Star Trek by the Minute 082: Outpost Ingress

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Entering the Starfleet outpost, the scene in Star Trek XI (nuTrek) is really one that speaks for itself, especially in the lack of any dialog or action which would convey the critical emergency, and mass death and destruction probably taking place while our "heroes" stand around gawking...

Delivering lines with their typical literary panache, Abrams, Orci & Kurtzman feature Kirk declaring incitefully: "Ah!"  Followed by "Ah!" and then Kirk says (I'm not making this up) : "Ah!"

 
When some lights turn on far down the hallway, Kirk yells: "Hello!"

The munchkin-like alien (or is it an oompa-loompa-like alien?) then comes running toward them as if he was the one in a hurry to, you know, save the galaxy.

The rest of this segment is a slow walk through what looks like a location shot, but there is simply no sense of urgency about trying to warn the earth it is about to be obliterated by the Klingon fleet annihilating behemoth.

Since this scene has virtually no dialog, it might be a good time to bring up some of the issues that arise with plot holes and other errors in the film.  I admit to being torn as to how much of the blame belongs with Abrams, Orci & Kurtzman.  Should they be working on 5 big projects simultaneously?  It depends somewhat on your point of view regarding quality vs. quantity.

Food analogies are often used in critiques of the film, and like the 2009 Oscar nominee for Best Documentary points out, corporate organization of food production leads to huge volumes of output that is marketed heavily and highly profitable but bad for health when those marketing efforts are successful.  Abrams nuTrek is an action film - not bad in and of itself, but when one of our only mass media options for popularizing the thrilling, fascinating drama of science and space exploration is turned to something very much like careless whoring for corporations, cheering for violence and the military, and appears actively hostile to serious thought, science, logic, and wrestling with important ethical questions, those who care about such things and appreciate thought provoking science fiction will be likely to see these priorities removed from public view yet again. 

No women speak or appear in this segment.


In our next episode of Star Trek by the Minute 083: You are Montgomery Scott, we meet the main comic relief of the film.

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