Comments on: Kirk Should Buy A Lottery Ticket (MASSIVE SPOILERS) https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/05/kirk-should-buy-a-lottery-ticket-massive-spoilers Lollards in the high church of low culture Mon, 15 Jun 2009 10:54:46 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 By: Lennie https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/05/kirk-should-buy-a-lottery-ticket-massive-spoilers/comment-page-1#comment-628393 Mon, 15 Jun 2009 10:54:46 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=14244#comment-628393 Obviously not a believe in predestination.

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By: Pete https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/05/kirk-should-buy-a-lottery-ticket-massive-spoilers/comment-page-1#comment-617138 Tue, 19 May 2009 12:25:40 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=14244#comment-617138 Bill and Ted theory would be nice, however it is clear that this version of time travel has created a parallel universe (which does not happen in Bill and Ted) so the causality issues about who invented the long distance beaming never ever used in proper Star Trek do not strictly occur.

It has been noted elsewhere though that a lot of JJ Abrams stuff seems inordinately predicated of time travel and alternate worlds which are thrown up (and/or big red balls).

*Bearing in mind that it would appear to be a much quicker form of interstellar travel than actually going in a starship, beaming instantaneously a few light years ahead this is an invention that changed EVEYTHING in the Star Trek universe. Or not.

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By: Andrew Farrell https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/05/kirk-should-buy-a-lottery-ticket-massive-spoilers/comment-page-1#comment-616920 Mon, 18 May 2009 20:33:58 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=14244#comment-616920 I think there is an extra (U) or two regarding the meathead that interrupts Kirk’s wooing of Uhura being both assigned to the Enterprise and one of the first on the scene when Kirk and Scotty beam back aboard.

But then I’d try to take the (U) off Chekov’s presence twice: once because it is Chekov – if it was ensign Beckett there, he’d be the one in the main series (and Kirk and Sulu would be stains on the stain of Vulcan) – and once because they underline that the Enterprise is the pride of the fleet, and if they only have kids to staff it with, then they’ll be the best kids in Starfleet (gritting my teeth at the fact that Uhura is dual-classed as a phenomenal radio operator and pretty little thing).

But! I don’t think any of these co-incidences matter, as the formulation of the Montgomery Scott theory of beaming live humans onto warping space vessels indicates that the story holds to a higher standard: That of the Bill and Ted movies.

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By: o sobek! https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/05/kirk-should-buy-a-lottery-ticket-massive-spoilers/comment-page-1#comment-616663 Sun, 17 May 2009 20:43:57 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=14244#comment-616663 cf what are the odds lou gehrig would get lou gehrig’s disease?

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By: o sobek! https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/05/kirk-should-buy-a-lottery-ticket-massive-spoilers/comment-page-1#comment-616661 Sun, 17 May 2009 20:40:53 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=14244#comment-616661 lol the whole thing’s kinda ‘outliers: the movie’ isn’t it – kirk and spock both have the relentless drive and anger that fosters success but ultimately are both put in position for opportunity due to their lineage – spock’s father a very prominent vulcan but his biracial heritage limiting his prospects on vulcan -> hello starfleet, kirk’s being recruited and to a certain extent made first officer due to his father’s honor. they make the most of it due to their own merits (kirk esp – his will being so strong you almost overlook that his mind’s as sharp as spock’s albeit in a much different manner). throw in battlefield commissions and really scotty’s the only one that’s a bit of a stretch. “destiny”‘s just a way of attributing significance to or explaining anything that happens so long as it actually happens. it explains fdr or robert e lee as well as it explains harry truman or us grant. we don’t notice when it fails because we don’t keep a record of things that don’t happen.

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By: Pete Baran https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/05/kirk-should-buy-a-lottery-ticket-massive-spoilers/comment-page-1#comment-616585 Sun, 17 May 2009 11:29:53 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=14244#comment-616585 Oh, agreed: just think of how many coincidences DON’T HAPPEN every day.

