Today I learned!

[theweaselking]

torrain took me to see Star Trek. Fun movie! Not nearly as terrible as the first NuTrek. But still, Today I Learned:


* That the Klingon homeworld Khronos is less than 20 light-minutes from the far edge of the Neutral Zone. Which is to say: "about as far as the Earth is, from Mars"
* That the Earth is less than 5 light-minutes from the far edge of the Neutral Zone.
* New Vulcan, wherever that is, can be reached by realtime communication from the Moon, but Earth cannot. So it's closer to the Moon than the Earth.
* KHRONOS can be reached by realtime communication from Earth, on a civilian cellphone. So.... fuck, I got nothing.
* Extremely bright and energetic things, including plasma discharges and WIDE-SPECTRUM RADIO BROADCASTS, in the orbit of the moon, cannot be seen from Earth.
* If your attitude-keeping thrusters fail while in stable orbit next to the moon, you'll fall straight towards the Earth. And impact about three minutes later.

That being said! Fun movie. Just remember that every time you hear a number or see a landmark, mentally replace with LALALALALALALALALALALALALA and you'll be okay. It's not QUITE as bad as NuTrek 1, but worse than Batman Begins' "human bodies don't contain water and steam isn't hot" plot point.

And, seriously, the far edge of the neutral zone is less than 20 light minutes from Khronos. And it takes about 5 minutes for a Warp 1 ship to reach Earth from there. That means Khronos is closer to the Earth than JUPITER is.

And fuck no, Khan is NOT your last chance, you have *72 other people with the exact same super-science mod installed* on ice, right next to you! But I can see making that mistake: Bones is, after all, traditionally the very dumb one.

Comments

[unnamed525.livejournal.com]

That's horrible. They need to hire a logician.

[marlowe1.livejournal.com]

Of course, what's so great is that Bones has just created a super serum that will cure every and all disease including radiation poisoning so severe that your internal organs are melting.

Nothing will ever be spoken of this serum again.

[torrain.livejournal.com]

It will be appropriated same way Scotty's "why yes you can totally use this portable device to get beamed across star systems" gadget was.

(I confess I am kinda okay with this, since the loudest alternative is turning seventy-three people into serum production pods and that's kind of not cool from a human rights perspective. I will live with some implausibility to maintain a basically kind Star Trek universe, you know?)

[spartonian.livejournal.com]

Remember the suspension of disbelief discussions we had on the White Wolf forums many moons ago?

Insert similar arguments here.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

disbelief-suspension generally requires that the writers not keep punching me in the internal consistency.

[spartonian.livejournal.com]

... but pretty lights, explosions, and loud noises!

Oh, and girls with tails.

[copperflame.livejournal.com]

This is exactly why I avoid star trek. I can't for the life of me suspend my math.

[eididdy.livejournal.com]

Didn't you defend the first Iron Man movie...?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Possibly? I don't recall anything remotely as bad as "you can get to the Klingon homeworld in 20 minutes, sublight, from the edge of the Neutral zone" or "while orbiting the moon, you can't call or be seen from Earth" there.

Surviving the crash of the first Iron Man suit was, in contrast, small beans.

[eididdy.livejournal.com]

That movie featured a guy going through open heart surgery requiring the removal of all or most of his sternum, recovering completely even when factoring in the likelihood that his body would reject an electromagnet connected to a car battery being installed in it, building a one-of-a-kind super powered electrical reactor using spare parts that were not meant for that use, going through another open heart surgery, recovering a second time (again with the added potential of his body rejecting the even more powerful electricity-generating piece of metal installed in it), then building a one-of-a-kind weaponized and bullet proof super armor suit from other spare parts that were not meant for that use and doing all of this in the first act while in an ordinary cave under the supervision of multiple guards that can't recognize any of these things happening and/or don't see any reason to intervene if they do.

That's pretty bad. Back punching surgery bad.

