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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Amph JJ Abrams' Star Trek Into Darkness

Discussion in 'Community' started by Ulkesh2, Sep 8, 2010.

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  1. timmoishere

    timmoishere Force Ghost star 6

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    Jun 2, 2007
    Because the point of the treaty wasn't to get Naboo to acquiesce to the Trade Federation. The treaty was meant to show how Valorum's rule was decaying, which Palpatine would have used as political ammunition in the upcoming vote of no confidence.
     
  2. Arawn_Fenn

    Arawn_Fenn Chosen One star 7

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    Jul 2, 2004
    "John Harrison was a fiction created the moment I was awoken by your Admiral Marcus to help him advance his cause. A smoke screen to conceal my true identity."

    "A smoke screen to conceal my true identity."

    "conceal my true identity."
     
  3. I Are The Internets

    I Are The Internets Shelf of Shame Host star 9 VIP - Game Host

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    Nov 20, 2012
    I was kinda bummed that there weren't any ship battles. I like ship battles.
     
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  4. dp4m

    dp4m Chosen One star 10

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    Nov 8, 2001

    Right, but that doesn't explain -- at all -- going from a Mexican playing an Indian to a Brit playing... a Brit. The cover identity was just the name, as stated, to conceal the name "Khan" (which even then Marcus thought just the name would be enough to implicate him, as we saw from Space Seed which didn't actually happen).
     
  5. Arawn_Fenn

    Arawn_Fenn Chosen One star 7

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    Jul 2, 2004
    Of course it doesn't. How is Khan an Indian in Space Seed but a Brit in Into Darkness? What it explains is going from a Mexican playing an Indian to a Brit playing... an Indian.

    No. The "John Harrison" identity is more than just a name.

    As we saw from Space Seed and Into Darkness, just hearing the name does nothing. Doing a Google search on "Khan" only produces a meaningful result when the Khan in front of you appears to be the same person as the "Khan" in the database. If Khan was an actual historical figure, his appearance would have been a liability, and thus if the objective is to conceal his identity then changing his appearance only makes sense.
     
  6. DarthMane2

    DarthMane2 Force Ghost star 5

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    Sep 20, 2003
    Not canon. Fact is Kirk or Spock were never smart enough to look up this dude who pretty much gave them the same amount of backstory as khan in space seed did. They knew something was up with him, as they did in Into Darkness, but in the TOS they were smart enough to research him. In fact the look into the archive seemed to more confirm Kirks suspicions rather than a "who the Hell?" From into darkness Kirk. They had plenty of time to find this info, and there was no need for the old Spock scene. Which was forced to begin with.
     
  7. Arawn_Fenn

    Arawn_Fenn Chosen One star 7

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    Jul 2, 2004
    Space Seed is 100% canon. Besides that, someone seems to have gotten the wrong idea from the various attacks on the Star Wars EU over the years. "Not canon" is not the same as "Not consistent with canon" or "Not possible in the canon continuity".

    Didn't see it, didn't happen didn't work this time.

    The TOS crew was working with more information. The dinner conversation with Khan in Space Seed implied more than was conveyed in STID. Also, the TOS crew drew inferences from the name of Khan's ship, information which the STID crew did not know. And TOS Khan made it obvious he was hiding something.

    In TOS they only got somewhere with their "research" because the computer had an image of the same guy they had on their ship.
     
  8. DarthMane2

    DarthMane2 Force Ghost star 5

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    Sep 20, 2003
    I know space seed is canon. Comic isn't. And they have khan on the ship, and know what he looks like, so an image should have come up his the same.
     
  9. Arawn_Fenn

    Arawn_Fenn Chosen One star 7

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    Jul 2, 2004
    Then Marla assuming Khan was Indian just from looking at him is canon. Now, how many people have ever looked at Benedict Cumberbatch and thought "probably Indian"?

    Just because something's in a comic doesn't make it impossible.

