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Bilbo wrote:You kind of have to assume that Spock is getting a bit senile. He mentions once or twice that the Supernova in question threatened the entire galaxy. A statement that makes no sense what so ever.

True; I rolled my eyes at that one in the theatre.

Though I guess one could write enough backstory to kind of explain this. One could create some story about how subspace is very very thin in this region Romulan space due to their use of Singularity based warp drives. We have the TNG episode which states that subspace can get damaged by excessive use of warp.

Then you could have some really bad trek-babble about how a supernova going off this close to the thin regions of subspace will send subspce shockwaves throughout the galaxy. These shockwaves will of course travel at warp speed and destroy Romulus in a matter of hours instead of years.

You could then also explain the shit ton of Red Matter, much more than it appeared Spock needed to stop destroy the supernova, as extra he was going to use tto somehow intercept and stop these warp shockwaves by dropping bits od Red Matter in their path.

The problem is that the farther you go down this path, the more you remind people of just why Star Trek needed to be rebooted in the first place.

One aspect of the movie really confuses me. The idea behind this movie was to reboot Star Trek and bring in new fans who have lost interest in the shit product over the last few decades. I assume new fans means casual fans who might enjoy action or sci-fi but are not Star Trek fans.

If this is your intent then why the fuck would you write such a convoluted piss poor plot that requires someone to go out and read a multi-part comic book?

Unless I am gravely mistaken, the average movie-goer does not read comics. So you created a new Star Trek, a fresh start, which will allow anyone interested in a good movie to start to enjoy a new series, and you crush this idea of casual fan appeal with bad story and comicbook backstory.

Bilbo wrote:One aspect of the movie really confuses me. The idea behind this movie was to reboot Star Trek and bring in new fans who have lost interest in the shit product over the last few decades. I assume new fans means casual fans who might enjoy action or sci-fi but are not Star Trek fans.

If this is your intent then why the fuck would you write such a convoluted piss poor plot that requires someone to go out and read a multi-part comic book?

Unless I am gravely mistaken, the average movie-goer does not read comics. So you created a new Star Trek, a fresh start, which will allow anyone interested in a good movie to start to enjoy a new series, and you crush this idea of casual fan appeal with bad story and comicbook backstory.

It's not a problem as long as you assume that the average viewer doesn't give a shit about anything below the shiny surface, and doesn't particularly care about plot holes. This is true for the majority of the movie-going fan base (come on, Independence Day was a blockbuster), but it's a far cry from the superior self-image that Trekkies have cultivated for the last two decades.

Bilbo wrote:One aspect of the movie really confuses me. The idea behind this movie was to reboot Star Trek and bring in new fans who have lost interest in the shit product over the last few decades. I assume new fans means casual fans who might enjoy action or sci-fi but are not Star Trek fans.

If this is your intent then why the fuck would you write such a convoluted piss poor plot that requires someone to go out and read a multi-part comic book?

Unless I am gravely mistaken, the average movie-goer does not read comics. So you created a new Star Trek, a fresh start, which will allow anyone interested in a good movie to start to enjoy a new series, and you crush this idea of casual fan appeal with bad story and comicbook backstory.

Probably because those "casual fans" won't care? Assuming they expend the effort to consider that the backstory was pretty stupid, they're just as likely to shrug their shoulders, mutter 'plot device' and move on. That's what I did, anyway.

I would honestly be surprised if the majority of moviegoers (as opposed to Trekkies and/or scifi nerds) really care if a 'galaxy destroying supernova' makes sense or not.

RogueIce wrote:

Bilbo wrote:One aspect of the movie really confuses me. The idea behind this movie was to reboot Star Trek and bring in new fans who have lost interest in the shit product over the last few decades. I assume new fans means casual fans who might enjoy action or sci-fi but are not Star Trek fans.

If this is your intent then why the fuck would you write such a convoluted piss poor plot that requires someone to go out and read a multi-part comic book?

Unless I am gravely mistaken, the average movie-goer does not read comics. So you created a new Star Trek, a fresh start, which will allow anyone interested in a good movie to start to enjoy a new series, and you crush this idea of casual fan appeal with bad story and comicbook backstory.

Probably because those "casual fans" won't care? Assuming they expend the effort to consider that the backstory was pretty stupid, they're just as likely to shrug their shoulders, mutter 'plot device' and move on. That's what I did, anyway.

I would honestly be surprised if the majority of moviegoers (as opposed to Trekkies and/or scifi nerds) really care if a 'galaxy destroying supernova' makes sense or not.

Casual fans want to at least know what the plot is and understand it. This movie had a convoluted plot. battle scenes with giant space ships that most of the time were so tight you didnt see much of the battle to know what was going on (as an aside did we ever get a nice distance shot where we see 100% of Nero's ship?) and a mostly too young crew that looks like it was selected by MTV for another one of their "lets all live together and fight" reality shows. This does not a repeat audience make.

A good story that made no mention of any fprevious Trek product in any way shape or form beyond the words Federation, Klingon, Enterprise, and Kirk would reboot the series and give a true fresh start. This movie feels like they wanted a reboot but also wanted a backdoor to ignore it if the whole thing bombed.

