I actually swiped the idea from Larry Niven's novel Ringworld, set in the 2600s but written in 1970. At one point, Louis Wu is talking with a Pierson's puppeteer, whose voices (from its two necks) can reproduce almost any sound. The puppeteer asks Louis to hold on a moment while it thinks: "And then the puppeteer went off into Beethoven, or the Beatles, or something classical-sounding - for all Louis knew, he was making it up as he went along."
Interesting! That's definitely on my must-read list.
That butchered clip is one of my fav jokes from Futurama. Though, I'm not sure Beyond could pull off a joke like that without coming off contrived, after Guardians. The editing off the top of the trailer makes me cringe. I know it's typical for trailer directors to construct made-up exchanges, but that editing flows cut up. I wonder how the in-film scene will go.
Interesting... can't say I'm surprised by the response.
And though this has been beaten to death... why does everyone in Star Trek have to "defend" their level of fandom? Nick Meyer didn't give a TRIBBLE about Trek before TWOK...
Because one of the biggest complaints against Abrams was he wasn't a Trek fan
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"When [Idris] came in, he had a lot of [prospective] projects and when I talked to him about this character, it wasn’t about this or that it was about building or having a philosophy or point of view. And I like his character because his character is really challenging the way of the Federation’s philosophy and there are a lot of things that when I was growing up I wanted to see."
He’s a character that has a very distinct philosophy that’s very different.” He gives us a bit more insight into what might be at play:
I think it’s great to be a fan and I watch utopian San Francisco and go, oh wow, when you’re building this movie you think, they don’t have money, how do they live? How do they compete? And those are things that his character, in a way, has a very distinct and valid point of view.
Later in our discussion, he revealed more of the inspiration of the film’s plot, which gives us some clues about Krall:
It was just really embracing the idea that the Federation, what would happen if you were going on a five-year journey and you’re trying to also not only explore, but also maybe introduce other people to this way of thinking. What would that mean? What are the consequences to that? I mean, spreading a philosophy that you believe in that you think is great, are there gonna be any other points of views that’s gonna counter you? And I think that those are the things that I thought of as a kid. And also then as an adult when I watch Star Trek. And I think we got to kind of explore that a little bit.
I grew up and Star Trek has a very 1960s sensibility of who has the bigger ship usually wins, right? And if you look at it, the attack, these ships are 40 feet long. And but there’s like 4,000 of them. And so I think even in the way they’re being encountered and how people are coming is it’s you can’t help but, I mean, we live in a world that is ever evolving. And I think that that’s always made Star Trek sci-fi great is when you’re able to at least acknowledge what’s happening today.
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I think Wrath of Khan 2 aka Into Darkness was pretty good in the moral dilemmas it talked about, and its allegory on drone warfare.
But...its "drone strike" was actually the equivalent of a conventional naval bombardment (or alternatively cruise missiles, the use of which is not a strong moral dilemma at the moment). Press button to launch a munition across the breadth of KDF space without considering the fact that if that happened (in a self-consistent sci-fi universe) the target would inevitably die of old age before those warheads had reached even a fraction of the distance (they never said or gave any other indication that those torpedos had warp drive). What may have allowed some earnest social commentary about drone warfare (and let the first scenes have any narrative significance outside of "woosh, kapow, blam! Moving on...") is to have involved a Section 31 plot to use that interstellar transporter tech and actual drones to covertly eliminate threats to the Federation (plus anyone else who might have been standing nearby) which the Enterprise crew gets roped into using against Kahn (who in turn uses it against the Enterprise for the action scenes and climax).
Anyway, what was there was ham-fisted commentary at best and as with so many other things in that movie it was arbitrary. Once Kirk and friends decide to head to Qo'Nos themselves the drone plot completely evaporates away (as they could have just as easily been ordered to launch a covert infiltration mission in the first place) in favor of a much more wayward story about greater militarization (Cobra style, completely with implausibly large scale "secret" military bases) which was quite belligerent of and uninformed to how those broad movements generally get started in history. It doesn't take a view of society but it takes a caricature of it for the sake of making the easiest possible leaps between conveniently justified action scenes. Thus there isn't any coherent idea which could be taken as meaningful or thought provoking in Into Darkness. Its just providing a thin framework for a GI Joe/Transformers/TMNT style action movie, as those movies also tend to have in spite of the "just about explosions" label (there are narrative plots and small social connections involved in all those, just not very well developed ones which go largely ignored because few walk into those movies expecting something, however small, to be there. :P)
But one of the biggest mysteries in Star Trek is how so allegedly completely logical thinking beings even manage to create functioning and loving relationships, especially with humans that tend to expect emotional closeness.
