Spoilers Star Trek Beyond & Treklit
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When I first glimpsed the Orion crew member, I hoped it would be Gaila but it turned out to be another Orion woman instead.
I thought I may've caught sight of the bridge crew member with numbers for a name from STiD and the comic story "I, Enterprise" -- can anyone else confirm if he was in the new movie?
Also, did anyone see any Andorians or Tellarites in any of the numerous crowd scenes? I tried to keep my eyes peeled for them, but they may've slipped past my notice.
I mentioned Destiny in my OP for this thread and, after watching the movie a second time, the civilians milling about under the artificial sunlight on the plazas and thoroughfares inside the Yorktown station reminded me of the Vanguard series, specifically Starbase 47's terrestrial enclosure and Star's Landing. The more I thought about it, the more it seems a natural connection to make. After all, the two stations are contemporaries of one another -- just located in two separate timelines.
The Yorktown's command hub, however, was not at all like how I imagined Starbase 47's hub to be. On the subject of Yorktown's command, I was kind of half-hoping Shohreh Aghdashloo's character would be playing the Kelvin universe version of Number One (since it's the Yorktown) from "the Cage" instead of a potential ancestor to Tom Paris. Who knows, maybe she was playing Number One, who's real last name is Paris. She could very well have been Pike's former first officer and promoted to Commodore. I don't think she shared any screen time with Spock, so it may be still a possibility.
I thought I may've caught sight of the bridge crew member with numbers for a name from STiD and the comic story "I, Enterprise" -- can anyone else confirm if he was in the new movie?
Also, did anyone see any Andorians or Tellarites in any of the numerous crowd scenes? I tried to keep my eyes peeled for them, but they may've slipped past my notice.
I mentioned Destiny in my OP for this thread and, after watching the movie a second time, the civilians milling about under the artificial sunlight on the plazas and thoroughfares inside the Yorktown station reminded me of the Vanguard series, specifically Starbase 47's terrestrial enclosure and Star's Landing. The more I thought about it, the more it seems a natural connection to make. After all, the two stations are contemporaries of one another -- just located in two separate timelines.
The Yorktown's command hub, however, was not at all like how I imagined Starbase 47's hub to be. On the subject of Yorktown's command, I was kind of half-hoping Shohreh Aghdashloo's character would be playing the Kelvin universe version of Number One (since it's the Yorktown) from "the Cage" instead of a potential ancestor to Tom Paris. Who knows, maybe she was playing Number One, who's real last name is Paris. She could very well have been Pike's former first officer and promoted to Commodore. I don't think she shared any screen time with Spock, so it may be still a possibility.
I belive Joseph Gatt stated that he was not returning for Beyond; I didn't see 0718 on the bridge. And no, the Kelvin Timeline producers don't seem to want to use any Andorians or Tellarites. Agh.
There is a male redshirt crewman on the bridge who, at first, resembles Gatt's character of 0718, but this guy has subtle alien appliances.
No sightings of Andorians or Tellarites, although there was an Andorian reference by McCoy in the 2009 movie, so we know they are out there!
Thanks for the reply, Enterprise1701.
To be fair, that's how I'm treating the bit about Edison fighting the Xindi when he was a MACO.
Meh, there's room to work around things here. We see in Beyond there are different uniforms worn on the Enterprise than at Yorktown base, somewhat analogous to the TNG and DS9 uniforms being used simultaneously. Indeed, Kirk wears the Yorktown uniform while he's there, just like Sisko switched back to the TNG uniform when he was at Earth. So, maybe in the 2160s Starfleet had two different uniform designs. The ones worn in the Rise of the Federation novels are the "Class A" ones given those novels take place at Starfleet Command and ships of the line, while the Franklin they wear the "Class B" uniforms.
To be fair, the idea is a logical extension of what we saw on Enterprise, given the MACOs had the TOS command star on their uniforms.
I felt like the movie had echoes of Rise of the Federation, especially with the theme of a militaristic Earth/Federation vs a more peaceful Federation. I was surprised at how much Krall/Edison's attitudes reflected those of the more militaristic elements of Starfleet in A Choice of Futures given that I doubt it was planned. It makes perfect sense from an in-universe perspective.
I suppose that can be chalked up to a subtle difference between the timelines, although The Wormhole's "Class A/Class B" idea might work to an extent. Honestly, the Franklin uniforms are kinda cool, a nice variation on the ENT jumpsuits.
I suppose that's possible, or it could be that in the alternate timeline, there were more extensive conflicts with the Xindi.
After all, I'm not sure the Franklin's backstory quite fits into ENT's continuity. If it was the first Warp 4 ship, it'd have to predate NX-01, and yet its registry is NX-326.