    If Khan's appearance was altered, they're not going to find anything in the computer which links the name "Khan" to someone who looks like Benedict Cumberbatch.
     
  10. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

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    May 4, 2003
    This logic doesn't make any sense. For the treaty to demonstrate the Republic's decay, it has to be signed, not simply offered and ignored. And if it needs to be signed, then it's still in the interest of the Trade Federation to force Padme into doing so.

    By contrast, if a signed treaty isn't necessary, and Valorum's weakness is demonstrated by the mere fact of the invasion, then why bother with a treaty in the first place? It would be a totally superfluous plot element.

    There's no conceivable situation in which there both needed to be a treaty and that treaty doesn't need to be signed.

    This is a perfectly irrelevant response. No one is discussing what's "possible." People are trying to discuss what actually happened within the film continuity. There's no indication that he got some sort of absurd surgery to change his ethnicity and voice tenor.
     
  11. darth-sinister

    darth-sinister Manager Emeritus star 10 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Jun 28, 2001

    In addition to the dialogue supplied by dp4m, there's the message that Governor Bibble was forced to send to Padme, which she herself later saw on her way to Coruscant. If you spend a little more time watching the film and less rolling your eyes, you might learn something.

    The real problem is Abrams was trying to fight a round peg in a square hole with Trek. Trying to turn it into "Star Wars" and it just doesn't work. Made worse by trying to please the fans and not in the good way, while trying to make his own mark. Rick Berman, for all of his faults, at least got it when he was in charge. He just stuck with a studio that wanted to bleed the cow until it was dead. It's no wonder the quality diminished by the time "Enterprise" limped into the finale.

    That's because Nute Gunray was never intended to be like Wilhuff Tarkin. That's why Dooku and Grievous were running things more directly in AOTC, TCW and ROTS. Nute was a businessman. Nothing more and nothing less.

    Sure it does. First, she does what Palpatine infers that she do, which is call for a vote to nominate new leadership in the Senate. Second, she goes back to Naboo, organizes the pockets of resistance and the Gungan army, and uses them to take the planet back by force.

    There is no explanation other than they chose a different actor and didn't concern themselves with nationality. Just like Sean Connery, a Scottsman, played a Spanish-Egyptian named Tak Ne, aka Juan Sanchez Villa Lobos Ramirez in "Highlander" and "Highlander II". No plastic surgery required. Just play silly casting based on actor's skill more than anything.

    You're missing things.

    1. Nute doesn't know that Sidious is Palpatine and is using him for his own political gain. Nute is lead to believe that he needs to invade Naboo, get Padme to sign a treaty legitimizing the invasion and then use this to show that the Trade Federation and its constituents will not stand for the bullying tactics of the Senate. The Senate would ratify the treaty and thus making it all nice and legal.

    2. But the reality is that Palpatine intends bring this matter to the Senate and manipulate certain individuals into calling for a vote of no confidence in Valorum. Then using the political power that he has amassed, through both legal and illegal means, to gain the nomination and win the office. Padme escaping was unintended and unfortunate, but not a complete disaster by any means as he was able to use her to his advantage. She calls for the vote of no confidence and then while she's off gallivanting around, Palpatine is getting himself elected Chancellor. The Battle of Naboo ends and seeing that Maul was dead, that the Chosen One had been found and that Nute was arrested, he needed to move swiftly. After turning Dooku, he used him to manipulate the courts to prevent Nute from going to prison and eventually bringing him back into the fold.

    The invasion was all a smokescreen.
     
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  12. dp4m

    dp4m Chosen One star 10

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    Nov 8, 2001

    Right, but I was more responding to Arawn's assertion that there was a plastic surgery job done to make him look that way which was never covered anywhere...

    It seemed like they were playing it as he was Khan and unchanged, otherwise he may have made more of a deal about Marcus making him look "like this" as opposed to just a personal of John Harrison created...
     