I admit that Sarek and Amanda are the bigger mystery, and the movies haven't really gone in depth about how it works (and ID does most of it), but i think it at least gives hints on how it works.
I wouldn't say that's a mystery at all. You might want to look at "Journey to Babel" again or the other long-running plot thread to the last half of Enterprise. It's all there, mostly implied but it's there.
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"Ham-fisted commentary"? Sounds like classic Trek to me!
("Let This Be Your Last Battlefield", anyone?)
or
"A Private Little War"...where Kirk decides that since the Klingons are arming one side of a planet wide faction in a war...the Federation has no choice but to arm the other side...a very ham fisted commentary on the US involvement in Vietnam
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"Ham-fisted commentary"? Sounds like classic Trek to me!
("Let This Be Your Last Battlefield", anyone?)
Hamfisted even on ST's scale. There's a lot in voyager for example (ex. the Malon's first episode) which has all the subtly and grace in making a point as a Captain Planet propaganda poster (not that actually exists but its a good visual metaphor :P) but they can still make it coherently. Into Darkness, quite simply, doesn't know what its trying to say or really what issue its trying to deal with. It has no awareness of any real social phenomena. Take the difference between the issues surrounding drone strikes (ex. definitions for operational success) and cruise missiles or long distance naval shelling (which is actually what ID presented as questionable enough to warrant a character's resignation.) There some words from headlines and literally with a fist made out of ham Into Darkness strikes at the page, spreads things around, and calls it cinema.
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"Ham-fisted commentary"? Sounds like classic Trek to me!
("Let This Be Your Last Battlefield", anyone?)
Indeed, I think Gene was allergic to subtlety. Or maybe it was a Phobia? either way he made absolutely certain you got the point... one way or another.
"Ham-fisted commentary"? Sounds like classic Trek to me!
("Let This Be Your Last Battlefield", anyone?)
Hamfisted on any scale. There's a lot in voyager for example (ex. the Malon's first episode) which has all the subtly and grace in making a point as a Captain Planet propaganda poster (not that actually exists but its a good visual metaphor :P) but they can still make it coherently. Into Darkness, quite simply, doesn't know what its trying to say or really what issue its trying to deal with. It has no awareness of any real social phenomena. Take the difference between the issues surrounding drone strikes (ex. definitions for operational success) and cruise missiles or long distance naval shelling (which is actually what ID presented as questionable enough to warrant a character's resignation.) There some words from the headlines and literally with a fist made out of ham Into Darkness strikes at the page, spreads things around, and calls it cinema.
I didn't see STID as an allegory for drone strikes but more on the War on Terror. Khan's story follows very closely the terrorist story. Marcus uses him to fight (prepare to fight) the Klingons. He treats him wrong and he becomes a terrorist. Blows up a building...attacks a building with "military" leadership inside and then escapes to Kronos. The Enterprise is then sent to go kill him...via an illegal bombardment from afar.
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I didn't see STID as an allegory for drone strikes but more on the War on Terror. Khan's story follows very closely the terrorist story. Marcus uses him to fight (prepare to fight) the Klingons. He treats him wrong and he becomes a terrorist. Blows up a building...attacks a building with "military" leadership inside and then escapes to Kronos. The Enterprise is then sent to go kill him...via an illegal bombardment from afar.
...only if you don't understand the historical basis and recent development of the conflict (which is directed at the people who wrote the movie.)
