Post-release Into Darkness odds & ends and General Discussion [CLOSED]

stid_strip_6

With Into Darkness out for more than a month, here are a few news items about the movie and the possible sequel, along with a place to continue discussion about the movie.

UPDATE: General discussion of STID has now moved to its own page.

https://trekmovie.com/into-darkness-open-discussion/

fxlogo
US cable channel FX will have the rights to STID in 2015, joins 2009’s Star Trek and other big summer blockbusters:

FX continues to load up on blockbusters, acquiring the TV rights to The Purge (Universal), Fast & Furious 6 (Universal), Star Trek Into Darkness (Paramount), and this past weekend’s box-office champ, Man of Steel (Warner Bros.) The Network has also picked up This Is The End (Sony) – last weekend’s #2 film — along with The Internship (Fox) and Epic (Fox). With the latest acquisitions, FX has now secured 71% of the highest-grossing weekend films of 2013 – 17 out of 24 weekend releases

Deadline.com

 

burton
LeVar Burton – I’ve Got a Problem With New ‘Star Trek’ Flick:

“At the end of the movie, I really care about what happens to the characters …  but I’m pretty much missing Gene Roddenberry in J.J.’s  interpretation … and at the end of the day, that’s just not OK for me.”

TMZ.com

 

b_burke
Trek
producer Bryan Burk on screening Into Darkness and the editing process:

Well consciously what we were doing when making the film was, we really wanted to make sure it was a film about – in our mind it was never really a sequel, it was its own movie going forward and it’s why the movie doesn’t have a number by it.  It was a film that you should be able to jump in, if you’ve never seen it before you’d be able to jump right in, and obviously if you have seen it then you’ll be bringing your own emotion to it.  We wanted to appeal to both.  It was really important to try to reach a whole new audience so we had a lot of people in who not only had not seen the last film but were not Star Trek fans, or thought of themselves as not being Star Trek fans, or they had seen bits and pieces of Star Trek in the past and it was just not for them.

— Read much more about various Bad Robot project over at Collider

 

orci_kurtzman
Orci and Kurtzman discuss Khan and what constitutes an homage versus remake:

From the ’09 movie, we thought of getting Leonard Nimoy as freeing us from canon while also honoring it. The movie should harmonize canon. While we were free to do whatever we wanted, we wanted to echo what happened before. For example, in the first movie you have the Kobayahshi Maru. It’s possible in the universe before we came along that was how Kirk and Spock met. Spock may have been the administrator of that test. To free ourselves from canon, we think about what might’ve happened in those days, even if it wasn’t an alternate universe. For us, it’s interesting what could’ve been the same. We didn’t just want to do whatever we wanted. We wanted to free ourselves, but take a stab at what might’ve happened in the previous series. Some people have complained, “Well, they’ve freed themselves, so why even do Khan?” For us, the exciting idea was…we’d freed ourselves, so how can we do the things we know but in a new way? That’s parallels, echoes, and harmonies of what we know as Star Trek, and that’s how we approached it.

— Read all the details at Film School Rejects

 

lindelof
Damon Lindelof says he already knows the bad guys and key plot points of next Star Trek movie:

So presumably, based on that logic, you guys have some plans for the third one then.

“I think that is a reasonable conclusion. You should always know where you’ve been, you should always know where you are, but most importantly, and I learned this from Lost, you should know where you’re going.”

And a little more prodding led to:

“You can never see enough Klingons, and I think in this film we’ve given the audience a little taste, but there’s also a promise that there’s a larger conflict on the horizon, and that would be fun to see.”

— Read more teases from Lindelof over at Hey You Guys!

 


Previous Into Darkness Discussion Threads

May 28 – Second week

May 20 – US Opening week

May 17 – Open Weekend

May 15 – Domestic Fan Sneak Open Day

May 8 – Early Countries Open Day

 

DISCUSS STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS (WITH ANY SPOILERS)

Feel free to chat about the movie in the comments section below, including discussing any spoilers.

WARNING: This open thread is for people who have seen the movie. If you haven’t seen the movie you really shouldn’t be reading this as you are sure to get spoiled.

NOTE: The usual rules of Internet forum decorum apply (keep it family friendly, no flaming, trolling, being annoying, etc).

1.6K Comments
oldest
newest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

The Klingons were one of the few things i liked about STID, so I’d be happy to see them in the next one.

First?

Praise the Great Bird of the Galaxy! A new topic: a miracle.

LLAP

All the best to AP.

