Latina wrote:There's an article on how the new movie fits in with the previous time frame here: http://trekmovie.com/2008/12/11/bob-orc ... l-science/
*SPOILER ALERT*
I have no problem with anything that is said in that article. Except that what they said in that article isn't actually the case at certain points.
For instance, they mentioned that while some characters are completely bollocksed up by the timeline changing - ie. Jim Kirk - others - ie. Spock - is not. Nonsense. Spock has dramatically changed for no good reason as far as I can see. The relationship with Uhura proves it. Vulcans only spark up relationships when Pon Farr kicks in. But leaving that aside, Spock spent three seasons of TOS turning Nurse Chapel down! If he were to be consistent with his "prime universe" character he'd turn down Uhura as well.
Further more, the question that they didn't answer was an interesting one. Does Spock try to restore his timeline? Well, no he doesn't. But if he were to be consistent with any other character in Star Trek - including himself in City on the Edge of Forever - he'd want to restore his timeline. ESPECIALLY given the fact than in his timeline billions of Vulcans don't needlessly die. If anything old Spock would be going for the winner and trying to save Romulus in his timeline's future as well as Vulcan.
Better still - where's Captain Archer's time travelling friends? You know, those Temporal Agents that kept turning up who seemingly could jump between the different universes. They even turned up on Voyager once or twice. Surely given such a dramatic change in the timeline they'd be wanting to sort things?
My problem with this whole "alternate universe" thing is that, yes it could explain a lot of differences. But they've made so many sweeping changes and so dramatically altered the timeline - killing off a whole planet worth of Vulcans is definitely something any sane person would want to change if they knew it was possible and certainly if they knew it wasn't meant to be in the first place - that they've ended up taking what could have been a good idea and overdone it. Therefore in my eyes they've completely wasted it.
The other major problem I have with the movie is the ridiculous notion that you could hand over the keys to the Federation's flag ship to a cadet who was suspended when they left Earth! I don't care what he's done, you commend him and put him back in school to graduate. If you're really lucky you get a commission. You don't get booted straight up to Captain! The prime universe Captain Kirk became the great Captain he was through experience from the Farragut. Gut instinct just isn't enough to justify one Captain/Admiral's faith in you. If Starfleet was that desperate for Captains, how come Spock got stuck being first officer?
To me, this movie was a big, big gamble. If it had paid off it would have been brilliant and they could have kicked on from there. But they've made some whopping errors, and I'm amazed that I'm one of the few dissenting voices in the wilderness to be saying this. Especially given how anal your average Trekkie/Trekker (the fact there's two names and people get pissed off depending on which one you use proves the analness) can be.