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.
IF he beats the Klingons... not sure he has the firepower needed.
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.
IF he beats the Klingons... not sure he has the firepower needed.
Why not?
All things being equal if the Connie is equal in power to the D7...and the Vengeance mopped the floor with the Connie then it stands to reason that the Vengeance would rip through several D7s. This was a ship built to go through the Klingon fleet....which lost a lot of ships nearly a year ago by Nero.
Your pain runs deep.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
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.
IF he beats the Klingons... not sure he has the firepower needed.
Why not?
All things being equal if the Connie is equal in power to the D7...and the Vengeance mopped the floor with the Connie then it stands to reason that the Vengeance would rip through several D7s. This was a ship built to go through the Klingon fleet....which lost a lot of ships nearly a year ago by Nero.
Yeah, but knowing the Klingons, they not only rebuilt, but doubled the number. And of course if they get attacked near their HW every ship in the Empire will be headed for the Vengeance. Sure, it could probably handle a few... maybe a dozen... but what about the next dozen?
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.
IF he beats the Klingons... not sure he has the firepower needed.
Why not?
All things being equal if the Connie is equal in power to the D7...and the Vengeance mopped the floor with the Connie then it stands to reason that the Vengeance would rip through several D7s. This was a ship built to go through the Klingon fleet....which lost a lot of ships nearly a year ago by Nero.
Yeah, but knowing the Klingons, they not only rebuilt, but doubled the number. And of course if they get attacked near their HW every ship in the Empire will be headed for the Vengeance. Sure, it could probably handle a few... maybe a dozen... but what about the next dozen?
It's weapons ignore shields. It can fire at warp. Is faster than most starships. We don't even know what kind of defensive measures it has.
Your pain runs deep.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
Keep in mind that Marcus wasn't necessarily making rational decisions - he was trying to blackmail Khan with the lives of the people he was going to kill by attacking Qo'noS with them, after all. He may well have believed that his black-budget ubership would eat the Klingons for breakfast, especially since they don't seem to have rebuilt their fleet much since the Narada incident. Whether he was correct in this belief is another matter entirely.
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
Actually from what I remember of things, the ship we destroyed was the advance force before the main colony ship... so this isnt revenge so much as the long expected follow up.
Think of it like this... the aliens in the first movie pulled a Pear Harbor, we won, but that wasn't the end of the war.
Keep in mind that Marcus wasn't necessarily making rational decisions - he was trying to blackmail Khan with the lives of the people he was going to kill by attacking Qo'noS with them, after all. He may well have believed that his black-budget ubership would eat the Klingons for breakfast, especially since they don't seem to have rebuilt their fleet much since the Narada incident. Whether he was correct in this belief is another matter entirely.
^this... and the Vengeance wasn't going to be the only one of her class, just the first
Keep in mind that Marcus wasn't necessarily making rational decisions - he was trying to blackmail Khan with the lives of the people he was going to kill by attacking Qo'noS with them, after all. He may well have believed that his black-budget ubership would eat the Klingons for breakfast, especially since they don't seem to have rebuilt their fleet much since the Narada incident. Whether he was correct in this belief is another matter entirely.
You can't have it both ways though. Apart from the blatantly stupid decisions directly related to the plot of the movie Marcus was built up as obsessed but still rational enough to orchestrate covert moon bases and charter-smashing dreadnoughts on his own initiative. He could plan up to the point where the Enterprise became involved in the movie. And then he swapped from his backstory of a competent, calculating villain (with questionable moral judgement) to a lunatic who couldn't see the most obvious conflict of interest coming (because that was incredibly convenient to the narrative).
Basically, that's not worth reading too much into.
^this... and the Vengeance wasn't going to be the only one of her class, just the first
Then why launch an attack on Qo'Nos if only the one was ready for action? If more than one were ready, then why just the one pursuing the enterprise? Range is irrelevant, apparently you can launch conventional warheads from a sector-block away and hope to accurately hit a target this millennium.
However far you dig down the reboot movies have critical story problems. It's essentially a game of plot-hole whack-a-mole. You think you've got one, then pop here's another! Got that one too? Hey, look over there, it's the Enterprise never having fired a shot throughout the entire movie! Boy, I'm sure glad we don't have to stage suspenseful and compelling action scenes which couldn't be easily recompiled into a demo reel for Disney!
Yah, that last one may be going a little over the top there but I think the question should be asked of just what the people involved with these movies were hoping to get out of it. It may explain a lot.
Post edited by duncanidaho11 on
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However far you dig down the reboot movies have major story problems. Excuse one detail and the next major writing problem springs forth. :P
Just like Nemesis, Insurrection, Generations (You can use the Nexus to travel anywhere, let's go back a little while to the least critical part of the film), The Final Frontier, The Search for Spock, The Voyage Home (useful time travel, let's never use that again) (The Wrath of Khan (seriously, Genesis?) etc.
The SR films are just following in the grand tradition of Trek films being stupid underneath all the good bits (except TFF, that film had no good bits).
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though. JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
So I saw the trailer and...kind of hard to judge from that. I don't really get a sense of what the plot will be, but I don't see any reason right now to avoid it.
Well this, but I also don't see a compelling reason to make plans to see it in the theater instead of waiting for the Blu-Ray to come out.
Watching the Enterprise get blown to pieces again is starting to get a little tiresome. I don't think the producers understand that the Enterprise is a major cast member in and of itself and that you can't destroy it and rebuild it for every new movie. A little battle damage here, lose a few decks there, the occasional imminent warp core breach, sure.
Keep in mind that Marcus wasn't necessarily making rational decisions - he was trying to blackmail Khan with the lives of the people he was going to kill by attacking Qo'noS with them, after all. He may well have believed that his black-budget ubership would eat the Klingons for breakfast, especially since they don't seem to have rebuilt their fleet much since the Narada incident. Whether he was correct in this belief is another matter entirely.
You can't have it both ways though. Apart from the blatantly stupid decisions directly related to the plot of the movie Marcus was built up as obsessed but still rational enough to orchestrate covert moon bases and charter-smashing dreadnoughts on his own initiative. He could plan up to the point where the Enterprise became involved in the movie. And then he swapped from his backstory of a competent, calculating villain (with questionable moral judgement) to a lunatic who couldn't see the most obvious conflict of interest coming (because that was incredibly convenient to the narrative).
Yeah, it's not like that ever happened in the real world (he said, waggling his eyebrows and glancing suggestively in the general direction of World War II).
