Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Saturday July 23 2016, @03:18PM   Printer-friendly
from the catch-it-if-you-dare dept.

Just when you thought it was safe to go to the movie theaters again, the latest in the "alternate universe" Star Trek films hits the theaters today. Ars Technica and El Reg have two reviews of the flick.

El Reg, with its usual caustic brand of British humor, calls it "An unwatchable steaming pile of tribble dung", while Ars describes it thusly: "Trek by numbers is no Trek at all". Both articles do heap praise on Karl Urban's dead-on portrayal of Dr. McCoy. Still, it might be worth watching in the theater, for as as we all know there are is no bad Star Trek. Ever!

As for myself, I think I'll do what I usually do and wait for it to come out on video and see if it is truly targ manure.

[From a more general perspective, the Rotten Tomatoes meta movie review site has a critic score of 85% and an audience score of 86%. -Ed.]


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Saturday July 23 2016, @03:38PM

    . Still, it might be worth watching in the theater, for as as we all know there are [sic] is no bad Star Trek. Ever!

    Except there was (and likely will be in the future) crappy Star Trek. Star Trek V, Star Trek VI, Generations, Nemesis, The entire Voyager series and all the JJ Abrams garbage.

    I guess if you're really easily entertained, you might disagree. But then, George Carlin was right.

    --
    No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Saturday July 23 2016, @03:40PM

    Okay, the links in the text I quoted that I didn't follow prove my point

    --
    No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 23 2016, @03:43PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 23 2016, @03:43PM (#379067)

    Yeah, well, you know, that's just like, your opinion man.

  • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Saturday July 23 2016, @04:04PM

    by bzipitidoo (4388) on Saturday July 23 2016, @04:04PM (#379073) Journal

    Wait, Star Trek VI was bad? To be sure, it had its cheesy and improbable moments, but on the whole it was pretty good.

    Anyway, slanging the bad movies and episodes while overlooking the major problems in the premises behind the entire show seems inconsistent. Warp drive is conceivably possible, not completely stupid, but it takes incredible amounts of power, and their answer to that problem is magical dilithium crystals. Then there's the transporter and replicator technologies which aren't used at more than a fraction of their potential. And how about the fact that the custom of sending down an Away Team is really stupid? Why put redshirts in peril of their lives, sending them blind into completely unknown situations, when they could send drones first, or heck, just take a little more time to scan and analyze the surface from the safety of orbit? Well, that's TV for you, got to keep the drama high.

    • (Score: 2) by theluggage on Saturday July 23 2016, @05:28PM

      by theluggage (1797) on Saturday July 23 2016, @05:28PM (#379088)

      but it takes incredible amounts of power, and their answer to that problem is magical dilithium crystals.

      Pretty sure that the power source is supposed to be antimatter and the dilithium crystals are just some sort of catalyst/moderator thingy.

      Then there's the transporter and replicator technologies which aren't used at more than a fraction of their potential.

      Well, the transporter was a deliberate plot device to allow the action to shift quickly between the ship and the planet-of-the-week. Its not obvious by modern standards, but one of the notable things about the original show is how fast-moving it was c.f. other 1960s TV shows - put TOS alongside, say, one of the Irwin Alan shows, or even a 60s cop show, and it looks like a pop video.

      One of the annoying things with Enterprise is that they started off with the transporter as new, unreliable, cargo-only except in dire emergencies - but quickly forgot all that and re-introduced the old plot-hole of "why can't they just transport out?". They should have killed a few people in it to maintain it as a "last resort" solution.

      Certainly, the transporter (as depicted in the show) is probably the least feasible bit of technology (as you say, at least there's some fringe science around FTL travel) but is just too iconic a feature of Star Trek to be dropped from re-makes.

      I do think TNG - given that it set out to be more "cerebral" than TOS - could have done a lot more proper (for a given value of "proper") SF - e.g. looking at interesting but unethical implications of using the transporter (ok, they xeroxed Riker and resurrected Scotty but that was about it) or at how replicator technology led to the Federation's post-scarcity socialist society (the very existence of the replicator could have been the basis for a war with the Ferrengi).