  13. Placeholder

    Placeholder Jedi Master star 4

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    Jan 30, 2013
    The treaty is irrelevant, it's just a dog and pony show. The real point was to create a crisis, and to showcase that the Chancellor is too weak to be up to the challenge of resolving it. Padme, Naboo, the Trade Federation, none of those things really matter to Palpatine. They are just puppets for him. The treaty, that's just an objective to give to the Trade Federation. They think this is about trade routes and taxes. Palpatine doesn't give a crap about trade routes.


    As to Khan, I don't like the casting. I think it's problematic. I thought he was excellent as a Khan type augment. And I liked the idea of perhaps him being another member of Khan's crew. But he was not Khan. Either cast him correctly or don't use the character.

    I still liked the movie overall despite it's flaws.
     
  14. darth-sinister

    darth-sinister Manager Emeritus star 10 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Jun 28, 2001

    Yeah, but that was IDW's idea and I don't know why, other than to try and make the previous Khan stories fall in line with the new universe. It's the same way that the Spock mini-series that came out after the 09 film, used the liknesses of the new actors in the flashbacks and then the older actors for the present day. Even going so far as to depict Quinto aging into Nimoy on the covers. Really, there was no need for it in the tie-in material for "Into Darkness".
     
  15. dp4m

    dp4m Chosen One star 10

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    Nov 8, 2001
    Okay... but unless there's been a paradigm shift at Paramount somewhere (always possible, I don't keep up 100%) Trek canon has always been 100% TV/movie-based -- even The Animated Series counted more. lol

    As much as I liked the 2009 lead-in, I knew it wasn't necessarily what happened. It's wholly different than the position LFL took on EU...
     
  16. KissMeImARebel

    KissMeImARebel Force Ghost star 5

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    Nov 25, 2003
    Eh, I'm a little more forgiving of this point, for a number of reasons. In "Space Seed" it was said that records from the 1990s were sparse due to the warfare, and even in that episode it took a while for Spock to piece together who Khan really was. I'm willing to buy that at some point off screen Spock tried looking Khan up but wasn't getting immediate results, and in the meantime, decisions had to be made. Also, I don't think Kirk would have necessarily acted any different towards Khan even if he knew exactly who Khan was -- Khan had demonstrated that he was a dangerous mass-killer in the present, so don't see how knowing he was one in the past would really make a difference.

    Calling up Old!Spock was stupid though. I won't disagree there. I can see how it seems logical that Spock would reach out to Old!Spock as a resource, but the result being that Spock ended up using the same idea to trick Khan was stupid and lazy writing. I've had the assumption (and maybe I'm wrong, perhaps someone could clarify for me?) that the NuTrek's universe is allowed to be different in ways set pre-Nero's arrival and encounter with the Kelvin, and not just in things set after it. So for Khan to be so similar that he would fall for the same trick (never mind that his experiences in the 23rd century have been different) is just asking for too much suspension of disbelief on my part.
     
  17. darth-sinister

    darth-sinister Manager Emeritus star 10 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Jun 28, 2001
    Personality traits would remain the same between the universes, which was shown in "Parallels", one of the episodes that served as basis for the eleventh film. Khan's weakness was that while he was very intelligent, he was prone to thinking in a straight line and not thinking outside the box. More so when he's enraged. Since Khan was protective of his people in both universes, his weakness would still be the same. The differences between the universes centers around timeline and technological shifts. Which is why this universe can have things changed and altered from forty years worth of story material prior to. Any changes made are the result of actions caused by Nero's arriving, such as Admiral Marcus finding Khan instead of Captain Kirk, thus resulting in a lot of changes. But Kirk's personality remains the same except for being even more brash, because of the anger he felt over his father's death. He's still a ladies man, who likes to break the rules in order to win. McCoy still hates some of Starfleet's technology, such as transporters and has a taste for whiskey. Sulu has a fondness for swords in both universes.
     
  18. Darth Guy

    Darth Guy Chosen One star 10

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    Aug 16, 2002
    Sulu had a sword in ONE (bad) episode. But it's an image that many people remember, so hey, it defines the character, I guess.
     
