[horatio]

Your question is as stupid as asking why Enterprise Incident is compared with Balance of Terror or why Ledger's Joker is compared with Nicholson's. When there are two stories that involve the same aliens/characters the latter one will naturally be compared with the former one. Perhaps not by someone like you but by people who have a more balanced view upon the franchise and actually care about good stories instead of lensflares, monsters, Tattoomulans and fast cuts.

If you didn't notice all the fanwank in STXI you might wanna watch it again. Inside jokes all over the place, Nimoy, Orions, Klingons, Romulans, Vulcans, gee, it's a fanboy's wet dream. Unlike ENT's fourth season which actually told stories about Vulcans, Orions and Romulans in which these familiar aliens sometimes appeared in a fresh light STXI just put them in for the sake of it.
Hard to tell whether it was Orci's fandom gone wild or a marketing guy whispering in his ears how to satisfy the fans with such a simple trick.

[samwiseb]

Originally Posted by horatio

Your question is as stupid as asking why Enterprise Incident is compared with Balance of Terror or why Ledger's Joker is compared with Nicholson's. When there are two stories that involve the same aliens/characters the latter one will naturally be compared with the former one.

Which characters? Klingons? They're in every tenth episode and almost every other movie. Augments? I seriously doubt most people in the audience, including casual fans, will have even gotten the memo that we're suddenly 'supposed' to be calling Khan an 'Augment' now. A lot of regular fans who had already written off ENT might not even care.

Perhaps not by someone like you but by people who have a more balanced view upon the franchise and actually care about good stories instead of lensflares, monsters, Tattoomulans and fast cuts. If you didn't notice all the fanwank in STXI you might wanna watch it again. Inside jokes all over the place, Nimoy, Orions, Klingons, Romulans, Vulcans, gee, it's a fanboy's wet dream.

'Someone like me'. I'm actually fully confident I could bet my balanced vie against yours four out of seven days of the week. Nimoy (aka "Doctor" Spock), Klingons, Romulans, Vulcans and 'green girls' (I very specifically did not say Orions) are not 'fanwank'. They are the polar opposite in fact. They are the things that 'everyone' already knows about ST in passing. And that is why they are in the movie.

Unlike ENT's fourth season which actually told stories about Vulcans, Orions and Romulans in which these familiar aliens sometimes appeared in a fresh light STXI just put them in for the sake of it.

This part is entirely subjective. The movie presented a previously untold story about the characters most commonly associated with ST. Whereas (to me) the stories I've seen from ENT S4 feel contrived in quite frankly the same way that a lot of the ST paperbacks I no longer read were.

Hard to tell whether it was Orci's fandom gone wild or a marketing guy whispering in his ears how to satisfy the fans with such a simple trick.

I think it was a practical understanding of what ingredients of ST a non-fan might find familiar enough in passing to seem inclusive to him. But of course a lot of hardcore fans are too detail-obsessive to have an intuitive ability to look at ST from a distance. Or to care as much about aesthetics and music as they do about continuity.

[horatio]

It is entirely objective. We learned nothing new about Vulcans and Romulans and they did not have anything to do with each other (I am arguing for weaving things together). The Klingons on the other hand were fantastic but cut out for obvious reasons.
The Orions were, as you pointed out, just green girls, i.e. a clichée instead of the real thing. In The Cage there weren't any green girls, there was a character which perfectly fitted into the story. It was an alien, not just a green girl that matches some stupid Trek clichées.
Not that I expected anything sane from you but your argument that Trek is supposed to reproduce its own clichées and basically be a parody of itself is so utterly lunatic that it doesn't require any further comments.

Back to the Orions, Bound, the previous story which involved them actually told something new about them. Doing something fresh with old faces is not continuity obsession or fanwankery, otherwise the very reboot of TOS would be fanwank as well which it obviously isn't. That's all I am asking for, if you use familiar characters or aliens do something fresh with them or connect them with each other.
To come back to the next movie, despite considering Orci to be an abysmal writer I actually expect that the Klingons and Augments will have something to do with each other. Otherwise it will most likely be something like TSFS or TFF, Klingons hunting the same thing the Feds hunt.