However far you dig down the reboot movies have major story problems. Excuse one detail and the next major writing problem springs forth. :P
Just like Nemesis, Insurrection, Generations (You can use the Nexus to travel anywhere, let's go back a little while to the least critical part of the film), The Final Frontier, The Search for Spock, The Voyage Home (useful time travel, let's never use that again) (The Wrath of Khan (seriously, Genesis?) etc.
The SR films are just following in the grand tradition of Trek films being stupid underneath all the good bits (except TFF, that film had no good bits).
And, that is just comparing films to films... bring in the rest of the TV franchise to cover interstellar transporters ("Assignment: Earth") or magic blood (Seven of Nine), and the films from Abrams aren't far off at all.
Some fans demand perfection from the Abrams films, while forgiving or ignoring the "prime" franchises massive list of shortcomings... largely uncalled for, surprisingly close-minded, and very unfair IMO.
The SR films are just following in the grand tradition of Trek films being stupid underneath all the good bits (except TFF, that film had no good bits).
All films fall back on narrative convenience at some level (ex. the plot of The Martian). The reboots use it excessively to compensate for a lack of coherent writing. It's filler, not an unavoidable necessity of presenting a story without a 1:1 historical basis. Practically nothing happens in ID because its a sensible connection from a self-consistent fictional universe (which is the minimum bar all other ST movies, and most movies in my experience save MST3K fodder, reach). It just happens for the sake of convenience and expediency to connect scene to scene regardless of their role in telling a broader story.
I'll state it more simply: the reboots are terribly constructed movies (well, more so Into Darkness). Not "terrible star trek movies" but terrible works of narrative fiction more generally. There's plenty to critique in the rest of the series, and in the film industry as a whole, but not to the same omnipresent degree (more so for Into Darkness).
And to implicitly accept this as "well, so what? It's something to fill screen space with" misses the fact that, from the history of this franchise and what other sci-fi movies have been able to demonstrate recently, we could have much, much, much better if such a blithe attitude towards making a movie wasn't taken by these people (by which I mean everyone directly responsible in shaping the reboots.)
Post edited by duncanidaho11 on
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I'll state it more simply: the reboots are terrible movies (well, more so Into Darkness). Not "terrible star trek movies" but terrible works of narrative fiction more generally. There's plenty to critique in the rest of the series, and in the film industry as a whole, but not to the same omnipresent degree (more so for Into Darkness).
That is a completely valid opinion. But that's all it is. It means absolutely no more than any other random joe's opinion, and someone who thinks the JJ-movies are gold is equally as "right" as you are. So sure, state your opinion as simply as you like. You aren't proving anyone wrong with anything you say. And for the record, both JJ movies have gotten pretty high average ratings from critics and fans alike. That obviously doesn't mean you have to like them, but it's still true.
That is a completely valid opinion. But that's all it is. It means absolutely no more than any other random joe's opinion, and someone who thinks the JJ-movies are gold is equally as "right" as you are. So sure, state your opinion as simply as you like. You aren't proving anyone wrong with anything you say. And for the record, both JJ movies have gotten pretty high average ratings from critics and fans alike. That obviously doesn't mean you have to like them, but it's still true.
There's opinion and then there's argumentation. Opinion is a personal viewpoint which is wholly depending on your own point of view and thus cannot really be shared intelligibly (someone may get what you mean but they cannot appreciate the full meaning.)
Argumentation applies evidence to weight possibilities and eventually get at a most likely scenario. Some may disagree with that, but they need to provide opposing evidence and reasoning to suggest that their opinion has any support as more broadly acceptable world view. (ie. that it's worth sharing for any greater reason than personal interest.)
So, what we basically have through this thread is quite a bit of support for one particular viewpoint, using specific examples which go back and forth between the merits and weaknesses of the movie. On balance, the last reboot seems far more bad than good. So it's a crappy movie. Does that mean that it can't be liked? No, of course not. Everyone's entitled to their opinion. They just can't establish (to a point of general likelihood) that it's a well-working movie. It's broken, that's a mechanical point which deals specifically with the techniques of movie making and story telling (for which there definite are and can be treated in a reasonable way. See. the actual profession and thinking behind it.) That dysfunction may not cause everyone, or even most people, to reject Into Darkness outright (quality and likability are not equivalent. See. the MST3K classics), but that response is uninformative to just what kind of movie ID is.
For more on this: just refer back to the debate between Neo-Platonism and the logical basis for what would become the scientific method. There is a world that can be discussed and talked about to try to establish some most likely scenario which can be assumed (until opposing evidence as provided) as a working truth that can be shared and considered by multiple people. You're welcome to remain at the level of personal opinion, evaluating movies and their impact isn't something everyone has to do, but its not fair to equate that to critical discussion (they really are two different things, which also means that if someone just wants to share opinion they don't have to worry about arguments going on around the topic).
Yeah, it's not like that ever happened in the real world (he said, waggling his eyebrows and glancing suggestively in the general direction of World War II).
I don't think its valid to compare political miscalculations as viewed after the fact (which you can pretty much find lurking behind every world news headline, WWII is an awfully long time to go back to :P) to mass hostage schemes and blackmail to extort R+D (of all things) from a single comic book supervillain. Its possible for two countries to form an alliance (however that ultimately turns out), it's not possible for the Into Darkness plot to occur from anything except complete and arbitrary madness on the part of Marcus (which goes against his character in every other respect. See: bad, inconsistent movie.)
Post edited by duncanidaho11 on
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So, what we basically have through this thread is quite a bit of support for one particular viewpoint, using specific examples which go back and forth between the merits and weaknesses of the movie. On balance, the last reboot seems far more bad than good. So it's a crappy movie.
So, here is the thing. Any "weakness" you identify with the movies is only a valid arguing point if both people agree it is a "weakness" in the first place. If someone doesn't even agree it is a "weakness", then no amount of argument on your part actually matters, because it isn't even a "weakness" to them.
Now, if you want to talk about "balance" and what most people seem to think, that is very easy to show:
That first movie has over 700k user ratings. The second has over 300k. Public opinion is pretty clear. You certainly don't have to agree with it, but that doesn't change the fact that both movies have very strong reviews from both the critics and the public users. Nothing you say is going to change that.
So, here is the thing. Any "weakness" you identify with the movies is only a valid arguing point if both people agree it is a "weakness" in the first place. If someone doesn't even agree it is a "weakness", then no amount of argument on your part actually matters, because it isn't even a "weakness" to them.