I really don’t want to see a Klingon War or another movie about a bad guy or bad guys. Can’t we see something different? Exploration on the 5 year mission and a deeper look at the characters. Maybe some dialogue that doesn’t have to be a thin minute between long action scenes.

@2. Chris

Actually it was Matt who updated the site, given that he was the one who closed the previous thread. Although I might have an issue that he deleted all the comments after post # 649!!

But at least, we got a new topic :)

“Damon Lindelof says he already knows the bad guys and key plot points of next Star Trek movie:”

I hope NOT, keep him away please.

No comments have been deleted. I just closed it. That post is huge and takes a number of seconds to load the 2,500+ comments. It loads them in chunks. Go back and you’ll see they’re all there, they just slowly fill in.

@Matt,

Thanks for the clarification & most importantly for the updates.

Yay! New post. I saw something elsewhere that said a sequel was already guaranteed. Is this true or just someone making assumptions?

Good lord! Is this a new article?

More Klingons! More Romulans! Conflict and subterfuge and villainy that gives way to opportunities for peace.

@ 7 – I’ve not seen anything that says it’s guaranteed. But STID has done well enough and the actors have a contract for three films. So I think it’s a pretty safe assumption there will be a third film.

@ 5 – Hi Matt, As a Software Engineer, I gotta say you guys gotta revamp the site. Loading the comments should be done on demand, when a user continues to scroll below the comments section header (like other major sites are starting to adopt). Just a suggestion.

—-

I also have a general question to everyone here… Why hasn’t the Into Darkness sequel been announced already? Into Darkness was announced right away after Trek 2009 was released.

I think Paramount need to think now not only about the the 3rd movie but beyond that as well. They should follow what Marvel is doing with their movies & their massive plan that progressed from phase 1 to phase 2 now.

@ 11

I really think both the original series and next generation franchises should co-exist at the same time. If thats Paramounts “Phase 2” plan for Star Trek. They should also have completely different people writing TNG movies.

After several viewings of STID in IMAX-lite and regular digital projection, I have to echo the sentiments of what LeVar Burton is saying. From the early movie posters of Kirk, Spock and Uhura all holding guns, I had a not too favorable feeling about this movie. We should have gone right into the exploration part..though the ending of the movie seems to indicate that is where our crew is heading in the next film. At least Kirk and Spock seemed to have grown some in their roles, at the expense of the rest of the cast. I hope in the next film, the ones who got shortchanged (Sulu, Chekhov, Scotty and Uhura) have more than just token scenes. Yes, I know..compared to the TOS films..the supporting four had barely much to say beyond; aye, sir; course heading; hailing frequencies, open; and warp (insert number here). Bones seems to be the old Bones that we all know from the TOS era, BUT..in this movie, he’s always grumpy, complaining and muttering something negative. Enough already! He needs to have a romantic interest or get laid or something! Why is it just Kirk that has to in bed with a woman, or two? Just because Bones’ is divorced doesn’t mean he has to be all tight assed all the time onscreen. I do have some nitpicking. I hate the Enterprise’s warp drive visualization. Why is there a light trail that goes straight and then perpendicular that looks like either fairy or pixie dust? Is it supposed to depict some kind of warp drive exhaust particles? The dissolve from the alien’s crude drawing to the actual ship was a good idea, but the actual Enterprise looked so CHEAP. It looked like a $20 hobbyist’s model. Hardly any detail, grace or sense of grandness that The Motion Picture had. If you’re seeing a movie on a huge IMAX-lite screen, you’ve got to have the right visual perspective to take advantage of all that largesse. The first movie’s transphotic warp trail would’ve looked far better and yielded that first-person perspective that at least made that film engaging to an extent. And enough with the old-style warp engine sounds. Make it modern. You’ve got the cool looking interiors. The sounds need to be as cool. Ben Burtt, are you listening? The music is a little better this time around, although I still contend the theme or the use of it in the movie is lacking. The use of piano in the London scene and the tune is very appropriate to the tenderness of the daughter dying. Spock’s theme is just awful. Why the compose chose to use an Asian instrument to depict Spock’s theme is beyond me. If the sound effects people are going retro with the ship sounds, then why not reuse the TOS tv Spock theme and update it a little. That would be a great homage to its past, musically, aside from the Alexander Courage fanfare. As I’ve been saying for years, they need to do a really good Klingon story. Delve deep into its culture with the appropriate modern day allegorical references. I do not know if the old Soviet Union one during the tv series would be appropriate. Back in the day, they were the country’s enemies. Perhaps a reworking of today’s alQaeda and the themes of honor, dying for a cause through self sacrifice, etc would be powerful themes to explore. We’ve hardly seen the Klingon homeworld except in TNG. This gives the filmmakers an opportunity to turn up the volume when it comes to alien landscape creativity. I’d like to see a Klingon homeworld much like the set up in Dune. You’ve got the homeworld, itself, surrounded by say, 10 or 12 moons that are ‘houses’..the house of Mogue, house of Kaless, etc etc. Each moon would be a contrast in environments; desert hot like Arrakis in Dune; perhaps continental ice masses like a Europa; a tropical planet like the Bahamas, etc. To save money, maybe they could use some of the CGI programs they used in the Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith movie where they showed all the Sith being killed off from the various planets. My box office predictions were wrong. It seems the movie has sputtered domestically now at barely over $200M. The film plays much better than Fast & Furious 6, yet that movie has outgrossed Trek! It won’t even make it past the first film’s gross. At least the international gross is about equal to the domestic gross and an increase from before. In the final analysis folks, the math says it all. On a $200M film, plus advertising, its $400M gross is barely 2x its cost. It looks like the film did not do as well as it should have. I have a… Read more »