[kevin]

And using the TSFS and TFF example that is not in and of itself necessarily a gripe with a film. Notwithstanding that TSFS is the better film anyway, but in those two stories the Klingons were not the point of the film. What the primary characters and the crew were doing was the point.

Kruge and Klaa were there mostly to inject a little heightened drama into the story. But they were not THE story itself. This is the same as Nero in ST09. Nero was never the main point. Him being Romulan was never the point of the story in that film. The story of Kirk/Spock and the crew was, just as it was in TSFS and TFF.

[samwiseb]

Originally Posted by horatio

It is entirely objective. We learned nothing new about Vulcans and Romulans and they did not have anything to do with each other (I am arguing for weaving things together). The Klingons on the other hand were fantastic but cut out for obvious reasons.
The Orions were, as you pointed out, just green girls, i.e. a clichée instead of the real thing. In The Cage there weren't any green girls, there was a character which perfectly fitted into the story. It was an alien, not just a green girl that matches some stupid Trek clichées.
Not that I expected anything sane from you but your argument that Trek is supposed to reproduce its own clichées and basically be a parody of itself is so utterly lunatic that it doesn't require any further comments.

Back to the Orions, Bound, the previous story which involved them actually told something new about them. Doing something fresh with old faces is not continuity obsession or fanwankery, otherwise the very reboot of TOS would be fanwank as well which it obviously isn't. That's all I am asking for, if you use familiar characters or aliens do something fresh with them or connect them with each other.
To come back to the next movie, despite considering Orci to be an abysmal writer I actually expect that the Klingons and Augments will have something to do with each other. Otherwise it will most likely be something like TSFS or TFF, Klingons hunting the same thing the Feds hunt.

Arrogant as always. And still presuming to put words in other people's mouths (I'd have thought that would have bitten you in the @$$ by now). You're now going to have to cite where exactly I argued Trek 'should', in your oh-so-objective choice of words, "reproduce its own cliches and be a parody of itself." If you're right, this time it's just a mouse scroll away. Nothing? Didn't think so. You don't get to decide for people what's in their heads or mouths AND proclaim yourself the authority on who's being objective. I'm convinced you're actually pouting when you willfully plug your ears and hum really loud like that.

It's not even a question of what familiar elements they 'should' bring over when adapting a movie from a franchise. It's the same issue every franchise movie director deals with, including fandom's can't-do-wrong Christopher Nolan. Nobody can say what they 'should' have done. The jury of public opinion decides whether they told an effective story and held people's interest in the process. Be as blunt and condescending as you want (I've about stopped expecting anything sane from you as well), but you don't even know who your argument is with. The verdict's been in for two years as of this week.

Now, I'm sorry to understand that these five eps you cite really are the pinnacle of all of Trek for you, judging by your particular abrasiveness this time. You've answered my question as to why you spontaneously brought up this particularly specific and almost-non-sequitter-at-first-glance comparison for discussion. Which makes my continued participation here utterly petty at this point, assuming I cared anymore (nothing that comes from me is sane anyway, and this is an unmoderated board, so f- it).

For my part I watched all five episodes and just wasn't that engaged with them by and large. I don't know what you want me to say. I don't consider a fan-mandated Just-So Story about Why the Ruffles Lost Their Ridges to be in itself an interesting enough place to start with an idea. I don't take anything new from that; if anything I think it takes away more than it adds to the mythos. And that's still allowing that the writing and direction themselves could ultimately prove me wrong (they didn't).

The Augment three-parter seemed like it should have been a two-parter; the Ruffles have Ridges two-parter probably had enough story for just one good episode. You could have trimmed the Orion slave auction diversion, and the technobabble crises intermission (culminating in Trip's superfluous space walk between two ships at warp) entirely. The battles could have been shortened considerably, given how tiresome they get on Berman Trek anyway (I fail to see the difference between shields and hull plating when both can repeatedly drop to ten percent). The 'Augments', as I'm now supposed to call them, had none of Khan's charisma whatsoever, nor did they seem particularly intelligent... apparently content to off each other over which Alpha Male gets to impregnate the fertile female (who herself gets utterly blindsighted by her boyfriend, while we're supposed to pretend to act surprised). Meanwhile Archer gets to repeatedly roll his eyes and say "I told you so" to Soong, because believing in The Law -whatever that might happen to be in any particular decade- apparently makes one a moral enough person to always have an intuitive awareness of when someone else' worldview is So Obviously Wrong. And apparently Section 31 has been doing Business As Usual for over 200 years... that's inspired.