*Please note: I said nowhere that I thought any of the things you listed above in Into Darkness were plausible or made sense (in fact, my wife and I made fun of some of them ourselves), nor did I say that things in Star Trek (which we also made fun of) or Batman Begins made sense. Just getting that out of the way because, In the past, you seem to have had trouble grasping the difference between "this makes no sense but doesn't bother me" and "yes it does too make sense."

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Granted, but that's also "1960s background story" bad. I'm happy to give "Tony Stark, mega-engineer who can build anything out of anything AND was also given everything he asked for to build a WMD that his captors didn't understand to begin with" a pass for the same reason I'm willing to give "Bruce Wayne, billionaire who goes to prison voluntarily in order to learn to fight" a pass and "space-baby, from space"[1] and "bitten by magic spider" and "yer a whizzard, Larry" a pass.

Those are your premises. I'm willing to grant those, despite how nuts they are. That's the deal you make with speculative fiction: certain impossible things, set forth as a premise, are accepted despite absurdity and the story proceeds from there GIVEN that those things are true.

And then, sometimes the writers punch you in the suspension of disbelief. Repeatedly. Like how Hogwarts doesn't need a "Defense Against The Dark Arts"[2] instructor, it needs a phys ed teacher because punching a wizard and breaking his wand is WAY faster and more effective than dueling him, or how human bodies don't contain water and steam isn't hot.


[1]: From a trailer in front of Star Trek: "They'll kill him!" "How?". It's always good to be reminded, sometimes, that Jor-El was not only a member of the only race the Legion accepts an unlimited number of members from, but also a very shrewd one, who specifically stacked the deck in favour of his son.

[2]: Harry Dresden lampshades this one nicely, as the Expert In Forbidden Magic laughs at the whole "OMG you're still teaching your doods to do WHAT in response to a Forbidden Magic attack?" thing and then just runs right through it because you'd have to be an IDIOT to use that defense, since it only works against the attacks a Forbidden Magic newb would use.

[eididdy.livejournal.com]

I'm willing to give Tony Stark a pass on the "I'm a genius and can build anything out of anything" in this case, but just barely. Even given that his engineering genius is his power, that still strained credibility. There's a point where even that crosses the line, and it got close there. If they threw him in a cave with an iPod and a microwave oven, I wouldn't be saying "hey, he's a genius engineer" if he came out of the cave with a laser gun.

Despite that, I don't recall "immunity to septic shock" or "I haz Wolverine's heal power" in his catalog of abilities. Much like bodies contain water, you can't open a chest cavity to a room made out of dirt - twice at that - and expect to not get it in there. Open heart surgery has a recovery time of several months in the best of conditions, never mind a cave. Also, in order for this to work at all, we have to assume that the doctor guy is a doctor on the level Tony is an engineer. I'm pretty sure that "cave where you make bombs for us" would not also double as "cave where you can perform open heart surgery." The doctor character would have had to use whatever tools were around (i.e. bomb making tools) to perform surgery.

As for the phys ed teacher, I'm not sure it's faster to punch a wizard and break their wand, especially when one word (that doesn't have to be spoken unless it's a dramatic moment) can do any number of things while you're closing the physical distance to your opponent. Human bodies do contain water and steam is hot though.

RE:[1] I am extremely interested to see how that particular scene plays out.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

The doctor character would have had to use whatever tools were around (i.e. bomb making tools) to perform surgery.

Well, yes, but this is 1960s Origin Story. Scifi gets it's one insane premise that all other things build from, which in this case is "Tony Stark is Perfect Engineer but needs a power source in his chest or explodes".

I'm not sure it's faster to punch a wizard and break their wand, especially when one word (that doesn't have to be spoken unless it's a dramatic moment) can do any number of things

The movies disagree. And, more specifically, they abundantly show many cases where a physical solution would solve the problem after the magical solution fails.

RE:[1] I am extremely interested to see how that particular scene plays out.

