superior? You were expecting Kirk to hold your hand through the process? It's not like they had a follow-up arrangement that Kirk spaced (teehee) out on or anything, he's really being quite unreasonable. I think Khan only has the rep he has because he's the center of a great movie built around him, so I really don't think bringing him into the reboot made a whole lot of sense, at this point especially. If anything he could have been brought back in a later sequel during the 5-year mission for more of a remake of the lesser known "Space Seed" story, which also would have made a lot more sense timeline-wise. They don't even try to explain why, in this universe, Starfleet discovered Khan so much earlier than the Enterprise Prime did.

      Bottom-line: Why bring back a popular character as fan-service when you're only going to alter him so radically as to piss off the real fans and offer nothing but minor confusion to people who'd never heard of him? Is it really only for the people who just have a vague notion of Khan to go, "Cool, I've heard that name before!"

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    5. I never thought about that comment preview issues. Sorry about that. I'll try and be more aware of it in the future.

      I don't think that because Khan is being unreasonable in blaming Kirk in WoK makes him less compelling -- I actually like it even more. I said in my article last week that Khan has a legitimate gripe, but I didn't mean so much that the Federation should have checked in on him (though given their general mission statement, it wouldn't have been unthinkable), but that he feels Kirk is to blame for the death of all of his people and his wife. Whether or not that's really accurate is almost beside the point; Khan is of the single-minded belief that it is true, and that's what makes him great. To me, anyway.

      But you're right -- Khan does have the reputation because a) Wrath of Khan is the best and b) Ricardo Montalban is great in the part. He's also the most recognizable Star Trek villain to a casual outsider, like the Green Goblin for Spider-Man or Joker for Batman. You may not know a lot about Star Trek, but if you have some pop culture awareness you've probably heard of Khan. I really do think STID uses him for the exact reason you're suggesting -- for people to say "Oh, I know that name," even though a lot of people won't. And even if they do, they don't know why it's significant. It was a pretty dumb choice.

      Sometimes when I think about fanboys (and in this instance I'm using the term as a pejorative, even though I have nothing against fanboys and am myself a fanboy) dreaming up another Star Trek movie, I picture them immediately saying "Oh, dude! They GOTTA do Khan!" without considering if that's a good idea or not. I feel like that was the thinking with the writers of STID. They decided that they gotta do Khan without considering a) why that is and b) what that means for the story they are telling.

      I am loving all of this Star Trek talk.

      Was Wrath of Khan better when you didn't have to tweet through the whole thing?

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    6. Good point - slightly unreasonable motivation doesn't necessarily mean uninteresting motivation and could even mean more interesting motivation. I guess I latched on to that point because it was something new I picked up on in Wrath of Khan from having just watched "Space Seed" before it. In other news, it was the first episode of Old Trek I'd watched in ages, and I may have the bug now - they're all there on Netflix so why the hell not?!

      I think you're absolutely right - I can see how putting Khan in the rebooted franchise SOUNDED like a good idea (even I was interested when the rumours first started) but on further thought should have been scrapped. Though the more I think about it, the more I'm realizing the majority of my problems with STID weren't with the general inclusion of of Khan, but with all of the evident laziness in screenwriting surrounding it. As ill-conceived a notion as it may have been, I don't think it was impossible to do Khan right, they just weren't up to the task. Too bad.

      And yes, Wrath of Khan was even better when I wasn't trying to think of pithy snark (my new band name) to tweet whilst watching it. Such a great movie - too bad the people that made STID didn't read your article on it beforehand - they might have realized they needed to find inspiration in more than just a couple of old plot points to make a great new Star Trek movie.

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    7. "The bug" is awesome. It won't stop with The Original Series, either. I just started watching DS9 and now I'm antsy when I can't watch it. It really has become that much like a drug. So I hope you'll see it through.

      You've hit the nail on the head. While doing Khan is disappointing on paper, it didn't have to be bad -- again, there is the sequence in which they team up that I got excited thinking they would take the relationship in new directions -- but the bad writers weren't interested in breaking with formula, even though "breaking with formula" was the MISSION STATEMENT they laid out with the 2009 reboot.

