Roberto Orci out as “Trek 3” director

[Overmind One]

I just watched both the NuTrek movies back to back, and I have to say...that is the worst way to watch them. It is depressing how you feel after they are both over if you were expecting some depth. That is what seems to be missing...depth. I see nothing new or exciting in these Trek films, but I still like the new cast (except Chekhov). There is so much disconnect, so little scientific substance in these films.

Having said that, I really do not see how Jeremy Lin is going to save the day here. Kahn is still alive folks....he can come back. His blood can make ALL humans immortal. And the tribble thing, they are everywhere. How can this be? Just one of them dropped in a wheat field in Montana could overrun half the planet in no time. That is, unless Abrams has made it so they are not the tribbles from TOS. I just dont know what to say. I will never forgive Leonard Nimoy for agreeing to be used as a writer's whore in these movies in an attempt to give them cred they do not deserve. Word has it that Shatner's appearance in Star Trek 3 is still on. Meh.

 

[Joelist]

Again l think we need to wait on the writer being named. A good writer can address this nonsense. The director follows the script the writer prepares.

 

[Overmind One]

Again l think we need to wait on the writer being named. A good writer can address this nonsense. The director follows the script the writer prepares.

The writers are Kurtzman and somebody else.

 

[Joelist]

Not that we know of. When Orci left it said they junked the script too:

http://www.hmv.com/video/star-trek-3-gets-both-a-new-writer-and-release-date

Note this is as of 12/30/2014. So it is pretty fresh.

 

[shavedape]

I think OM1 is right, there's too much messed up with nuTrek that it can't be fixed. They can maybe clean it up a bit but I won't get my hopes up that the third movie will completely redeem the other two.

 

[Overmind One]

Not that we know of. When Orci left it said they junked the script too:

http://www.hmv.com/video/star-trek-3-gets-both-a-new-writer-and-release-date

Note this is as of 12/30/2014. So it is pretty fresh.

Im just hoping they dont just think in terms of "okay, what is the next adventure?". They need to be in "Okay, lets fix this" mode. Until they do, it will never be Trek.

 

[Joelist]

I'm hoping that the script being tossed is an indication that they see the need to move things in a better direction.

 

[Overmind One]

I think OM1 is right, there's too much messed up with nuTrek that it can't be fixed. They can maybe clean it up a bit but I won't get my hopes up that the third movie will completely redeem the other two.

Agreed. Impossible. You cant even continue telling stories in this universe without fixing it first. Every time the Enterprise warps to another planet or star system, the new dumb audience will wonder "How come they didnt just transwarp beam there?". The death of characters and others will seem meaningless since they can be brought back to life easily. Need a problem solved? Just enlist Kahn, from the 21st Century to invent technology that even the 23rd century universe didnt have to beat them. What the hell was Abrams thinking when he blew up Vulcan? Who in Trek wanted to see that happen?

This kind of damage is, unfortunately, fatal.

 

[Overmind One]

Again l think we need to wait on the writer being named. A good writer can address this nonsense. The director follows the script the writer prepares.

Care to speculate how?

I can see them finding a limitation to transwarp beaming. They can say that repeated transwarp materializations destabilizes cellular structures or some shit, but then they have to deal with the fact that both Kirk and Scotty were the first to use it (and thus the most vulnerable). They would have to explain that suitcase sized transwarp transporter too. They couldn’t even pull that nifty device off in the 23rd century. If people can transwarp beam from earth to Quo-nos, then armies of Klingons can beam to earth too.

The magic blood, that cant be fixed. Even if they kill Kahn off, they have tribbles who can make the blod now, and we know how prolific tribbles are. How do we explain their presence? How did Scotty get one on that Vulcan moon that did not exist in the original canon? How do you un-destroy Vulcan? How do you bring Logic back to Spock if there is no Vulcan to study on? How do you clean Uhura up from a co-dependent cheerleader to a respectable professional?

The Enterprise...how do you think of her as being so important when you have the USS Vengeance (developed by Kahn)? How about that dumb bridge and the brewery engine room? Why havent we seen a ready room? Even TOS had one. I guess since that is where the thinking and strategy is discussed, it has no use in this fairy tale.

In other words, it is wrecked to the core. Like a broken porcelain lamp, you can glue it back together, but it will still be broken. How will any writer or director make it right? The answer is: They wont. They have no reason to. In fact, the success of the current formula is making more money for Paramount than any Trek ever dreamed of.

NuTrek is not being made for us. It is being made for these folks:

 

[Joelist]

Actually you would be surprised what a good writer can unwind - upthread I listed SeaQuest and Voyager as examples of good writers coming in and unwinding a mess.

As to this mess:

Transwarp beaming - You already listed a way and there are others. All one needs to do is make the technology unusable in the future.

Red Matter - Already taken care of. It's all gone and no one in this time knows how to make more.

USS Vengeance - It's destroyed. All you need to do is add some detail like Khan wiped all the schematics and designs out of the computers of the secret starbase when he escaped. At that point the only way to make another one is to wake Khan, who would not be inclined to cooperate.