In order to be an allegory for the War on Terror the villain should have been a Klingon warlord who is part of a deviant sect in Klingon society that section 31 decided to use in order to counter KDF aggression and undermine the influence of the Empire on the interstellar stage. That succeeds, but it sets this KDF commander up to develop and expand his interests up to the point where he's able to strike back at the Federation (given the huge ideological differences between this Klingon extremist and the FED that remain in spite of the brief cooperation) and in some way that has more symbolic value rather than a specific military objective.
Making it Kahn (and proceeding with the plot Into Darkness had) waters the reference down beyond all meaning (ie. to the point where its actively misleading and therefore for all intents and purposes has no specific relevance to issue in question.)
And that's not to get into the political issue in question but to illustrate just how badly this movie misses the mark (and why its difficult to give Beyond the benefit of the doubt.)
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I didn't see STID as an allegory for drone strikes but more on the War on Terror. Khan's story follows very closely the terrorist story. Marcus uses him to fight (prepare to fight) the Klingons. He treats him wrong and he becomes a terrorist. Blows up a building...attacks a building with "military" leadership inside and then escapes to Kronos. The Enterprise is then sent to go kill him...via an illegal bombardment from afar.
...only if you don't understand the historical basis and recent development of the conflict. In order to be an allegory for the War on Terror the villain should have been a Klingon warlord, part of a deviant sect in Klingon Society, that section 31 decided to use in order to counter KDF aggression and undermine the influence of the Empire on the interstellar stage. That succeeds, but it sets said KDF commander up to develop and expand his interests up to the point where he's able to strike back at the Federation (given the huge ideological differences between this Klingon extremist and the FED that still remain in spite of the brief cooperation.)
Making it Kahn waters the reference down beyond all meaning (ie. to the point where its actively misleading and therefore for all intents and purposes has no specific relevance to issue in question.)
it works if you consider The Klingons to be Russia, Khan to be Al Qaeda and The Federation the US
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it works if you consider The Klingons to be Russia, Khan to be Al Qaeda and The Federation the US
But as stated that doesn't actually work (KDF and FED do but definitely not Khan.) Consider Nemesis. You have a similar trifecta of dubious ally/implicit adversary faction (Romulus), a liberally minded hero faction (again FED), and a disenfranchised individual attempting to tear down the system (Shinzon, the Remans). Is that an allegory for the war on terror? No, because the details are non-specific to the historical events and issues that are at work behind the real-world conflict. Ditto Into Darkness. Now it may have tried to create an allegory for the war terror but you do have to question how well that was made. And I would (obviously) argue that it does so badly that despite intentions Into Darkness is completely irreverent.
It's sad, as Trekkie I definitely don't want the franchise's movies to be thought of as only generic popcorn bait...but I can't ignore the evidence in favor of that view of the reboot movies (or find significant evidence against it.)
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I think the missile thing works fine as an analogy for drone warfare as modern drones are used primarily to hit targets outside convention weapons ranges.
I think the missile thing works fine as an analogy for drone warfare as modern drones are used primarily to hit targets outside convention weapons ranges.
Drones are not used to hit targets outside of conventional weapon ranges. Drones are cheaper than aircraft, less detectable than aircraft, they have a higher accuracy than aircraft, they can operate in the air longer than aircraft and are easier and faster to deploy.
That being said the main conflict wasnt that they were firing these missiles with people in it...which the moment the found out they didn't use...but that they were trying to kill Khan without a fair trial.
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I think the missile thing works fine as an analogy for drone warfare as modern drones are used primarily to hit targets outside convention weapons ranges.
Drones are not used to hit targets outside of conventional weapon ranges. Drones are cheaper than aircraft, less detectable than aircraft, they have a higher accuracy than aircraft, they can operate in the air longer than aircraft and are easier and faster to deploy.
That being said the main conflict wasnt that they were firing these missiles with people in it...which the moment the found out they didn't use...but that they were trying to kill Khan without a fair trial.
Actually... the whole thing with people inside the missiles was something Khan did without the knowledge of Kirk or Marcus. It also made them non-functional since Khan had to remove the fuel tanks to put the stasis tubes in them.
At any rate though, the plan was to use them for a long range bombardment of Qo'nos in an attempt to kill Khan... which is several levels of stupid in most scenarios... not the least of which is the fact that it nearly ensures the Klingons will want blood to pay for it.