It's in the trailer. Jor-El: "I'm sending him to Earth to escape the destruction of Krypton! He'll be an alien and this will be swank." Jor-El's Unnamed Wife: "He'll be foreign. They'll KILL him!". Jor-El: "How?"

[eididdy.livejournal.com]

I guess you take 1960's origin story as an excuse, but I don't. How many implausible situations does that excuse get to hand wave away? Tony Stark is Perfect Engineer so he happens to run into Perfect Doctor?

Besides, maybe Star Trek was playing the same cards with its 1960's origins. =D

The movies disagree. And, more specifically, they abundantly show many cases where a physical solution would solve the problem after the magical solution fails.

Where do they disagree? I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just seeing what you consider an example of this.

It's in the trailer. Jor-El: "I'm sending him to Earth to escape the destruction of Krypton! He'll be an alien and this will be swank." Jor-El's Unnamed Wife: "He'll be foreign. They'll KILL him!". Jor-El: "How?"

Yeah, I saw the trailer, I'm interested to see how that scene plays out beyond what was in the trailer.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I'm willing to accept all kinds of nonsense *in the premise*. Tony Stark is Perfect Engineer and needs a power source in his chest to keep him alive? Okay, premise. Like "bitten by radioactive spider" or "space baby from space". Climax of the same movie suddenly depends on "and also clouds are made of solid rock, held up by angels, and the villain is dropping them on Iron Man"? Not so much.

maybe Star Trek was playing the same cards with its 1960's origins.

Except not so much, since they've clearly established that "physics matters" and "distances happen" and "FTL and sublight are both things" and "a supernova is a supernova" and "rectilinear propagation" and EVERYTHING ELSE NuTreks GOT WRONG ARGH.

Seriously. When "you can't call Earth, from Earth's Moon" is a CRITICAL PLOT POINT, you need to also not be able to call New Vulcan or Khronos from there. And you NEED an explanation for why the earthlings aren't just seeing you by looking up.

[eididdy.livejournal.com]

But that makes "dirt in your chest cavity does not cause your death" part of the premise. Is that just Tony or the whole world? How is accepting "for some reason, dirt in his chest cavity did not cause Tony Stark's death" or "for some reason, Perfect Doctor was able to keep the area sanitary" any different than accepting "for some reason, the Wayne Inc. microwave cannon did not work directly on people" or "for some reason, steam containing Scarecrow's drugs cooled to a reasonable temperature"?[1] Both sets of rationale require that we believe things about the world that are either patently false ("people are not mostly water" "people do not die when dirt gets into their chest cavity") or rely on fictional crutches ("Perfect Doctor abilities sidestep things we know to be true" "the creation process of Plot Device sidesteps things we know to be true") to carry on.

This might be a reason why I have an easier time accepting radioactive spider and space baby: because they're so clearly fictional. There are no rules for something that clearly fictional except the ones they are making up. It's probably one of the reasons why I can't stand it when Batman is portrayed as always being right for no other reason than "because he's Batman." When his tactical and/or detective abilities are portrayed more like precognition, that breaks the nature of the abilities for me, because - all things considered - he isn't psychic, he's just extremely well trained. If Stark had set up a machine to do the surgery or if it had been something he had invented to wear, I would have accepted that just fine. Owing to Perfect Engineer skills, a machine could be made that would be exacting and could purify or filter the air or something. Something he just wore wouldn't require any surgery at all. As it is, I have to not only accept the super human skills of another person, I have to accept that dirt doesn't work the same way.

I know all the stuff about Star Trek, I was just messing with you on that one. My wife an I made fun of the cell phone call across the universe that could not even be remotely duplicated with the communications system of an entire ship. I'm actually surprised you didn't add the contents of the phone call to New Vulcan because I have a bigger problem with that than any of the other things.

[1]Please note, I'm not saying I believe either of those things, but - owing to the utterly fictional nature of both the Wayne Inc. microwave cannon and Scarecrow's drugs - either could be argued by saying their undefined fictional properties and undefined fictional creation allows for fictional results. My honest opinion is that they have no rationale for it, or, if they do, it was cobbled together after people started pointing it out as a plot hole.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I'm actually surprised you didn't add the contents of the phone call to New Vulcan because I have a bigger problem with that than any of the other things.