Bilbo wrote:Casual fans want to at least know what the plot is and understand it. This movie had a convoluted plot.

Convoluted popcorn films are all the rage these days- the Matrix sequels, Pirates of the Caribbean 3, hell even The Dark Knight was a bit twisted.

Bilbo wrote:battle scenes with giant space ships that most of the time were so tight you didnt see much of the battle to know what was going on (as an aside did we ever get a nice distance shot where we see 100% of Nero's ship?)

Eh, I'd argue the film didn't focus on space battle scenes. Or exploration, really. The reboot was really pretty much akin to a superhero origin film.

Bilbo wrote:and a mostly too young crew that looks like it was selected by MTV for another one of their "lets all live together and fight" reality shows.

The characters looked young, but they did not act young. They all carried out remarkably mature performances. That is a good thing.

Bilbo wrote:This does not a repeat audience make.

sez you

Bilbo wrote:A good story that made no mention of any fprevious Trek product in any way shape or form beyond the words Federation, Klingon, Enterprise, and Kirk would reboot the series and give a true fresh start. This movie feels like they wanted a reboot but also wanted a backdoor to ignore it if the whole thing bombed.

The film had few references to pre-established canon.

This is why I'm curious as to the canon issue, as I believe, the back story and "explanations" are in the lead up comic.

I am pretty sure it ties in with the line about the star "threatening the galaxy." The Hobus star is some kind of exotic body that is blasting unpredictable FTL shockwaves out in various directions.

Casual fans want to at least know what the plot is and understand it. This movie had a convoluted plot. battle scenes with giant space ships that most of the time were so tight you didnt see much of the battle to know what was going on (as an aside did we ever get a nice distance shot where we see 100% of Nero's ship?) and a mostly too young crew that looks like it was selected by MTV for another one of their "lets all live together and fight" reality shows. This does not a repeat audience make.

Last I heard the film has a repeat audience, it's making Iron Man money.

To answer your aside: yes.

I debated about putting this in the "How big is the Enterprise" thread, but since the ship in question isn't the E, I figured I'd best put it here.

Remember the debris field in Vulcan's orbit -- especially that large saucer section?

Of course you do

I stumbled across an image of the E headed toward that saucer. Regrettably, I've yet to see an image of Enterprise ducking "under" the derelict, which would undoubtably be superior for scaling purposes.

Anyhow, I thought I'd still give it a try.

Since the E's own saucer width isn't fully evident in the image, I figured I'd scale according to the size of her shuttlebay:



Given the perspective, it's clear the shuttlebay's width is, in reality, substantially less than 15% the saucer's diameter.

However ...



... since we see the ship from behind and the object we're scaling is farther from the camera, that's unimportant; all that matters is the apparent, or relative, sizes.

As you can see, the derelict saucer's projected diameter is approximately the same as the Enterprise's (and over 6.7 times the shuttlebay's width -- 6.8, to be exact).

These are fairly rough measurements, but I think they irrefutably demonstrate that the destroyed saucer is significantly larger than Enterprise's own.

seanrobertson wrote:These are fairly rough measurements, but I think they irrefutably demonstrate that the destroyed saucer is significantly larger than Enterprise's own.

I think it's pretty likely that this "saucer" is the remnants of another starbase like the one we see just prior to Enterprise leaving for Vulcan.

Except that 'USS' and an NCC registry number is visible on its surface.

tim31 wrote:Except that 'USS' and an NCC registry number is visible on its surface.

It seems unlikely that there are other warships which are much larger than the Enterprise, given that the Enterprise appears to be the fleet's newest, most prestigious, and most powerful ship. But you can't necessarily judge the size of the entire ship by its saucer. The saucer makes up a much smaller proportion of Enterprise's overall size than it did for, say, the Kelvin. Perhaps this ship is one of those "mostly saucer" ships.

I'm not sure where you can see the USS and NCC. There's something that looks like lettering on the hulk, but it could just as easily be shadows or scorches.

tim31 wrote:Except that 'USS' and an NCC registry number is visible on its surface.

Bounty wrote:I'm not sure where you can see the USS and NCC. There's something that looks like lettering on the hulk, but it could just as easily be shadows or scorches.

I'm with Bounty -- I can see some numbers, but nothing that is definitively a "USS" or "NCC". It's not unreasonable that there would be numbers of some kind on the hull of a space station.

I saw it in my second viewing; problem is that I saw beside what I already mentioned, I saw the letters OWE which are not part of the names of any of the ships that travelled to Vulcan.

Have to wait for the DVD to confirm, I suppose.

Darth Wong wrote:It seems unlikely that there are other warships which are much larger than the Enterprise, given that the Enterprise appears to be the fleet's newest, most prestigious, and most powerful ship.

I really hope it isn't. Giving an annoying reckless cadet with no displayed talents other than insane luck command of a random new-build cruiser is bad enough, but giving him command of your most powerful and prestigious ship is much worse. This is probably wishful thinking on my part though.