Didn't Marcus WANT to ensure that the Klingons wanted blood, and ignite the war he saw as inevitable?
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At any rate though, the plan was to use them for a long range bombardment of Qo'nos in an attempt to kill Khan... which is several levels of stupid in most scenarios... not the least of which is the fact that it nearly ensures the Klingons will want blood to pay for it.
Which was Marcus' plan all along. Had things go according to plan...Kirk launches missiles at Kronos...Kronos notices and sends fleet in retaliation...War is declared...Enterprise is destroyed...Marcus comes along in his dreadnought and reduces the Klingons to the stone age.
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At any rate though, the plan was to use them for a long range bombardment of Qo'nos in an attempt to kill Khan... which is several levels of stupid in most scenarios... not the least of which is the fact that it nearly ensures the Klingons will want blood to pay for it.
What's worst of all (for the general point of not getting it) is that the arguments against the indiscriminate use of drone warfare isn't the distanced killing thing (see. the history of ballistics) its the civilian casualties (because of very lax definitions of enemy combatants and who/what the target really is.)
Into Darkness stated that Khan was hiding out in an uninhabited region of Qo'Nos. That COMPLETELY misses the moral point (and it was incidentally MARTOK's HOME PROVINCE!)
NERD RAGE!!!!
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At any rate though, the plan was to use them for a long range bombardment of Qo'nos in an attempt to kill Khan... which is several levels of stupid in most scenarios... not the least of which is the fact that it nearly ensures the Klingons will want blood to pay for it.
Which was Marcus' plan all along. Had things go according to plan...Kirk launches missiles at Kronos...Kronos notices and sends fleet in retaliation...War is declared...Enterprise is destroyed...Marcus comes along in his dreadnought and reduces the Klingons to the stone age.
Still a stupid plan. I really don't think the Vengeance was capable of what the Narada was.... Thus Marcus and his fancy ship would get reduced to scrap, and then there'd be a real war...
Still a stupid plan. I really don't think the Vengeance was capable of what the Narada was.... Thus Marcus and his fancy ship would get reduced to scrap, and then there'd be a real war...
He could have also just attacked the Klingons with his uber doom vessel if it was really that powerful.
At no point is there any clear reason why Marcus needs a pretext for war (besides supposedly being Space Cheney.) He built giant glowing moon bases staffed presumably by hundreds with undoubtedly thousands more support workers for construction and operation. He can also just say that a Constitution class vessel needs to be destroyed in the Sol system and everyone (including his Starfleet crew) is apparently OK with that (though we are talking about a service that put the partial loss of one crew above the mass destruction laid by a Starship crashing in the middle of a populated city around mid-day, (see. what Kirk's speech was about) so maybe we're not applying the right mindset here. Also, that doesn't bode well for the attempted War on Terror comparison when to save their ship the Enterprise crew precipitated a much larger disaster for a civilian population...which was presumably only there in the movie for the grand spectacle. Yah this is Star Trek now.)
Marcus can quite evidently do whatever the hell he feels like.
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I kinda figure for his plan to work that he'd need to let the admiralty know he's starting trouble. There's no telling where the Klingons will attack after they declare war on the Federation..
I kinda figure for his plan to work that he'd need to let the admiralty know he's starting trouble. There's no telling where the Klingons will attack after they declare war on the Federation..
He could have also just said "you know what guys, we need to strike first!" and they would have undoubtedly signed onto that idea like they must have approved his brightly lit sol-system moon bases.
Think of it this way, if an Admiral in the US navy came to the rest of the service and said "hey guys, I've got wonderful news, dreadnoughts the likes of which the world has never known! Here's one now, my isn't it grand. Can we declare war now? The other guys were awfully mean to us..." that plan probably wouldn't have worked. They would ask questions and probably worry even more about the likely candidate for "next Czar of Earth" than the distant threat at the borders. Ergo, these guys in Into Darkness must have been onto the whole "requisition doom ships, kill everyone" plan from the start (or at least caught on when they noticed all the major construction work occurring in the sol system). So why the pretext (if not just to make an arbitrary turn around for an arbitrarily on the spot starship crew whose only virtue in this whole affair is having a camera team stationed on board.)
