Chill out. The movie will be good, or it will suck, and if it Into Darknesses and leaves so many gaping plot holes behind it crashes wookieepedia... that might not be such a bad thing....

Into Darkness has its problems but plot holes (logic, omissions or story elements that directly conflict with what the screenplay has already established) was not one of them.

If it doesn't conflict with the "rules" of what the story has presented, it doesn't count as a plot hole. It's just bad or lazy writing.

Some things are a hole or at least continuity errors: The Dauntless being highly classified, but Admiral Robocop has a model of it sitting on his desk for any visitor to see. Imagine if the Sec of the Air Force had a model of a top secret stealth plane sitting on his desk before the thing had even finished developmental testing...

Other things are serious errors in logic or possibility that conflict with what the screenplay establishes or attempts to establish later: Robocop is supposed to be holding Khan's homies hostage to coerce Khan into playing with Robocops scheme to trigger a war with the Klingons, but Robocop shoves them all into Torpedoes and sends them on the Enterprise to be shot at Kronos... Even if you argue that Robocops plan was to kill off all the Khaninites in a single event (ok, I sorta get that) he sends the Enterprise, with Kirk in command but not in on the plan, to do it, when the preceeding establish that Kirk was relieved of command giving Robocop the option to put someone else in command, and the following events establishing that Robocop has enough people in on his plan to build and crew a massive warship at a secret construction facility that inexplicably doesn't include anyone that could command of the Enterprise earlier that would have been in on the plan and guaranteed to follow through...

It was a good movie, and I enjoyed 90% of it... but by Kahless's beard it's plot didn't make any sense beyond the current scene being viewed.

Chill out. The movie will be good, or it will suck, and if it Into Darknesses and leaves so many gaping plot holes behind it crashes wookieepedia... that might not be such a bad thing....

Into Darkness has its problems but plot holes (logic, omissions or story elements that directly conflict with what the screenplay has already established) was not one of them.

If it doesn't conflict with the "rules" of what the story has presented, it doesn't count as a plot hole. It's just bad or lazy writing.

Some things are a hole or at least continuity errors: The Dauntless being highly classified, but Admiral Robocop has a model of it sitting on his desk for any visitor to see. Imagine if the Sec of the Air Force had a model of a top secret stealth plane sitting on his desk before the thing had even finished developmental testing...

Other things are serious errors in logic or possibility that conflict with what the screenplay establishes or attempts to establish later: Robocop is supposed to be holding Khan's homies hostage to coerce Khan into playing with Robocops scheme to trigger a war with the Klingons, but Robocop shoves them all into Torpedoes and sends them on the Enterprise to be shot at Kronos... Even if you argue that Robocops plan was to kill off all the Khaninites in a single event (ok, I sorta get that) he sends the Enterprise, with Kirk in command but not in on the plan, to do it, when the preceeding establish that Kirk was relieved of command giving Robocop the option to put someone else in command, and the following events establishing that Robocop has enough people in on his plan to build and crew a massive warship at a secret construction facility that inexplicably doesn't include anyone that could command of the Enterprise earlier that would have been in on the plan and guaranteed to follow through...

It was a good movie, and I enjoyed 90% of it... but by Kahless's beard it's plot didn't make any sense beyond the current scene being viewed.

Add to this the fact that Bones has now cured death...

Looks like Wedge will feature strongly in the novelization of the period between E6 and E7, here's a snippet from Wendig's Aftermath:

http://www.theforce.net/story/front/Star_Wars_Aftermath_Journey_to_Star_Wars_The_Force_Awakens_164956.asp

Holy ****! JJ just threw out the prequels!

But during today’s Comic Con panel in Hall H Abrams was asked about his inspirations and influences in putting this film together, and his answer was somewhat surprising if not undiplomatic.

“We tried to sit down and ask ourselves, ‘what feels right?’” Abrams said. “The only real mandate we had was what delights us. We treated the films, especially 4, 5, and 6, we treated those as canon.”

Okay, I will freely admit that E1-3 were not well received, but I think this is a step too far. It might make the fanboys happy (well, some of them), but it'll do nothing but confuse the Average Viewer. "Wait, the ones with the goofy frog man don't count anymore? That's too much work, lets see whats playing in theater 3. . . . "

Besides, the stodgy adults may not like them, but I know tons of kids dig them, that they grew up on them,

This does not inspire confidence in JJ. . . .