Vulcan - No need to reverse as they have New Vulcan.

Spock - Just write a backstory line that Spock is discovered to have a Vulcan condition that affects logic and needs a mindmeld from an expert or close family member to address. Enterprise goes to New Vulcan, Spock gets the meld and comes out of it much more "Vulcan". You can even address Uhura in the same story as he comes out of it less interested in her. But then again his interest in her is not an actual plot problem in the first place because there is ample Prime Universe precedent for Human-Vulcan couples.

All of which brings us to.....

The Blood of Khan.

I might note I actually noted this issue way back (and also how his blood even revives dead Tribbles). This will be a trickier but it is not impossible. For example:

In Bones lab the Tribble suddenly turns to dust. Meanwhile, Kirk starts aging rapidly. It turns out Khan's miracle blood only helps someone with the augment gene and in other life forms they may go a year or two with no side effects but ultimately it starts to break down their physiology. Cue Kirk having a very risky procedure which for whatever reason is a one time only thing - there is no way to reproduce the procedure. Amazingly it works and Kirk is "cured".

Never underestimate the power of a good writer.

 

[Overmind One]

Actually you would be surprised what a good writer can unwind - upthread I listed SeaQuest and Voyager as examples of good writers coming in and unwinding a mess.

As to this mess:

Transwarp beaming - You already listed a way and there are others. All one needs to do is make the technology unusable in the future.

Red Matter - Already taken care of. It's all gone and no one in this time knows how to make more.

USS Vengeance - It's destroyed. All you need to do is add some detail like Khan wiped all the schematics and designs out of the computers of the secret starbase when he escaped. At that point the only way to make another one is to wake Khan, who would not be inclined to cooperate.

Vulcan - No need to reverse as they have New Vulcan.

Spock - Just write a backstory line that Spock is discovered to have a Vulcan condition that affects logic and needs a mindmeld from an expert or close family member to address. Enterprise goes to New Vulcan, Spock gets the meld and comes out of it much more "Vulcan". You can even address Uhura in the same story as he comes out of it less interested in her. But then again his interest in her is not an actual plot problem in the first place because there is ample Prime Universe precedent for Human-Vulcan couples.

All of which brings us to.....

The Blood of Khan.

I might note I actually noted this issue way back (and also how his blood even revives dead Tribbles). This will be a trickier but it is not impossible. For example:

In Bones lab the Tribble suddenly turns to dust. Meanwhile, Kirk starts aging rapidly. It turns out Khan's miracle blood only helps someone with the augment gene and in other life forms they may go a year or two with no side effects but ultimately it starts to break down their physiology. Cue Kirk having a very risky procedure which for whatever reason is a one time only thing - there is no way to reproduce the procedure. Amazingly it works and Kirk is "cured".

Never underestimate the power of a good writer.

Brilliant. Too bad you arent on the team. And more saddening, I dont think they really care to change it.

 

[Joelist]

And I'm not even a professional writer. I do this stuff for fun (movie reviews et al).

So if we get a writer with actual scifi bona fides and they decide to listen to the fans and fix stuff it is quite fixable.

 

[pakar]

Agreed. Impossible. You cant even continue telling stories in this universe without fixing it first. Every time the Enterprise warps to another planet or star system, the new dumb audience will wonder "How come they didnt just transwarp beam there?". The death of characters and others will seem meaningless since they can be brought back to life easily. Need a problem solved? Just enlist Kahn, from the 21st Century to invent technology that even the 23rd century universe didnt have to beat them. What the hell was Abrams thinking when he blew up Vulcan? Who in Trek wanted to see that happen?

This kind of damage is, unfortunately, fatal.

I agree, we would need a different trek in a different timeline prefferably the old one!

 

[shavedape]

Actually you would be surprised what a good writer can unwind - upthread I listed SeaQuest and Voyager as examples of good writers coming in and unwinding a mess.

As to this mess:

Transwarp beaming - You already listed a way and there are others. All one needs to do is make the technology unusable in the future.

Red Matter - Already taken care of. It's all gone and no one in this time knows how to make more.

USS Vengeance - It's destroyed. All you need to do is add some detail like Khan wiped all the schematics and designs out of the computers of the secret starbase when he escaped. At that point the only way to make another one is to wake Khan, who would not be inclined to cooperate.

Vulcan - No need to reverse as they have New Vulcan.

Spock - Just write a backstory line that Spock is discovered to have a Vulcan condition that affects logic and needs a mindmeld from an expert or close family member to address. Enterprise goes to New Vulcan, Spock gets the meld and comes out of it much more "Vulcan". You can even address Uhura in the same story as he comes out of it less interested in her. But then again his interest in her is not an actual plot problem in the first place because there is ample Prime Universe precedent for Human-Vulcan couples.

All of which brings us to.....

The Blood of Khan.

