First Star Trek XI Trailer

Well, we know all about Gamma Ray bursts so perhaps Spock could have failed when attempting to protect Romulus from one of those? Nah - we can't expect logic, even from Vulcans!
 
Also, can anyone explain to me why the Enterprise engine room looked like the inside of a plumbing factory?
It was actually the Annheiser Bush beer factory. Seriously.

I could buy all the pipes, etc. But there was WAAAAY too much room. It should have looked like the inside of a submarine or a marine ship's engine room, in that there just isn't room to waste on empty space.
 
It was actually the Annheiser Bush beer factory. Seriously.

I could buy all the pipes, etc. But there was WAAAAY too much room. It should have looked like the inside of a submarine or a marine ship's engine room, in that there just isn't room to waste on empty space.

The Enterprise must have a similar amount of internal space to a Nimitz class aircraft carriers of today so I don't see why the engine room would have to be particularly cramped. Personally I really liked the new look. It added an element of gritty realism.
 
As Russ says, there surely shouldn't be that much room inside a spaceship. In fact, when you first see a shuttle flying into the rear hold as they are 'scrambling' to get to Vulcan, the scale seemed to be way, way out of whack. Possibly a lack of thought in the CGI department because I reckon that shuttle must have been several times too big.

However, I particularly enjoyed the Willy Wonka-style water ride which Scotty had a go on. Every interstellar spaceship should have one. :)
 
In fact, when you first see a shuttle flying into the rear hold as they are 'scrambling' to get to Vulcan, the scale seemed to be way, way out of whack. Possibly a lack of thought in the CGI department because I reckon that shuttle must have been several times too big.

That was a problem in all of Star Trek shows actually. Evey shuttle or runabout was very large in relation to the Enterprise, DS9 etc... It always buged me.:smile:
 
After the reviews of Transformers 1 and this Movie I'm feeling like most sci-fi fans in the world have no standards left ... if the effects are good and at least half the scenes are decent it doesn't matter how much the rest of the movie sucks, it will still be called a masterpiece. Have some standards people, there is no excuse for the plotholes ... it's an even mix between decent and dime level writing in a movie costing hundreds of millions of dollars, JJ Abrams should be flogged for each and every one of the huge screw ups. How can this level of amateurism be accepted in writing and little else? The actors did their job (as good as possible, no actor could have made the elevator scene or the cheery "blow em up boys" ending believable) the writers failed.


I believe George Lucas lowered the bar significantly with the recent Star Wars trilogy. Other directors see they need no longer try and will still bring in megabucks.

I now wish I wasn't going to see it tomorrow.
 
I don't consider this movie science fiction. Star Wars isn't either.

Science fiction is not content, it is a a method to tackle any subject matter or theme. It's a method used to get to the characteristics of a situation, the essentials of a problem, and the portrayal doesn't have to be entirely realistic, thus the maker can explore the situation or problem without having to emphasise or even care about every-day matters of course.
 
Dont you know that this is a special type of Supernova that threatens the whole Galaxy, nay the whole UNIVERSE! ZOMG!!!

You see most supernovae just explode releasing high levels of energy that damages the immediate vicinity or anyone in the path of the gamma radiation bursts.. should the supernova develop that way. Then, well kaput - energy expended, done and dusted - Universe back to normal service.

BUT NO.... this supernova gains power as it consumes other masses so it is gonna inevitably swallow the whole Universe up.

See... makes perfect sense now doesn't it? ;)

(Above is from Star Trek Countdown which is a prequel to the movie in comic book form. Don't bother with it though since it is a complete waste of your time and money).

Just finished reading the comic and I think it suffers from the typical comic style over the top fantasy stories that rely little on actual science. So to try and include it as part of the Star Trek cannon is quite a challenge.

The following spoiler relates to the comics story so if you plan on reading it, best to avoid this:

The star was not Romuls's star but a seperate one near by (Hobus). The idea of making this a supernova that gains power as it expands was completely dumb, real science gives a far more plausable possibility in that the effects of a supernova are very far ranging anyway. Since Vulcan and Romulan are relatively close to each other in Galactic terms, it makes sense that both planets would be threatened by a Supernova in the vicinity of Romulas.

Some artistic licence could have been taken to say that the subspace shock wave of supernova would destablise the already iffy Romulan star causing it to Nova as well - hence you still get to see Romulas torn apart soon after the Hobus star supernova's with the danger to Vulcan to hit later down the line. All pefectly plausable from a trek science point of view.

Then its simply a matter of how soon you can turn Hobus into a black hole which in turn has an effect on its subspace shock wave. Is it soon enough that the wave doesn't reach Romulas, or is it a bit late for Romulas but still soon enough to prevent it reaching Vulcan? There's no reason for it to destroy Vulan completely, merely have a minor effect on either Vulcam star or the planets atmoshphere that would render the planet unihabitable.

To add to that, a simple mention of the Jelly fishes (Spock future ship) ability to temporarily shift out of phase so that it can pass through theHobus blast wave to release the red matter.

