[headdie]

Is that benedict Cumberlain or whatever that guy who plays sherlock these days is called as the antagonist?

I am in.

yes it is

[Luis Dias]

CUMBERBATCH. He's so awsum.

Edit : For example, the remake/relaunch was a good popcorn movie, but, dear god, the science....

RED MATTER SAVES THE GALAXY FROM THE UBBER-DANGEROUS SUPERNOVA!!

[Flipside]

CUMBERBATCH. He's so awsum.

Edit : For example, the remake/relaunch was a good popcorn movie, but, dear god, the science....

RED MATTER SAVES THE GALAXY FROM THE UBBER-DANGEROUS SUPERNOVA!!

Hehe, exactly, though I shouldn't shout too much considering the Excelsior got hit by a shockwave from an exploding moon that it must have been lightyears away from in Undiscovered Country

The Borg Queen was one of the Executive decisions that the audience needed 'a focus to relate to' with the Borg, which served to do little more than display their complete ignorance as to what made the Borg so terrifying in the first place, they had no 'handles', they were not greedy or selfish or even hierarchical, nothing to be exploited.

And yes, Benedict Cumberbatch does increase my hopes for the movie, I think he could make a very intimidating bad-guy

[Grizzly]

He can be a very intimidating good-guy already . He also plays Smaug, apperently.

[Luis Dias]

Regarding the science, I didn't mind the total ****fest that the ST remake was, but I'd appreciate some more consideration towards it.

[Flipside]

Star Trek wasn't a bad movie if you considered it a film that just happened to share names with the TV Series by Gene Rodenberry...

To my mind it wasn't a bad movie, it was just a bad Star Trek, it seems the main reason for seeking out new life and new civilizations is now to waste the special effects budgets on them.

[Fury]

I liked the first movie. And to be honest, I don't really understand where all of you are coming from when you claim that it was bad Star Trek because of its bad science? Are you seriously trying to say that TOS, TNG, etc had good science? They were all ridiculous as far as science was/is concerned. If there hadn't been red matter to swallow up supernovas, they would have reversed polarity of something or other.

[Flipside]

It's not just about the science, technobabble has been a humorous part of ST since the early years, as you say, anyone with more than cursory knowledge of science would laugh at comments from the next gen outwards.

The real problem is the ethos behind the movies, and it's not just the new movies that suffer from it, it's just that they are making the least attempt to hide it. When Star Trek was a series, it was about a vast collection of worlds with different races, customs, technologies and beliefs, and it dealt quite frequently with how those races interacted. It's now got to the point where the only memorable 'alien' looking alien in the entire recent movie is comic relief to the comic relief...

I think that's why things like the motion picture and the voyage home are dear to some Trekkies hearts, not because they are good movies, but because at least they remind them of Star Trek. Wrath of Khan was a good movie because not only did it deal with an old Star Trek episode, but it was really well made, however, it might have wrongly convinced some directors that the content of the film was the winner, rather than the production of it.

[Luis Dias]

Fury, where did I say that ST remake was bad? I only said that I wish the next installment doesn't make red matter-like stupidities.

Because even while I appreciated the movie, I'd have appreciated it way more if the central tension of the last part of the movie had any point to it. It's somewhat hard to feel the "ticking clock"-like pressure of the drilling into the Earth's core, when you are constantly being trolled by your own rational mind telling you "Why dafuq don't they just red-matter-bomb the surface of the Earth, FFS, wtf is this drilling plot point DOING HERE??"

And I agree with Flipside, TMP is a guilty pleasure of mine as well.

[karajorma]

The queen was a mistake only so far as they made her a distinct individual, the Idea that there was a drone or collective of drones who's function was to lead and direct the borg as an entity but not separate from it could have fleshed them out nicely.

Possibly, but to my mind it was the fact that the borg actually lacked one of these that made them so scary. Any borg was basically a complete unit of the borg in miniature. Any borg could rapidly assimilate an entire collective around itself without any contact from the rest. 

But then the last half of Voyager would have been without an antagonist so mixed feelings.

If the last half of Voyager had been without a last half of Voyager, it would have been worth the sacrifice.

[Nuke]

yea, voyager broke everything.

[Black Wolf]

It's now got to the point where the only memorable 'alien' looking alien in the entire recent movie is comic relief to the comic relief...

I don't think Star Trek can honestly make a claim to being full of "alien" looking aliens anyway. Most of TOS and early TNG had aliens that looked exactly human. Even when makeup and such improved in later eras, almost everything the crew interacted with in any kind of significant way was pretty much a bumpy-forehead alien, and those that weren't were generally still pretty much humanoid. If you exclude the energy lifeforms and random stuff like that, and just think about aliens with bodies as we have, then the Mos Eisley bar scene in a New Hope probably has more diversity of body types than the entire run of TNG (although that's still pretty much humanoid dominated IIRC).

Personally, I find that I can enjoy JJ Abrams movies well enough as modern day Sci Fi. I like sci fi movies where spaceships blow each other up. They're fun. And if it didn't have the Star Trek name attached, it probably wouldn't have been made. So from that perspective, I'm willing - even a little excited - to go see the new one. But I'd give both of them up in a second to see a new ST TV series.

[An4ximandros]

 The problem with trek aliens is that they are all just humans under make up. In fact, Roddenberry said himself that the show was a "Wagon Train to the Stars"

 The show is about exploring ourselves as humans... while talking to humans dressed as "aliens."