Now, if you want to talk about "balance" and what most people seem to think, that is very easy to show:
That first movie has over 700k user ratings. The second has over 300k. Public opinion is pretty clear. You certainly don't have to agree with it, but that doesn't change the fact that both movies have very strong reviews from both the critics and the public users. Nothing you say is going to change that.
So at what critical mass does opinion transform into argumentative reasoning? This quite interests me. If you have, say, 5 people expressing an opinion do you get at a proportional fraction of the "truth" that you get from 300k? Or does it scale differently?
I'm going to invoke something that I hope you don't seek only to contradict (there seems to be a Monty Python sketch in the making here), but the way the entire world is right now (in terms of science and technology) is based on the premise that truth isn't something that you get at by lots and lots of people agreeing to it. See. what people believed through history and what turned out to be going on. Now you can invoke democratic ideals here (strictly in the name of contradiction) but providing representation in large scale social systems and a workable view of the world are two very different objectives that can't be achieved with the other method. You can't just look to ratings to explain how a movie works. You can explain from that information how people respond to it but that's involving a whole mess of other psychological factors which obscure the point "well, just what kind of movie is this?" (not what kind of response it elicited.)
That's where critical discussion comes in (see. any lit class you've had, its not sufficient just to rate something), and true for there to be a logical consensus the participants still have to reasonably agree to it. But if someone's so stubborn that, to quote you, NO AMOUNT OF ARGUMENT will change their mind (ie. they are entirely closed to any point presented that is beyond their immediate frame of reference) they can easily be discounted from critical discussion (this is a cooperative process which from the start requires an open mind willing to consider the points of others. If you don't want to participate, you don't have to.)
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So, here is the thing. Any "weakness" you identify with the movies is only a valid arguing point if both people agree it is a "weakness" in the first place. If someone doesn't even agree it is a "weakness", then no amount of argument on your part actually matters, because it isn't even a "weakness" to them.
Now, if you want to talk about "balance" and what most people seem to think, that is very easy to show:
That first movie has over 700k user ratings. The second has over 300k. Public opinion is pretty clear. You certainly don't have to agree with it, but that doesn't change the fact that both movies have very strong reviews from both the critics and the public users. Nothing you say is going to change that.
So at what critical mass does opinion transform into argumentative reasoning? This quite interests me. If you have, say, 5 people expressing an opinion do you get at a proportional fraction of the "truth" that you get from 300k? Or does it scale differently?
I'm going to invoke something that I hope you don't seek only to contradict (there seems to be a Monty Python sketch in the making here), but the way the entire world is right now (in terms of science and technology) is based on the premise that truth isn't something that you get at by lots and lots of people agreeing to it. See. what people believed through history and what turned out to be going on. Now you can invoke democratic ideals here (strictly in the name of contradiction) but providing representation in large scale social systems and a workable view of the world are two very different objectives that can't be achieved with the other method. You can't just look to ratings to explain how a movie works. You can explain from that information how people respond to it but that's involving a whole mess of other psychological factors which obscure the point "well, just what kind of movie is this?" (not what kind of response it elicited.)
That's where critical discussion comes in (see. any lit class you've had), and true for there to be a logical consensus the participants still have to agree to it. But if someone's so stubborn that, to quote you, NO AMOUNT OF ARGUMENT will change their mind (ie. they are entirely closed to any point presented by a certain individual that is beyond their immediate frame of reference) they can easily be discounted from critical discussion (this is a cooperative process which from the start requires an open mind willing to consider the points of others. If you don't want to participate, you don't have to.)
I am not so insecure that I feel that need to justify/validate my entertainment choices or preferences with people who disagree. There is no "right" or "wrong" here, when it comes to whether each of us individually enjoyed a given movie. However, there is definitely a majority consensus about the 2 movies in question, and that consensus is very positive. But if that majority consensus is different from your personal opinion, it doesn't matter. It shouldn't bother you to know that the majority disagree with you about a movie. If it does, you care too much about what other people think about a fictional movie.
The SR films are just following in the grand tradition of Trek films being stupid underneath all the good bits (except TFF, that film had no good bits).
I call BS on that one. All films fall back on narrative convenience at some level (ex. the plot of The Martian). The reboots use it excessively to compensate for a lack of coherent writing. It's filler, not an unavoidable necessity of presenting a story without a 1:1 historical basis. Practically nothing happens in ID because its a sensible connection from a self-consistent fictional universe (which is the minimum bar all other ST movies, and most movies in my experience save MST3K fodder, reach). It just happens for the sake of convenience and expediency to connect scene to scene regardless of their role in telling a broader story.
I'll state it more simply: the reboots are terrible movies (well, more so Into Darkness). Not "terrible star trek movies" but terrible works of narrative fiction more generally. There's plenty to critique in the rest of the series, and in the film industry as a whole, but not to the same omnipresent degree (more so for Into Darkness).
And to implicitly accept this as "well, so what? It's something to fill screen space with" misses the fact that, from the history of this franchise and what other sci-fi movies have been able to demonstrate recently, we could have much, much, much better if such a blithe attitude towards making a movie wasn't taken by these people (by which I mean everyone directly responsible in shaping the reboots.)
I'd like to see a specific example of something you think WASN'T a terrible movie....
And yes I've seen the Screaming Skull.... aside from being boring it actually wasn't that bad. Actually it's a lot boring. The MST version made it less boring.
And The Brain the Wouldn't die. It's actually kinda lame. The MST version doesn't make it less lame though, only funnier. It's one of those movies with "magic" science.... although, to be fair, it does work well as a REALLY twisted version of the Frankenstein story.
I am not so insecure that I feel that need to justify/validate my entertainment choices or preferences with people who disagree. There is no "right" or "wrong" here, when it comes to whether each of us individually enjoyed a given movie. However, there is definitely a majority consensus. But if that majority consensus is different from your personal opinion, it doesn't matter. It shouldn't bother you to know that the majority disagree with you about a movie. If it does, you care too much about what other people think about a fictional movie.
Let me summarize the big points for you (since you are starting to drift a bit here, I do want to make this as unambiguous as possible).
Opinion=/=Argumentation (see. the logical basis for modern civilization.)
Everyone is entitled to their opinion.
It's perfectly fine that any given person chooses to watch Into Darkness. At no point have I or anyone else here in the nay camp suggested it's wrong to do so. However those watching Into Darkness should still appreciate that there are logical inconsistencies in the writing and presentation of their chosen entertainment. They don't have to care about those one bit. After all, everyone is entitled to their opinion but opinion does not equal argumentation. So in a discussion resting on opinion alone (as if it was equivalent to a critical argument. Opinion is fine, it just something different) is something to be easily dismissed.