I might note I actually noted this issue way back (and also how his blood even revives dead Tribbles). This will be a trickier but it is not impossible. For example:

In Bones lab the Tribble suddenly turns to dust. Meanwhile, Kirk starts aging rapidly. It turns out Khan's miracle blood only helps someone with the augment gene and in other life forms they may go a year or two with no side effects but ultimately it starts to break down their physiology. Cue Kirk having a very risky procedure which for whatever reason is a one time only thing - there is no way to reproduce the procedure. Amazingly it works and Kirk is "cured".

Never underestimate the power of a good writer.

I'm not trying to argue against your ideas here but honestly, that's a lot of ground to cover. I can't see them shoehorning in all those explanations into the next movie.

And as for USS Vengeance, I simply don't see how you keep something like that secret. Even if the schematics are gone there still has to be a record of the manufacturing process somewhere. I mean, sure they could say that the automated ship building machinery was wiped clean of the design but that just sounds hokey. The bottom line is it doesn't make sense for them to easily explain away all of Khan's "contributions", be they mechanical or biological, by saying they all suddenly are forgotten or don't work.

To be honest I simply expect them to ignore all of these flaws because they, cynically, know they can and the audience won't really care.

 

[Overmind One]

I agree, we would need a different trek in a different timeline prefferably the old one!

The Prime universe is PERFECT. It is complete, we even have a galactic map which has been shared by all of the series which shows the Federation and non-Federation planets in the Alpha Quadrant. We have established species which are instantly recognizable. Ship design elements are identifiable for each species, as are clothing styles. We even know the cultures. The technology trees are different for each species, etc. You cant do that with NuTrek. The only Trek universe which can serve as a platform for a new TV series would be the Prime universe.

 

[Overmind One]

I'm not trying to argue against your ideas here but honestly, that's a lot of ground to cover. I can't see them shoehorning in all those explanations into the next movie.

More significantly, they have no reason to do it. They made more than a couple hundred million on these two films just as they are. Why would they even consider appeasing Trek fans by changing from that formula?

And as for USS Vengeance, I simply don't see how you keep something like that secret. Even if the schematics are gone there still has to be a record of the manufacturing process somewhere. I mean, sure they could say that the automated ship building machinery was wiped clean of the design but that just sounds hokey. The bottom line is it doesn't make sense for them to easily explain away all of Khan's "contributions", be they mechanical or biological, by saying they all suddenly are forgotten or don't work.

THIS. They almost really screwed up once before by creating the USS Excelsior for "The Search for Spock". It had transwarp, was bigger and more powerful than the Enterprise (or any other Federation starship before Enterprise E). Fortunately, somebody buried it until the last film with the TOS crew.

To be honest I simply expect them to ignore all of these flaws because they, cynically, know they can and the audience won't really care.

True.

 

[Joelist]

I never said whether they would. The point was to demonstrate that they could. And they could - even the stuff I posited could be done with about 10 minutes of dialogue for most of it. As to the Vengeance, there is no need to keep it secret. The ship is destroyed. Just say Khan destroyed the schematics when he initially escaped and that as a result they cannot reproduce the advanced components of the ship.

And no the prime universe is not a viable option especially if you're using the TOS crew. The second the decision was made (and it was made VERY early on) to use the TOS crew some kind of reboot scenario became necessary. Without it there would be no ability to create any sort of sense of peril to the characters or indeed peril to the ship, the Federation and so on. This is a major reason that prequels strongly tend towards having major problems.

Also, lest we forget the last Prime Universe entries were pretty horrid in their own rights. Nemesis and Enterprise managed to kill off the entire Trek franchise outside of fanfic. Nemesis was a financial disaster for Paramount as it only made 67 million against a production budget of 60 million which when marketing costs were added totalled over 100 million. And as a movie it was terrible dreck.

Enterprise started off okay (sort of) but got progressively worse and the Xindi arc was insulting to both the characters and the fans. The final season was pure fanservice trying to shoehorn the series back into canon and the series finale was insulting to everyone.

 

[Gatefan1976]

Ya know what Joe.
The only season I liked out of ENT was 3. I had already given up on trying to see ENT as anything that could possibly predate TOS in any form of consistent coherency, but S3 with the Xindi was probably the best written of all the 4 seasons.
As long as you forget the fact that it is supposed to be a "trek series", it's actually not that bad.

 

[pakar]

The Prime universe is PERFECT. It is complete, we even have a galactic map which has been shared by all of the series which shows the Federation and non-Federation planets in the Alpha Quadrant. We have established species which are instantly recognizable. Ship design elements are identifiable for each species, as are clothing styles. We even know the cultures. The technology trees are different for each species, etc. You cant do that with NuTrek. The only Trek universe which can serve as a platform for a new TV series would be the Prime universe.

I agree completely!! give me back my star trek! the one i loved for the past 35 years!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Gate_Boarder]

I agree completely!! give me back my star trek! the one i loved for the past 35 years!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'll give you the one from 35 years back, and take the one from 50 years ago. Sci-fi at its beginning; phasors and anti-matter chambers. Kirk sometimes got the girl. Spock always came up with the answers. It was totally fun and you knew there was always something dead ahead and really angry.