Also, if you could use “story arches” more in your posts and responses that would be great. I just don’t think society as a whole uses that phrase enough.

Cheers

You must have missed the part where the red matter mixed with the energy of the sun. They said that the red matter had the potential to create black holes, then mixed with the energy of the sun that black hole formed a worm hole.

At the end when spock annihilates the ship, there is no sun energy so it just forms a black hole, essentially ripping apart the ship.

Please, if you’re going to criticize at least understand what’s going on in the story.

On the one hand it’s a testimony both to a franchise’s capacity for sustaining a lengthy narrative and for it’s ability to engender a fan base that cares about it enough to have that concern. Related to something else entirely, I watched an interview with Jeff Burke – the Imagineer who developed the Phantom Manor at Disneyland Paris – where he was telling fans to get over trying to make a story out of the ride. I thought he underestimated how much these fans loved it enough to try.

On the other hand, I’ve learned an important lesson in the last few years of watching GALAXY EXPRESS 999 and DOCTOR WHO about not letting continuity interfere with telling a good story. I had some seeds of it before too… Trekwise, the flat- vs. ridged-foreheads on Klingons never was an issue, and the “explanation” Worf gave in DS9 was entertaining and good enough for me. It wasn’t something I ever felt required an in-continuity answer.

I think the point for me where that all implodes is where continuity is ignored for the sake of sloppiness. That was the whole fault of ENTERPRISE… They kept spitting in the face of continuity in a show that was supposed to fit into continuity in order to tell stories that just plain sucked. The only times they ever managed to nail it was the primiere and the body of the fourth season.

I haven’t seen the new Trek yet, and I’m a bit mixed on the whole idea. I had thought that the progress towards it told the creators something, but I’m not sure. Basically, it starts with ENTERPRISE and people getting excited about returning to the original series setting, aliens, concepts, etc. but with modern production values. ENTERPRISE blew it for the most part, until they brought on Manny Coto who understood what it was supposed to be. Thus the fourth season delivered in spades: Augments, flat-headed Klingons, Mirror Universe, Tholians, Gorn, uniting the four founder races against the Romulans, Terra Prime… Too little too late, so they move on to updating the original series with new effects, and it was great. There was a little disconnect between the old sets and the new space scenes, but I was satisfied.

Then they announce a movie that theoretically fused the two: the “origin story” of the original series. Sure they changed the costumes and sets and look of the ship, but so what? Flat- vs. ridged-foreheads. Big deal. But now we’ve got time travel and planets getting blowed up and everything else and it’s giving flashbacks of the Temporal Cold War. And if it’s in-continuity, where the Hell is Starfleet Temporal Investigations? They’ve delt with less important changes to the timestream in regular episodes.

The last part is being pedantic, but it’s hearkening to my belief that if they wanted to reboot it, they should have just rebooted it. Ultimate Star Trek. Cool. However, I haven’t seen it yet and maybe it’ll stand up once I do. I am planning on seeing it and it’s the first Trek show that my girlfriend has actually wanted to have anything to do with, so I guess that’s a point in favor ^_^

What bothers me about this new Trek is not the continuity issue, but the impression that they are replacing substance with image. There was a lot of action and CGI–and it was certainly exciting and beautiful–but there was very little story or theme. In fact, the plot was marked more by coincidence than anything else, and every time they approached an important issue–destiny vs. free will, logic vs. faith, revenge, genocide–it was quickly pushed aside in a rush to the next battle.

The characters carried the film, and for now I’m content with that, but I really hope they can find some more intellectual depth for the next installment.

I don’t think “restoring the timeline” is their major concern ^_~