The problem with introducing parallel universes is the tiptoing into “infinite” (shuuder) parallel universes. Because then there really will be one universe where all these unlikely things DO happen, which is the one the choose to film. Which means there are millions of other universes where it didn’t happen and those stories would be rubbish. Thus: filmed story = one where everything goes right = lack of narrative excitement as we know it most all go well.

WRT them all meeting: In timeline 1: all the enterprise crew end up as enterprise crew due to normal promotion within a military organisation. In timeline 2 (of film Star Trek) they get together in unlikely ways well before they would have done because DESTINY sort of mandates it.

I have no problem with coincidence rich stories. I have problems with coincidence billionaires!

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By: mark sinker https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/05/kirk-should-buy-a-lottery-ticket-massive-spoilers/comment-page-1#comment-616571 Sun, 17 May 2009 10:24:50 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=14244#comment-616571 “it’s a big world” is the motto of those othe stories, courtesy miles na gopaleen

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By: mark sinker https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/05/kirk-should-buy-a-lottery-ticket-massive-spoilers/comment-page-1#comment-616570 Sun, 17 May 2009 10:23:53 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=14244#comment-616570 even ignoring destiny surely SOME of the “what are the chances that these people encountered one another?” plot-points get a pass simply because the one thing we know in advance is that they DID meet

(ie the given is that they know each other, and they must have met SOMEHOW , and i don’t understand: timetravel here creates as extra misleading layer of unlikeliness where a past and given fact — they met and here’s how, probability assigned 1 as it’s a given — gets inserted into the story as a future plot-reveal it feels like coincidence when it’s actually bound up in the given)

(scientific postulate: there is a massive authorial-observer’s-effect quantum tendency — re wormholes and the like — for the characters we’re interested in to be squirted out somewhere narrative-relevant because otherwise why would we be telling THIS story — to put it the other way round, conincidence-rich stories self-select as stories worth telling, as they do in eg the fortean times when it’s about separated twins meeting each other by chance, we never hear all the stories about the many many more separated twins who don’t ever meet each other because the story is boring)

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By: Pete https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/05/kirk-should-buy-a-lottery-ticket-massive-spoilers/comment-page-1#comment-616452 Sat, 16 May 2009 22:19:56 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=14244#comment-616452 I can. The last blockbuster I enjoyed this much was X-Men 2! Which also has a massive coincidence in it (their plane crashes exactly where Magneto is hiding, so he can save them) – which I didn’t notice til after the fact.

You’re right about the “this is the way it must be in the Star Trek Universe” setting up of all the pieces, which I wouldn’t begrudge so much if it wasn’t for the fact that Star Trek is one of the few SF epics about people doing their job. Because it started as a TV series they only save the Universe a couple of times, and people get promoted in or out of the various positions (Chekov wasn’t in the first series if I remember right). I am a little against destiny.

But all this aside, it is tremendous, tremendous FUN.

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By: Mark M https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/05/kirk-should-buy-a-lottery-ticket-massive-spoilers/comment-page-1#comment-616422 Sat, 16 May 2009 18:57:21 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=14244#comment-616422 Oh, just to mention I thought it was terrific: big, big fun. Can’t remember the last blockbuster I enjoyed anywhere near as much.

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By: Mark M https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/05/kirk-should-buy-a-lottery-ticket-massive-spoilers/comment-page-1#comment-616421 Sat, 16 May 2009 18:55:03 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=14244#comment-616421 For me it was rather like the “what if” episodes of Friends, where it starts off with big-haired Rachel married to the dentist, Ross still with his wife, Phoebe as a big corporate player etc… and then by the end of the two-parter Ross is sort of with Rachel (even though she was after Joey), Chandler is with Monica and Phoebe is a kooky singer-songwriter. Why? Because these are things that must be in the Friends universe.*
Likewise, I read [SPOILERS] Kirk landing on the planet where Scotty and (Old) Spock are as destiny, things that have to happen to bring as the point where the voyages of the Starship Enterprise can start.

*Also, in something that prides itself on its brutal realism etc, the first couple of episodes of series two of The Wire.

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