      There is a general consensus on the internet (because the internet is the worst) that if you like Star Trek and you're bummed about it being Khan, it's only because you're a nerd and how dare they do Khan. And what I've been trying to get across is that the FACT of Khan is not the problem, the USE of Khan is the problem. People aren't willing to recognize that distinction, so you wind up being dismissed as soon as you express frustration.

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    8. Sweet, I've been looking for a new drug to do WHILE I'm doing heroine, and watching Star Trek should compliment my couch-sitting and bouts of furious masturbation quite nicely.

      DS9 was the last Star Trek TV show I watched regularly and I remember liking it quite a bit. I take it you've gotten over Avery Brooks' performance (in my memory he was a good "captain") and are settling into the series?

      Sigh...oh, the internet...besides this podcast/comments section the only other thing I've read on STID is Devin Faraci's review which, though I liked it a bit more than him, didn't say anything I disagreed with. Even if someone really enjoyed the movie, there are way to many MOVIE PROBLEMS with it for anyone to accuse others of not liking it (as much, in my case) just because of Khan problems. I'm starting to think this series of tubes is home to some pretty serious intellectual dishonesty!

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    9. I've resigned myself to the fact that I may not ever get over Avery Brooks' performance. But it's still very early for me, so maybe I'll get used to it or he'll get less mannered. I'm guessing it's the first.

      I'm fascinated that people only seem to be talking about Into Darkness in terms of its Star Trek problems or pointing out plot holes, as though that's what works against it. I mean, it probably doesn't help, but I was never sitting there picking apart plot holes. I can deal with those. Movies have to work as drama first, and that's where this one has the problems I'm struggling with most.

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    10. Patrick, I am with you in loving all of this Star Trek talk. This thread has turned into the geekiest (and thus coolest) conversation in recent memory. Because you just don't have enough going on, I am going to float something by you. You love Star Trek. You have a Star Trek blog. Maybe it's time for you to do your own Star Trek podcast. Not weekly, because you can't handle it, but maybe monthly? Maybe quarterly? Maybe whenever you feel like it? You could still have guest co-hosts (raises hand) and you could do this and have nothing but Trek-devoted conversations for an hour plus. You could jump all over the place, you wouldn't have to stick to a particular Trek theme, like watching them in order.

      I'm not saying anything...I'm just saying.

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    11. F this Movie Podcasting Network? I'd buy that for a dollar, or a Tribble, or a dollars worth of tribbles with magic Superman blood in them.

      Is this movie making the trifecta of movie unimaginative mistakes? A prequel, a reboot and a remake?
      Not a true remake I know but many of the same factors apply. And in that regard i think the same issues around remakes also apply, as in don't remake good movies remake poor movies that had good ideas under them.
      While there are probably many examples of these in star trek my vote would be for Start Trek: First Contact, or as I like to call it "Star Trek: first contact WITH EXPOSITION: The tv movie"
      (I know Kathy is probably going to rip me a new one because I think first contact is very well regarded in the trek community, and also don't tell meyfriend Chris Clow (MMM, movies.com) who recommended it to me, he's a massive trekkie/er and actually just started writing about comics for Huffington Post. Yeah I'm proud of him, so what?)

      First Contact had a really good story behind it but it is hampered by needing to bring the audience up to speed on the extensive borg history and being written by TV writers who clearly were just combining two tv scripts into the one movie.

      But maybe they should just get all the remake potential or of the way in the next one. Star Trek: Planet Bullshit, Kirk and a whale escape from a prison planet to look for God and end up in an hour long Vulcan ceremony.

      But seriously, don't remake anything.

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    12. I'm actually on board for Star Trek: Planet Bullshit. It's the only place to go after all this. In Planet Bullshit, there's an awesome pre-credits sequence, then Kirk immediately has his command taken away. A residual affect of being dead is that he's really jonesing for Fon Parr, which is a lot like Pon Farr but actually nothing at all like it. They travel to Vulcan where the space whales are dying and Chekov is looking for nuclear wessels. In the final act, Spock gets assimilated by "the Gorg" (a Borg created from the body of a Gorn) and Kirk must fight the Gorg to save Spock, and Planet Bullshit along with it.

      Kurtzman and Orci: you're welcome.