I think that's pretty much what I have to assume, given the licensing situation. Unless I'm told otherwise.
Was it pointless to make the ships look the same in the Mirror Universe, or the "Yesteryear" timeline, or the "Parallels" realities? Well, okay, that was to avoid building whole new sets, but the idea in parallel-world stories -- not just in Trek, but elsewhere such as Sliders, Stargate, Fringe, etc. -- is almost always that the reality is largely the same but with certain specific differences.
Except that if this were in ROTF's continuity, it would've been redesignated NCC-326 once it became a UFP ship.
Science fiction stories have been using "alternate universe," "parallel timeline," and similar terms interchangeably for ages. It's sloppy usage, but commonplace. I drew a distinction between another universe and another timeline in Places of Exile, when talking about fluidic space, but I'm unusually nitpicky. Most SF writers use the two terms completely interchangeably.
Although in the books, the MACOs just became Starfleet Security. So they were still soldiers in a sense, though a peacetime defense force rather than a wartime fighting force. Maybe that wasn't enough for Edison, though.
Maybe an ancestor, maybe more a cousin several times removed. We know there were a number of Parises in Starfleet going back to the 22nd century; the Essex's Caroline Paris is not the only member of her family in the service in the time of ROTF.
I honestly hadn't thought of that similarity. If anything, it reminded me of Into Darkness, which pretty much addressed the same theme of whether Starfleet should be about war or peace. But it handled the theme better, because it didn't have so many distractions.
I have a feeling that if Edison hadn't been lost in deep space, he might have gotten along with the Anti-Revisionists and Lechebists.
(Assuming that we are trying to reconcile Beyond and the ENT novels together) Maybe the Franklin wasn't considered as prestigious as the NX class vessels to retain its original number. Or maybe it was considered sufficiently prestigious to merit a special number.
Y'know on that subject, Christopher, I don't remember at the moment, but did ACoF establish any deliberate numbering scheme to Earth-operated Federation Starfleet ships? Because Endeavour (NCC-06) obviously isn't the sixth oldest Earth ship in service.
Perhaps this Commodore Paris married into the Paris family.
Maybe this is too much stereotyping, but I would have preferred Commodore Paris to have a name somewhat matching the geographic origin of Shohreh Ashgadaloo's family.
On the subject of timeline differences, I'm wondering how literally we should take the fact that Spock Prime had a photo of the original cast. Does it confirm the comics' assumption that the characters actually do look different in the different timelines, which would be consistent with the idea that they've been independent all along? On the other hand, that would seem to conflict with the fact that Spock Prime recognized Kirk and Scotty on sight, implying they looked the same in-universe. So maybe it's just an anniversary-tribute moment that we shouldn't read too much into.
I dunno, it seems he was less of an anti-alien nationalist like those guys and more just a warrior who couldn't find a role for himself in peacetime. He didn't seem to have much of a problem with becoming an alien (though the movie was extremely vague on just how that happened).
It was NX-06 before, so it became NCC-06 when it was folded into the UFP Stafleet. That's the extent of my logic. I was following the precedent of the Excelsior, which started out as NX-2000 as an experimental prototype but was renumbered as NCC-2000 while in regular service under Captain Sulu.
Maybe her first name is Iranian. But yeah, sometimes I get tired of the predominance of characters who are of non-European ethnicity but have European names. That feels too much like assimilation.
I dunno, it seems he was less of an anti-alien nationalist like those guys and more just a warrior who couldn't find a role for himself in peacetime. He didn't seem to have much of a problem with becoming an alien (though the movie was extremely vague on just how that happened).
It was NX-06 before, so it became NCC-06 when it was folded into the UFP Stafleet. That's the extent of my logic. I was following the precedent of the Excelsior, which started out as NX-2000 as an experimental prototype but was renumbered as NCC-2000 while in regular service under Captain Sulu.
Maybe her first name is Iranian. But yeah, sometimes I get tired of the predominance of characters who are of non-European ethnicity but have European names. That feels too much like assimilation.
There's more than enough existing weirdness in registry numbers to overlook it. The various Daedaluses and Intrepids all ended up with higher NCC numbers in the Federation fleet, despite being older (it would seem Endeavour was an exception in keeping the same number after the services were combined). Add in that the Defiant and Prometheus don't seem to have been NCCized after many, many years of being in active production, it could that the Franklin was built as NR-01, and was recommissioned as an NX because the Federation decided NX would mean "prototype" in their new scheme and then given whatever number was available.
