First Official Photos From New Star Trek Movie 410
Philias Fog writes "The most secret project in Hollywood is finally lifting its skirt. Today Paramount released a number of images for their new Star Trek movie directed by JJ Abrams. Shots include images of the bridge of the Enterprise, the villain Nero, a ship (not the Enterprise) and all of the crew in uniform. TrekMovie.com has a complete set of photos and links to all the new shots."
Is it just me... (Score:3, Interesting)
Isn't that why they chose Trek? (Score:5, Interesting)
To get the fans who MUST watch everything under that name ... because they fell in love with something in a previous series / movie / cartoon / book?
So why complain when those same fans complain that X doesn't match the way it was depicted in Y?
If the movie is good enough on its own, then the complaints will be minor nit-picks.
Those uniforms (Score:4, Interesting)
ST:NG had good uniforms. All the uniforms looks like joggin suits on those shots. No style, no correct tags and rankings etc.
Check out the Star-Trek Next Generation season 5-6 uniforms what example a Jean-Luc Picard had.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Luc_Picard [wikipedia.org]
Pike/Spock Retcon (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Wait... is this an even or odd number Trek? (Score:3, Interesting)
Well this pretty much tossed cannon out the window. As well any form of realism. A bunch of friends at the academy then they all get split up for about a decade as they advance in ranks on their own missions. Then they all happen to go back to the same ship.
I find it kinda hard to swallow that Sulu took an additional 25 years to rank captain. Being that he was in the same inner circle, as Captain Kirk and friends.
Why!?! (Score:4, Interesting)
Star Trek New Voyages (Score:2, Interesting)
Flogging a dead, buried, exhumed, reanimated horse (Score:2, Interesting)
The ship looks way too modern to be anything like something which is actually meant to be *older* technology than what we saw in the 60s. The casting is also terrible; the actors don't look anything like the originals at all.
Star Trek is dead. It died with First Contact. People need to accept that and move on, as do the profiteers responsible for this turkey.
Re:Nothing good acting can't fix. (Score:3, Interesting)
My wife and I struggle with that all the damned time. I keep wanting to see him as a pretty boy whiner kid, but like you said, he keeps doing things like that. I eventually forgot that it was him in Blood Diamond. He's a good actor, as much as I hate to admit it.
Re:no comment (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:no comment (Score:5, Interesting)
Too young, huh? Here goes. I'm an ex submariner. As near to a futuristic, fully-operational spaceship as we're likely to see in our lifetime is a naval submarine.
The CO (That's "Commanding Officer") of our boat was a late thirty to a forty-something. An early forty-something. The remaining officers were (junior) sub thirties - One as young as 25. Ranking officers in US submarines tend to be younger than their surface fleet counterparts. Submariners are also a heck of a lot smarter. As a matter of fact, submarines are not run quite like surface fleet ships. Knowledge tends to drive submariners - not rank, so much. I've told junior to mid-ranking officers to go eff themselves after they've issued me a command to do something that they didn't realize would have disastrous consequences. When they complained, the senior officers told them to shut it, lest the rest of the crew loose more respect for that officer because of their lack of knowledge.
Here's another little thing: My first CO and XO (Late 30s to early 40 (sub-43)) were the most charismatic leaders I've ever worked under. I would have followed them to the bottom of the sea. My next CO/XO combo (early 50s/late 40s) were, IMHO, more concerned with book-keeping. It was a very unhappy three years for the entire crew under the command of those asshats. Several ranking CPOs lost the ability to advance because of bad fit-reps these two shitheads issued - our COB committed suicide on board our boat for Christ's sake. The 'official' report said the command had nothing to do with it. Sure, right. I don't believe anyone believed it. The next CO I didn't stick around long enough to get to know.
So, as for being too young? Not buying it. There are many ranking officers that are much younger than their ranking CPOs (high ranking enlisted) on board. Subsequently, junior officers are much younger than the Chief's on-board.
Re:no comment (Score:2, Interesting)
I can't remember the formula, but I believe there is one that would give you a rate of transfer (and/or time taken) for the air to move from the Enterprise to space given some parameters; the pressure differential from inside to outside, the size of the hole, and some metric of the gas escaping (atomic weight; density? I've long since forgotten.)
Of course, as the gas escapes the pressure changes so there'd be some calculus involved.
Re:no comment (Score:3, Interesting)
Just a quick search with google, and the youngest US Navy Captain I can find was 27, while the Royal Navy's youngest was 29.
Presumably Starfleet is an extension of current navies, so late twenties is not so strange. And IIRC, Kirk was supposed to be some kind of prodigy.
Re:Wait... is this an even or odd number Trek? (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem I have (with any series) is when the writers get lazy. Many times I thought this of TNG when almost every problem could be solved by more power, creating some new exotic particle beam and Data remarking "it is possible, in theory". Phoning it in gets old fast.