That said its hard to see how that level of "oh for crying out loud!" could happen from the Beyond trailer, but then again a lot of what's wrong with Into Darkness wasn't evident in its PR. So, given material like this (which specifically doesn't tell you a whole lot) its wise to check one's expectations.
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Actually, that look to me like it's going to be even worse than the original, which cruised along mostly on the goodwill that Will Smith had somehow built up over the preceding years (and his character was sufficiently charismatic to allow us to ignore the bit where he punched out powered armor). It's a rehashed plot, with all the characters (and actors) who didn't make me want to throw things at the screen taken out. Further, the presence of this huge attacking ship and the very idea the Locusts would seek revenge runs counter to what we were told in the first movie - a species that consists of nomadic tribes that just TRIBBLE planets of their resources then move on wouldn't deal in vengeance for a failed tribe, they'd just laugh at the failures and go destroy another system.
I kinda figure for his plan to work that he'd need to let the admiralty know he's starting trouble. There's no telling where the Klingons will attack after they declare war on the Federation..
Not really. If the Ent launch those missiles then the Klingon would attack and destroy the Ent...and Marcus would arrive just in time to wipe out the Klingons and attack Kronos with his uber ship. Marcus isn't planning to die on this mission and while he could have just started the fight...if he ever made it back to earth he' be a criminal...so he sets up this event as an excuse for war.
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That butchered clip is one of my fav jokes from Futurama. Though, I'm not sure Beyond could pull off a joke like that without coming off contrived, after Guardians. The editing off the top of the trailer makes me cringe. I know it's typical for trailer directors to construct made-up exchanges, but that editing flows cut up. I wonder how the in-film scene will go.
My character Tsin'xing
Because one of the biggest complaints against Abrams was he wasn't a Trek fan
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Details on Idris Elba's character: Krall
"When [Idris] came in, he had a lot of [prospective] projects and when I talked to him about this character, it wasn’t about this or that it was about building or having a philosophy or point of view. And I like his character because his character is really challenging the way of the Federation’s philosophy and there are a lot of things that when I was growing up I wanted to see."
He’s a character that has a very distinct philosophy that’s very different.” He gives us a bit more insight into what might be at play:
I think it’s great to be a fan and I watch utopian San Francisco and go, oh wow, when you’re building this movie you think, they don’t have money, how do they live? How do they compete? And those are things that his character, in a way, has a very distinct and valid point of view.
Later in our discussion, he revealed more of the inspiration of the film’s plot, which gives us some clues about Krall:
It was just really embracing the idea that the Federation, what would happen if you were going on a five-year journey and you’re trying to also not only explore, but also maybe introduce other people to this way of thinking. What would that mean? What are the consequences to that? I mean, spreading a philosophy that you believe in that you think is great, are there gonna be any other points of views that’s gonna counter you? And I think that those are the things that I thought of as a kid. And also then as an adult when I watch Star Trek. And I think we got to kind of explore that a little bit.
I grew up and Star Trek has a very 1960s sensibility of who has the bigger ship usually wins, right? And if you look at it, the attack, these ships are 40 feet long. And but there’s like 4,000 of them. And so I think even in the way they’re being encountered and how people are coming is it’s you can’t help but, I mean, we live in a world that is ever evolving. And I think that that’s always made Star Trek sci-fi great is when you’re able to at least acknowledge what’s happening today.
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But...its "drone strike" was actually the equivalent of a conventional naval bombardment (or alternatively cruise missiles, the use of which is not a strong moral dilemma at the moment). Press button to launch a munition across the breadth of KDF space without considering the fact that if that happened (in a self-consistent sci-fi universe) the target would inevitably die of old age before those warheads had reached even a fraction of the distance (they never said or gave any other indication that those torpedos had warp drive). What may have allowed some earnest social commentary about drone warfare (and let the first scenes have any narrative significance outside of "woosh, kapow, blam! Moving on...") is to have involved a Section 31 plot to use that interstellar transporter tech and actual drones to covertly eliminate threats to the Federation (plus anyone else who might have been standing nearby) which the Enterprise crew gets roped into using against Kahn (who in turn uses it against the Enterprise for the action scenes and climax).