I couldn’t care less what they do for the next film. This was such a waste of my time and money I hope they use the Spock”s Brain as the next different but new story.

Combing all the post release “sticky” threads puts this same discussion at over 4500 posts.

at least we are not argueing (yet)… though i wish things had gone different in STID, i guess i go back to wait and see mode for the 3rd flick. I think most people will agree that JJ will mostly not be part of this (honestly i want him to concentrate on SW).

and Mr. Lindelof? I truly think STID would have been better had -Khan- been the one to die in Ent’s Core. Killing and then Saving Kirk like that? that wasnt much of a ending to remember, sir.

@12. jas_montreal

“I really think both the original series and next generation franchises should co-exist at the same time.”

Agree, they should work on a series of movies that co-exist in the two timelines & explore the various stories from TOS to VOY. They could go the way of spin-off movies like what Disney is planning to do with Star Wars now.

@14. dmduncan

“Combing all the post release “sticky” threads puts this same discussion at over 4500 posts.”

wow, that is huge number but I can believe it, the last thread alone was over 2500 !

@7. The business pages have been saying that the third installment will be made. They just have not said when. Paramount has not made any announcements – they have gone quiet after the first weekend. Given some of the squabbles that have been aired recently, it seems that Paramount isn’t in any hurry to green light the next project….

Keep in mind they have announced the return of Gov. Grab-Ass in the next Terminator movie, and the WWZ sequel….

Interesting. I went over to the Paramount website, to the merchandise page, and entered Star Trek in the search window. Got an error message back…..

ST3 will be “war is bad” as a theme, & be no deeper…& will reduce the Klingons to barbarians….which to be fair they were in the 60s tv show & 80s movies, but were given much more depth & respect in TNG…..I’d hope ST3 would treat them more like Ron Moore did….be a fun political thriller (maybe involving the romulans as well). Or use the andorians (they were fun in ST:E) or here’s a bold idea, come up with something new. ST is endangered if becoming Bond films…same arc, same villain different name, etc.

But I’m really sick of these being revenge movies as a re-occurring theme in these reboots. I wish STID was more daring & not rest on the laurels of past through cheap tricks in nostalgia..it was charming in 09, a bit tired this year & will be disappointing in 2016. So to the writers…burn more bridges & make up something new…I’m getting sick of gen-x rehashing their childhood.

—I’m pretty much missing Gene Roddenberry in J.J.’s interpretation … and at the end of the day, that’s just not OK for me.”— LeVar Burton

Exactly.

It was a fun and entertaining movie, but in a largely superficial way—more of a popcorn-munching action movie than something at least partly resembling thoughtful science fiction. It lacked the meaningfulness, depth and the spirit of Trek. Gene Roddenberry was a great one for asking questions and challenging the audience with his themes, a quality sorely lacking in the JJ movies.

There were some plot holes and problems with some of the characters. The TWOK death scene rip-off was pretty much unforgivable—a totally unforced error.

But the worst thing about “Into Darkness” was not a specific problem with the story (of which there are plenty to choose), but rather that JJ & Co., by and large, repeated the same, exact mistakes that they made in the first movie: a watered-down villain with a less than compelling motive for revenge; superficial treatment of the movie’s themes; and making a largely superficial action movie as opposed to a (somewhat thoughtful) Star Trek movie.