Given this plus the mini-movie from Comic-Con about how the ST will feature practical effects, I am not surprised they are dismissing the PT and pandering to the OT crowd (who generally despises the PT). Despite the fact that the PT was loaded with practical effects.

From the very beginning JJ has promoted an air/attitude that dismisses the PT. It makes sense, Disney is not stupid when it comes to business decisions, make new Star Wars movies and pander to the OT crowd who were burned by the PT. They stand to make a fortune off that premise alone. It has been clear to me from the very beginning that their goal is to replicate the OT "experience", whatever that is. Nostalgia perhaps?

I will enjoy them simply because they are Star Wars and I'll get more of the universe I love. But I have no delusions that the audience they expect is the OT crowd.

Chill out. The movie will be good, or it will suck, and if it Into Darknesses and leaves so many gaping plot holes behind it crashes wookieepedia... that might not be such a bad thing....

Into Darkness has its problems but plot holes (logic, omissions or story elements that directly conflict with what the screenplay has already established) was not one of them.

If it doesn't conflict with the "rules" of what the story has presented, it doesn't count as a plot hole. It's just bad or lazy writing.

Some things are a hole or at least continuity errors: The Dauntless being highly classified, but Admiral Robocop has a model of it sitting on his desk for any visitor to see. Imagine if the Sec of the Air Force had a model of a top secret stealth plane sitting on his desk before the thing had even finished developmental testing...

Other things are serious errors in logic or possibility that conflict with what the screenplay establishes or attempts to establish later: Robocop is supposed to be holding Khan's homies hostage to coerce Khan into playing with Robocops scheme to trigger a war with the Klingons, but Robocop shoves them all into Torpedoes and sends them on the Enterprise to be shot at Kronos... Even if you argue that Robocops plan was to kill off all the Khaninites in a single event (ok, I sorta get that) he sends the Enterprise, with Kirk in command but not in on the plan, to do it, when the preceeding establish that Kirk was relieved of command giving Robocop the option to put someone else in command, and the following events establishing that Robocop has enough people in on his plan to build and crew a massive warship at a secret construction facility that inexplicably doesn't include anyone that could command of the Enterprise earlier that would have been in on the plan and guaranteed to follow through...

It was a good movie, and I enjoyed 90% of it... but by Kahless's beard it's plot didn't make any sense beyond the current scene being viewed.

Add to this the fact that Bones has now cured death...

Well technically that wasn't a plot hole/error in Into Darkness, it'll just make anyone dying in the next film silly in the same way that Scott's super-transporter from the first movie made star ships obsolete in Into Darkness.

Now..... why Khan's blood specifically was needed to cure death instead of the dozens of other dudes they had stashed in cargo bay 3 that were supposed to be the same make and model of genetic supermen as Khan....

Given this plus the mini-movie from Comic-Con about how the ST will feature practical effects, I am not surprised they are dismissing the PT and pandering to the OT crowd (who generally despises the PT). Despite the fact that the PT was loaded with practical effects.

Actually that focus on "practical effects" really bugged me. The CGI in the PT is glorious, it still holds up in HD today. When I compare that with the terrible puppet spiders and rubber Gammorrean masks of the OT, I'll take the PT effects any day. The only puppet that was convincing in the OT was Yoda. With almost everything else you can see right through it...it really destroys the suspension of disbelief.

The problem with the CGI is not that it is bad. The space battles were great, the problem with it is that by having nothing for the actors to interact with at all, they had very flat performances. The idea that everything will be fixed in post was very prevalent. Many of the actors in the prequels are very good, but had very bad performances.

Having an actual something to interact with allows the actor to react to things, during a scene they can walk up and touch something, and it makes the world feel alive. CGI can't capture that interaction. There is also, and J.J. Mentions this in the comic con video, that having actual props and practical effects alters how one shoots a scene, you have real shadows, real movement. These are all things that the human eye sees every day, and when a scene is all CGI, you enter the uncanny valley.