Meh. As problems go, "As you know, I promised to never tell you about the other timeline. Here's information from the other timeline" is a small one.

[eididdy.livejournal.com]

I think I have a bigger problem with "this is now two out of two movies where we've resolved a major issue by just asking the guy who already did it."

[prk.livejournal.com]

Have you read IO9's nuTrek2 spoiler FAQ?

http://io9.com/star-trek-into-darkness-the-spoiler-faq-508927844

prk

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I have now!

[fatpie42.livejournal.com]

fabfunk/Gabe Toro wrote this article, which makes a pretty clever reference to "Spaceballs":
http://www.denofgeek.us/movies/star-trek/117723/star-trek-into-darkness-what-went-wrong

[spartonian.livejournal.com]

Decent article, but I'm not sure the author and I watched the same movie... what second attack on London...? Did I miss that?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

He means San Francisco, having missed the two-second on-screen banner early in the movie that tells you they've changed places.

[fatpie42.livejournal.com]

From other sources I hear that the scene where a ship crashes into Earth (from the trailer) is meant to be San Francisco, but that part of Earth looks exactly the same as the way London looked at the beginning of the movie.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Very similar. The Golden Gate is visible in a couple of the background shots, and there's on-screen text saying that Starfleet HQ is in SF, but "future SF" really does look just like "Future London" did, and the establishment of London was far stronger.

[fatpie42.livejournal.com]

The ship seems to land on some random building on a hill. I was thinking, "is that what they think St. Paul's looks like?" Do you have any idea what that little building on a hill in San Francisco was supposed to be?

[krfsm.livejournal.com]

Alcatraz, I believe.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

What He Said: That's "The Rock", which is to say that's Alcatraz.

[krfsm.livejournal.com]

To be "fair" to the last point, they don't know that the 72 others have the exact super-science mod installed. There might have been differing batches of supersoldiers, some with more damage resistance than others.

[anivair.livejournal.com]

Agreed. I thought the movie was really good, but I also think that they were eager to keep it ACTION ACTION ACTION and give the characters no downtime. saying, "we sure have been at warp for a long time" wouldn't have killed them.

[pappy-legba.livejournal.com]

There was plenty of internal inconsistency, but nitpicking communication lag times? The original trek did that all the time. They called it subspace channels. They always needed to find some subspace relay or something to use it in real-time, but it stands to reason that the homeworlds of major civilizations would have lots of those.

I thought it was much stranger that starships can park right next to the homeworlds of major civilizations and go unnoticed/unchallenged for any length of time.

(I got the impression that Spock could have talked to Earth any time he wanted, but he thought it was more important to but old Spock. That's just another kind of stupid.)

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

It's not "communication lag times", it's "all the distance failures"

Subspace communication is a Star Trek thing, it's real-time FTL infinite distance, fine. That's how Kirk was able to call Scotty, on his civilian cellphone, from Khronos (which is ~25 light-minutes from Earth)... and then, nobody was able to call Earth from the moon, and nobody on Earth could SEE the moon, but New Vulcan was totally reachable.

It has nothing to do with "lag time" and everything to do with "inconsistency of range".

Like, for example:
I thought it was much stranger that starships can park right next to the homeworlds of major civilizations and go unnoticed/unchallenged for any length of time.
... that.

Less than 20 light-minutes from Khronos is *the far edge of the neutral zone*. That same spot is less than 5 minutes at Warp 1 from Earth, making it less than 5 light-minutes from Earth.

[sheilagh.livejournal.com]

wasn't there a fencepost error, as well? 72 total bodies at the end, but wait, Khan was up & alive with 72 torpedoes, so wouldn't that be 73 total?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Yes, but that's "sloppy", not "stupid".