Star Trek: Into Darkness

[Admiral X]

Spock's life shouldn't have been any different. Same with basically everyone else but Kirk. And when it comes to Kirk or all of them, really, you can tell the characterization is based more off of the pop culture reputation of the characters than anything else.

[Mecha82]

It does make sense that they would be different than Prime versions because of changes in time line since all it takes is small change. Maybe with Prime Spock he never bullied for having human mother and with Prime Kirk his father didn't die. So it's not logical to expect Reboot versions to be similar to Prime versions just because you don't want them to be different.

[bronnt]

It does make sense that they would be different than Prime versions because of changes in time line since all it takes is small change.

Of course it makes sense. The problem is that it's not a good change. As it is, it looks like the foundations of their characters are not explored. You see, it would be good if we could at least see the nuggets of familiar characters in them-that's the actual draw of the story, using those established names to draw you in to watch.

But there's nothing that makes sense as a foundation for these characters. For example, the Kobayashi Maru: we understand that Prime Kirk cheated on it not because he was an arrogant showoff, but because he's driven to win and rejects the possibility of "No-win" scenarios. There's no sense that Kelvin Kirk has the same type of drive, or the same capacity to reject the no-win scenario, so he has no reason to hack the simulation. But he hacks the simulation anyway, so it's repeating a character development point without the relevancy to the character.

It's the same in "Into Darkness." It's very clear from the first 30 minutes of this film that Kirk and Spock are not friends. They absolutely do not understand each other, and each of them shows zero consideration for how the other thinks. Kirk is surprised that Spock told the truth and got him in trouble for lying and falsifying records (because Kirk is an immature asshole I wouldn't trust with the keys to my Volvo, much less running a starship...), and Spock seems completely uncaring about Kirk seeing this as a betrayal. And yet the movie wants us to buy into the fact that these two characters are close friends because they're friends in the Prime universe. And the Kirk we see is not capable of being a starship captain, much less the legendary Kirk, but the movies still insist on shoving his frat-boy ass into a captain's chair despite all evidence of his incompetence.

And this is the failing of those movies: they want these characters to be the same characters but without the work of establishing them.

[Admiral X]

It does make sense that they would be different than Prime versions because of changes in time line since all it takes is small change.

Kirk is literally the only one of the main characters who should have had anything change with this life.

Maybe with Prime Spock he never bullied for having human mother

Yes, he was. Amanda discusses it with him in an episode of TOS.

and with Prime Kirk his father didn't die.

Obviously. Also, he had an older brother. But if you're going to argue this reboot universe isn't actually a reboot because of Nero's time travel, this just means that Kirk is the only one of them who was actually different from how they should have been.

So it's not logical to expect Reboot versions to be similar to Prime versions just because you don't want them to be different.

It's not that I want them to be different or whatever, I'm just mocking them for being inferior versions of what they were trying to reboot, which is made all the more hilarious by the insistence that this totally isn't a reboot on their part.

[CharlesPhipps]

Spock's life shouldn't have been any different. Same with basically everyone else but Kirk. And when it comes to Kirk or all of them, really, you can tell the characterization is based more off of the pop culture reputation of the characters than anything else.

By Into Darkness, his planet got blown up.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I guess he was just using literally in the figurative sense?

[RobbyB1982]

It does make sense that they would be different than Prime versions because of changes in time line since all it takes is small change.

Kirk is literally the only one of the main characters who should have had anything change with this life.

In Yesterday's Enterprise, a single ship not going out to have a pointless death led to the entire federation being in a decades long perpetual war, with no Worf on the Enterprise and Tasha Yar was still alive.

Even the episode Tapestry, where Q insisted very specifically that Picard would be the only one affected and have only his life changed by any decisions he made, still had him sleep with Marta... which might not have overly changed her life one way or another, still would have changed some things for her. And presumably SOMETHING else happened during the Borg attack if Picard wasn't taken.

Or if Janeway had made one different choice int eh first episode of Voyager, that crew and a lot of the Delta quadrant would come out very different.

In classic Trek someone left a single book on a planet and it turned into a planet of gangsters.

I'm sure the captain of the Narada in 2009 who was killed by Nero probably had a different path in the original timeline, maybe he was Scotty's uncle. Ever single person on that ship that was destroyed, even if they survived, would have ended up on different ships or taking different jobs, met different people, had different kids, had different effects, and that branches out.

Small change can make a big difference in big ways.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

It does make sense that they would be different than Prime versions because of changes in time line since all it takes is small change.

Kirk is literally the only one of the main characters who should have had anything change with this life.

In Yesterday's Enterprise, a single ship not going out to have a pointless death led to the entire federation being in a decades long perpetual war, with no Worf on the Enterprise and Tasha Yar was still alive.

Even the episode Tapestry, where Q insisted very specifically that Picard would be the only one affected and have only his life changed by any decisions he made, still had him sleep with Marta... which might not have overly changed her life one way or another, still would have changed some things for her. And presumably SOMETHING else happened during the Borg attack if Picard wasn't taken.

Or if Janeway had made one different choice int eh first episode of Voyager, that crew and a lot of the Delta quadrant would come out very different.

In classic Trek someone left a single book on a planet and it turned into a planet of gangsters.

I'm sure the captain of the Narada in 2009 who was killed by Nero probably had a different path in the original timeline, maybe he was Scotty's uncle. Ever single person on that ship that was destroyed, even if they survived, would have ended up on different ships or taking different jobs, met different people, had different kids, had different effects, and that branches out.

Small change can make a big difference in big ways.

Yesterday's Enterprise was the first thing that came to mind. The fallout of Nero's arrival would shock the whole Roddenbery non-military directive.

[CharlesPhipps]

There's other elements Nero's arrival would have as an effect on the timeline:

* Two dozen Klingon warships were destroyed which, in the TOS era, would have crippled their Navy. That will change the whole of Federation expansion. It also seems to have prevented the Klingon-Federation War.

* The Romulans are revealed to be a Vulcan variant decades before.

* The Kelvin scanned the Narada and gained vast amounts of data regarding how its future tech worked (according to JJ Abrams).

Then add the "destruction of Alderaan" levels of change that Vulcan dying would do to the Federation. Basically equivalent to Britain or France being annihilated. The loss of scientists, the shaking up of Federation values, and so on.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Then add the "destruction of Alderaan" levels of change that Vulcan dying would do to the Federation. Basically equivalent to Britain or France being annihilated. The loss of scientists, the shaking up of Federation values, and so on.

I was also thinking about how Vulcan fits in really nicely as the pacifist hat of the federation. You think Starfleet would have ever come up with the prime directive without Vulcan? I don't.

What's the deal with the early Romulan bloodline reveal?