Star Trek into Darkness

[Shiny]

As a person who isn't a fan of Star Wars or Star Trek, is this worth seeing? I did watch and like the first film though wasn't overly amazed by it.

[Freya]

It's a very good scifi movie and not really like the original Star Treks. JJ abrams said that's why he made them as actiony as they are. He was bored by the original Star Trek's so he wanted to re make them so people like him could enjoy them. If you enjoyed the first you'll enjoy this one. It's not omg best movie ever but it's a good watch at least!

[krissy]

yeah it was pretty good

it wasn't anastasia though

[theundeadhero]

I thought it was worth watching but nothing amazing. Seeing the shouts to older Star Trek stuff and the switching of character roles was fun but overall it's nothing I really want to see again anytime soon.

[Miriel]

As a person who isn't a fan of Star Wars or Star Trek, is this worth seeing? I did watch and like the first film though wasn't overly amazed by it.

I've never watched Star Trek or known much about it until the Abrams re-boot. And I really liked this movie. Better than the 1st one.

I thought the cast, aside from the blonde chick and robocop, were so perfect. Pine, Quinto, and Cumberbatch were all amazing and had such great chemistry with each other.

I really love Cumberbatch as an actor and he was just excellent here. So freakin' magnetic. I liked the complexity in his character. And I love that he always has a badass coat on.

I thought the story, the flow, the action, everything made for a great entertaining ride. The only downsides were really robocop. (SPOILER)Is this guy EVER a good guy? He's always the villain, it kinda sucked that as soon as I saw his character, I knew he was gonna be bad. And I really disliked what happened with San Francisco. I mean, c'mon, Earth really has NO defenses? Nothing to prevent or mitigate a gigantic star ship from crashing into a major city?!

[The Man]

It made perfect sense to me that San Francisco was so open to attack. Starfleet isn't a military organisation and they probably don't expect terrorist attacks.

[Miriel]

It makes ZERO sense.

Are you trying to say that in the future, with all this crazy ass technology, that earth does not have a defense mechanism for huge objects colliding into the earth???

Da smurf?

And who cares if Star Fleet is not a military organization, I assume that a military does exist in some form. Shouldn't someone have noticed at some point that there was a big ol' battle being waged just above the earth? And once one of the ships starting hurtling towards SF, shouldn't there have been something, anything, to prevent the crash landing or at least, mitigate the catastrophic damage? This is a futuristic society with god damn teleportation and intergalactic capabilities. And they have no shield or response with which to protect earth?

Makes sense my ass.

[The Man]

Quite possibly they didn't have such a system because before the events of this film they'd never been attacked in such a fashion (let's not forget that there appear to be no major safeguards preventing the terrorist attacks at the start of the film either). Not to mention that a system that prevents objects from entering the atmosphere wouldn't be able to distinguish between presumably benign objects and malicious objects. The Vengeance was a Starfleet vessel. Even if there was a system in place for preventing malicious objects from entering the Earth's atmosphere, there would be no reason for said system to reject the Vengeance. How would it know the Vengeance was being piloted by a madman intent on killing as many people as possible? Even if there were military defences, by the time it was apparent the Vengeance was going to crash into San Francisco, it would probably have been too late for them to respond.

[Miriel]

Dude, the ship wasn't being flown into earth, it was careening toward earth. When a ginormous thing is hurtling towards earth with seemingly no signs of stopping, there should be defensive mechanisms in place. I mean, what happens if a ship loses power or like the enterprise, it's been crippled and starts plummeting towards earth? They really have nothing planned for that kind of situation? That is just lousy planning. And again, MAKES ZERO SENSE.

Seriously, what are you even trying to argue right now?

So bizarre when people try and explain away plot holes as if there are really explanations. No. There is no explanation other than the fact that they wanted to make a huge ass action sequence.

[The Man]

Lousy planning is evident throughout the film. (SPOILER)For example, Starfleet gathers all its officers in one room and Kirk has to point out that they're sitting ducks for a terrorist attack - which, of course, immediately happens. There also don't appear to be any defences in place protecting the secret Section 31 installation, which is how Thomas Harewood was able to blow it up so easily. Seriously, you're singling out that one instance of lousy planning as bad writing? It's pretty obvious Starfleet don't have their trout together at all, and this is repeatedly shown throughout the film. It's perfectly in character that an organisation with so few safeguards protecting its own buildings and personnel wouldn't have one in place for large objects plummeting towards earth either. There seems to be a presiding attitude of either arrogance or complacency causing Starfleet not to prepare for attacks and accidents.

[Slothy]

Are you trying to say that in the future, with all this crazy ass technology, that earth does not have a defense mechanism for huge objects colliding into the earth???

