Criticism on some reviews

[TheLuckyOne]

Lissa said:

I would laugh much harder if I wouldn't sit there and compare the movies and books of Harry Potter in such obsessive detail.

Hey, we've all got our nerdy hang-ups... personally, I could sit here and explain the entire Summers family tree to you. Scott Summers, AKA Cyclops from the X-Men? I'm not always proud of this, but I could tell you about his brother, his space-pirate father, his possible half-brother, his alternate future daughter, his baby son who was sent to the future and came back a militant mercenary, the evil clone of said future militant mercenary, the test-tube son from yet another alternate reality, his girlfriend Jean Grey, the cosmic force impersonating Jean Grey, his first wife who was a clone of Jean Grey sent by a mad geneticist to conceive his child... you get the idea. Doesn't mean I'm going to complain about that stuff all being left out of the movie, though; or especially, someone's humorous review of said movie.


Comic Book Guy: "But Aquaman, you cannot marry a woman without gills... you're from two different worlds!"
*nuclear missile speeds toward his face*
CBG: "Oh, I've wasted my life."

-D

[jenfrazer]

Personally, I could sit here and explain the entire Summers family tree to you

See, and I read that and thought, "Yeah, that whole Dawn thing is pretty messed up with the monks and the memories and oh wait he means something else." Nerdy hang-ups indeed.

[awesomecolin]

Um... How much Star Trek do you watch? I mean, the show is great, and the movies are good as well, but... I can't even put it into words.

[FiveMileSmile]

TheLuckyOne said:

Hey, we've all got our nerdy hang-ups... personally, I could sit here and explain the entire Summers family tree to you.

Since this entire thread has turned into a display of geek bravado, I'm game. Lets play.

Scott Summers, AKA Cyclops from the X-Men? I'm not always proud of this, but I could tell you about:

his brother - Alex Summers, a.k.a Havok
his space-pirate father - Major Christopher Summers, a.k.a. Corsair of the Starjammers
his possible half-brother - not sure about this one...see below
his alternate future daughter - Rachel Summers, a.k.a. Phoenix II, sent back by Shadowcat from a future where mutants are hunted down but instead traveled through dimensions to join the X-men.[/b]
his baby son who was sent to the future and came back a militant mercenary - Cable
the evil clone of said future militant mercenary -Stryfe
the test-tube son from yet another alternate reality Now either this one, or the half-brother from above is Nate Grey, a.k.a. X-man, and I suspect its this one.
his girlfriend Jean Grey - Formerly Marvel Girl
the cosmic force impersonating Jean Grey - The Phoenix Force, and subsequently the Dark Phoenix
his first wife who was a clone of Jean Grey sent by a mad geneticist to conceive his child - Madeline Pryor, a.k.a. The Goblin Queen.

How did I do, Drew?

- Rich

[JasonKelp]

This wasn't meant as an offense

And I admit that I nitpicked in some cases. I was just a bit upset. And I am indeed a "real" trekker, so that's were my knowledge about the ST-universe comes from.

I find it just a bit... Okay, let us ignore the details (Like Nexus description. You are right about things like that), but for example:

In the Generations Review he wrote that it isn't further explained why Dr. Soran wants to correct the course of the Nexus so that it touches the planets' surface.
That isn't true. And even if he hasn't remembered all the technobabble, he should have remembered THAT it was explained.

Or in the Nemesis review. I find it a bit... Strange to mess up Remans and Romulan, who were both in the center of the action.

Comparison: Romulans look like Spock, with the ears and so.

But Remans... Well, they have a green skin, big teeth, a strange voice and look a bit like a vampire.

You see, things like that. I know that a review isn't completely objective. And as I said this wasn't meant as an offense. But some things that normally every person who watched the film should have remembered, were simply replaced by sarcasm or so.

Note: It didn't take me that much time. Only about 1 1/2 hour, cause I didn't need to research Star Trek infos, everything was in my brain

And about TiVos. Sorry that I don't know that, but I am German and English is not my mother language.

