Star Trek Into Darkness

mussonman said:
The only thing I didn't like was the filmmakers' obvious misunderstanding of the Prime Directive.

In the beginning, they are working to stop a volcano from destroying a tribal alien species, and
Spock gets pissed at Kirk because he reveals the ship, violating the Prime Directive.
However, by interfering on their planet by stopping the volcano, they are already violating the Prime Directive. Made little sense
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Okay, seriously, y'all suck at not spoiling movies for people!

Besides mussonman, ironically, I'm afraid you've misunderstood the Prime Directive. They are not to influence the internal development of an alien civilization.
Had they successfully frozen the volcano, without being noticed by the natives, then they would've only influenced their external world, by allowing them to not be burned alive. But by showing themselves, they completely changed the cultural development of those people, as evidenced by them ultimately worshiping of the god-like Enterprise.

I think it's called "Into Darkness" because of the many ways in which it highlights the lengths to which people will go to protect/avenge those whom they care about. The good guys and bad guys alike all face similar moral quandaries.
 
Re "Into Darkness?"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_Into_Darkness#Themes
http://www.bobrivers.com/#v12539c7
"Themes

On May 10, 2013, Cho, Pegg, and Eve were interviewed on the Bob Rivers Show to promote the movie. Show host Bob Rivers asked about the title: "The title Star Trek Into Darkness indicates some sort of ominous turn, obviously."

Eve suggested that Simon Pegg discuss the theme of terrorism, and Pegg obliged: "I think it's a very current film, and it reflects certain things that are going on in our own heads at the moment; this idea that our enemy might be walking among us, not necessarily on the other side of an ocean, you know. John Harrison, Benedict Cumberbatch's character, is ambiguous, you know? We [the characters in the film] don't know who to support. Sometimes, Kirk, he seems to be acting in exactly the same way as him [Harrison]. They're both motivated by revenge. And the Into Darkness in the title is less an idea of this new trend of po-faced, kind of, everything's-got-to-be-a-bit-dour treatments of essentially childish stories. It's more about Kirk's indecision."

John Cho agreed about the characterization of Captain Kirk: "It's his crisis of leadership.""​
 
mussonman said:
The only thing I didn't like was the filmmakers' obvious misunderstanding of the Prime Directive.
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Erm, no.

The Prime Directive prevents interference in the INTERNAL DEVELOPMENT of a species. That's pretty specific and pretty clear. Saving a species from extinction does not violate the Prime Directive at all. Revealing the ship, however, did.
 
THAT is the only scene he regrets?

Quite frankly he should regret a lot more than that. The "KHAAAAAAAAAAAAN!" scene for one.
 
All the reusing scenes from the older movie is nice,
but, quite honestly, not the sort to make this movie a classic.

But I like
Spock fighting with Khan, as opposed to Kirk fighting with Khan.
 
DDK said:
Erm, no.

The Prime Directive prevents interference in the INTERNAL DEVELOPMENT of a species. That's pretty specific and pretty clear
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This is the info I pulled from Star Trek's wikia page: (I will underline the important part)

A complicated order, the Prime Directive had 47 sub-orders by the latter part of the 24th century. (VOY: "Infinite Regress") However, a high-level summary was "no identification of self or mission; no interference with the social development of said planet; no references to space, other worlds, or advanced civilizations." (TOS: "Bread and Circuses") The directive provided guidance on what constituted prohibited "interference" with a society, covering such matters as:

Providing knowledge of other inhabited worlds (even if individuals or governments in the society were already aware of such)
Providing knowledge of technologies or science
Taking actions to generally affect a society's overall development
Taking actions which support one faction within a society over another
Helping a society escape the negative consequences of its own actions
Helping a society escape a natural disaster known to the society
Subverting or avoiding the application of a society's laws
Interfering in the internal affairs of a society
Alerting primitive societies to the existence of life on other planets


Examples for why I thought this violated the Prime Directive to begin with were from some episodes of TNG I saw. These examples are cited below:
(TNG: "Pen Pals", "Homeward")
 
I wish we had a TV series with high VFX quality like the recent Scifi features (from star wars 123 onward).

I'm not a Trekkie at all but I'd watch the heck out of a modern Star Trek tv show.
 
TheArtist said:
I wish we had a TV series with high VFX quality like the recent Scifi features (from star wars 123 onward).

I'm not a Trekkie at all but I'd watch the heck out of a modern Star Trek tv show.
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Unfortunately scifi doesn't tend to rate very well. Every time a show gets made with a decent budget, it tends to get canned a season in after rating poorly. With geek culture growing, I'm hoping that scifi will see a surge in popularity but I'm not holding my breath.
 
rayw said:
'Star Trek Into Darkness' screenwriter Damon Lindelof regrets... scene

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertai...ene-article-1.1350804?localLinksEnabled=false

How... regrettable is the scene?
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Oh my gosh. This is from the writer who wryly describes having written Charlize Theron in Prometheus doing push-ups in the nude...while "cooler heads prevailed" and put her in underwear.