All the arcs I've seen so far (Augments, Vulcan, Bable, Ruffles have Ridges) appear to come apart in their final installment because they spare no expense being contrived in the name of appearing climactic (The dominant 'conservative' Vulcan faction turns out to be just evil and corrupt after all; how cop-out seeming is that). And by the epilogue nothing is ever left to the imagination ("I've been thinking... cybernetics. Might take a couple centuries to realize").

None of these shortcomings, none of them, are deal breakers in and of themselves... any more than is Berman's signature blandness in music and cinematography. I haven't even 'officially' stopped watching yet, although 'Bound' I find to be the most offensive ST since 'Mudd's Women'. There were even occasional moments of greatness in the eps. But you of course were already going to ignore that I even said that... and I dare you to prove me wrong. I already saw the Mirror arc and the finale back in 2005, so I'm not sure how much that leaves. 'Maybe' the remaining 3/4 of S3 are supposed to be what would turn me around? Since you're also an authority on how much I've seen?

[horatio]

Originally Posted by kevin

And using the TSFS and TFF example that is not in and of itself necessarily a gripe with a film. Notwithstanding that TSFS is the better film anyway, but in those two stories the Klingons were not the point of the film. What the primary characters and the crew were doing was the point.

Kruge and Klaa were there mostly to inject a little heightened drama into the story. But they were not THE story itself. This is the same as Nero in ST09. Nero was never the main point. Him being Romulan was never the point of the story in that film. The story of Kirk/Spock and the crew was, just as it was in TSFS and TFF.

That's a good point and while I totally agree that neither Kruge nor Klaa had any impact upon the story they are certainly not great characters and perhaps even the worst TOS Klingons.
Given the cut-out Klingon scenes it is safe to assume that the Klingons will not suffer from the same problem in the upcoming movie, independent of how little screen time they will have.
Klingons which are shown to be brutal and cunning at the same time in a matter of two minutes, that definitely warrants more and if they can be tied well into the main (?) story with Khan, all the better.

[Saquist]

Originally Posted by samwiseb

The 'Augments', as I'm now supposed to call them, had none of Khan's charisma whatsoever, nor did they seem particularly intelligent... apparently content to off each other over which Alpha Male gets to impregnate the fertile female (who herself gets utterly blindsighted by her boyfriend, while we're supposed to pretend to act surprised).

This is so true. I didn't even realize how different Khan's people were with the Augments.

All the arcs I've seen so far (Augments, Vulcan, Bable, Ruffles have Ridges) appear to come apart in their final installment because they spare no expense being contrived in the name of appearing climactic (The dominant 'conservative' Vulcan faction turns out to be just evil and corrupt after all; how cop-out seeming is that). And by the epilogue nothing is ever left to the imagination ("I've been thinking... cybernetics. Might take a couple centuries to realize").

Absolutely. It was all contrivance for the vulcans to reassemble quickly what they had dismantled at the very beginning of the series because they knew they were going to be canceled. Making the Vulcans enemies ...(in the way they did it) was mistake NUMERO UNO for Berman with Enterprises story lines. In fact there was no reason to do it all for EARTH would never put their hands into an alien force who they ever suspected as hostile or belligerent.

[martok2112]

Let us once again be mature and remind ourselves that this is merely a movie and/or tv show(s) that we are talking about. It is not religion. It is not philosophy. It is not politics. It is sci-fi, and entertainment. Nothing more.

I get saddened when I see fandoms resort to personal attacks just because of disagreements over something so inconsequential as a movie or TV show. There are much more important things to get so heated up about.

[horatio]

Like who the suckers who left the hypersonic shower on this nasty high frequency and finished the last bottle of Romulan Ale without beaming up another crate are?

[martok2112]

Originally Posted by horatio

Like who the suckers who left the hypersonic shower on this nasty high frequency and finished the last bottle of Romulan Ale without beaming up another crate are?

Yeah, and they polished off the PanGalactic Gargleblasters too....dammit! Ah, well....their headaches...not mine.