The original Star Trek TV series was almost a disaster. The series creator had the nerve to make it a coherent and hopeful story about mankind joining a galactic community, i.e. it was intelligent and was about something important. There was a lot or problems with this idea, foremost the terrible state of education in this country. Very few people realized the Star Trek premise actually made sense and was congruent with what we now know about astronomy, physics, engineering and biology. Then comes this new take on the idea that throws away the entire basis of the series and makes it a non-sensical light show full of pretty explosions and nonsensical daring do. 

The original series almost didn't make it because no one had confidence in the intelligence and knowledge of the audience. This new series simply assumes a lack of intelligence and knowledge of the audience. You can't fault them. The only thing that counts is making money. Right?

 I predict absolute disaster. Mass Effect is hard science fiction. Protosevich makes fantasies. He should remember the number one rule of writing: Write what you know.

 I predict absolute disaster. Mass Effect is hard science fiction. Protosevich makes fantasies. He should remember the number one rule of writing: Write what you know.

Ouch! There are good reasons why there are no three-legged animals and nobody's riding rockets. I hope the plot is more creative than it sounds.

 " In-house designers, like screenwriters, don't necessarily get to come up with their own ideas. In practical terms, the video game company's higher-ups come up with an idea based on marketing potential, the availability of a pre-existing property, the need for a sequel, or a desire to trump (or usually just to catch up with) the competition."

Now I know why there are so many lame games out there based on identical tired concepts: higher ups whose only skill is noticing what's making money now. Here's a point of interest for you guys: really good products don't spring from marketing potential. They come from pure creativity and insight, stuff you don't and can't learn in business school. Find your creative geniuses, close your eyes, and bet the farm on them.

 "No thought" is right, Kara. Why would anyone put a lot money into a project without understanding their own story is beyond me. Would anybody do a medical drama without bothering to learn how doctors and hospital's work? Not unless they were making a comedy. I understand that directors want the freedom to construct their own vision, but every vision must be grounded in something. So instead of following that tradition, this director chose to turn one of the greatest science fiction sagas in history into a nonsensical fantasy. Surely any director worth his celluloid is going to bother to learn his source material. 

Henry

 In retrospect, the original Star Trek was some sort of miracle in that it laid out a future scenario based on good science. Some say that complaints about ignoring the science in the last movie was "nitpicking" but I disagree. Knowledge of science was key to the predictive nature of the series. Star Trek as fantasy loses the core of what made the original exceptional: a self-consistent, believable universe. This concept is nothing new in the art of movie making. Believable characters depend on detailed knowledge of the human psyche. Without that knowledge, characters just don't ring true. When the last Star Trek movie threw physics out the window, most people probably couldn't put their finger on what was wrong, but many knew it just didn't feel right.

In literature, lack of knowledge of your subject is usually a killer. To depend upon the ignorance of your audience because it's easier than hiring a scientist to vet the script is inexcusable laziness in my view and shows contempt for your subject. There is a reason for the word "science" in science fiction.

 There's no excuse for taking Star Trek, a science fiction concept, and then turning it into a dumb fantasy. That's just plain laziness. Or maybe the creators just resent people that are smarter than they are? John Carter of Mars is different because the original was created in 1912 before we knew much about Mars or even space travel. So here's my question. Are they going to pretend we haven't learned anything since 1912? That would be stupid. Or are they going to do what they did with the last Star Trek movie and treat it like a brainless action movie? That would be really stupid. Maybe we should take up a collection and send these people back to school.

James Cameron, on the other hand, takes the time to know his subject and any science connected to it. He understands that you can't get by without understanding your subject because you think nobody will notice. These days people are pretty smart about space travel. We have a permanent manned space station in orbit. We have automated vehicles on Mars. We landed a probe on Titan, for Christ sake. Directors and producers need to wake up and realize it's the 21st century. If you don't understand your subject, hire someone who does. Contrary to what some of you think, knowledge does not hinder creativity; it supports and refines the vision.

 The original Star Trek was profoundly prophetic, scientifically accurate, and visionary to the extend that it gave us a plausible future worth fighting for.

Abrams gave us swashbuckling fantasy, pretty lights, loud explosions and a profound misunderstanding of both the art and the physics of the original. This isn't art; it's a tired old con game called bait and switch. You fooled us once, Abrams, but we'll know better next time.

 Sounds like Cameron is continuing his theme of man's  inhumanity to man. For our species to survive we've got to look beyond tit for tat, and I suspect that's Cameron's theme for this movie. One of the things that makes Cameron such an important film maker is that he weaves humankind's evil and good sides into tales of survival. From this we can find both despair and hope, annihilation and salvation.