  19. Barriss_Coffee

    Barriss_Coffee Chosen One star 6

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    Jun 29, 2003
    Why haven't we yet seen Spock's fondness for knitted skull caps???

    [​IMG]
     
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  20. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

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    May 4, 2003
    We don't know how she will respond to threats against her physical person, I mean. Because no one ever tries it. Which you think they would, if they'd gone so far as invade the planet and try to starve millions of people to death. It never occurs to them to even have someone slap her or point a gun threateningly?

    Or even if they left her alone, why not do space bombardment of civilian areas until Padme agreed to sign? They were apparently willing to let everyone die by starvation, so why not another method that was actually more appropriate to the time-sensitive situation?

    I'm not missing anything. This point doesn't help you, because we are talking about the actions of Nute Gunray. If you just confirmed he wanted the treaty signed, why didn't he try harder to make Padme sign it?

    Yes, I know Palpatine's plan. But as you just pointed out, Nute Gunray doesn't. So why would he act like getting the treaty signed is unimportant, when you've already agreed that it is the most important thing from his perspective? He can't both care and not care about it at the same time. You get stuff like this when the writers assume the villains are sitting in the theater watching the movie along with you, instead of trying to create a narrative where characters' actions are dictated by the limited viewpoints and knowledge they actually possess.

    Again, if the Trade Federation genuinely believes that this is about trade policy, and that getting this treaty with Naboo signed is an important part of fixing it, why wouldn't they try everything in their power to get it signed?
     
  21. hudzu

    hudzu Force Ghost star 6

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    Jun 1, 2003
    all i've really learned from this movie is that simon pegg can be kind of an ass.
     
  22. Lord Vivec

    Lord Vivec Chosen One star 9

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    Apr 17, 2006
    I think he's being awesome.
     
  23. Darth Guy

    Darth Guy Chosen One star 10

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    Aug 16, 2002
    A guy who (rightly, don't get me wrong) criticizes the prequels dismisses legit criticism of the Abrams/Lindelof/Orci interpretation of Trek probably because he gets to play Scotty and is being paid by said creative team? Yeah, awesome. I usually like Pegg, but his reaction disappointed me. Not like I would have expected him to say, "Yeah, Into Darkness was pretty bad." But the level of arrogance and hypocrisy is lame.
     
  24. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

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    May 4, 2003
    After reading the interview, I really don't even mind that he seems to bristle at criticism. He could disagree strongly, and even have continued being somewhat dismissive without bothering me. But to make such extended speculation about those who disagree, and to have become so angry as to have used profanity reveals a deep personalizing of the issue. That's both unnecessary and unprofessional. One would imagine, as an actor, that he has seen enough rejection to handle it more gracefully than that. Rather than choose to employ those skills, he took a long moment to kick down--hard--at people he thought were less powerful or important. What's admirable about such childishness?
     
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  25. Arawn_Fenn

    Arawn_Fenn Chosen One star 7

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    Jul 2, 2004
    This is a typical content-free exercise in pointless flailing. You seem unable to comprehend that the issues of "what is possible" and "what actually happened" are to large extent one and the same. Most of "what actually happened within the film continuity" is not depicted in any film. Thus, since in many cases "what actually happened" is unknown, all we are left with is a collection of possibilities. Just as in the case of SW EU, simply shouting "not canon" is not enough to summarily dismiss scenarios which are consistent with the content of the films.

    Meanwhile, your childish insistence on referring to me as a member of the opposite sex only serves to further cement your status as a nauseating troll with nothing meaningful to contribute. Keep it up.

    There is, and it's already been spoon-fed to you, just like everything else: he went from a guy who Marla McGivers identified as Indian on sight to a guy who looks like Benedict Cumberbatch.

    It was never said that making Khan "John Harrison" was only a name change, as many seem to have assumed. Arguably, if Marcus had really wanted to conceal his identity, it would have necessitated more than just changing his name.
     
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