Comment Stream

Re: Star Trek (2009)

Chrome

"Wow, that's a vitriol-filled comment. Hey, you don't like the movie. Great."

Sure, I don't, but you did enjoyed it. The difference is that I have some rational reasons to dislike it. :)

Re: Star Trek (2009)

Chrome... Sorry, your explanations make no sense. You said:

"But that isn't the point, he lost his home and his timeline. Even if he saved Romulus in the new timeline, he had no method to go back and see it in his time."

Firstly; how mere miner know about intricacies of quantum mechanics of time travel, how does he know that this isn't his timeline? BTW, this isn't he way time travel worked before in "Star Trek". Secondly; even if he knows, then he have no reason to presume that Nimoy-Spock would give a damn, about this Vulcan - after all this wasn't Nimoy-Spock's planet, so why would he care about it? And why would captain Emo - or whatever he was called - attacked Earth and Federation, if this isn't his Federation and those people have nothing to do with his timeline? Sorry, no matter how you slice it, captain Emo is still an idiot, and his motivations make no sense!

"As for holding a grudge for 25 years, it's entirely plausible and not unthinkable in fiction. Edmond Dantes (The Count of Monte Cristo) waited at least 14 years before exacting his revenge."

Please, don't compare "The Count of Monte Cristo" to infantile works of Orci&Kurtzman, OK? Dantes was betrayed by his best friend, so it's understandable that he wanted revenge. Captain Emo have, no reason to punish Spock for what he did, because Spock wasn't responsible destruction of Romulus, neither destruction of alternate-timeline Vulcan, shouldn't bother Nimoy-Spock in in the slightest, since this isn't his Vulcan after all. So, no captain Emo still sucks - both as a villain, and as a character.

"Also, what's wrong with reusing the Romulans? The original Star Trek movies were almost always one-dimensional Klingon stories."

No, the problem isn't that he's one-dimensional, the problem is that he is an idiot and everything he does is idiotic!

"Revenge is a dish best served cold."

Revenge for what? For wanting to help?

"But that didn't matter, because the focus of the movies were on the clever teamwork of the Enterprise crew. As is the case in this film."

Except, Enterprise crew wasn't much better in this movie, either. Captain Jerk; stereotypical and annoying, rebel without a cause. Mr. Spooky; basically, bipolar psychopath, who always go into rage, whenever someone told, something bad about his mommy. Toyota Homura or whatever her name was; one-dimensional, love interest for Mr. Spooky, but why she is in love with him, I don't know - guy is equally charming as mixture of emotionless Robbie the Robot, and psychotic Norman Bates. Besides that, she likes to drink, and tell vulgar jokes about sex with farm animals - that's her character in in a nutshell. Great cast of characters, indeed!

Re: Star Trek (2009)

This is the the worst written movie I've ever seen in my life - and I'm not joking or exaggerating: script was TERRIBLE. I didn't expect much from "Bayformers" guys, but this... you actually must try hard to write something so bad. Is like they made a wager with someone, that they will write worst script imaginable, and people will still see it...

Look, I could complain endlessly about paper thin plot, idiotic story that was full of plot holes and clichés, about turning Enterprise's crew into one dimensional caricatures and irritating archetypes, I could complain about vulgar jokes, about incredibly bad science, about too much action, about sacrificing old timeline and abut lack of any kind of thought provoking theme... But all I have to do, to prove that this movie is bad is to talk about the villain...

Wow, this character is the worst written movie bad guy I've ever seen - and again I'm not joking or exaggerating. Not only he is a carbon copy of Shinzon from "Nemesis" - a bold, Romulan, psychotic miner with Über-ship and with super-duper technology, who want to destroy the Earth, because he hold a grudge against one of the Enterprise crew member - but he is also most idiotic person I've ever seen. So, his entire motivation is: he want to destroy the Federation because he want to take revenge on Spock. News flash, Nero, you idiot! Spock didn't do anything bad, in fact he was the only person who wanted to help you, and you are punishing him for this? Why??? I guess no good deed goes unpunished... Instead let's put a blame on people really responsible for tragedy of Romulus; on you Nero! I mean you knew that planet was in danger, clearly you had gigantic spaceship on your disposal; you tell me that you couldn't take some of your people on board, not even your pregnant wife? Instead you decided to put your faith in hundred year old man, to save your entire planet? Because nothing can go wrong with this plan, right? Nero crealy was a genius... But it's gets even better! So, thanks to grandpa-Spock, Nero traveled back in time, to times long before destruction of Romulus. So, naturally he is grateful that Spock give him this second chance to save his planet, right? And he clearly have no reason to hold a grudge against Spock since Romulus destruction didn't happened yet, right? Wrong! Only now he become vengeful! Even though he had all the time in the world, he didn't once try to warn his home-planet about impending doom, neither he tried to prevent Romulus destruction... Instead he spend quarter of century planning he's unnecessary vengeance against innocent man. What a genius! And Orci and Kurtzman, people who created him must be even smarter! ;) $tar trek 2009: "tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

Re: TNG S6: Man of the People

And once again, I have to respectfully disagree with Jammer - it was a good episode. A little bit silly at parts, but overall it provides, an interesting moral dilemma: it discusses utilitarianism, in a new, interesting light - I don't recall if "Star Trek" ever did that before, it was always pro-utilitarian, not against, like it is here. And it's definitely the most interesting thing about this episode.