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    13. I just realized that in my first post above, I stated Patrick couldn't handle two podcasts a week. Of course you could. You're extremely talented. You can handle anything you set your mind to. What I meant to say was that it would be difficult. It was a poor choice of words.

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    14. While I'm not even half way through the first season (2005) id also say that Dr Who could also be included in that idea HHH. The show is lot of fun.

      I'm just going to assume this second show is a reality now. HHH said it, it must be true

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    15. No worries, HHH. I wasn't offended you SON OF A BITCH.

      I would LOVE to devote more time to ST; that blog has completely been kicked to the curb since we started putting out more and more stuff for FTM (and I took on several new gigs). This is my first love (besides my family and sweet Lady H), so I want to make sure I'm devoting enough time to it. If there were more hours in the day, I would be all over it. Maybe some time in the not-too-distant future I can make it work.

      I'm positive that if this current team could do the Borg in the next movie without worrying about a fan riot, they would do it. Such is the scope of their imagination.

      And I like First Contact...shhhh...

      Congrats to your super famous friend, B-Lange! I hope he will take us all with him.

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    16. "and, what the fuck is a tribblette?"

      Something they're selling on the STID page of the Trek website for $19.95 or $14.95 depending on the size.

      Seriously, thou...where did you hear that?

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    17. The thing that McCoy injected with super serum. Did I miss something or did it just come out of nowhere?

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    18. If they called it a "tribblette" then I REALLY HATE this movie...

      A tribble is from a wonderful episode of TOS. It's as out of place in this timeline as Khan is.

      A tribble is just a furry animal/ball that does nothing except eat, purr and reproduce itself. Tribbles are asexual.

      If they called it a "tribblette" because someone didn't bother to find out that there are no males and females...I want to hear how they think Nero's arrival changed THAT...

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    19. I may have gotten it wrong.
      So in these movies they "just are"? I didn't miss an introduction or anything? The injection is the first time we see them?

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    20. They "just are".

      They just have a dead one sitting there in Sickbay like it's a normal everyday thing.

      Like it's normal to be conducting experiments on it when you're probably up to your ears in wounded crew members at that point...

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    21. Tribbles ate native inhabitants of Planet Bullshit

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    22. The first time I saw the movie, I just kind of rolled my eyes at yet another instance of fan service. The second time I saw it, I was amazed at how clumsy it is as a beat of exposition. Kirk and Khan are in the middle of a VERY serious life-or-death conversation, and Kirk stops to say "Bones, what are you doing with that Tribble?" It's terrible.

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    23. I almost got whiplash in that conversation's change of focus. If Kirk hadn't started that sentence before they cut to the shot with McCoy I would have thought there was footage missing.

      And then I would have remembered Lindelof had something to do with this...

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    24. There has to be a deleted scene that introduces the Tribble and McCoy's experimenting with them.

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    25. I wouldn't bet money.

      I'm hoping that there are more scenes with Khan that help explain a few things.

      Besides, when the Sherlockology page at FB posted that the blu-ray (with phaser) was on Amazon for pre-order someone wrote, "Great. We can see him again for that 15 minutes out of 137 that he was in the movie."

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    26. That's what I kept forgetting to mention...

      Khan orders the warship to crash and his character never says another word the rest of the film...

      It might have been nice to see if he co-operated with reviving Kirk...was he happy about going back into cryo or not?

      Because it really isn't clear what that "You should have let me sleep" was about. Was it as in "You doomed Earth to be ruled by me"? Or was it "You made me suffer. I'd have rather stayed in cryo that wake up to this"?

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  10. BTW, I know no one's on Facebook anymore but....a friend and I have put together at least the start of the STID Drinking Game.

    If you see a lens flare or an explosion - one shot

    Any major character hanging from their fingertips - two shots

    Abrams yet again shows people sucked out of the ship and into space - hit yourself in the head with the bottle to kill the pain.

    Seriously. I know the same thing happened in the trailer for World War Z.....but with Abrams it bordering on a fetish!

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    1. On the Facebook point, I know it's often said on here that Facebook is dying but recently I've noticed a big increase in the amount of online friends for me. Don't know if that equals an increase in popularity or decrease in people turning off their off line status. But I don't experience Facebook as dead.