Anyway, what was there was ham-fisted commentary at best and as with so many other things in that movie it was arbitrary. Once Kirk and friends decide to head to Qo'Nos themselves the drone plot completely evaporates away (as they could have just as easily been ordered to launch a covert infiltration mission in the first place) in favor of a much more wayward story about greater militarization (Cobra style, completely with implausibly large scale "secret" military bases) which was quite belligerent of and uninformed to how those broad movements generally get started in history. It doesn't take a view of society but it takes a caricature of it for the sake of making the easiest possible leaps between conveniently justified action scenes. Thus there isn't any coherent idea which could be taken as meaningful or thought provoking in Into Darkness. Its just providing a thin framework for a GI Joe/Transformers/TMNT style action movie, as those movies also tend to have in spite of the "just about explosions" label (there are narrative plots and small social connections involved in all those, just not very well developed ones which go largely ignored because few walk into those movies expecting something, however small, to be there. :P)
I wouldn't say that's a mystery at all. You might want to look at "Journey to Babel" again or the other long-running plot thread to the last half of Enterprise. It's all there, mostly implied but it's there.
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("Let This Be Your Last Battlefield", anyone?)
or
"A Private Little War"...where Kirk decides that since the Klingons are arming one side of a planet wide faction in a war...the Federation has no choice but to arm the other side...a very ham fisted commentary on the US involvement in Vietnam
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Hamfisted even on ST's scale. There's a lot in voyager for example (ex. the Malon's first episode) which has all the subtly and grace in making a point as a Captain Planet propaganda poster (not that actually exists but its a good visual metaphor :P) but they can still make it coherently. Into Darkness, quite simply, doesn't know what its trying to say or really what issue its trying to deal with. It has no awareness of any real social phenomena. Take the difference between the issues surrounding drone strikes (ex. definitions for operational success) and cruise missiles or long distance naval shelling (which is actually what ID presented as questionable enough to warrant a character's resignation.) There some words from headlines and literally with a fist made out of ham Into Darkness strikes at the page, spreads things around, and calls it cinema.
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I didn't see STID as an allegory for drone strikes but more on the War on Terror. Khan's story follows very closely the terrorist story. Marcus uses him to fight (prepare to fight) the Klingons. He treats him wrong and he becomes a terrorist. Blows up a building...attacks a building with "military" leadership inside and then escapes to Kronos. The Enterprise is then sent to go kill him...via an illegal bombardment from afar.
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...only if you don't understand the historical basis and recent development of the conflict (which is directed at the people who wrote the movie.)
In order to be an allegory for the War on Terror the villain should have been a Klingon warlord who is part of a deviant sect in Klingon society that section 31 decided to use in order to counter KDF aggression and undermine the influence of the Empire on the interstellar stage. That succeeds, but it sets this KDF commander up to develop and expand his interests up to the point where he's able to strike back at the Federation (given the huge ideological differences between this Klingon extremist and the FED that remain in spite of the brief cooperation) and in some way that has more symbolic value rather than a specific military objective.
Making it Kahn (and proceeding with the plot Into Darkness had) waters the reference down beyond all meaning (ie. to the point where its actively misleading and therefore for all intents and purposes has no specific relevance to issue in question.)
And that's not to get into the political issue in question but to illustrate just how badly this movie misses the mark (and why its difficult to give Beyond the benefit of the doubt.)
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it works if you consider The Klingons to be Russia, Khan to be Al Qaeda and The Federation the US
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But as stated that doesn't actually work (KDF and FED do but definitely not Khan.) Consider Nemesis. You have a similar trifecta of dubious ally/implicit adversary faction (Romulus), a liberally minded hero faction (again FED), and a disenfranchised individual attempting to tear down the system (Shinzon, the Remans). Is that an allegory for the war on terror? No, because the details are non-specific to the historical events and issues that are at work behind the real-world conflict. Ditto Into Darkness. Now it may have tried to create an allegory for the war terror but you do have to question how well that was made. And I would (obviously) argue that it does so badly that despite intentions Into Darkness is completely irreverent.