I just said mass opinion doesn't matter one way or the other to a critical discussion about how something works. You're the one who tried to imply it was relevant.
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I'd like to see a specific example of something you think WASN'T a terrible movie....
I will in just a moment but why? The only movies I've referenced in this thread as being terrible are Plan 9 from Outer Space and Into Darkness (with unfavorable comparisons also made to Transfomers, GI Joe, and TMNT, but that was definitely more stylistic than substantive). I took a jab at Super 8 in another thread recently, but I'm pretty sure that I've made no general claims that all, or even most, movies suck. More specifically the latest JJ reboot for the stated reasons.
So anyway, movies that weren't terrible
The Martian
District 9
Children of Men
The Hobbit
Independence Day
Brazil
Time Bandits
Run Lola Run
Guardians of the Galaxy
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Moon
The Naked Gun
Star Wars
300
Flubber
The Hunt for Red October
Back to the Future
The Princess Bride
The preceding Star Trek movies (including Final Frontier. You may like it but it still functions as a movie.)
2001 A Space Odyssey
2010 The Year We make Contact
Batman Begins
Batman: the movie (starring Adam West)
The Life of Brian
Kung Fu Panda
Hot Fuzz
Gremlins
A Fantastic Fear of Everything
The Grand Budapest
Lost in Space
Galaxy Quest
Gladiator
Death to Smoochy
The Fifth Element
Jurassic Park
Kung Pow: Enter the Fist (batshit crazy, basically one long subversion of expectation, but it still functions. Betty's character arc is complex but consistent. :P )
Austin Powers
Goldeneye
The Life Aquatic
Mad Max
Airplane
"iRobot"
Top Gun
Alan Patridge
Fargo
The Avengers
Groundhog Day
The Matrix
Metropolis
Robin Hood: Men in Tights
Die Hard
Forbidden Planet
The Simpson's Movie
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
Terminator
This Island Earth
And so on...
It actually might be easier to list off those movies which I think are terrible (barring what I've seen with a riffing commentary track, but that's not a guarantee of a terribly working movie by any means [ex. Pod People, Overdrawn at the Memory Bank.)
Into Darkness (gotta take the first reboot off the list, I can argue that it could have been better but it still works.)
Super 8
El Topo
And those interested in the art of contradiction should realize the above is not a list of movies I like (quite a few of those I really don't) or those that I think are representative of what a movie should be. They're just a selection that came to mind which I'll argue aren't functionally terrible. And discussing the why's and how's of that list is well beyond the context of this thread (and in rather poor taste unless you're also willing to populate a fairly random list for the internet's consumption :P.)
Post edited by duncanidaho11 on
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Duncan, you are claiming to be discussing, but are in fact being argumentative, stating your opinions as if they were solid fact and dismissing the opinions of others. (And no, argumentation is not superior to discussion - it's a way of stating your claims and then refusing to take on any contradictory information.) Further disputation with you on this point would be futile, as your style has not changed no matter how many times this has been raised with you. Ergo, I will no longer waste my fingers typing in your direction. Just so you know.
However those watching Into Darkness should still appreciate that there are logical inconsistencies in the writing and presentation of their chosen entertainment.
The problem is, you think you are right about something where there is no "right" or "wrong". What you consider to be a "logical inconsistency" may NOT be one to someone else. Therefore, your entire basis for your argument is completely subjective. It is nothing more than your personal opinion. And there is nothing wrong with your personal opinion, it just means no more than any other random joe. So if it makes you happy to think the movie sucks and the vast majority of people are wrong, that's fine. You are free to think whatever you like and makes you feel good.
Duncan, you are claiming to be discussing, but are in fact being argumentative, stating your opinions as if they were solid fact and dismissing the opinions of others. (And no, argumentation is not superior to discussion - it's a way of stating your claims and then refusing to take on any contradictory information.) Further disputation with you on this point would be futile, as your style has not changed no matter how many times this has been raised with you. Ergo, I will no longer waste my fingers typing in your direction. Just so you know.
This is going to be a wasted exercise (because I do appreciate that you won't reply) but this is an irreverent post. As I've said explicitly in discussion there's no solid fact. You can approximate fact with the evidence available (ie. statements made by one or more individuals that attempt to describe the subject in question) but at no point should anything be taken as fact in itself. I made points that attempted to describe things which were joined by other points about other things which together built a picture about Into Darkness. However, the points you and those I disagreed with made, I found, were not sufficient to dismiss the weight against them.
I therefore still conclude that Into Darkness is dysfunctional, and quite unfortunately for your reaction I also tried to separate that idea from how any given person should feel about the movie (ie. what their opinion should be). Mechanically speaking, motivations, messages, tones, and plot change from scene to scene with little regard for how that shapes the overall impact of the movie. For example: the Vengeance cash scene. Did that contribute to a message or was it an arbitrary spectacle shot which did more to undermine the broader anti-war (being very general to what the crew of the Enterprise was trying to prevent) point? No one (so far) had anything to say about that. No one said "hey, here's something you should consider for greater depth and character complexity" which couldn't, under further examination (ie. discussion) be reasonably shown not to be the case (ex. the Marcus plan or the war on terror analogy. Neither work and I even provided specific historical details in the form of a competing allegory for that latter example.) The points against ID held up to mutual discussion/argumentation, while those for it didn't.
Thus I'll stick to my original argument and continue discussion with that in mind in spite of your objections. I did consider opposing points of view and arguments and tried to come to the most reasonable conclusion about how well this movie functions (and I should know that more than you, BTW) and it happens that I am still negative on that point. In your posts, for example, I did not find sufficient evidence to suggest that the logical problems posed by Marcus's plot were consistent with a workable narrative from either a personal or historical point of view (especially historical, I didn't want to delve into that but sufficed to say the WWII reference was a superficial comment). I therefore don't agree with them and provided replies that pointed to additional problems in your line of reasoning (without, at that point, resorting to text walls or personal comments). Now I may not have presented all sides of the debate with every post but such a standard is completely unheard of for an internet forum (or more generally productive discussions.)