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    2. And why would I "rip you a new one" for thinking that First Contact a well received movie? It is. And it is a good movie. How good of a TNG Trek movie...that's debatable, IMHO.

      The main problem I see is that the TNG series didn't always have the usual "status quo - conflict - return to status quo" that you usually have in TV shows. Then they tell a story in First Contact that make big changes the lives of at least two people on that bridge. Yet at the end, there's still this feeling of "Everything's back to normal". And then we get to Insurrection (unfortunately) and it's like nothing traumatic just happened to anyone plus Data's gone back to being an "innocent" again!

      (In retrospect, Data should have died in First Contact)

      Going back to TWoK, Kirk starts out in one state of mind and then is changed at the end...and then that carries over to the next movie. As dull as Star Trek: The Slow Motion Picture is, Spock goes through a transformation which we again see in TWoK even though that film pretends the first one didn't exist.
      Meanwhile, in Abrams Trek, Kirk's a complete douche in the first movie and he's a complete douche to start this one off. There's a brief moment at the ceremony were it's seems he's matured. But what will the next movie bring?

      And you brought up "TV writers". Specifically writers who wrote for Trek as it declined - yet probably still don't think they had anything to do with that.

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    3. Yeah, the TNG movies were much more like extended episodes of the show (in terms of being self-contained) than the TOS movies.

      Kathy, are you referring to the Berman/Braga group?

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    4. Definitely. Berman was a bean-counter that Paramount "forced" on Roddenberry because Roddenberry was creative (re: cost them money). Braga got an internship on the show straight out of college and (as far as anyone knows) has never worked any other job in his life.

      I won't go into DS9 or Voyager because you haven't seen all of them yet.

      I don't think it's possible to ruin Enterprise...whether you read on is up to you.

      Enterprise for me was like watching Prometheus every week (which I did because I was reviewing it for a website at the time). The episodes that would really piss me off were where they would start out with a premise that any good writer could develop into something really interesting - at least raise questions about and look at each side - but when it got to the end you realized that they'd managed to make the show about n-o-t-h-i-n-g.

      They had a girl who could barely act wearing a catsuit and cooked up an excuse to have characters (always opposite genders) rub salve on each other after visiting a planet...and they thought that was enough, I guess.

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    5. I've seen the first season of Enterprise and thought there were a few episodes that were pretty good. I like Scott Bakula, too, even if Archer is pretty generic. It's a neat idea for a show, but it suffers from the same thing as pretty much every prequel -- it's way too focused on setting things up that don't need setting up and doing callbacks to Star Trek canon. It's a little like STID in that way. It would have been better off being its own thing.

      Which of the series is your favorite?

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    6. I meant you would rip me a new one because I assumed you would hold it in high regard while I don't. It's a good story but poorly executed.

      Here is my friends Star Trek list. Because that's what the Internet is for; furthering science, porn and making lists about movies.

      http://www.geeknation.com/blog/star-trek-on-film-from-worst-to-first/

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    7. Cool! Thanks for sharing that. The rankings are different than my own, and yet I'm not thrown into a defensive rage and feeling compelled to leave hateful comments. My opinions are not threatened by the opinions of someone else! I have to leave the internet.

      I like the reasons he gives for all the choices, and he finds positive things to say about even the entries he puts at the bottom of the list. Good read!

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    8. Actually, another issue with Enterprise is that Berman/Braga made it based on their insistence that the TNG crew going back in First Contact created a new timeline. Something that Enterprise (when the first season ratings were crap and they made changes) appears to confirm ...and judging by something they did in a DS9 episode you probably haven't seen yet backs that up.

      Which, I've mentioned to some people online, then raises the question: was the timeline that was changed by Nero's arrival in the 2009 movie the one with "our" TOS, TNG etc? Or was it this other B&B alternate timeline that they built the show Enterprise upon? In which case Abrams didn't have to change the timeline. It was already different...

      ([sarcasm] isn't this fun? [/sarcasm] )

      My favorites are the original series and TNG once it got it's legs. And I know what you mean about Pulaski...but I think her being new to the ship helped the writers establish things about Data for the audience as she learned about him.