It's sad, as Trekkie I definitely don't want the franchise's movies to be thought of as only generic popcorn bait...but I can't ignore the evidence in favor of that view of the reboot movies (or find significant evidence against it.)
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Drones are not used to hit targets outside of conventional weapon ranges. Drones are cheaper than aircraft, less detectable than aircraft, they have a higher accuracy than aircraft, they can operate in the air longer than aircraft and are easier and faster to deploy.
That being said the main conflict wasnt that they were firing these missiles with people in it...which the moment the found out they didn't use...but that they were trying to kill Khan without a fair trial.
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At any rate though, the plan was to use them for a long range bombardment of Qo'nos in an attempt to kill Khan... which is several levels of stupid in most scenarios... not the least of which is the fact that it nearly ensures the Klingons will want blood to pay for it.
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Which was Marcus' plan all along. Had things go according to plan...Kirk launches missiles at Kronos...Kronos notices and sends fleet in retaliation...War is declared...Enterprise is destroyed...Marcus comes along in his dreadnought and reduces the Klingons to the stone age.
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What's worst of all (for the general point of not getting it) is that the arguments against the indiscriminate use of drone warfare isn't the distanced killing thing (see. the history of ballistics) its the civilian casualties (because of very lax definitions of enemy combatants and who/what the target really is.)
Into Darkness stated that Khan was hiding out in an uninhabited region of Qo'Nos. That COMPLETELY misses the moral point (and it was incidentally MARTOK's HOME PROVINCE!)
NERD RAGE!!!!
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He could have also just attacked the Klingons with his uber doom vessel if it was really that powerful.
At no point is there any clear reason why Marcus needs a pretext for war (besides supposedly being Space Cheney.) He built giant glowing moon bases staffed presumably by hundreds with undoubtedly thousands more support workers for construction and operation. He can also just say that a Constitution class vessel needs to be destroyed in the Sol system and everyone (including his Starfleet crew) is apparently OK with that (though we are talking about a service that put the partial loss of one crew above the mass destruction laid by a Starship crashing in the middle of a populated city around mid-day, (see. what Kirk's speech was about) so maybe we're not applying the right mindset here. Also, that doesn't bode well for the attempted War on Terror comparison when to save their ship the Enterprise crew precipitated a much larger disaster for a civilian population...which was presumably only there in the movie for the grand spectacle. Yah this is Star Trek now.)
Marcus can quite evidently do whatever the hell he feels like.
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He could have also just said "you know what guys, we need to strike first!" and they would have undoubtedly signed onto that idea like they must have approved his brightly lit sol-system moon bases.
Think of it this way, if an Admiral in the US navy came to the rest of the service and said "hey guys, I've got wonderful news, dreadnoughts the likes of which the world has never known! Here's one now, my isn't it grand. Can we declare war now? The other guys were awfully mean to us..." that plan probably wouldn't have worked. They would ask questions and probably worry even more about the likely candidate for "next Czar of Earth" than the distant threat at the borders. Ergo, these guys in Into Darkness must have been onto the whole "requisition doom ships, kill everyone" plan from the start (or at least caught on when they noticed all the major construction work occurring in the sol system). So why the pretext (if not just to make an arbitrary turn around for an arbitrarily on the spot starship crew whose only virtue in this whole affair is having a camera team stationed on board.)
That said its hard to see how that level of "oh for crying out loud!" could happen from the Beyond trailer, but then again a lot of what's wrong with Into Darkness wasn't evident in its PR. So, given material like this (which specifically doesn't tell you a whole lot) its wise to check one's expectations.
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Your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved 800 lives, including your mother's, and yours.
I dare you to do better.
And to you I present a teaser for the 18th.
Spoilers!
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Hmm... I guess we've largely exhausted the ability to think of new things about the ST:B trailer?
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Not really. If the Ent launch those missiles then the Klingon would attack and destroy the Ent...and Marcus would arrive just in time to wipe out the Klingons and attack Kronos with his uber ship. Marcus isn't planning to die on this mission and while he could have just started the fight...if he ever made it back to earth he' be a criminal...so he sets up this event as an excuse for war.
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