 There have been VERY little attempts at showing an alien culture, cognition or anything that would actually be alien. Hence why trek is another one of those cheap Sci-Fi shows.

[NGTM-1R]

When Star Trek was a series, it was about a vast collection of worlds with different races, customs, technologies and beliefs, and it dealt quite frequently with how those races interacted.

While Enterprise kind of addressed those things, Voyager did not, and if you want to find a series that really wanted to work with this, you'd have to go back to DS9 and the Bajorans (and Cardassians/Klingons to a lesser extent). TNG flirted with it via the Klingons but didn't make nearly as long-running an issue of it the way pretty much every other DS9 episode did something to highlight the Bajorans.

Honestly if you want to talk about a franchise that does this sort of stuff, you'd be better off pointing to Bablyon 5.

[Nuke]

when you think about it the crews on star trek were mostly normal with a couple oddballs thrown in for diversity. the thing in tos was that the cast was diverse but mostly human. having a russian an asian and a black woman on the bridge crew was just unheard of back then. they kept the subtext more or less in later series, but replace the humans with aliens. ds9 really stepped it up though. more political critique of the human condition (space lizzard nazis and space jews). but b5 did the same thing in a totally awesome way, without all the baggage associated with the previous series that trek had to deal with.

[Luis Dias]

Yeah I think we can pretty much agree B5 was amazing.

[Flipside]

When Star Trek was a series, it was about a vast collection of worlds with different races, customs, technologies and beliefs, and it dealt quite frequently with how those races interacted.

While Enterprise kind of addressed those things, Voyager did not, and if you want to find a series that really wanted to work with this, you'd have to go back to DS9 and the Bajorans (and Cardassians/Klingons to a lesser extent). TNG flirted with it via the Klingons but didn't make nearly as long-running an issue of it the way pretty much every other DS9 episode did something to highlight the Bajorans.

Honestly if you want to talk about a franchise that does this sort of stuff, you'd be better off pointing to Bablyon 5.

If the thread were called 'Babylon 5 - Into Darkness', I would

I didn't say that Star Trek was the only, best user of that standard, simply that it did do it various forms, whether that was Medusans from the original series, a race that harmed without knowing it, or the race from the wormhole who were pretty much apathetic to our reality to the shapes in the sand from one Next Gen epsiode, where it was humans unwittingly harming them. Some of the best concepts in Star Trek (and even Babylon 5) came from the cerebral side of it, but, movie producers are convinced that cerebral doesn't sell, it's been a motto of the movie industry for years and simply shows how little regard many companies hold the general public in.

As for voyager, well, that's a perfect example of what happens when you try to take a show in a different direction and don't pay any attention to the previous series'.

[karajorma]

If the thread were called 'Babylon 5 - Into Darkness', I would

But that would require the world to be even slightly fair.

[Luis Dias]

I think the companies hold the exact "regard" for the masses that they deserve. Correct, mindblowing and superb brainy stuff matters to 0.1% of pop. Porn and pew pew matters to 100% of pop. Maths ain' hard.

[Nyalatothep]

ds9 really stepped it up though. more political critique of the human condition (space lizzard nazis and space jews). but b5 did the same thing in a totally awesome way, without all the baggage associated with the previous series that trek had to deal with.

Being a Bablyon 5 fan really made me see DS9 with a much more hostile mindset than it deserves, which is why I have a rather negative opinion of it, even though I have to admit it stands rather well on its own. One thing though I personally didn't like as much, is that the main focus went from exploration to war and diplomacy in a more static setting. Not that they didn't have other elements in it, or that this is necessarily a bad development, but I really didn't quite like it in the context of Star Trek.

Also the Babylon 5 "they stole our concept and took our money"-drama that surrounded it. I really have to admit that I treat many works of fiction unfairly like that, when something in the context '"ruins" it for me.

There have been VERY little attempts at showing an alien culture, cognition or anything that would actually be alien. Hence why trek is another one of those cheap Sci-Fi shows.

Are you talking just about the original series or about TNG as well? Because, hey man, crystalline entity, borg, Q continuum, that thing that thought the Enterprise was its mother, several energy beings, that race in the center of the galaxy exploring by pulling other races towards it, the list goes on.

If you exclude the energy lifeforms and random stuff like that, and just think about aliens with bodies as we have

Oh, OK... fair enough...

But even then, I guess while most of them looked human, mostly because that cost less, they were really there to either reflect some aspects of us or to introduce a new and alien concept that was still similiar to us. Like when those one aliens abduct Picard and replace him with a lookalike to learn about hierarchy and command structure. Sure, they looked human-like enough, but they served the role of exploring something about the human condition anyway, and they were sufficiently alien in their ways to make the thing interesting.

The problem with trek aliens is that they are all just humans under make up. In fact, Roddenberry said himself that the show was a "Wagon Train to the Stars"

 The show is about exploring ourselves as humans... while talking to humans dressed as "aliens."

Exactly like that. While I love the dramatic tension and especially that diplomatic insight that a setting like B5 provides for example, and I technically love a setting where huge starships fight each other with stellar explosions, I'd really love to see a humanist masterpiece like TNG again as well. And Star Trek had been the franchise you'd expect to go exactly there, and the franchise that was basically created with that purpose in mind.