So, what I don't appreciate (because it wouldn't be fair for only you to give your own personal reflections on this discussion) is your and nagus's attitude (and it is just that) that discussion that ultimately goes against your own or a given point of view (as your specific criticism seems based on the fact that I didn't respond as you think I should have to your comments and those you may have agreed with) is somehow just an opinion regardless of its information content (that some kind of reasonable conclusion cannot be reached about things, though you seem quite selective in how you approach this idea). There is a point to justifying oneself. It provides a better chance at aligning an "opinion" to something more tangible (even if certainty is never achieved.) That is why I cite, I clarify, and I explain to what I judged was a satisfactory degree for this kind of discussion and moderate that against the replies received. I even discussed the nature of opinion when it became specifically relevant to Nagus's user-specific criticisms and eased my opinion with respect to the first reboot when I saw that the comments about Into Darkness were not as applicable. My conclusions did not sync with yours but I think you'd agree that I am not personally obligated to adopt a point of view if I find that point of view unsubstantiated. And in the interest of full clarity I don't assume that of you as well, hence why I didn't criticize you for not agreeing with me.
I tell you now in full earnestness that I make no fundamental assumptions that I'm absolutely correct and that's why I'm trying to participate in a discussion. That fact may not be totally clear from the often unqualified use of written language but making direct statements is how English works.
You evidently don't agree with me, this is after all just a thread on the internet and reaching a reasonable consensus isn't terribly likely (though not an unworthy goal). But dismissing arguments out of hand as you are doing now is not the way to open, rational discourse. I'll keep the simplifying jabs at the inanimate subject to a minimum next time (as that may save confusion) and just make the points I want to make, but I won't accept the view (which, again is inconsistent with how we treat the world) that in a discussion opinions are the all-in-all. There are logical conclusions that can also be made, whether or not you personally agree with them (I make no obligations for you), from even social factors and I hope this slab of unwanted, inconvenient didactism is enough to illustrate that fact.
Post edited by duncanidaho11 on
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I won't accept the view (which, again is inconsistent with how we treat the world today, see. the reference to the defunct Platonism) that the world is just a matter of opinion.
No, the entire world is not a matter of opinion; that is true. There are some things that are facts and can actually be proven. Unfortunately for you, whether a movie is good or bad isn't one of them. Therefore, no matter how many times you post or how long your post is, nothing you can ever say will ever prove you right on this issue. At the end of the day, after all is said, you will only be as right/wrong as every other random joe who has an opinion about a movie. But that shouldn't bother you. You shouldn't have some psychological need to try to change someone's mind about a movie. How I feel about the JJ-movies(which I have not actually said in this thread) is all that matters in my life. Whether you agree/disagree/etc makes no difference to my experience.
I'd like to see a specific example of something you think WASN'T a terrible movie....
I will in just a moment but why?
Well, it's a matter of getting an idea as to what degree the stated reasons were disagreeable. As you said, it's a matter of degree and not a simple matter of IF these things happen.
The only movies I've referenced in this thread as being terrible are Plan 9 from Outer Space and Into Darkness (with unfavorable comparisons also made to Transfomers, GI Joe, and TMNT, but that was definitely more stylistic than substantive). I took a jab at Super 8 in another thread recently, but I'm pretty sure that I've made no general claims that all, or even most, movies suck. More specifically the latest JJ reboot for the stated reasons.
I call BS on that one. All films fall back on narrative convenience at some level (ex. the plot of The Martian). The reboots use it excessively to compensate for a lack of coherent writing. It's filler, not an unavoidable necessity of presenting a story without a 1:1 historical basis. Practically nothing happens in ID because its a sensible connection from a self-consistent fictional universe (which is the minimum bar all other ST movies, and most movies in my experience save MST3K fodder, reach). It just happens for the sake of convenience and expediency to connect scene to scene regardless of their role in telling a broader story.
So anyway, movies that weren't terrible
The Martian
District 9
Children of Men
The Hobbit
Independence Day
Brazil
Time Bandits
Run Lola Run
Guardians of the Galaxy
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Moon
The Naked Gun
Star Wars
300
Flubber
The Hunt for Red October
Back to the Future
The Princess Bride
The preceding Star Trek movies (including Final Frontier. You may like it but it still functions as a movie.)
2001 A Space Odyssey
2010 The Year We make Contact
Batman Begins
Batman: the movie (starring Adam West)
The Life of Brian
Kung Fu Panda
Hot Fuzz
Gremlins
A Fantastic Fear of Everything
The Grand Budapest
Lost in Space
Galaxy Quest
Gladiator
Death to Smoochy
The Fifth Element
Jurassic Park
Kung Pow: Enter the Fist (batshit crazy, basically one long subversion of expectation, but it still functions. Betty's character arc is complex but consistent. :P )
Austin Powers
Goldeneye
The Life Aquatic
Mad Max
Airplane
"iRobot"
Top Gun
Alan Patridge
Fargo
The Avengers
Groundhog Day
The Matrix
Metropolis
Robin Hood: Men in Tights
Die Hard
Forbidden Planet
The Simpson's Movie
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
Terminator
This Island Earth
And so on...
It actually might be easier to list off those movies which I think are terrible (barring what I've seen with a riffing commentary track, but that's not a guarantee of a terribly working movie by any means [ex. Pod People, Overdrawn at the Memory Bank.)
Into Darkness (gotta take the first reboot off the list, I can argue that it could have been better but it still works.)
Super 8
El Topo
And those interested in the art of contradiction should realize the above is not a list of movies I like (quite a few of those I really don't) or those that I think are representative of what a movie should be. They're just a selection that came to mind which I'll argue aren't functionally terrible. And discussing the why's and how's of that list is well beyond the context of this thread (and in rather poor taste unless you're also willing to populate a fairly random list for the internet's consumption :P.)
I would say that quite a few of those DID rely on the power of plot excessively. How do you hack a computer you've never seen before? etc... And Time Bandits.... It's a cult classic because most people think it's dumb.
Whether you agree/disagree/etc makes no difference to my experience.
I won't comment on the preceding (not out of malice, there just seems to be significant gap in communication here) but I'll just ask why you bothered explaining that you don't care about what I say about JJ trek if it means so little? To you, its just noise, unremarkable noise that shouldn't have been given a single thought.