"It's made no better by the fact that Alkar attempts to justify it with an ends-versus-means speech that's a completely obvious straw-man argument."

How is this a straw-man? Quite the contrary, it's logical consequence of Spock's utilitarianism - remember, this whole: "needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one?". By Spock's standards Alkar is right! Hell, I don't know if he is not right?! Philosophers discussed this problem for centuries - whole kantian vs. utilitarian ethics - so this is not trivial episode at all...

Re: TNG S7: Inheritance

I'm really surprised that this episode got 3 out of 4 stars. I'm not hating it, but I would say it is just average at best, it was just OK, nothing more nothing less. Entire plot point of Juliana "Mother of Data", is a little bit contrived, and it's dangerously close to being a retcon, or even an asspull. That would be fine, if story itself was fascinating but it really wans't. Don't get me wrong - I'm all for character drama and exploring the human condition, but I wasn't terribly engaged in a drama of Juliana, which we just met, and which we won't see ever again. Yes, actress who played her was really superb, and she got few good, emotional scenes, but on the whole, I don't see how her character has changed or grown? I also don't think that I learned hell a lot about Data's character. Yes, now we know a litte bit more about his "childhood", and in the end he decided to, lie to Juliana, which is unusual for him and that could be seen as subtle character development, but other than that... what are the consequences of this story? And I think that this is main problem with "Inheritance"; is so goddamn inconsequential!

You see, main problem with this story comes from the fact that truth about Juliana was revealed way too late! It should be the main focus of this story, but as it is, it's just an afterthought. Think about it: if Juliana's memories were transferred into an android, then is she this same person as she was as a human, or is she just an artificial simulation of dr Tainer? In other words: is person transferred into a robot, still a person? If your were inside a robot, would you be still YOU? And if you can transferre human consciousness into machine, then what are the consequences for human mortality - are humans now immortal? Those are very cyberpunk-y themes, very reminiscing of "Ghost in the shell" and such - and they are almost completely wasted! And what about Data's dilemma? Should he tell dr Tainer, the truth or should he lie to her - what is the ethical thing to do? What about dr Tainer's husband, who seems to don't like or at least, don't trust artificial lifeforms - how he would react? And what about Juliana herself? If there wasn't deus ex machina program in her positronic brain that would terminate her as soon as she learn the truth - Q forbids, that she would have any character arc! - how would she react? You see - that's interesting and thought provoking questions, but we barely have a time to explore them. So , I don't understand why Juliana's plot twist come so late? Wasted opportunity...

Re: TNG S5: Silicon Avatar

"Fair enough, but we're not talking about shellfish being consumed in mass quantities; we're talking about people's lives and entire M-class worlds being laid to waste. At some point, a line must be drawn. The episode acknowledges this question without quite dealing with it."

This is the same argumentation that dr. Marr used in this episode. I understand why she want CE to be destroyed - typical captain Ahab's thinking - but I don't get why some viewers agree with her? After all Picard is ready to kill the creature, if this will be necessary but he want to try to communicate first and try to find find alternative solution. Whats wrong with that? Is this is not what Trek is all about - seeking new life forms and finding common language with them?

Re: TNG S5: Ethics

"The notion of a Klingon warrior seeing honor in assisted suicide seems fairly absurd to me, especially since there are conventional treatment options that would give back Worf as much as 60 percent of his mobility."

One, thing that really irritates me about those reviews is this arrogant anthropocentrism: "Of course is a silly custom, because we humans automatically know what's objectively wrong and right!" This same happened when Jammer was talking about "TNG Half a life" when he automatically said that Kaelon's custom is obviously stupid, without even considering why it even existed in the first place. If aliens exists, they are culturally different that us - do we have the right to judge them by human standards? And both episodes were, essentially about euthanasia. That's what klingon custom stands for; it's just an excuse to talk about this difficult issue. It's all about human dignity, wellbeing and utilitarianism as well. Worf never would be happy knowing that he is not what he used to be, as well he would undoubtedly think that he is useless and, that he is burden for others - even if this wouldn't be entirely true. Now, do we have moral right to take away Worf's freedom to choose and force him to live unhappy life, because we don't like his point of view? What I like about this episode is that all all parties involved - Worf, Crusher, dr Russell, Riker - have good arguments to support their position and writers of "Ethics" didn't forced you to agree with any of them - they allowed us to draw your own conclusions, and that's why it's one of the best TNG episodes.

Re: TNG S3: Who Watches the Watchers

"One man speaking secondhand nonsense cannot change the world."

What about Christ, Mahomet, Buddha etc.? Religions often times started as teaching of a one man, who have ridiculous, supernatural claims. Unfortunately people believe them- and that's how all those "inquisitions, chaos or holy wars," mentioned by Jean-Luc, started in the first place. Yes, this episode - like most of "Star Trek" - is promoting atheist point of view so naturally religious people can be offended by it. Too bad I say, because there is nothing untrue about Picard's view on religion. In fact, this episode quite convincingly describes how religions could come to be. And unlike "TNG The Devil's due" it take itself seriously and it's even more friendly towards religious people, since it doesn't suggests that religions are simply work of a con artist, instead it suggests that it is a simple matter of misunderstanding and people's ignorance and naivete. There is no ill will in "Who Watches the Watchers".

"The episode is extremely simplistic in suggesting that religious belief will automatically send them back into the dark ages."

Funny, that beginning of secularism and enlightenment movements which diminished role of Church and rejected religious dogma, was the beginning of unprecedented, technological and social progress...