The one slight improvement of Into Darkness over ST09 was the attempt at a main, overarching theme running through the movie, namely the love of “family” motivating the decisions and actions of the characters—to vengeance, violence and self-sacrifice. But even so, there just wasn’t enough substance in between all of the break-neck action sequences to really support the film’s main theme, so it feels more like a subtle, secondary theme than like the main thrust and point of the movie.

I’d expect pretty much the same level of quality in the third movie. Much higher production value than artistic value. Fun but fleeting. Much more titillating than meaningful. An action movie, not a sci-fi movie…especially if JJ is involved. This is obviously the kind of movie that he likes and knows how to make well.

Unfortunately, JJ chose to make his kind of movies on the premises of a rich and beloved 40-year old franchise with which his style of film-making and storytelling are largely incongruous. JJ didn’t set out to make Star Trek movies because he loved Star Trek (indeed he has stated many times that he never liked Star Trek until he started making Star Trek movies); rather, he exploited a long-running franchise for his own movie-making purposes, changing the core of the franchise to suit his tastes more so than applying his own interpretation to the core of the franchise. JJ’s movies seem to lack the spirit of Gene Roddenberry because JJ has replaced Gene’s spirit with his own spirit…however one might characterize it.

I’m guessing Paramount wants to be sure they get a better, more original movie in three years than they just got after four. We shall see…

Given I turn 50 shortly after ST does in Sep 2016, I’m looking forward to the countdown (really!).

@18. Phil

Yep, I just tried that as well. And I got this

Search results for ‘star trek’ : Your search returns no results.!!!

I really don’t want to see the Klingons as the main villain in the next movie. I think could be part of the story not the whole. I think the JJ team has earned the right to make a new threatening species.

@23. MORN SPEAKS

“I think the JJ team has earned the right to make a new threatening species.”

Not sure about they earned the right, but agree with coming up with new dangerous species instead of the Klingons.

And I thought Morn NEVER speaks :)

@Matt

Just as an FYI of which I’m sure you’re aware, this site is virtually unusable on a handheld device when the thread grows to much of an appreciable size. I know its been mentioned before, but allow me to offer again FWIW that upgrading the forums on this site is an urgently and respectfully offered request. I think doing so would also eliminate some of the problems associated with Mysteriously Disappearing Posts. I had a post in the 2470 range that never saw the light of day, and it was not anything particularly inflammatory, so I rather doubt it was deleted editorially.

Thanks for letting us know the place is still alive.

The new villain in the next movie should be The Brog. It would combine the two series and with a updated Borg Collective, would be freaking cool.

No Klingons, no Borg, Jem H’Dar, Cardassians, Ferengi (villians or comic relief versions), etc. No whale probes, peace planets, Nexus, or anything associated with a Treks Greatest Hits mash up. It didn’t turn out to well this time, there’s no reason to think that amping up a fan boys wet dream will be any better received next time…..

*sets up camp in thread for the next month* Anyone bring food and provisions?

There’s this interview with Chris Pine about ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’, they asked him:

Q: William Shatner made seven Star Trek feature movies. How many do you think you will make?

A: I’m committed to two more at this point. Er, not sure I should have said that! [Laughs]

I think he was saying two more after Into Darkness!

here: http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/star-trek-darkness-chris-pine-1871313

@27. Phil

Are you expecting the writers to actually come up with something originally, really ? No way this will ever happen. If they kept the same team, it will be probably something that we seen before but done badly as they did with Khan in STID.

If they must use the Klingons (yet again), could they be a little less… Middle Earth? Looked like Uhura was chatting with an Orc.

@30. Well, I’d like them to. To be clear, I liked the movie, but it’s flaws were obvious.

@29. The interview was dated 7 May. STID, plus one, is two movies.

They will keep making Star Trek movies until Chris is past Bill’s age, whereupon he will ask to be included in the new series of movies starring the next generation of cast members.

Just think: The next person to play Star Trek’s Captain Kirk in the official movie productions probably hasn’t even been born yet.

It could be YOUR (future) son, for all you know. ;-)

And then, THAT new Kirk will be replaced by a third “official” Kirk, the parents of whose player may only be a glint in the eye of two of our contemporaries. Of course, by then, all babies will be test tube babies, as the birthing process would be deemed by then too inconvenient and messy. ;-)

By the time the 23d Century does come, there will probably have been ten or fifteen official players of Kirk….