I imagine if there was a novelization, young Spock would be described as seeing them only as older version of the people he knew, and we should just put on our recast-glasses for it, same as with everything involving Spock Prime in the first film. It might be fun as an art project to do something like those combined-cast photo manipulations to that TFF publicity shot to get a better idea of how it'd "really" look for young Spock to be getting a glimpse at his future if he stays in Starfleet, but that'd be a really weird thing actually do in the movie, considering the 50th anniversary context.
Yeah, but Beyond supercedes ROTF.
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Yeah, that's how I've always read it, too. The evidence in the films doesn't support the comics' assertion that these characters with the same names somehow look entirely different in the Kelvin continuity from their Prime Universe counterparts.
At any rate, was quite shocked and gratified to see the "original" NCC-1701-A from the Prime Universe show up onscreen again in this film. And then, of course, the "new" 1701-A. Interesting times we live in.
Although it's not really a case of assimilation when a character is written in a script with no specific actor or ethnicity in mind, and then a non-European actor comes in and wows everyone. Indeed, it only adds further layers of worldbuilding to the universe when you see someone of non-European heritage with such a name, and the audience is intrigued by it, particularly in a futuristic setting.
One example of this is the character of Lt. John Matheson on the Babylon 5 spinoff Crusade -- JMS deliberately wrote the part for any actor of any nationality (the name being a purposeful homage to author Richard Matheson), Daniel Dae Kim came in, blew everyone away, and got the role.
And Ronald D. Moore's BSG reboot was another show that did this quite frequently, mixing-and-matching actor-ethnicities with off-ethnic character names.
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Was wanting to add, having seen the film and now knowing about Spock Prime's canonical onscreen death, part of me is kinda hoping that this particular story will never, ever be told in the novels or comic books, and that the exact circumstances are left entirely up to the viewer to imagine in their own mind's-eye.
It almost sounded like it was a very simple, "died-in-his-sleep"-type of thing anyways. I dunno...it almost seems like giving the exact details would simply diminish the mystique of the whole thing, and of course the story of the final death of the original Leonard Nimoy Spock is a tale that will probably crush any author under the weight of unrealistic nerd-expectations. A total lose-lose scenario, in other words.
We got the details we needed onscreen in the film, and for me, that's enough.
It almost sounded like it was a very simple, "died-in-his-sleep"-type of thing anyways. I dunno...it almost seems like giving the exact details would simply diminish the mystique of the whole thing, and of course the story of the final death of the original Leonard Nimoy Spock is a tale that will probably crush any author under the weight of unrealistic nerd-expectations. A total lose-lose scenario, in other words.
We got the details we needed onscreen in the film, and for me, that's enough.
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But giving a character a European name is writing with an ethnicity in mind. The character was presumably imagined as an ancestor of Tom Paris, so probably the writers were imagining someone who looked similar to Robert Duncan McNeil, Warren Munson, and Richard Herd.
That would carry more weight if it went the other way just as often -- if we had more instances like Leila Kalomi being a blue-eyed blonde. European isn't some natural default setting for the human race. The five most common surnames in the world, as far as I can find, are Li, Zhang, Wang, Nguyen, and Garcia. The most common given name in the world is Muhammad, in one spelling or another. So globally speaking, non-ethnocentrically speaking, Muhammad Lee is a far more "generic" name than John Smith.
I do not disagree with this. Although I have to admit, it occurs to me to wonder what happened to his katra this time. I'd assume he was living on New Vulcan and thus had other Vulcans at hand to transfer it to. So his memory and knowledge should live on in some form. I imagine the survivors of New Vulcan would preserve Spock Prime's katra as faithfully as the Syrannites preserved Surak's. (Ooh, what if they transferred it to young Spock?)
Eh...genetics can be crazy. I'm 1/4 Cherokee. I get mistaken for being Latino all the time but only one of my three children looks like me. The other two look like their blond blue eyed Northern European descended dad. Tom Paris could easily be this woman's descendant.
Except that Federation humans still usually follow the custom of the wife taking the husband's surname. So it seems more probable that Tom would be descended from some male sibling or cousin of hers. (I assume that Caroline Paris in ROTF is more like a great-great-great-great aunt or cousin N times removed of Tom's than a direct ancestor, for this reason. Also just because it's a large family, so it's statistically more likely for her to be an indirect ancestor than a direct lineal one.)
I might've missed it onscreen earlier this afternoon, but looking at the Memory Alpha article, they currently have his "location of death" listed as New Vulcan, so I'm assuming this is probably correct, yeah. Right now I'm also wondering how a theoretical novelization would've tackled this issue -- if the author would've been tempted to give more details about the whole event, or would've simply kept an aura of mystery about his death the same way the film did.
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