Greetings,
Jason Kelp

[DocD83]

I don't think I can stop myself from replying point for point to this [EDIT: After having looked more closely at the complaints, I think I ill skip most of it]. It's been so long since Ive had a good ST debate. Anyone near Virginia with a roll of duct tape and a bottle of ether? Coz, that's how you're gonna stop me.

*Ahem.* Anyway, Mr Kelp:

Well, I never heard Worf saying anything about a bumblebee on the warp nacelles. Anyway, an insect on one of them would freeze within seconds cause it would be in the vacuum of space.

Wouldn't the lack of pressure cause its internal fluids to, um, boil? A la that scene in Event Horizon. Nevermind that it can't breathe.

Obviously you didn't understand the term "racism"

I think he did. All throughout TNG a huge theme is making aliens more human. Mostly it's with Data, but it's with Worf too, and if you don't think attempting to erase a culture from someone in an attempt to replace it with your own is racist, then perhaps you are the one who doesn't understand the term.

4. Grimace. Grimace as if your life depended on it. Then look away, ashamed that your Klingon heritage has come to wearing gaudy bandoleers and working for puny fleshbags.

This proves that you don't know anything about the Klingon culture

But it's spot-on true. Worf is downright painful to watch until DS9, Klingon culture be damned.

By the way the wave is a highly unstable and massive change in local space curvature that provides access to another universe. And if you know anything about physics you'll have to admit that such a thing would be very dangerous to anyone who gets stuck in the turbulences.

Yes, because we all know Stephen Hawking's chair is just an easy way to cart around his universe-hopping equipment.

Seriously though, I don't know crap about this area of physics, but isn't it arguable that, since we and our machines exist in three-dimensional space, if that space were to curve we would simply curve along with it? You break a beam by lengthening and shortening the distances between points on the beam, but if the very basis by which those differences can exist change why should any abnormal stresses build up?

. I know that that's a mishmash of the entire story, but trust me, they don't explain it much better in the film.

Oh yes, they do. It is explained that some suns near the path the Nexus follows have an influence on it. As Dr. Soran found a way to stop nuclear fusion within the suns, he could blow them up and change the gravitational balance in those sectors. This affected the Nexus's course so that it finally touched Viridian 3's surface, were Soran waited for it to suck him into the other universe.

Except for the pesky fact that Soran fired his missile at Viridian, meaning he blew it up. It had to blow before the gravitational effect could take hold, and the gravitational effect is what brought the energy ribbon to Viridian 3. If you follow the chain of events, the sun going supernova should have wiped out the entire star system with Soran in it before the ribbon came anywhere near.

No, it wouldn't. In the beginning of the film, we have seen that an encounter with the Nexus in open space is lethal.

No, we saw that it looks lethal. Remember how they thought Kirk was dead, but he turned out to be alive? And chopping wood in his uniform, IIRC.

Well, we could of course separate Picard into three and both running after Soran, evade disruptor shots AND search a remote control device. JK

I can see it now:

Picard: I need your help.
Kirk: Why? You can go back when and where you want. Just show up when he's not expecting and shoot him in the back.
Picard: Ah, but I'll need you to beat up on Soran for about five minutes while I do some technobabble thingamajig, even though I'm in twice the shape you are and he'll kick my ass in five seconds.
Kirk: How do you know all that?
Picard: I read the script.
Kirk: How many lines did you get in this thing?
Picard: I didn't count.
Kirk: Oh. How many did Brent Spiner get?
Picard: I don't think he counted either.
Kirk: Damn, you're no fun. Leonard and I always kept tabs.
Picard: He's not here. You have a whole movie ahead of him.
Kirk: Hey, yeah!
Picard: Too bad this movie will suck worse than number 5.

As a matter/antimatter reaction system is highly sophisticated (Research on this form of energy-creation in Reality proves that)

I don't think you needed research to prove that.

They love their talk, they dig their techno-gadgets, but they'd rather try to teach an alien species the concept of "Manifest Destiny" through a series of lectures than pick up a phaser and learn how to fight like a man.

Again, I have to insist on the fact that Star Trek is not an action show/film. I can't understand how you got a Trekkie, except fore some things obviously don't know ANYTHING about the Star Trek universe.

