Star Trek Into Darkness

[OreoStang]

Excited for sure. They did a he'll of a job with the first one. Can't wait to see it

[sc281]

New trailer:


Video: “Star Trek Into Darkness” trailer

http://hotair.com/archives/2013/03/21/video-star-trek-into-darkness-trailer/

I found this post interesting also:

OK, here comes my ST rant.

I like Abrams’ reboot, because it actually brings Trek back more-or-less to where it began. That being Roddenberry’s idea of telling “Horatio Hornblower in Space”-type stories.

For those of you not familiar with the novels by C.S. Forester, they told the story of a young Royal Navy officer coming up through the ranks during the Napoleonic Wars. They were war stories, just as much as Herman Wouk’s The Winds of War, James Bassett’s (In) Harm’s Way, or for that matter Forester’s own non-fiction Sink the Bismarck.

I was never a fan of the “Next Generation” shows, although I’ve seen them all. Mainly because they took ST off the deep end of “caring and sharing” pseudo-progressive claptrap. A now-deceased friend of mine with a Ph.D in sociology pointed out that in the NG era, the Federation was a Swedish-style socialist state.

Remember Picard repeatedly going on about “we believe our purpose is to improve the quality of life?” How about “we no longer enslave animals as food?” Fine if you have the technology for it, but hardly realistic short of replicators that can synthesize entirely new bodily organs for medical transplant- which is a h**l of a lot harder than “tea, Earl Grey, hot”, trust me.

Like most socialist states, the NG Federation didn’t have much tolerance for dissent. Their motto toward their own people was “Be Enlightened Or Else”. In evidence of which, I give you the Maquis; people who were told this over time by the Federation;

1. We want you to colonize these worlds near the edge of our territory. Yes, we know the Cardassians will be your new neighbors, but don’t worry, they’re harmless.

2. (A few decades later) Oh, we’ve decided that those colony worlds we put you on really belong to the Cardassians after all. We now want you to move out to avoid offending them, because we must avoid offending (violent, aggressive, military dictatorships) at all costs. (Offending you, we have no problem with.)

3. You can’t move? You mean you won’t move. You are now officially outlaws, and we’re sending the Fleet after you. Chew on that, revanchists. (Meanwhile the UFP is ignoring the nasty vibes coming from the Cardassians…. Gaza and North Korea, anyone?)
It got to the point that, when the war with the Dominion/Cardassian alliance erupted, the Federation literally could not believe a war had started. (In Jeff Cooper’s terms, they were in Condition White and couldn’t believe that the ball was now in their court.) Simply put, they were so convinced of their own absolute “moral rectitude” that they could not conceive of anyone ever wanting to hurt them. (“Admiral Neville Chamberlain to Enterprise, one to beam up.”)

In the end, they “won”, due to an alliance with the Klingons and Romulans, who were a bit quicker to realize that their mutual (and well-founded) distrust was less important at that moment than dealing with the people who were busy shooting at them along with everybody else. (Google “Great Patriotic War”.) But the Federation would never be the same.

If indeed it survived at all, long-term. I suspect that one reason the NG series’ development ended abruptly at that point (and ST;Enterprise came along), was because Rick Berman & Co. realized that they had written themselves into a corner with only one believable outcome; the breakup of the Federation. Such a “coalition of the nice” could not long survive the damage it had suffered as a result of the Dominion War. (Model; the breakup of the British Empire, 1946-70.)

I suspect Berman and friends, “good progressives” all, just didn’t like the idea. Hence, they set the Wayback Machine for the time before the Federation- and created a Temporal Cold War to lampshade their discomfort at facing the illogic of their own expressed philosophy. (And no apologies, to Spock or anybody else.)

No wonder Paramount hired J.J. Abrams to recreate the ST universe. Their cash cow had committed seppuku; new blood was needed.

Abrams’ “new Trek” serves the same purpose as the “reimagined” Battlestar Galactica. (TIA; I hated the original BSG; the Gil Gerard Buck Rogers series was infinitely more interesting IMHO, basically The Wild, Wild West in outer space. Not surprising, as BR executive producer John Mantley had worked on WWW.)

The Abrams’ film(s) go back to where everything started, and take things more in the direction the creator (Roddenberry) originally wanted to go, not where it eventually ended up in other hands. Right down to the massive firepower of the Enterprise and other Starfleet ships; to see where Roddenberry originally intended to go with that, look up the old tabletop war game Star Fleet Battles, which he helped create back in the 1970s. (Yes, starships in that game do have massive numbers of phaser emitters that “pop out” of the hull to fire; it’s called “point defense” vs. incoming missiles.)