I thought the original series was more character-oriented in its drama, but then there were only 80 episodes compared to the 178 of TNG - and 176 (DN9), 172 (VOY). Hell Enterprise only had 98, but was getting tired.
I'm sure this says something about either the writers of different generations, or the generations themselves -- or me [ I seem to like fewer and fewer kids on my lawn these days :-) ]
Re:Actually a very long time - 11.3 days (Score:4, Interesting)
I know rabid trekkies will correct all this
I wasn't going to, but now I can't resist.
a Constitution class starship is 305 meters long
Well, after the refit, the Enterprise became 305 meters long. However, the refit happened after the 5-year mission, so this Enterprise is 289 meters long.
Let's just guess that it's 120 meters wide
That's probably overestimating quite a bit. Sounds about right for the saucer section, but the engineering section isn't anywhere near as wide.
and an average of 20 meters thick
Well, the ship has 24 decks, but it's not a cube. Actually, that's really the biggest problem with your estimate there. You'd arrive at a much closer volume if you divided the ship up between saucer, nacelles, and engineering hulls. Then sum them up.
but it's not important to be all that accurate
Blasphemy! I have to head to work right now, but I somebody else should take my recommendation and get on that.
The rest of your calculations seem pretty good, though :)
Re:Wait... is this an even or odd number Trek? (Score:3, Interesting)
> No one's making the next Alien,
Wasn't there one a year or two ago? The Aliens were in a ship run by the Predators, which crashed in Colorado?
> the next Blade Runner,
That would be the next movie based on something by Philip K. Dick (hopefully with actors, rather than tracings of them, this time).
> the next Firefly.
Go rent or buy a copy of Serenity. Better, buy 50-100 million copies, and pretty much guarantee that there will be another movie, even if River and Jayne have to make only cameos.
> but as a sci-fi fan there's a part of me that's discouraged to see us mining 1966 for ideas.
As opposed to mining the 19th century? The episode fighting the Planet Destroyer was Moby Dick, for instance. I have read theses claiming that all (written) Sci-Fi is 19th century literature, being the Literature Of Ideas, vs. the 20th century Literature Of Character And Consciousness.
Anyway, all literature mines ideas from the Neolithic, if not the Paleolithic. Aliens could have been about hunting a cave bear in their own cave network, for instance.
Re:no comment (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, this is what is known as a "movie", bpjk. So I guess the more pertinent question is "are they all capable actors?" Anything is possible in a movie...
See, people throw this bullshit argument out all the time, but it's not some universal excuse that makes everything OK. Cultivating suspension of disbelief is not a trivial task. When writing a decent script taking place in any sort of fantasy world, a careful balance must be struck between the made-up shit and the realistic. What makes such TV and movies good is a solid, believable character interaction, and an internally consistent plot. It may take place in a fictional world, but if it has humans in it, they better damn well act like humans. No amount of "hey, it's just a movie" erases the fact that no responsible human would ever put a starship under the command of a bunch of kids! You can put all sorts of whiz-bang outlandish gizmos in their hand that shoot this imaginary particle, or that made-up energy beam and I'll go for it. But ask me to accept that this is the well-defined Star Trek universe, only for some reason they briefly decided "youth == wisdom" during the period portrayed in the movie, and I'm gonna call bullshit.
Sure, there are plenty of people who will watch and accept any vapid trash you throw up on the screen, so long as it has explosions, boobies, and (most importantly) a twist ending. A lot of people watch Lost, Fringe, used to watch Alias, and actually went to see Mission Impossible 3. This just shows that there's a ready market to make a quick buck distracting folks for 47 minutes (or longer). Do you think any of those abysmal JJ Abrams stool samples will be selling heavily on [DVD|BluRay|*] in 20 years? Highly doubtful.
Re:Looking at the pictures.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:no comment (Score:3, Interesting)
Look at some pictures of famous people in their late-20s and early-30s from two hundred years ago. They look like they're in their forties or fifties, compared to our standards for today. It's not a stretch to imagine that, in the 23rd century, a 30 year old will resemble (to our eyes) a young adult (16 to 22).
Ref: Look at http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/Declaration_independence.jpg [wikimedia.org]. Notice how old Thomas Jefferson (tall figure in middle) looks. This painting is based on what he looked like 33, but he looks like an old man of 50.
Re:Actually a very long time - 11.3 days (Score:1, Interesting)
If they had any sense when designing a StarShip, the engineers would have used compartmentalization. (Modern navy ships do this, so I don't see why they'd suddenly forget this concept in the time Trek is supposed to take place.) That means the some subset of doors and bulkheads would be airtight, and any ventilation systems would also have blast shutters or pressure/fire traps. Thus in a damage control emergency, the problem can be isolated. Your problem wouldn't be how long it takes for the ship to empty, but rather how long it takes for the particular compartmentalized space you're in to do so.