@33. Hat Rick

“By the time the 23d Century does come, there will probably have been ten or fifteen official players of Kirk…”

oh man, this is so depressing! I hope they will move on & come up with something new & not reboot every single Star Trek series.

LOL, Ahmed (34). :-) Well, they will all be directorially different, but potentially linked by one common theme we now know so well: A love of lens flares. Eventually to such an extent that the five-D glasses with which they are used will have an automatic dimming feature, not unlike that of an automatic welder’s helmet.

Also, free sunscreen lotion will be distributed at the theater entrance.

;-)

And now for my ideas about Star Trek: The Next Sequel:

(I already posted this once before, but didn’t get a whole lotta feedback. (Or maybe I did. I stopped tracking the last monster track a week or so ago.) Please forgive.)

Speculation about Star Trek (2016):

Tentative Title: Star Trek Restored (2016)

(Project Title: Turquoise Gathering.)

Shortly after the events of STID, Section 31 is now more powerful than ever and is under the leadership of a wizened Starfleet officer whose existence would have surprised the crew of the Enterprise, now embarked on their five year journey.

Unbeknownst to the general public, Admiral Marcus’ actions in bombing the “archives” had wiped out information needed primarily by Starfleet Intelligence; Section 31′s servers and personnel were in actuality located in an uncharted area of the Galaxy, near the planetary system occupied by the Guardian of Forever.

In fact, Marcus himself had “died” only for the purposes of public relations. Like the fictional Hari Seldon of old, he had fancied himself the progenitor of a psychohistory that predicted the future with extreme accuracy. Unlike Seldon, Marcus had access to several sources of future history, none of which was known even to Starfleet Intelligence.

His first act upon “discovering” Khan was to excavate all known records of his criminological record. His second, and far more fateful, act was to investigate and duplicate the technology that had made Khan the ruler of a third of humanity. And his final act, months before Marcus “died,” was to clone himself.

It was a clone that had died that fateful day that Vengeance had its due.

Behind it all, Marcus’ plan was unfolding still.

Beyond the stars, the rumblings of war were intensifying as the Klingon Empire saw the opportunity to strike at a Federation without moral authority, and corrupt at its very core.

And, in the midst of it all, the superbeings from three centuries ago began to stir from their cryogenic sleep ….

Across the chasm of time, Kirk and Spock stared at the various versions of themselves.

“The good of the many outweigh the good of the few … or the one,” said one of them.

“It is a statement with which I am… familiar,” said another.

The first and foremost task of Starfleet’s most celebrated half-human, half-Vulcan science officer had always been to create a New Vulcan. But in what sense was it to be “new”?

Kirk now knew his fate in the universe from which Nero had torn the elder Spock. It wasn’t his desire to know, exactly, but circumstances had made it imperative that he understand the manner of his own future death. At least in that universe.

He was tasked with understanding, as well, the fates of other Kirks, and other Spocks. The Guardian had no desire to guide him along. Forever was a long time to explain.

The conference of equals and near-equals was dance of the reluctant and the eager. What each man said to another could determine the fate of universes. Kirk chose his words carefully.

“I need to know what you know,” he said simply.

And across the chasm of time, the Elder Kirk said to the younger: “You already know too much.”

#34

While I do agree with your general sentiment…. I want to see a reboot of TNG. Imagine the Galaxy Class is the JJ-verse! The mind boggles.

RE: Star Trek Into Crapness on FX – I haven’t seen, and won’t see, this movie in a theater, and I certainly won’t be watching it on “free” TV or on DVD! I still regret seeing the first one in a theater!

As bad as the Khan rip off was, the most disappointing part of the movie for me was the writing. Did anybody else feel that the characters were acting like angsty adolescents more than trained professionals? Admiral Archer was especially bad. I think the bad writing largely contributed to the laughable Kirk death scene.

@2450 – MJ (responding to Keachick): “These are EXACTLY the types of significant Trek stories that Anthony covered back in 2009 during the release of the original movie — go back and look at the archives here if you don’t believe me? The movie is in release right now. Other Trek websites are covering this type of news daily. To come outright and say that the reason we have not had an article on this website since May 23rd is because there is “nothing new in Trek of any real consequence is…I am sorry to say…an outright fib — you are misleading every objective person here. You are not credible in making that statement which insults our intelligence here.”