And again...it's spot-on true. Until DS9 and Voyager, the Federation always had incredibly wimpy weapons, especially given that this is a show about the military of a massive and massively rich interstellar union surrounded by militaristic empires.

Wrong, the borg-ship is distroyed by the whole fleet the the Federation dispatched to fight the borg-cube (Borg ships have geometric forms like spheres or cubes)

The whole fleet...who were getting their asses handed to them quite nicely until the Enterprise-E shows up. That includes, I might add, the Defiant, which was built to fight the Borg.

The time-travel plan was obviously plan 2, otherwise the Borg would have travelled back in their own territory, without risking to have all of their attack ships destroyed.

The Borg had attack ships? When? They only sent one cube (with a sphere, but that's splitting hairs).

So as the Enterprise crew fights Borg boarders on the ship, Picard and company take vacation time to screw around with history. [rambling response omitted]

They did screw with history. Remember LaForge psyching out Cochran? Or Riker telling him all about his future?

I don't deny that the vision Gene Roddenberry had of the future is very utopic, but I think a world that doesn't need money is much more advanced than ours.

Advanced? Try non-functional. Without money no one would do anything unless they wanted to do it. And unless you can figure a way to do manufacturing jobs economically while sitting naked on a beanbag chair eating cheetos and watching TV--well you get my point.

Why is it a wrong decision? If Picard hadn't come to engineering to help Data escapting the Borg (Data was captured by them before, but they couldn't assimilate him cause he's not human, he's an android), Data would probably not have deactivated the self destruct sequence.

Likely, the self destruct sequence would have been deactivated anyway. Data's plan could have gone just as well without Picard there. In fact, Picard was more of a hindrance. They didn't know about Data's plan, so they would have had to assume the Borg could shut off the self-destruct. Therefore, keeping your forces on board until the big kaboom does two things: it ties up drones who could otherwise be using the time to try to stop the self destruct, and gives you options when and if they do shut it down. Those ships are antimatter powder kegs, which you'd know if you ever looked at the technical manual or saw "the Best of Both Worlds." From inside, you could blow the thing up section by section.

The rest of the movies I haven't seen/don't remember.

[Ms. Jellybean]

*reads thread*

...whoa. Trippy...

*keels over and dies*

[TheLuckyOne]

FiveMileSmile said:

How did I do, Drew?

Extremely well, Rich! (Assuming knowing minute details about the insanely complex family trees of fictional characters is your thing, of course.) Looks like you got everything except the half-brother, and that's not really "official" anyway. Mr. Sinister once told Cyclops he was keeping tabs on his brothers... then when questioned about it, claimed it was a slip of the tongue. It's known that extremely lame 90s character Adam X(-treme) was the son of Shi'ar emperor D'Ken and an unknown human woman. Since Cyke's mother Catherine was kidnapped by D'Ken and put in his harem and, let's face it, just how many human women do you think they GET around there, it's a good bet she was Adam's mother too. Fabian Nicieza confirms that that's what he meant with that little plot thread, but since he left the books before resolving it, odds are it'll never be officially confirmed in canon. And there was much rejoicing.

...and you know, I've just read over what I read and feel soooooooo ashamed. Thank God I don't know much about Star Trek or Buffy, or I'd be knockin' down that geek door with both hands.


-D

[Head Mutant]

Wow... this makes my month, coming back from a trip to read a thread like this. Whee!

At the biggining of my MRFH tenure, I felt more spitfire when it came to slinging around weighted opinions merely to provoke a response more than anything serious. I think I mellowed out a bit out of fear for a while, then got more daring with my not-so-subtle jabs at many things geeks hold dear (as long as what I was saying wasn't going against what I actually believed -- I wasn't lying just to get a rise out of people). I find it astonishing we don't get more flames or nitpicks at MRFH than we already do, as a whole.

Anyway, Mr. Kelp, I think you went to prove an excellent point about the line between geek love and fanboy obsession. MRFH is about geek love; we're not going to spend billions of woman-hours trying to research every little fact about movies we review just to placate the ultra-fanatics of those films out there. We're just writing from our understanding and our love (or hatred), writing to entertain, writing to inform. Sometimes we are incredibly wrong about some points in reviews, and I'll be the first to admit I've had to change a few of mine where I've completely missed or misinterpreted something.