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  11. Good call on the Star Wars touches Patrick. Those scenes where they are moving through the engineering room are remarkably similar to the rebels base scenes in Empire.

    Like you guys, I enjoyed the film, and I think J.J. Abrahms direction saved it from some of the mentioned plot issues. The way J.J. Abrahams has shakiness with the camera really brought me into the film at times. I think he excels in those action sequences, especially the federation ship battle.

    By the way, my sister held her face in disbelief with the "Khan" reveal and gasped so I wonder if we were in the same theater.

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    1. He stages things really well. I have to believe that if Michael Arndt is able to write a good script, Abrams Star Wars will really be something.

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    2. I concur with Patrick's thoughts. At this point, I can't help but be REALLY excited to see what Abrams can bring to the Star Wars table. But yeah, hopefully the writing is strong enough to aid in Abrams' strengths as a director of sci-fi action. I have faith in Michael Arndt.

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  12. Hey Patrick, there are two stages of DS9. When Sisco/Avery Brooks has hair in the earlier seasons, DS9 is a mediocre sci-fi show. When Sisco goes with his bad-ass bald look & Worf from Star Trek TNG joins the crew, DS9 becomes the best Trek show from seasons 4-7.

    Amen on the Worst moment in STID when Spock did the famous “KHAN” SCREAM. Oh man, did I cringe at that. Also I think I’m becoming like JB where I’m getting tired of CGI characters or in this case CGI ships fighting each other. I rather see ship miniatures (with a little enhanced visuals) getting shot at than what looks like a video game battle. I thought the Admiral Marcus stuff was more about the dreaded Military Industrial Complex mentality than any metaphor for the Iraq War. It would’ve been an interesting idea to see this version of Starfleet goes from explorers into an army versus the Klingons.

    STID ties A Good Day to Die Hard for laziest screenwriting this year. “Hey we had McClane’s daughter hate him in the 4th Die Hard, let’s have his son hate him in this one”. “Remember how Hans Gruber pretended to be somebody else to try to fool McClane in the original, we'll have our main bad guy try to do the same thing as well".

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    1. Thanks, JK. The "stages" thing is what I keep hearing about DS9. It's the same theory I heard about TNG -- that it takes a couple of seasons to get good. What does it say about me that I'm enjoying it even when it's not good yet?

      I'm VERY excited about getting to Season 4, even though that's a long way off.

      Point taken on the Military Industrial Complex (my Iraq War theory is based a lot on that weird disingenuous title card at the end). It's hardly a new idea for a conflict, but wouldn't that have been a more interesting movie if they had actually pursued it? That Khan isn't the main bad guy, just a participant (with his own agenda) in the conflict? And that the real showdown is between Kirk and Starfleet? That would be something new, and it would have been a twist on Khan. Fans might have still been outraged that Khan is being used as something other than the villain, but that's the classic no-win scenario.

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    2. You liked season one of TNG?

      You're a better man than I, Gunga Din.

      ;-)

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    3. I really think I'm just in some weird place where I'm just happy to be watching Star Trek. There are a lot of bad episodes, to be sure, but I would rather be watching Star Trek than not watching Star Trek.

      I'm sure once I've seen all the seasons of all the shows, I'll have a much better perspective on what works and what doesn't.

      I liked Season Two better because Riker had the beard, but I'm not a fan of Dr. Pulaski. I guess it's a wash.

      Also, what's up with this new reassessment of TNG as being not good? I've been reading this in a lot of places online lately with all the Star Trek talk going on. I thought people really liked that show, but all of a sudden it's too square and nerdy. I feel like Star Trek fandom just keeps lapping me.

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    4. I've always said that TOS episodes were very rarely "okay". They were either incredibly good or they stunk on ice (seen "The Way to Eden" yet?).

      The first year of TNG (other than the racist episode) it was like the only ones who felt anything about anything were Data and Wesley. As if to say that if there was universal peace and everyone had any and all needs taken care of the human race will all become dullards. To which I say, let's hear it for War, Pestilence and Disease...

      My suspicion is that the people you see who consider TNG "nerdy" were either the horny 14 year olds Berman/Braga got watching Voyager and Enterprise for T & A or people who think the Abrams movies are so superior (even though one wouldn't exist without the other). TNG is above their heads.

