Comments on: More Fan Q&A With Roberto Orci

By: TOS

TOS — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 04:20:16 +0000

I told you Closettrekker,
From TOS:
J.J.’s teaser trailer mirror Footage of Steelworkers building war-machines in WWII.

From Trekmovie.com:
From what I’ve been told it will be a very kick-ass version – essentially an all-out warship.

By: Red Shirt

Red Shirt — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 07:03:22 +0000

109. I AM THX-1138 – January 28, 2008
Holy cow! Is Redshirt related to Roberto Orci? Guess Roberto was taking pity on a poor soul about to die. (Y’a know, sacrificial redshirts? Ha Ha?)

Why do you think I might be related to Roberto? And what do you mean that he was “taking pity on me”

By: Gary

Gary — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 01:44:03 +0000

Yes Closettrekker. You answered my question. Restoration is a much better word. I have a feeling that if this is the premise of the movie, that Spock would hope not to alter the timeline to save his friend or the Federation, but that due to unforseen circumstances, the timeline is altered anyhow.

By: Closettrekker

Closettrekker — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 23:43:18 +0000

#194–Gary (my middle name, by the way), are you asking me if Spock would travel back in time to “protect” or “restore” the timeline, assuming the Federation’s existence was being threatened by a time-travelling villain? If so, my answer is yes. Asking me to believe he would go back and “alter” it is something different. Going back to prevent Kirk’s death would fall into the latter category. Does that answer your question?

By: Gary

Gary — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 21:44:23 +0000

OK Closettrekker, we disagree. But tell me. Do you not think that Spock would not alter the timeline to save his beloved Federation from ceasing to exist, especially if its nonexistance was caused by the Romulans or some other enemy. And whose to say some alien technology, or perhaps the Q for example could not assure him that the changes would be minor?

By: Closettrekker

Closettrekker — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 20:32:09 +0000

#192–The notion that he could be “somehow convinced that changes in the timeline would be minor” is flawed, to put it mildly. There are far too many variables. Any interaction, whether it seems minor at the time or not, between Kirk and ANYONE else, could alter the timeline. And what constitutes “minor”? What if it resulted in someone’s parents never meeting? That’s minor, right? What if a chance conversation distracted someone who wasn’t distracted at that moment before, and the results were a death or injury that had a spiral effect? Is that minor? How could he be convinced of that? Will he drop Kirk off on Talos IV with Pike? Will he lock Jim up in a case that can never be opened? Would you suggest bringing back the Nexus (I hope not)?
I understand that Spock goes through changes between TOS and the end of TMP, but what leads you to believe he has lost his integrity, his sense of morality, or his ethics? Would the Spock you and I know put his personal feelings and the life of one man above the well being of the entire Alpha Quadrant and everyone in it? No. There is no getting around that. No.
I have no doubt that he would want to save his friend if he thought he could, but he wouldn’t wait years to do it by going back in time, and setting the film immediately after Generations would not really have accomplished the goal of tying the “Star Trek present” to the beginnings of Kirk and co., would it? You could say that Spock has no choice but to prevent Kirk’s death, but making that a “do or die” scenario for him would be a weak storyline and certainly not one strong enough to save the franchise. Honestly, if that were the story, I doubt Mr. Nimoy would even have agreed to do it. Fortunately, it wasn’t, and he has agreed to play Spock again.
Yes, I have seen that film, and it does nothing to convince me that Spock has gone mad. It would make this movie as bad as the Voyager finale, and I couldn’t bear to see Spock do it–not for Jim Kirk or anyone else.

By: Gary

Gary — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 20:03:09 +0000

I think Spock would change the timeline, to save his friend, but more so to save the existance of the Federation which stands for everything he believes in. I do not think such a decision would be unethical and would be very much in character.. The old Spock from TOS might not have done it but the new post STTMP Spock would. And if he were somehow conviced that the changes in the imeline would be minor, he would be even more prone to do it. Has anyone ever see the movie The Final Countdown? In that movie, a modern aircraft carrier is thrown back in time to 1941 near Hawaii, just hours before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. The Captain of the ship must decide whether to launch a preemptive strike against the incoming Japanese carrier fleet with their more advanced air wing, or allow history to take its course. In this movie the captain makes the only moral decision he could, just as I’m sure Spock would come to his decision.

By: Alex Rosenzweig

Alex Rosenzweig — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 18:34:06 +0000

#187 – “And we have yet to see any evidence that this story, in any way, involves an “alternate timeline”. That is mere speculation on the part of some fans here, as are the suggestions that the film is “rewriting Star Trek history”, and so on…There is no reason to believe that, as there is enough unexplored Trek history in that time period to tell many great stories. ”

Agreed. It seems that the speculation has gripped the SF/Trek fan community because of A) that show that now bears Galactica’s name, and B) trying to come up with a way to justify the visual differences.

It strikes me that the logical thing to do, especially given the stated desire to reach out to both the fan community and the public-at-large who aren’t (yet) Trek fans, would be to avoid confusing stuff like alternate timelines and just tell the story, and let the long-time fans find their own ways of dealing with/rationalizing the visual differences. If the idea is to not make the non-fan public feel isolated in some way from the story, then the last thing one would really want to do is spend time in the film talking about how suddenly this is different from what originally was, because then one’s telling them, “Oh, by the way, there’s all this other stuff you missed.”

It seems to me that if one is so deeply intent on explaining every little difference in production design, then it would have entailed far less effort to just make that design an almost-replica of the original and move on.

And for that matter, what does it say about the character of Spock that he’d be on a mission to correct a changed timeline and then fail? Either he’ll succeed completely, or the variation will be so minor as to not be worth mentioning, e.g., the changed timeline at the end of the episode “Yesteryear”, in effect changing nothing of substance.

I could be wrong, of course, but that’s the way I’m seeing it, as of right now. Might it change tomorrow? Who knows? ;)

By: Closettrekker

Closettrekker — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 17:11:16 +0000

#189–What they did in “City”, was to correct the timeline after they had mistakingly changed it by preventing a seemingly insignificant death, a short-sided act that resulted in terrible consequences. If anything, the lessons learned there would reinforce Spock’s belief that doing so would be irresponsible—and unethical, even to save the life of his best friend.
It appears that only “Admiral” Janeway is so irresponsible, selfish, void of integrity, and purely unethical as to disregard the ongoing lives of so many by changing the present to her personal liking…Please don’t suggest that our beloved Spock would ever go down the same abhorrent and unbecoming path. That would be so out-of-character for one of Star Fleet’s (and the Federation’s) greatest heroes that it might sink the franchise even further below the abyss which VOY unfortunately steered it to with that ending to a series that was only mediocre at best.

By: Gary

Gary — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 16:16:00 +0000

#188, perhaps it would not be unethical if his reason for changing the timeline was to save the existance of the Federation (very much like what Kirk had to do in City on the Edge of Forever).