As for the Romulans motives, I don't see any issue there, the Comic explains that aspect pretty well. It also introduces a believable, if rather"deus ex machina" solution as to why the Nerada is so powerful (potentially powerful enough to evade or overcome planerary defense grids).

I think the comic is worth reading, although if you can borrow it you will probably be better off. Its an hours read at most.
 
Puh-leese, since when is science fiction suposed to be scientifically correct? It's just an all-encompassing term for anything involving space travel, aliens etc.
 
Puh-leese, since when is science fiction suposed to be scientifically correct? It's just an all-encompassing term for anything involving space travel, aliens etc.
It isn't and shouldn't be.

Aldous Huxley's Brave New World is science fiction, and it is good science fiction. There's no space travel and no aliens.

The Minority Report is science fiction. No aliens, no space craft.

Children of Men is good science fiction.

I would actually classify Ludvig Holberg's Niels Klim's Underground Travels from 1741 as science fiction.

Space opera is not necessarily science fiction.
 
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I think the big problem is that a lot of movies/tv lay down ground rules for a fantasy/sci-fi universe, and then they don't stick to them. We can accept when Arnie tells us they can only send back things covered in living tissue, but then the TX and T-1000 are metal that can just mimic flesh. How many times have we seen Trek do an episode where you think "they could fix that easily if they just use the transporters in exactly the same way they did in last week's episode"?

It doesn't take much thought to make things a little consistent, to stick with the rules you've laid down, to have reasons why the characters can't do the obvious (eg time travel uses exponential amounts of energy the further back you try to travel, so we can't go back and kill Sarah Connors grandmother as it would take the energy output of the sun for a million years, etc). I guess either scriptwriters are too dumb or think their audience is, and the likes of Trek was always very fast and loose with the rules.

Some of the other shows (like Stargate, Atlantis, B5, Firefly, etc) at least tried to be more consistent with their approach to their own ground rules.
 
To be honest, I think that most of the modern Space opera style books, (notably from Reynolds, Hamilton and Asher) would simply be too dense for a film as they run to hundreds and hundreds of pages and have such convoluted storylines. It is no surprise that many of the successful SF films are based on books by Philip K. Dick as his books were rather slender tomes, as was typical in the era when they were written.

In fact, I'd say that Century Rain would be even more dense than most of the other books by Reynolds!

A well-funded mini-series on the other hand could be very good but there would seem to be little chance of that happening despite some of the dross which does get commissioned.

I'd love to see such an adaptation of an Ian M. Banks book - Consider Phlebas or The Player of Games, perhaps? Not gonna happen though, unfortunately.
 
It doesn't take much thought to make things a little consistent, to stick with the rules you've laid down, to have reasons why the characters can't do the obvious (eg time travel uses exponential amounts of energy the further back you try to travel, so we can't go back and kill Sarah Connors grandmother as it would take the energy output of the sun for a million years, etc). I guess either scriptwriters are too dumb or think their audience is, and the likes of Trek was always very fast and loose with the rules.

I think you're being a bit harsh. In Star Trek or Star Wars, if you encounter an electronically locked door, you shoot it with your blaster/phaser and the door opens. If it is unlocked and you want to lock it, you shoot it with your blaster/phaser.

Where's the inconsistency there? ;)
 
To be honest, I think that most of the modern Space opera style books, (notably from Reynolds, Hamilton and Asher) would simply be too dense for a film as they run to hundreds and hundreds of pages and have such convoluted storylines. It is no surprise that many of the successful SF films are based on books by Philip K. Dick as his books were rather slender tomes, as was typical in the era when they were written.

Yeah, there's just way too much in most good SF books today. You could make adaptations, but you'd have to cut a lot of stuff out, or maybe go for a serial/mini-series. I'd rather see my favourite books left un-filmed if Hollywood is going to gut what makes them special in the first place.

You're talking about wanting books remade into movies because the books are dense, complex, and more complete in every way than the dross Hollywood turns out, but those are their first things that would get cut in studio efforts to make things simpler, cheaper, easier to understand for the dumb masses. The execs just want to get more bums on seats, and that's all.
 
Some of the other shows (like Stargate, Atlantis, B5, Firefly, etc) at least tried to be more consistent with their approach to their own ground rules.

Stargate and Atlantis especially are full of inconsistencies. Definatly no better than Star Trek.

The thing with Trek is that through to DS9, it was pretty consistent. Its since then that its gone down hill on that front (and most other respects).

But considering its probably had more episodes than those other series combined, a lack of inconsistency can be expcted up to a point. Of course some inconsitencies are purely down to lazy writing and should not be forgiven - dark matter astroid belts and "evolving" into lizards when you travel at Warp 10 being a couple of Voyagers obvious missteps but I can think of many more.
 
It isn't and shouldn't be.

Aldous Huxley's Brave New World is science fiction, and it is good science fiction. There's no space travel and no aliens
...
Space opera is not necessarily science fiction.

You missed the "etc." above? ;) Insert any tech-, future/past/time travel or space-related mumbo-jumbo there.
 
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