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    5. Forgive me if this has been said elsewhere in this thread, but do you guys think Pulaski was brought in to be more of a "Bones" kind of character? the old fashioned doctor? I kind of liked her. I didn't at first, but she grew on me.

      I like the first season of TNG too. I recognize that later seasons are better, but I do like that first season. It is Star Trek from season one. I think it's interesting to note that the first season very much represented what Gene Roddenberry wanted the show to be and that it was later seasons during his sickness and after his death that veered the show into more...exciting (?) territory. I bet Earlier seasons of TNG are more in line with the ideal of the original series. They're different, but I still like them. One of the things that I like about Star Trek is that it can be all of these things. It can be action, drama, science fiction, war, or diplomacy. And because of the different races and aliens, it can have a plethora of different civilizations and levels of cultural advancement. It can do almost anything and go almost anywhere.

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    6. I think Pulaski's being added had more to do with subtracting Beverly Crusher.

      Never been sure what the reason was - you hear so many stories.

      Delete
  13. I’ve never heard of this new assessment or backlash of TNG. Is this the work of the hipsters? The only reason I could see any backlash is TNG’s early CGI & visual effects haven’t aged well or the lack of action on the show. TNG didn’t exactly have a big budget when it first started ($1 million per episode). Compare that with DS9, which by the mid-to-late 90’s, had a big enough budget & polished CGI to have some big space battles with a lot of ships. I like TNG but I prefer DS9 because of the darker tone & the Dominion war storyline.

    I will agree with the general “consensus” (Kathy isn’t the only one who thinks this way) that the 1st season of Star Trek TNG was God Awful. The one episode where Tasha Yarr got killed by a FREAKIN OIL SLICK is generally considered one of the worst episodes of any Trek show (& a lame way to kill off a character). The Far Point Pilot wasn’t exactly a great way to start the series either. By Season 3, TNG started to hit on all cylinders.

    As for STID, Kirk vs StarFleet would’ve been way more interesting since Peter Weller was great in the screen time he was given. If anybody saw Weller’s work on 24, he could’ve been a memorable villain. Screw the hardcore Trek geeks, I was digging Khan & Kirk teaming up to take down Admiral Prick. Unfortunately, the writers took the safe route.

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    1. And they didn't even make "Admiral Prick" as much of one as they could have.

      Unless I missed it, Marcus was still in the meeting room when Khan opened fire (and still came out unscathed).

      If they'd just added that he was called out of the room because he had suspected that Khan would target them and that was fine with him because he'd be left to run Starfleet as he saw fit with no objections. In fact, that might have been the real reason he let Pike take on Kirk as his first officer because it would put Kirk in that room to be assassinated.

      Just had a thought...did they say that the fuel had been removed to fit Khan's crew into the torpedoes? If so, how did Marcus expect Kirk to fire them? And if Khan didn't have to remove anything to put his crew in them, that big empty space in the original design didn't raise any questions?

      And if Khan's plan had worked how was he going to sneak 72 torpedoes out of wherever they were? Put them under his coat and hope no one noticed?

      Now I have to get the novelization of this movie by Alan Dean Foster. That man once wrote a novelization of Disney's The Black Hole that made THAT story make sense.

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    2. A writer for a very prominent movie website wrote a piece earlier this week in praise of DS9, and in it talked about how lame and nerdy TNG is. He wasn't even talking about it in terms of effects or technical quality; he was saying that the characters are mostly bad and that the show is boring because it takes place in a utopia. A bunch of the commenters chimed in with similar thoughts, which surprised me. There were a few defenders, but not nearly as many as I would expect.

      I'd be hard pressed to remember any single episode of Season One (and it wasn't that long ago I watched it, so that's telling you something), but the one where Tasha bites it was pretty terrible. I knew it was coming at some point, but I was sure that wasn't it. No way it would be that unceremonious, right? Nope, it was. Lame. But she was kind of a lame character, so I wasn't all that bummed out.

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    3. Tasha Yar - the only Trek character to become more interesting dead.

      Has any one reminded "Prominent Writer" there that TNG and DS9 happen concurrently in the same "utopia"?