BTW, I worked at Trek conventions in my college years, and spent a good bit of time with Mr. Roddenberry personally. And as he explained it to me, not to mention other people, his original conception of ST- “Horatio Hornblower in Space”- was not what he pitched it to NBC as. He told them it was “Wagon Train to the Stars”.

Why? Two reasons;

1. Westerns were a familiar genre’ to the network buyers, so it was a “frame of reference” they already had. He didn’t even try to explain to them that the frontier was as much about the U.S. Cavalry as it was about pioneers, settlers, and etc. (For the classic “Boots and Saddles” situation, look up the original series episodes “Arena” and “Balance of Terror”, the latter of which is also basically a haircut of the WW2 movie The Enemy Below.)

2. The second reason was, however, more important is his mind. He was well aware that probably none of the execs he was talking to had ever heard of C.S. Forester, much less read any of his books. As he said,

If I’d told them it was ‘Horatio Hornblower in outer space’, they’d have figured it was a show about a jazz trumpeter who worked for NASA.
TV truly is a medium of the lowest common denominator. Largely due to the aggregate IQ of the people running networks.

Rant off.

cheers

eon

eon on March 22, 2013 at 9:44 AM

[diablo rojo]

While I don't necessarily disagree with some of his points, the notion that ST: NG ended because they'd written themselves into a corner is absurd. They did four feature films after "....all good things". Not to mention that ST: DS9 was still running and Voyager was coming out 8 months later. No, NG had run its course on television....period. And the Dominion war only came up as a passing reference in the third film (Insurrection), so I see no reason to believe that the Federation was in any danger of breaking up.

ST: Enterprise (not my favorite, but I watched them all) was a shining example of what Hollywood loves to do these days.....take us back to the beginning (think Star Wars: Phantom, Clone, Sith). And it gave us another great set of tits to look at after Voyager ended.

The next ST series has been rumored for some time. Allegedly, it would be helmed by JJ Abrams and Bryan Singer, be titled "Federation", and center around the Federation circa 3000....hundreds of years after NG. Sounds like plenty of stories left to tell to me.

[Rafa]

1:36 and pause

[mstng86]

It looks to be pretty badass. I may have to see this in the theaters.


And no, that universe could have stories forever.

[sc281]

While I don't necessarily disagree with some of his points, the notion that ST: NG ended because they'd written themselves into a corner is absurd. They did four feature films after "....all good things". Not to mention that ST: DS9 was still running and Voyager was coming out 8 months later. No, NG had run its course on television....period. And the Dominion war only came up as a passing reference in the third film (Insurrection), so I see no reason to believe that the Federation was in any danger of breaking up.

ST: Enterprise (not my favorite, but I watched them all) was a shining example of what Hollywood loves to do these days.....take us back to the beginning (think Star Wars: Phantom, Clone, Sith). And it gave us another great set of tits to look at after Voyager ended.

The next ST series has been rumored for some time. Allegedly, it would be helmed by JJ Abrams and Bryan Singer, be titled "Federation", and center around the Federation circa 3000....hundreds of years after NG. Sounds like plenty of stories left to tell to me.

That would be cool. No COOL cool but nerd cool. Right on!

[talisman]

Dang, looks pretty good. I watched all the original movies growing up and thought the reboot was decent. Never got beyond the original series into the other generations.

[sc281]

Dang, looks pretty good. I watched all the original movies growing up and thought the reboot was decent. Never got beyond the original series into the other generations.

Just watch the last two seasons of each (TNG, DS9, Voyager, Enterprise) and you'll be fine. That's when all the good stuff goes down (wars, more firefights, etc.)

[01vnms4v]

1:36 and pause

Did that as well before I saw your post. I was like hold up a min, did a quick look, to see if I could see camel toe. No luck shot to dark

Still looks like it will another great movie

[UserX]

[YALE]

It's just, "Into Darkness," hillbilly.

[UserX]

I bet this move kicks some serious ass.

[CJ-95GT]

Eh, they will just go back in time to make right what was put wrong. Seriously, how many times have they gone back in time from the movies and tv series? Baker's dozen maybe?

[Unicorn Jeff]

[UserX]

Saw it already or seeing it soon? Either way, you fucking suck.