As we've gone back and forth on this though with repeated attempts to say "no, the world cannot be proven" (that's a universal statement by the way which includes movies. You can discuss in terms of adhering to a mechanical structure of story telling with constraints set by human reactions and broader tendencies. See. literature appreciation classes, such as you may have had in high school or college. Because we do not have analytical tools to quantify the quality of any given piece of art or entertainment (as it works for us) there is still something (however vague) that can be said more generally about how well they function according to an intuitive set of standards and principles. You may not have the accuracy to precisely rank works but you can detect broad differences in functionality. It's like difference between performing a T-Test and trying to evaluate yourself the difference between two distributions. The point of stats here isn't to say "ONLY NUMERICAL ASSESSMENTS HAVE MEANING" (that's a gross misinterpretation of modern discourse) its just that you can be more consistent and precise with them. Again this is taken as read in literature, no pun intended, and the practice of critically discussion fiction is and has been applied to movies as well, though that you may not have been exposed to that setting. And yes, I did just make a digression this long in the middle of a sentence and fully intend to continue on with it. Why? Because this is a great illustration of the fact that I really just want to discuss things and get at a reasonable approximation of what's going on. I was also trying to joke around before but neither you or jonsills seemed willing to tolerate that) it seems that there's more going on that just the intention to make a statement that you don't care.
I won't, in good taste, speculate what that might be, but I'll just say "I understand you don't care and I won't try to argue with you about this movie any longer."
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Whether you agree/disagree/etc makes no difference to my experience.
I won't comment on the preceding (not out of malice, there just seems to be significant gap in communication here) but I'll just ask why you bothered explaining that you don't care about what I say about JJ trek if it means so little? To you, its just noise, unremarkable noise that shouldn't have been given a single thought.
This seems to matter too much to you, in an unhealthy way. So, the reason I posted was to try to put things into perspective. That this isn't a "right" or "wrong" issue. It's just personal opinion. If you don't like the movie, that's fine. If someone else does, that's also fine. You aren't right and they aren't wrong. Or, both of you are equally right and wrong. Either way, it shouldn't bother you as much as it apparently does, and you shouldn't have some compulsive need to try to overwhelm people with words until they just agree with you.
I like the reboot movies...but then I realized this was an alternative universe and wasn't supposed to be like TOS
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Why not?
All things being equal if the Connie is equal in power to the D7...and the Vengeance mopped the floor with the Connie then it stands to reason that the Vengeance would rip through several D7s. This was a ship built to go through the Klingon fleet....which lost a lot of ships nearly a year ago by Nero.
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It's weapons ignore shields. It can fire at warp. Is faster than most starships. We don't even know what kind of defensive measures it has.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
Think of it like this... the aliens in the first movie pulled a Pear Harbor, we won, but that wasn't the end of the war.
^this... and the Vengeance wasn't going to be the only one of her class, just the first
You can't have it both ways though. Apart from the blatantly stupid decisions directly related to the plot of the movie Marcus was built up as obsessed but still rational enough to orchestrate covert moon bases and charter-smashing dreadnoughts on his own initiative. He could plan up to the point where the Enterprise became involved in the movie. And then he swapped from his backstory of a competent, calculating villain (with questionable moral judgement) to a lunatic who couldn't see the most obvious conflict of interest coming (because that was incredibly convenient to the narrative).
Basically, that's not worth reading too much into.
Then why launch an attack on Qo'Nos if only the one was ready for action? If more than one were ready, then why just the one pursuing the enterprise? Range is irrelevant, apparently you can launch conventional warheads from a sector-block away and hope to accurately hit a target this millennium.
However far you dig down the reboot movies have critical story problems. It's essentially a game of plot-hole whack-a-mole. You think you've got one, then pop here's another! Got that one too? Hey, look over there, it's the Enterprise never having fired a shot throughout the entire movie! Boy, I'm sure glad we don't have to stage suspenseful and compelling action scenes which couldn't be easily recompiled into a demo reel for Disney!
Yah, that last one may be going a little over the top there but I think the question should be asked of just what the people involved with these movies were hoping to get out of it. It may explain a lot.
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Just like Nemesis, Insurrection, Generations (You can use the Nexus to travel anywhere, let's go back a little while to the least critical part of the film), The Final Frontier, The Search for Spock, The Voyage Home (useful time travel, let's never use that again) (The Wrath of Khan (seriously, Genesis?) etc.
The SR films are just following in the grand tradition of Trek films being stupid underneath all the good bits (except TFF, that film had no good bits).
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
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Well this, but I also don't see a compelling reason to make plans to see it in the theater instead of waiting for the Blu-Ray to come out.
Watching the Enterprise get blown to pieces again is starting to get a little tiresome. I don't think the producers understand that the Enterprise is a major cast member in and of itself and that you can't destroy it and rebuild it for every new movie. A little battle damage here, lose a few decks there, the occasional imminent warp core breach, sure.
And, that is just comparing films to films... bring in the rest of the TV franchise to cover interstellar transporters ("Assignment: Earth") or magic blood (Seven of Nine), and the films from Abrams aren't far off at all.
Some fans demand perfection from the Abrams films, while forgiving or ignoring the "prime" franchises massive list of shortcomings... largely uncalled for, surprisingly close-minded, and very unfair IMO.
All films fall back on narrative convenience at some level (ex. the plot of The Martian). The reboots use it excessively to compensate for a lack of coherent writing. It's filler, not an unavoidable necessity of presenting a story without a 1:1 historical basis. Practically nothing happens in ID because its a sensible connection from a self-consistent fictional universe (which is the minimum bar all other ST movies, and most movies in my experience save MST3K fodder, reach). It just happens for the sake of convenience and expediency to connect scene to scene regardless of their role in telling a broader story.
I'll state it more simply: the reboots are terribly constructed movies (well, more so Into Darkness). Not "terrible star trek movies" but terrible works of narrative fiction more generally. There's plenty to critique in the rest of the series, and in the film industry as a whole, but not to the same omnipresent degree (more so for Into Darkness).
And to implicitly accept this as "well, so what? It's something to fill screen space with" misses the fact that, from the history of this franchise and what other sci-fi movies have been able to demonstrate recently, we could have much, much, much better if such a blithe attitude towards making a movie wasn't taken by these people (by which I mean everyone directly responsible in shaping the reboots.)
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That is a completely valid opinion. But that's all it is. It means absolutely no more than any other random joe's opinion, and someone who thinks the JJ-movies are gold is equally as "right" as you are. So sure, state your opinion as simply as you like. You aren't proving anyone wrong with anything you say. And for the record, both JJ movies have gotten pretty high average ratings from critics and fans alike. That obviously doesn't mean you have to like them, but it's still true.
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Join Date: Sep 2008
There's opinion and then there's argumentation. Opinion is a personal viewpoint which is wholly depending on your own point of view and thus cannot really be shared intelligibly (someone may get what you mean but they cannot appreciate the full meaning.)