      Delete
  14. At what point do we crown this thread the "Best post-show conversation" winner?

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    1. I may not be the best one to say this but...not sure we've surpassed the Prometheus thread yet. :-p

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    2. I like this one better, because at least we're talking about positive things, too (even if they're not directly related to the movie). It's way more fun talking about how much we like Star Trek than it is to talk about what a mess Prometheus is.

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    3. However, I do think both films have something in common - they're polished turds.

      They look wonderful. You can tell that talented people put a lot of work (if not love) into making it. But you scratch the surface and it's still shit.

      BTW, there's a gif file going around of the close up of Khan saying "You should have let me sleep!". Too bad they didn't start it earlier with Abrams' face superimposed on Weller.

      Have we decided...did Khan play "crush your head" or did he pull it off? And why couldn't we see something of it in a PG-13 movie? There's what happened to the Admiral in Insurrection...and we saw someone get their head melted in The Last Starfighter...

      And when he was trying to do the same to Spock, Spock does a "mind-meld" thing and makes him stop...what was THAT about? And Khan tries again but Spock doesn't bother (because otherwise Uhura couldn't show up and save him)?

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  15. FYI...

    "'Star Trek Into Darkness' co-writer Damon Lindelof has kind of, sort of apologized for anyone offended by the gratuitous display of Alice Eve's nearly-naked body in movie theaters (and the movie's marketing) around the world. 'I copped to the fact that we should have done a better job of not being gratuitous in our representation of a barely clothed actress,' Lindelof wrote on Twitter on Monday night."

    Clueless, party of one.

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  16. Actually found another reason to dislike the movie.

    That clip of Khan showering that Abrams showed on Conan....and left out of the film. Hey, you got to see Alice Eve!

    On the plus side, there's deleted scenes. They may do more than just make the film longer....

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  17. I'd like to weigh in on the first 45 seconds of this podcast (I'm now 3 min in, but I just saw STID, so I'm finally ready to catch up).

    When Adam Riske can't make it to our weekly trivia on Tuesdays (read: when it's raining on Tuesday), we have to find a "movies" sub. We once found another guy named Adam, who was REAL good at the movies round. We call him "New Adam", and even though he only came to trivia once, I can tell Riske is sensitive that not only did we find a suitable replacement, but the fact that his name is also Adam really sticks in Riske's craw.

    This is a long way of me saying: Adam Beta, even though you got second billing on the Adam cast, that doesn't mean you're safe. Watch your back.

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    1. This is more like a long way of Marc saying: "I'm Marc, blah blah blah. Pay attention to me. I'm so great." See you Tuesday. As long as it's not raining.

      Adam Beta has nothing to worry about. Any friend of Bromley & Pomaro is cool in my book.

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  18. Well I'm way late to the conversation having only seen the new movie this weekend. I really enjoyed the conversations that took place in this comments section.

    I was mostly ambivalent toward STID going in, having not really embraced the 2009 Star Trek or the reboot concept in general. With those lowered expecations I found this movie to be good enough.

    The worst moment occurred when the film was over and my fiancee turned to me and said: "That was so much better than *your* Star Trek 2." That woman really knows how to push my buttons.

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  19. Finally. I have been wondering who the heck Adam Beta was for ages. He ain't a contributer. At least Adam V2 would of made some sense. I was watching the Nerdy boys videos at one of the cons and Adam gets introduced as Adam Beta. So im just like ok so that's Adam Beta. So where is Thas? I thought that was Thas. And which one is Riske. Damn I was confused. I finally now know who is who. This site needs a little biography section so we know who everyone is with pseudo names to

    On the movie front. I am not a trekkie so I had no insights and I really enjoyed Into Darkness as a movie. I'm kinda excited about what JJ is going to do with Star Wars now
    On the Podcast. Brilliant. I will be revisiting this one again

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  20. I didn't love Into Darkness before listening to this podcast, but wow do I like it even less now. So many good points about bad writing decisions.

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  21. Didn't they reveal way before the movie came out that Benedict Cumberbatch was playing Kahn? While it wasn't mentioned in the trailers, I don't remember that being a surprise. People basically knew.

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