But when it comes to Star Trek, you're barking up the wrong warp core, buddy. There was NO bigger Trekkie in the late 80's/early 90's than yours truly. I had scary tech manuals memorized, craploads of facts stored away, and more of the Star Trek novels in my possession than the Library of Congress holds other books. I had a serious falling out with the ST universe by the time I entered college in 94 or so, yet there's still love mixed in with the bitterness. It's why I reviewed these films in the first place, because I had something to say about them. I had come back to these movies after many years to see more clearly the good AND the bad. And there is a lot of bad in Star Trek, my friend.

Of course I'm not objective -- and the funny thing is, you don't WANT me to be objective, either. You want me to be extremely subjective, except you want it the way you feel. Which is fine, for you, but that's not for me.

One of the cardinal rules of movies is that they HAVE to explain things CLEARLY to the audience -- geek and normie alike -- or else the filmmakers fail in their attempt to get through to the audience. If things in movies only make sense if you have to read up and study things outside of the movie itself, then the movie has failed. If I, a casual moviegoer, doesn't understand why the Jorgon's Quantum Applicator is such a major plot point, and you respond with "Ah, but if you were a TRUE fan you'd have researched it and known about it from the show and it would've made sense in the movie with that foreknowledge", then stupidity reigns. No one should have to do homework before or after films to understand them.

I enjoyed your nitpicks, and I think some of the others did too. Thank you for giving me a serious laugh after a long two weeks of work trips, and keep on reading our ridiculous site.

[Head Mutant]

JasonKelp said:

Well, I never heard Worf saying anything about a bumblebee on the warp nacelles. Anyway, an insect on one of them would freeze within seconds cause it would be in the vacuum of space.

By the way, this is one of my newest and most favoritist quotes.

[Head Mutant]

JasonKelp said:

Again, I have to insist on the fact that Star Trek is not an action show/film.

And yet the thousands of homicidal computers that Cap'n Kirk smashed with his bare hands testify otherwise.

Sorry, wasn't going to comment on any of these, but this one was hard to resist.

[bladestarr]

One of the cardinal rules of movies is that they HAVE to explain things CLEARLY to the audience

I hereby dub this the Lynch Law! Eh? Eh???!!!! ;D

[druidGirl]

Well, I never heard Worf saying anything about a bumblebee on the warp nacelles. Anyway, an insect on one of them would freeze within seconds cause it would be in the vacuum of space.

Seriously? Seriously? This is just some Spam/Flame/Joke, right? No one could possibly have that hard of a time recognizing a joke/sarcastic remark in a movie review. At first I thought it was serious, and then I read that bumble bee thing and my eyes glazed over. I didn't even read the rest of it because after that I knew it'd just be too silly.

Also, there's a whole Thread called: MRFH Feedback, where this should have been posted.

And you know, I was a huge Trek Fan too. Obsessed over it. Freaked my s**t if I missed an episode. Bought books....and read them! But that doesn't mean I can't recognized a not-so-great-movie when I see it on the screen. You can be a Star Trek fan and think some of those motion pictures were far below par. *cough*Star Trek: Nemesis*cough*

[duckie]

druidGirl said:

You can be a Star Trek fan and think some of those motion pictures were far below par. *cough*Star Trek: Nemesis*cough*

But, Nemesis HAS to be good... otherwise, it violates the Rule of Two

[JasonKelp]

Aha, very interesting.

Well, obviously nobody here wants to understand or to try to understand my point.

I knew perfectly that the bumblebee thing etc. was sarcastic, it just wasn't funny at all.

And things like that it isn't further explained in "Generations" why Soran lets the Nexus change course. You do not need to do your homework to understand that. Otherwise, if a not-so-intelligent person watches the film... Well, no comment.

And the Nexus is very lethal, just take a look at the Enterprise-B's hull after Kirk was sucked into the Nexus.
Or do you need to do homework before you understand that a big bang and a large part of hull ripped-off the ship are not good?

Well, I see that it has no sense to argue further now. Obviously, you don't WANT to understand.

Bye bye!