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Old 10-05-2014, 10:29 PM
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Zeke Zeke is offline
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Now some shorter points.
  • There's a line between "this should be explained" and "nah, just ignore it" that each of us draws in a different place. In reading XIP, I was reminded where I draw mine: after events, but before visuals. Wowbagger does a great job justifying the differences between the original and reboot Enterprise. If you like that sort of thing, it's the sort of thing you'll like -- but I wouldn't have bothered. After all, if we need to justify the ship looking different, don't we need to justify Chris Pine not looking like William Shatner?

  • I take exception to the idea that Kirk's death was like Tasha's, “a death without purpose.” It's one of the most common complaints about Generations, that Kirk somehow didn't get a heroic death, and I couldn't disagree more. His death wasn't just heroic, it was more heroic than Spock's. Spock died to save his friends. Kirk died to save people he didn't know, and who would never know he did it. (The Enterprise-D crew probably found out, but the millions on Veridian IV didn't. Thanks, Prime Directive!) You would probably die for a family member, but would you die for a stranger? “An empty death,” my ass.

    (All well and good, you may say, but we in the audience will also never meet those people -- for our sake, shouldn't Kirk die for people we know? Good news! He does that at the start of the film. Veridian III is more like an encore.)

  • In one way, this explanation is actually too detailed for its own good. It creates what I call a “Voyager Conspiracy” problem. In that VOY episode, Seven accidentally assimilates paranoia; she digs up some odd details about how Voyager wound up in the Delta Quadrant and comes up with a total of three crazy theories to explain them. Those theories are quickly debunked, but for other reasons -- we never get a real explanation for the odd details. (See the Cynic's review under “Mysteries of the Week”.)

    Similarly, one of the triumphs of XIP is how it actually explains some peculiar things both in canon and in the reboot. The actions of characters like Stiles, Pardek, Nero, and even Spock make more sense in the united timeline. Inevitably, that leads to disappointment when the reader remembers that Eleven isn't Prime. Spock wasn't really to blame for Romulus and Nero knows that perfectly well, making his destruction of Vulcan the most cartoonish, supervillainous overreaction in Trek. (Second place: Shinzon putting Earth on his things-to-destroy list basically for the hell of it. Then come the villains from all the other movies. It's kind of a recurring problem with them.)

  • This is a bit picky, but Kirk's line that "Spock would have found a way" sounds much more inspiring before you look it up and realize the context. It's from STIII, after Sarek checks Kirk for Spock's katra and doesn't find it. In other words, Kirk was saying Spock would've found a way to save himself, not someone else.

  • The twenty-year sentence for destroying an uninhabited star system is hilarious. Don't get me wrong, I completely believe the Federation would have such a law. The act in question is either morally neutral (no life, no harm done -- I lean this way) or atrociously evil (who knows what life might have arisen there someday?). It's either not a crime or the worst crime ever, so let's compromise and call it twenty years!
That's all I have so far, but if I remember anything else I meant to say, I'll post again. Meanwhile, thanks again to Wowbagger for writing one of the most interesting things we've ever posted here. (How interesting? Even this reply had to be split into two posts because the forum wouldn't let me post it in one!)
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Last edited by Zeke; 10-06-2014 at 11:21 PM.
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