Argumentation applies evidence to weight possibilities and eventually get at a most likely scenario. Some may disagree with that, but they need to provide opposing evidence and reasoning to suggest that their opinion has any support as more broadly acceptable world view. (ie. that it's worth sharing for any greater reason than personal interest.)
So, what we basically have through this thread is quite a bit of support for one particular viewpoint, using specific examples which go back and forth between the merits and weaknesses of the movie. On balance, the last reboot seems far more bad than good. So it's a crappy movie. Does that mean that it can't be liked? No, of course not. Everyone's entitled to their opinion. They just can't establish (to a point of general likelihood) that it's a well-working movie. It's broken, that's a mechanical point which deals specifically with the techniques of movie making and story telling (for which there definite are and can be treated in a reasonable way. See. the actual profession and thinking behind it.) That dysfunction may not cause everyone, or even most people, to reject Into Darkness outright (quality and likability are not equivalent. See. the MST3K classics), but that response is uninformative to just what kind of movie ID is.
For more on this: just refer back to the debate between Neo-Platonism and the logical basis for what would become the scientific method. There is a world that can be discussed and talked about to try to establish some most likely scenario which can be assumed (until opposing evidence as provided) as a working truth that can be shared and considered by multiple people. You're welcome to remain at the level of personal opinion, evaluating movies and their impact isn't something everyone has to do, but its not fair to equate that to critical discussion (they really are two different things, which also means that if someone just wants to share opinion they don't have to worry about arguments going on around the topic).
I don't think its valid to compare political miscalculations as viewed after the fact (which you can pretty much find lurking behind every world news headline, WWII is an awfully long time to go back to :P) to mass hostage schemes and blackmail to extort R+D (of all things) from a single comic book supervillain. Its possible for two countries to form an alliance (however that ultimately turns out), it's not possible for the Into Darkness plot to occur from anything except complete and arbitrary madness on the part of Marcus (which goes against his character in every other respect. See: bad, inconsistent movie.)
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So, here is the thing. Any "weakness" you identify with the movies is only a valid arguing point if both people agree it is a "weakness" in the first place. If someone doesn't even agree it is a "weakness", then no amount of argument on your part actually matters, because it isn't even a "weakness" to them.
Now, if you want to talk about "balance" and what most people seem to think, that is very easy to show:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/star_trek_11/?search=star trek
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/star_trek_into_darkness/?search=star trek into darkness
That first movie has over 700k user ratings. The second has over 300k. Public opinion is pretty clear. You certainly don't have to agree with it, but that doesn't change the fact that both movies have very strong reviews from both the critics and the public users. Nothing you say is going to change that.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
So at what critical mass does opinion transform into argumentative reasoning? This quite interests me. If you have, say, 5 people expressing an opinion do you get at a proportional fraction of the "truth" that you get from 300k? Or does it scale differently?
I'm going to invoke something that I hope you don't seek only to contradict (there seems to be a Monty Python sketch in the making here), but the way the entire world is right now (in terms of science and technology) is based on the premise that truth isn't something that you get at by lots and lots of people agreeing to it. See. what people believed through history and what turned out to be going on. Now you can invoke democratic ideals here (strictly in the name of contradiction) but providing representation in large scale social systems and a workable view of the world are two very different objectives that can't be achieved with the other method. You can't just look to ratings to explain how a movie works. You can explain from that information how people respond to it but that's involving a whole mess of other psychological factors which obscure the point "well, just what kind of movie is this?" (not what kind of response it elicited.)
That's where critical discussion comes in (see. any lit class you've had, its not sufficient just to rate something), and true for there to be a logical consensus the participants still have to reasonably agree to it. But if someone's so stubborn that, to quote you, NO AMOUNT OF ARGUMENT will change their mind (ie. they are entirely closed to any point presented that is beyond their immediate frame of reference) they can easily be discounted from critical discussion (this is a cooperative process which from the start requires an open mind willing to consider the points of others. If you don't want to participate, you don't have to.)
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I am not so insecure that I feel that need to justify/validate my entertainment choices or preferences with people who disagree. There is no "right" or "wrong" here, when it comes to whether each of us individually enjoyed a given movie. However, there is definitely a majority consensus about the 2 movies in question, and that consensus is very positive. But if that majority consensus is different from your personal opinion, it doesn't matter. It shouldn't bother you to know that the majority disagree with you about a movie. If it does, you care too much about what other people think about a fictional movie.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
And yes I've seen the Screaming Skull.... aside from being boring it actually wasn't that bad. Actually it's a lot boring. The MST version made it less boring.
And The Brain the Wouldn't die. It's actually kinda lame. The MST version doesn't make it less lame though, only funnier. It's one of those movies with "magic" science.... although, to be fair, it does work well as a REALLY twisted version of the Frankenstein story.
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Let me summarize the big points for you (since you are starting to drift a bit here, I do want to make this as unambiguous as possible).
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I will in just a moment but why? The only movies I've referenced in this thread as being terrible are Plan 9 from Outer Space and Into Darkness (with unfavorable comparisons also made to Transfomers, GI Joe, and TMNT, but that was definitely more stylistic than substantive). I took a jab at Super 8 in another thread recently, but I'm pretty sure that I've made no general claims that all, or even most, movies suck. More specifically the latest JJ reboot for the stated reasons.
So anyway, movies that weren't terrible
It actually might be easier to list off those movies which I think are terrible (barring what I've seen with a riffing commentary track, but that's not a guarantee of a terribly working movie by any means [ex. Pod People, Overdrawn at the Memory Bank.)
And those interested in the art of contradiction should realize the above is not a list of movies I like (quite a few of those I really don't) or those that I think are representative of what a movie should be. They're just a selection that came to mind which I'll argue aren't functionally terrible. And discussing the why's and how's of that list is well beyond the context of this thread (and in rather poor taste unless you're also willing to populate a fairly random list for the internet's consumption :P.)
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The problem is, you think you are right about something where there is no "right" or "wrong". What you consider to be a "logical inconsistency" may NOT be one to someone else. Therefore, your entire basis for your argument is completely subjective. It is nothing more than your personal opinion. And there is nothing wrong with your personal opinion, it just means no more than any other random joe. So if it makes you happy to think the movie sucks and the vast majority of people are wrong, that's fine. You are free to think whatever you like and makes you feel good.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
This is going to be a wasted exercise (because I do appreciate that you won't reply) but this is an irreverent post. As I've said explicitly in discussion there's no solid fact. You can approximate fact with the evidence available (ie. statements made by one or more individuals that attempt to describe the subject in question) but at no point should anything be taken as fact in itself. I made points that attempted to describe things which were joined by other points about other things which together built a picture about Into Darkness. However, the points you and those I disagreed with made, I found, were not sufficient to dismiss the weight against them.