McC wrote:

seanrobertson wrote:These are fairly rough measurements, but I think they irrefutably demonstrate that the destroyed saucer is significantly larger than Enterprise's own.

I think it's pretty likely that this "saucer" is the remnants of another starbase like the one we see just prior to Enterprise leaving for Vulcan.

I suppose that's possible.

Honestly, it seems like a stretch to me because ...



... that's a huge starbase by Trek standards. If Abrams' Enterprise is indeed some 2500 ft. long*, I'm eyeballing the base at ~8 km wide. The volume of its debris would make those seven ships' flotsam look paltry, but it seemed like most of the larger debris was vaguely identifiable as starship remains (I could be dead wrong on that count.)

*I didn't particularly care for that idea at first, but after seeing Bounty's excellent scaling work in a related thread, I'm convinced.

More importantly, I don't think the shot of Enterprise swooping past this saucer-thing would really lend itself to the latter being almost a mile wide. However, since I don't have that evidence on-hand, all I can really say is that my measurements sure as hell don't rule out your hunch

I'm guessing what we see is part of an upscaled Kelvin/Reliant-type -- a saucer-centric ship like Mike mentioned. From what we see of the fleet before it went to warp, that'd also make more sense than a monster battleship that dwarfs even the new E.

Ah, that's a good point. That image definitely casts significant doubt on the hypothesis.

Regarding the supernova in question, is it possible, ignoring the comic for a moment (which I have not read) that this supernova "threatening the galaxy" is metaphorical to a degree? If a big enough star goes nova near enough to Romulus it's going to be a major political issue, with the potential to seriously upset the balance of power and plunge the Alpha Quadrant into a long and protracted war, either fighting with the Empire as it gets desperate, fighting over the remains, etc etc. It is possible that at the time, the political situation was very fragile and such an event could trigger devastating war (and this is a universe where military ships pack anti-matter torpedoes, the carnage from full-on orbital bombardment would be substantial to say the least) The Federation's solution to the problem was to use the Red Matter to create an artificial singularity, but they were just too late to the party and the star went nova, dooming Romulus to a radiation-soaked hell. The images glimpsed in Spock's mind meld would be equally metaphorical.

seanrobertson wrote: ... that's a huge starbase by Trek standards. If Abrams' Enterprise is indeed some 2500 ft. long*, I'm eyeballing the base at ~8 km wide. The volume of its debris would make those seven ships' flotsam look paltry, but it seemed like most of the larger debris was vaguely identifiable as starship remains (I could be dead wrong on that count.)

Huge by Star Trek standards? Earth Spacedock anyone?

open_sketchbook wrote:Regarding the supernova in question, is it possible, ignoring the comic for a moment (which I have not read) that this supernova "threatening the galaxy" is metaphorical to a degree? If a big enough star goes nova near enough to Romulus it's going to be a major political issue, with the potential to seriously upset the balance of power and plunge the Alpha Quadrant into a long and protracted war, either fighting with the Empire as it gets desperate, fighting over the remains, etc etc. It is possible that at the time, the political situation was very fragile and such an event could trigger devastating war (and this is a universe where military ships pack anti-matter torpedoes, the carnage from full-on orbital bombardment would be substantial to say the least) The Federation's solution to the problem was to use the Red Matter to create an artificial singularity, but they were just too late to the party and the star went nova, dooming Romulus to a radiation-soaked hell. The images glimpsed in Spock's mind meld would be equally metaphorical.

It still doesn't work. Even if you explain away Spock's dialogue, you still have to explain why a neighbouring star would irradiate Romulus before they can escape, when they should have years to evacuate the planet before anything reaches them.

I had actually assumed that the line meant threaten the galaxy on a political balance level, but I am aware that this doesn't excuse the fact that they could have evacuated the planet... Unless we shift the blame from the writers to a negligent Romulan senate that sat on it's hands Katrina/New Orleans style because of whatever.

Yeah, I'm definately a Trektard. I'm making up excuses now.

Since the Romulans split from the Vulcans shouldn't the problems with any nearby star of been obvious when they settled on Romulus in the first place ?

Say it was some contrivance like the plot of Sunshine?

Yeah, I don't consider the star-exploding stupidity too relevant to the actual plot, which has enough holes in it that are critical to the flow of the action.

I mean, if Spock had been flying to the Hobus star when Romulus was destroyed, how did Nero catch up with him by the time he threw the red matter out the door? How does 'attempt to escape' = 'whoops we both fell into the timehole'? Almost the only way it makes sense is if Hobus as very far away, coincidentally near Nero's position, and was basically firing random FTL deathbeams. . . which isn't much sense at all.

The hamfisted setup to placate completist inclusionist fans MIGHT be fucking stupid. The rest of the movie is dumb is far more acceptable ways.

bilateralrope wrote:Since the Romulans split from the Vulcans shouldn't the problems with any nearby star of been obvious when they settled on Romulus in the first place ?

This is an English language forum. You are expected to know that "have" and "of" are not the same word.