      Well, that's TV for you, got to keep the drama high.

      You just debunked your own criticism: they did have fairly magical sensors that would have prevented any totally stupid fatalities. Conducting all the action by telepresence would certainly be common sense, but it would be dull as ditchwater to watch. At the end of the day, Trek is mass-media entertainment, not serious SF.

      Frankly, there are worse offences by Trek - particularly the technobabble "particle of the week" solutions that started in TOS and peaked in Voyager. Or, the whole idea of the holodeck in TNG - our heroes are off exploring strange new worlds, discovering new life, new civ... Oh, bugger all that, lets have a silly Sherlock Holmes crossover adventure in virtual reality!

      • (Score: 2) by mcgrew on Saturday July 23 2016, @07:14PM

        by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Saturday July 23 2016, @07:14PM (#379128) Homepage Journal

        One of the annoying things with Enterprise is that they started off with the transporter as new, unreliable, cargo-only except in dire emergencies

        I wouldn't know, I could never get past that nails-on-a-blackboard AWFUL theme song.

        Certainly, the transporter (as depicted in the show) is probably the least feasible bit of technology

        Hugo Gernsback wrote [mcgrewbooks.com] in 1926 that we'd have them fifty years from then (as well as wireless electricity distribution, weather control, and electric roller skates; the article is at the link).

        --
        mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
        • (Score: 2) by theluggage on Monday July 25 2016, @05:01PM

          by theluggage (1797) on Monday July 25 2016, @05:01PM (#379911)

          I wouldn't know, I could never get past that nails-on-a-blackboard AWFUL theme song.

          Actually, I quite liked it - made a change from another generic orchestral theme (at least, the first version - they did a remix about halfway through the series that made it worse)

          Hugo Gernsback wrote in 1926 that we'd have them fifty years from then (as well as wireless electricity distribution, weather control, and electric roller skates; the article is at the link).

          Hehe. To be fair - he's also got things like TV movies, double glazing, air conditioning, solar power, cavity wall insulation that sound almost mundane alongside the matter transporter BS. The electric roller skates would be fine if it weren't for the "wireless" bit (mind you, a lithium ion battery would have been a bit of a stir in 1926). However, as for the wireless power - pretty sure they knew about the inverse-square law by then and his "what could possibly go wrong?" view of the effects of electricity on the human body are the sort of thing that got science a bad name in the latter part of the 20th century... and the bit about radioactive decay == matter transmission is You Fail Physics Forever, even by 1926 standards.

          Nah, I'll take my 1926 predictions of the future from real scientists [wikipedia.org] with PhDs in, er, pre-mixed doughnuts...

    • (Score: 2) by mcgrew on Saturday July 23 2016, @07:04PM

      by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Saturday July 23 2016, @07:04PM (#379125) Homepage Journal

      Why put redshirts in peril of their lives, sending them blind into completely unknown situations, when they could send drones first

      Because drones didn't exist in 1966 and robotics was in its infancy.

      --
      mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 23 2016, @05:30PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 23 2016, @05:30PM (#379089)

    Sir, I must say you have an absolutely fantastic sense of humor. Truly top-notch.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 23 2016, @06:27PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 23 2016, @06:27PM (#379112)

    Eh, I'll still probably watch this anyway - but I haven't gone to the theater for a star trek film in a long time, and I don't see a reason to go for this one either. I'll just wait til it's cheap on dvd.

  • (Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Saturday July 23 2016, @06:48PM

    by Zz9zZ (1348) on Saturday July 23 2016, @06:48PM (#379119)

    I agree with some of your list, but it comes down to being bored and choosing Star Trek tripe over ~insert here~ tripe. I really liked the first Abrams reboot, but think they should have left it right there as a one-off space opera version of Star Trek. It destroys the franchise genre like no other before it. Nemesis was probably the precursor to the reboots...

    --
    ~Tilting at windmills~