Star Trek Into darkness

Freaking brilliant!
Hope these films make kids want to get to Space!

Rob

I saw Oblivion last night (which is quite good!) and they showed the Star Trek: Into Darkness trailer. It looks great! I really enjoyed the last Star Trek film, so I'm looking forward to more . Seems like it won't be out here until June though, so a bit of a wait still.

Well it was really entertaining. I love how they are "rebooting" the series, and while I'm sure some will disagree, I love the whole "alternate timeline" approach, where they (the directors and producers) are free to pick known elements of the old storyline, and reintroduce them with a twist (also reminds me of those Stargate episodes where they played with the multiple alternative universes concept, where other Versions of Stargate command were basically the same, beside the fact that the just weren't )

I also quite like the new cast of the enterprise crew

The only grain of salt for me is the fact that the new films seem to go away from the older Star Trek philosophy of trying to explain all the tech in an at least somehow plausible way. The new films tend to ignore physics and logic whenever it helps to gap wholes in the plot

Sign of the times. Despite all the hype about kids these days being connected and computer savvy, tech is still difficult and uncool, and the only reason the kids seem good is that personal computers (i.e. cell phones) have become very very easy to use. And the older generation is keeping up just fine mostly. Meanwhile none of them have any idea how the technology they're using works, they're wizards, not engineers. And they have no idea how much their daily computing experience is controlled by others. The Earth Sciences students in my introduction to programming class continue to find the basic data manipulation things I'm teaching them very difficult, and aren't shy about telling me that they've never been good with computers, and that it's simply not for them. While updating their Facebook profiles...

Anyway, TNG had a lot of technobabble but it never really did make much sense either. It was better than Star Wars, for sure, but that's fantasy and a very low bar to clear. Of course, science education was already on the way out in the 90's. But then, maybe TOS had a lot of hocus pocus as well. Personally, I was quite a big fan of TNG, but after that I haven't really followed Star Trek much. I must say that the new movies have rekindled my interest though. I'll probably never be a hardcore fan, but Star Trek was probably the most enjoyable Trek movie so far (and the nod to "Star Wreck: in the Pirkinning" was sooooo awesome), I just had so much fun watching it (and so did the rest of the cinema!). If this new one is more of the same solid entertainment, then I'm all for it, even without technobabble.

Yeah, it is scary how disconnected people are becoming from the basics of technology. Its becoming abstract to them. They are just "users", even the people who are "programmers". In that sense, Star Trek predicted reality pretty accurately, computers become so ubiquitous that they become invisible. That or they didn't have enough money in the prop budget.

I don't really like the reboots (no surprise eh?). Asides from the fact that they seemed to intentionally ignore ST "canon" and the universe only bears a vague resemblance, story seems to have taken a back seat to action and CG effects.
But then I've thought most of the ST movies were rather weak too.

So I've been out of the discussion loop for several days while I worked on final projects and papers at school, and what happens when I come back to the forum? I find my fellow space science enthusiasts blabbering on about some sort of pop-culture science fiction nonsense?

I LOVE IT! Great comments, people, and I say that as a Trekker of more than 30 years.

I've had a love-hate relationship with the franchise since at least the early '80s, but I always hold out hope that THIS TIME they're going to fix the problems and get it right. And somehow they always find a way to exceed my expectations in one way while letting me down in another. Oh well, I guess that's what makes Star Trek so special.

After all, if I wanted pure entertainment without all the quirks and glitches I'd Netflix a few episodes of my favorite Stargate spinoff and call it good.

Having had a few days to think about the film I think I like it more.

I really felt in the film, probable the most I have felt before. The 3d really gave depth and the sound was a stroke of brilliance, really added a new dimension to it! Completely submersed in everything it gave.

I went home and watched Wrath Of Kahn again having loved it as a kid... oddly I found it very lacklustre after the "Largeness" of the new one. It was non stop pew pew pew doof doof bang bang peeeowwwmmm.

Laughed at a review though where the guy said he things they wanted a huge "I am Kahn" moment but all the non trekky people just didnt get it and all the real fans just thought "No you arent" hahahaha

Watched it and enjoyed it. As a geek and non-trekkie, I have some small gripes about it:

The story was a bit weird.
Some of the science was awful.
Khan was a good villain, but the name Khan is just too cliche.