They probably do, but stop and ask yourself what large objects they're going to be concerned about crashing into the Earth. Asteroids are the only likely scenario. Comets are a possibility but not nearly as probable since there aren't that many of them out there compared to asteroids. But what all of those have in common is that they're a lot easier to deal with the farther away from Earth they are. In fact, if you've waited until they fall from high Earth orbit to do something about them then it's already too late, even on Star Trek for the most part. I'll forgive you're not knowing since you say you aren't really a fan of Star Trek, but even in the 24th century in it's own continuity (over 100 years after this movie), things like shielding an entire planet or moving/destroying large asteroids are nearly impossible. Even shielding cities isn't really that reasonable.

So odds are any defensive ability to prevent things like asteroids colliding with the planet relies on using their sensors to track and deal with them when they're still millions of kilometers out. When you typically rely on a system like that, asking why they didn't do something about this is like asking why the military didn't shoot down a 747 over New York when some people in the streets just noticed it was a second or two away from hitting the World Trade Center.

And who cares if Star Fleet is not a military organization, I assume that a military does exist in some form. Shouldn't someone have noticed at some point that there was a big ol' battle being waged just above the earth?

There is no military. Starfleet serves as a defensive force in the event of attack or all out war, but their primary mission is exploration. You also need to realize that Earth itself is not very heavily defended, and is largely reliant on starships to protect it. Earth in Star Trek is nothing like Earth today. Yes, it is the center of Starfleet and the Federation government, but it's also quite deep in Federation space, and basically solved problems like poverty, war, most diseases, etc. at least a hundred years before the movie even takes place. Earth has been at peace a long time. They haven't been at war for quite some time, and terrorist attacks don't happen. So yes, their complacency seems quite reasonable to me.

This is a futuristic society with god damn teleportation and intergalactic capabilities. And they have no shield or response with which to protect earth?

Slight nitpick, but they have interstellar capabilities. They can't travel to other galaxies. Also, they can't teleport a starship, nor can they produce shields large enough to protect entire planets or cities.

I mean, what happens if a ship loses power or like the enterprise, it's been crippled and starts plummeting towards earth?

Why would they expect a ship to lose power that close to Earth or be crippled and plummet towards it? Like I said, attacks on Earth don't happen in this time period. You could argue that maybe they should be a little less complacent after what Nero did in the first movie, but that was an advanced ship from more than 100 years in the future that also happened to be destroyed, so they probably didn't anticipate something like that happening very often. There's literally no reason for a planet that hasn't been involved in a single war in over a century to believe that a ship will be crippled or lose power while in orbit. That really just doesn't happen.

And hell, even if a ship was in an actual orbit and lost power, it would simply continue in a decaying orbit until they could either get help or it burned up. There's no reason for them to think a ship will just show up, not take up a standard orbit, and suddenly be attacked or lose power.

[Miriel]

So bizarre when people try and explain away plot holes as if there are really explanations. No. There is no explanation other than the fact that they wanted to make a huge ass action sequence.

-_-

PS. I still think your explanations don't make sense. Complacency isn't even the issue. It's not about constant vigilance. It's about using your god damn eyes to see that something smurfed up is currently happening, and then using resources to prevent it from getting worse. I mean sheesh, all cars come with airbags. The idea that a super technologically advanced world doesn't have any kind of shield in place for earth's defenses is absurd and so desperately reaching.

And oh my god, it's not even a big thing guys. It was the one thing that bothered me in an otherwise great movie because collateral damage for the sake of big action sequences always bothers me (you shoulda seen my reaction to the latest Die Hard movie. John McClane causes a LOT of god damn deaths! Like, civilian deaths!!). I'm just amazed at the lengths people will go to cover up plot holes with explanations that even the filmmakers wouldn't even have come up with.

[Del Murder]

I think even in today's world we'd be aware of a battle going on in space right ouside of Earth's orbit. I mean, we have satellites and stuff.

[The Man]

Being aware of a battle outside Earth's orbit and having the resources to actually do something about it are two different matters entirely.

This is not a plot hole.

[Miriel]

Of course not, because it all makes perfect sense right?

Listen. This is what happened.

1) They wanted a big action sequence that was spectacular in scope to bring the movie to it's closure.
2) They needed to make Khan the ultimate bad guy. Killing off the enterprise wouldn't have done that, because even robocop was willing to do that. They needed to make him completely smurfing bad so show the depths of what Alternate Spock was talking about. So in order to do that, he needed to do something catastrophic against the people of earth.

So then you have the San Francisco sequence. The filmmakers weren't thinking about how much realistic sense it would make within the universe to have a gigantic star ship land on top of a city, with seemingly zero response from earth. They weren't thinking, "The history of earth up until this point explains why this-this-and-this."

It's ok guys, really. Movies are allowed to have contrivances to reach an end, and those contrivances don't need to be defended with all sorts of gibber gabber about how this totes makes sense because of whatever reason you want to try and force into the movie.

Good lord, everything I touch turns into a debate.

The Man and Vivi22. You two. All the time. God damn.