In any case, whatever Lindelof thinks of what I suppose was gratuitous, I loved it. I want more. If that makes me a bad man, well, I'll own it and without apologies. =)

Have we really gotten so anal that we can't have a scene with a beautiful woman in underwear just because it's nice to see? Geesss.

And aaallsoo, hey,
isn't this the woman that Kirk eventually fathers a child with? Doesn't it make perfect sense that there should be some shenanigans and high jinx like this to pave the way to that?
Duh.

About the Prime Directive, I've only seen the film once, but
didn't Admiral Pike in fact express displeasure that they were trying to kill the volcano in the first place in his tongue lashing of Kirk?

I sympathize with AM's desire to have Trek-like debate etc, but let me be the bad guy and add to what has already been said by CF and others and ask, how much of such debate can you expect them to squeeze into a 132 minute summer blockbuster? I think it's about balance.

=)
 
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richy said:
And aaallsoo, hey,
isn't this the woman that Kirk eventually fathers a child with? Doesn't it make perfect sense that there should be some shenanigans and high jinx like this to pave the way to that?
Duh.
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Yes, that's her!


About the Prime Directive, I've only seen the film once, but
didn't Admiral Pike in fact express displeasure that they were trying to kill the volcano in the first place in his tongue lashing of Kirk?
Click to expand...

Yes! "You don't respect the chair!"



I sympathize with AM's desire to have Trek-like debate etc, but let me be the bad guy and add to what has already been said by CF and others and ask, how much of such debate can you expect them to squeeze into a 132 minute summer blockbuster? I think it's about balance.

=)
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I wholeheartedly agree with every word in your post. ;)
 
Here’s my issue with time travel stories using “The Voyage Home”
as my example:

Spock does a few calculations and uses a random space ship he is
only somewhat familiar with to slingshot around the sun which
creates time travel. Not once but twice, returning to the “present”
at the exact same moment they left.

So damn easy. Not without risk, but so damn easy.

Why doesn’t some bad guy do it? Why doesn’t the Klingon Empire (in
2286 still at war with the Federation) just line up a dozen or two dozen
Bird-of-Prey’s and attempt it over and over and over until one makes
it back in time? Or several. Then with their unprecedented (for 1986)
fire power blow the occupants and technology of earth back to 17th
Century.

Sticking strictly to canon the ease of time travel in the ST universe
leaves open devastating story possibilities. With “Star Trek” Spock
and Nero are stranded back in time. It was an unexpected result and
cannot be recreated. I don’t have any issue with that.
 
directorik said:
Why doesn’t some bad guy do it? Why doesn’t the Klingon Empire (in
2286 still at war with the Federation) just line up a dozen or two dozen
Bird-of-Prey’s and attempt it over and over and over until one makes
it back in time? Or several. Then with their unprecedented (for 1986)
fire power blow the occupants and technology of earth back to 17th
Century.

Sticking strictly to canon the ease of time travel in the ST universe
leaves open devastating story possibilities. With “Star Trek” Spock
and Nero are stranded back in time. It was an unexpected result and
cannot be recreated. I don’t have any issue with that.
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From a strictly practical standpoint that's probably why everyone completely ignores Spock's amazing discovery - it just gets too difficult to deal with on an ongoing basis while keeping a somewhat believable and watchable story.

But, heres the thing - I think the Spock/Nero time travel actually can serve to explain the situation. They go back in time, they change their destiny, but the changes they make don't change them - old Spock is still the same Spock he always was, even though new Spock is clearly different. This isn't Back to the Future where if his parents don't get together Marty disappears altogether, this is more of a parallel universes type thing. So when Spock goes back in time he essentially inhabits (perhaps even spawns) a different timeline than the one he was originally in.

In that kind of situation there may be existing timelines in which the Klingon Empire did go back and destroy the earth - but in doing so they create a parallel timeline, so it has no impact on the timeline they started out in. This actually makes it a futile exercise for anyone except the people actually doing the time travel - because when they return to the 'present' it's actually the new timeline they created, not the one they started in. From the perspective of the Klingon Empire, who keeps sending ships back in time, nothing ever changes, no one returns, and it appears to be a waste of time.

Of course that scenario would suggest that in the original "Voyage Home" timeline the earth was destroyed by the probe, because the one they return to is actually a new one spawned by their trip to the past.

And I believe this is consistent with canon - I'm not enough of a fan to cite episodes, but we've certainly seen examples of parallel but divergent universes; wasn't there a whole series of these in Enterprise where starfleet had gone in the significantly more militant direction that was being fought over in ITD?
 
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