MJ, I agree completely. Those articles you referenced on Trekweb from the past four weeks when Anthony has been silent, cover: the next movie, the villain for the next movie, a deleted scene from STID, the importance of STID’s financials to Paramount, LaVar Burton’s review of STID, and how Treks marketing issues with CBS may have led JJ to leave for Star Wars. These are all major relevant Trek stories, and I agree with you in that had these stories been out in June 2009, Anthony would have covered all of this stories.

Keachick is be untruthful in saying that their has been now news in the past four weeks, which is why there has been nothing on this site. Other sites are coverall all of these stories and more; some sites have an article almost daily.

Did you mean Admiral Marcus, not Archer?

While I’m asking about corrections, I oughta correct my own reference to a “monster track.” I meant “monster thread.”

I also want to amplify the fact that the Zeitgeist appears to focus on the use of covert means (especially drones) to spy on and/or (attempt to) kill people who shouldn’t be spied on and/or (attempted to be) killed. SPOILER ALERT for Man of Steel:

/
/
/

Supes does the world a solid by getting rid of a $12 million nosy neighbor near the end of the movie. (A rather different movie from the 1970’s ones, and even the last reboot.)

Honestly, the last villains they should bring back are the Klingons.

As for LeVar Burton’s comments, while he is entitled to his opinion, he has to remember that Gene Roddenberry has been dead for over twenty years. What he’s approve/disapprove of is now completely irrelevant.

Hahahaha oh my… yes Admiral Marcus. Wow I have no idea how “Archer” came out! Must be something about his beagle…

On a more serious note, as long as we’re talking about beagles, I was thinking about Scotty (who felt guilty about beaming the good Admiral’s beagle to a place, or various places, unknown) and his role in the new Trek universe. Thanks to his his interaction with Spock Prime in ST09, apparently transwarp beaming has now become a “thing.” By the time of STID, this could be accomplished by means of a device about the size of a footlocker (or so I seem to remember), which was discovered by said self-same Scotty as the means by which Khan had beamed himself to the Klingon Homeworld.

(Is anyone else freaked out by the fact that so soon after STID, Snowden did his disappearing act, not unlike Khan? And that he did secreted himself to one or two of only a few places effectively beyond the reach of the Federatio — I mean, the United States?)

Life imitates art.

;-)

@ 35. Hat Rick

I like the idea of a person controlling & directing events from behind the scenes similar to what Hari Seldon in Asimov’s Foundation series was doing.

But I don’t think this belong in a Star Trek universe. After all, the Trek universe supposed to be this shinning future that we all look for & hope to live in one day :)

OT: Speaking of Hari Seldon, I hope the planned Asimov’s Foundation movie will steer clear from Roland Emmerich. It is such a bad idea that I can’t believe that someone actually suggested that.

@ 40 K-7 — that’s enough of that, don’t start slinging mud in this fresh comment chain. That subject has been rehashed in the old one ad naseum.

@ 26 — This site uses a customized version of WordPress and unfortunately that’s not changing any time soon. But I feel ya, I know it’s not mobile friendly. The forums are also something that probably won’t happen any time soon, Anthony had certainly looked into in the past, but he last said back in one of the first STID discussion threads that it was quite costly to implement the way he wanted it.

#33. Phil

The premiere of STID in UK was in May 2… the movie was finished already at that time… so I dont know…

Now that the film has proven a success, It’s time for Hasbro to start releasing a complete line of toys: action figures, transformers cross-overs, etc.

@Ahmed (45), thanks for the feedback. :-) I’m kinda partial to grand conspiracy theories so I would beg to differ. But I do agree that Trek is all about exploring, so we could meld (mindmeld?) the two themes together, maybe, somehow. (In fact, a year or two ago I suggested an interstellar pursuit of a secretive villain (not Khan) involving Kirk and, I think, Pike, as a possible ST2013 plot. (Alas, it was not to be, obviously. But I still totally love STID even though it wasn’t exactly the sequel I thought could be done.)

I’m a big fan of DS9, which a lot of people also said was a betrayal of the “one big happy family” (apologies to Khan Prime) idea that GR presented, particularly in the TNG years. (There is some debate as to whether GR was as utopian in TOS; after all, in a very obvious manner, “The Way to Eden,” a.k.a., The One With the Space Hippies, ridiculed the idea of an idyllic pursuit; and then, of course, there were all those crazed admirals or commodores in the classic series, not to mention Daystrom and his infernal M5. It could be argued, and has, that GR never intended all to be paradisical in the 23d Century (at least). But I digress.)

Drama is difficult to do without conflict, anyway.