I therefore still conclude that Into Darkness is dysfunctional, and quite unfortunately for your reaction I also tried to separate that idea from how any given person should feel about the movie (ie. what their opinion should be). Mechanically speaking, motivations, messages, tones, and plot change from scene to scene with little regard for how that shapes the overall impact of the movie. For example: the Vengeance cash scene. Did that contribute to a message or was it an arbitrary spectacle shot which did more to undermine the broader anti-war (being very general to what the crew of the Enterprise was trying to prevent) point? No one (so far) had anything to say about that. No one said "hey, here's something you should consider for greater depth and character complexity" which couldn't, under further examination (ie. discussion) be reasonably shown not to be the case (ex. the Marcus plan or the war on terror analogy. Neither work and I even provided specific historical details in the form of a competing allegory for that latter example.) The points against ID held up to mutual discussion/argumentation, while those for it didn't.
Thus I'll stick to my original argument and continue discussion with that in mind in spite of your objections. I did consider opposing points of view and arguments and tried to come to the most reasonable conclusion about how well this movie functions (and I should know that more than you, BTW) and it happens that I am still negative on that point. In your posts, for example, I did not find sufficient evidence to suggest that the logical problems posed by Marcus's plot were consistent with a workable narrative from either a personal or historical point of view (especially historical, I didn't want to delve into that but sufficed to say the WWII reference was a superficial comment). I therefore don't agree with them and provided replies that pointed to additional problems in your line of reasoning (without, at that point, resorting to text walls or personal comments). Now I may not have presented all sides of the debate with every post but such a standard is completely unheard of for an internet forum (or more generally productive discussions.)
So, what I don't appreciate (because it wouldn't be fair for only you to give your own personal reflections on this discussion) is your and nagus's attitude (and it is just that) that discussion that ultimately goes against your own or a given point of view (as your specific criticism seems based on the fact that I didn't respond as you think I should have to your comments and those you may have agreed with) is somehow just an opinion regardless of its information content (that some kind of reasonable conclusion cannot be reached about things, though you seem quite selective in how you approach this idea). There is a point to justifying oneself. It provides a better chance at aligning an "opinion" to something more tangible (even if certainty is never achieved.) That is why I cite, I clarify, and I explain to what I judged was a satisfactory degree for this kind of discussion and moderate that against the replies received. I even discussed the nature of opinion when it became specifically relevant to Nagus's user-specific criticisms and eased my opinion with respect to the first reboot when I saw that the comments about Into Darkness were not as applicable. My conclusions did not sync with yours but I think you'd agree that I am not personally obligated to adopt a point of view if I find that point of view unsubstantiated. And in the interest of full clarity I don't assume that of you as well, hence why I didn't criticize you for not agreeing with me.
I tell you now in full earnestness that I make no fundamental assumptions that I'm absolutely correct and that's why I'm trying to participate in a discussion. That fact may not be totally clear from the often unqualified use of written language but making direct statements is how English works.
You evidently don't agree with me, this is after all just a thread on the internet and reaching a reasonable consensus isn't terribly likely (though not an unworthy goal). But dismissing arguments out of hand as you are doing now is not the way to open, rational discourse. I'll keep the simplifying jabs at the inanimate subject to a minimum next time (as that may save confusion) and just make the points I want to make, but I won't accept the view (which, again is inconsistent with how we treat the world) that in a discussion opinions are the all-in-all. There are logical conclusions that can also be made, whether or not you personally agree with them (I make no obligations for you), from even social factors and I hope this slab of unwanted, inconvenient didactism is enough to illustrate that fact.
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No, the entire world is not a matter of opinion; that is true. There are some things that are facts and can actually be proven. Unfortunately for you, whether a movie is good or bad isn't one of them. Therefore, no matter how many times you post or how long your post is, nothing you can ever say will ever prove you right on this issue. At the end of the day, after all is said, you will only be as right/wrong as every other random joe who has an opinion about a movie. But that shouldn't bother you. You shouldn't have some psychological need to try to change someone's mind about a movie. How I feel about the JJ-movies(which I have not actually said in this thread) is all that matters in my life. Whether you agree/disagree/etc makes no difference to my experience.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
My character Tsin'xing
I won't comment on the preceding (not out of malice, there just seems to be significant gap in communication here) but I'll just ask why you bothered explaining that you don't care about what I say about JJ trek if it means so little? To you, its just noise, unremarkable noise that shouldn't have been given a single thought.
As we've gone back and forth on this though with repeated attempts to say "no, the world cannot be proven" (that's a universal statement by the way which includes movies. You can discuss in terms of adhering to a mechanical structure of story telling with constraints set by human reactions and broader tendencies. See. literature appreciation classes, such as you may have had in high school or college. Because we do not have analytical tools to quantify the quality of any given piece of art or entertainment (as it works for us) there is still something (however vague) that can be said more generally about how well they function according to an intuitive set of standards and principles. You may not have the accuracy to precisely rank works but you can detect broad differences in functionality. It's like difference between performing a T-Test and trying to evaluate yourself the difference between two distributions. The point of stats here isn't to say "ONLY NUMERICAL ASSESSMENTS HAVE MEANING" (that's a gross misinterpretation of modern discourse) its just that you can be more consistent and precise with them. Again this is taken as read in literature, no pun intended, and the practice of critically discussion fiction is and has been applied to movies as well, though that you may not have been exposed to that setting. And yes, I did just make a digression this long in the middle of a sentence and fully intend to continue on with it. Why? Because this is a great illustration of the fact that I really just want to discuss things and get at a reasonable approximation of what's going on. I was also trying to joke around before but neither you or jonsills seemed willing to tolerate that) it seems that there's more going on that just the intention to make a statement that you don't care.
I won't, in good taste, speculate what that might be, but I'll just say "I understand you don't care and I won't try to argue with you about this movie any longer."
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This seems to matter too much to you, in an unhealthy way. So, the reason I posted was to try to put things into perspective. That this isn't a "right" or "wrong" issue. It's just personal opinion. If you don't like the movie, that's fine. If someone else does, that's also fine. You aren't right and they aren't wrong. Or, both of you are equally right and wrong. Either way, it shouldn't bother you as much as it apparently does, and you shouldn't have some compulsive need to try to overwhelm people with words until they just agree with you.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.