For the gratuitous space battles, I'm perfectly fine with CGI. It should be a tool, not a scapegoat.

The problem with the CGI is not that it is bad. The space battles were great, the problem with it is that by having nothing for the actors to interact with at all, they had very flat performances.

Before going to see Terminator 5 a couple weeks ago, I spun up my DVD of the original Terminator and T2. Coming home from T5, I was shocked on how terrible the effects were. How can a modern T1000 (or whatever the hell John Conner was suppose to be) look like crap and the original Robert Patrick T1000 looked great. Same thing with Jurassic Park - original, aged well. New one? Looked terrible.

And it occurs to me - the CGI was used to enhance T2 and Jurassic Park, not dominate it. CGI should be a spice to flavor the meal, not the meal itself.

Eh, I also don't get the CGI hate, it is a resource after all and i do understand the problems and limitations with it...my gripe comes with rose tinted glasses fans who look at Return of the Jedi (Special Edition) and say the "Jedi Rocks" scene is terrible because of Sy Snootles. I then go back and watch the original Lapti Nek scene, I agree that I prefer the song...but that puppet...my GOD that puppet was awful and I honestly can't understand why anyone would justify that being better than CGI other than the fact that "Its real."

Eh, I also don't get the CGI hate, it is a resource after all and i do understand the problems and limitations with it...my gripe comes with rose tinted glasses fans who look at Return of the Jedi (Special Edition) and say the "Jedi Rocks" scene is terrible because of Sy Snootles. I then go back and watch the original Lapti Nek scene, I agree that I prefer the song...but that puppet...my GOD that puppet was awful and I honestly can't understand why anyone would justify that being better than CGI other than the fact that "Its real."

It is a resource, and a poorly done one. The older version with the puppets was ok, but you could tell it was a puppet. The new one just is jarring visually as it screams CG with the way he moves and such. The skin was awful, something about the body and movements just lacked that subtlety that tells the mind it is seeing a real thing move, etc... all these things just hit the uncanny valley and make it hard to watch. So, neither is great, but at least Jedi has the excuse that the puppeteering was nearing 20 years of age whereas the CG was new... and as Jurassic Park showed us, it could be well done and not hit that uncanny valley. So, 6 years after JP, Lucas really had no excuse for why he couldn't do better... of course there was no real reason to change it... other than he didn't like the story he told anymore...

I'll just leave this right here:

Practical Effects in the Prequels

Well the Ep I Yoda puppet was god awful. That thing did not look right at all. I am glad they went and changed Ep I Yoda to the CGI one. That one at least has resemblance to the Empire Yoda, unlike the Ep I that looked like you got a Mogwai wet.

So CGI can and has been well in the prequels. And some real effects have been both good and bad in the, as well.

Just remember, no matter how much they beg, never feed them Feed them after midnight.

Also, here is Carrie Fisher on The Tonight Show (1983) talking about "acting to nothing" throughout all 3 films of the OT. Around 7:45

https://youtu.be/1qnuqMU9wDQ

Also, here is Carrie Fisher on The Tonight Show (1983) talking about "acting to nothing" throughout all 3 films of the OT. Around 7:45

https://youtu.be/1qnuqMU9wDQ

No matter what you do, in an epic sci-fi or fantasy movie, some of the actors are going to have to pretend to respond to something that's not there or that isn't happening. It's just the nature of the beast.

The problem with the CGI is not that it is bad. The space battles were great, the problem with it is that by having nothing for the actors to interact with at all, they had very flat performances.

Before going to see Terminator 5 a couple weeks ago, I spun up my DVD of the original Terminator and T2. Coming home from T5, I was shocked on how terrible the effects were. How can a modern T1000 (or whatever the hell John Conner was suppose to be) look like crap and the original Robert Patrick T1000 looked great. Same thing with Jurassic Park - original, aged well. New one? Looked terrible.

And it occurs to me - the CGI was used to enhance T2 and Jurassic Park, not dominate it. CGI should be a spice to flavor the meal, not the meal itself.

So true. By using a combination of CGI and puppets and other "practical" effects, one can create a seamless experience, such as those in Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park.

I think that studios use CGI because it is cheaper in many ways than practical effects. And to be entirely fair, there are probably a lot more people going through film school doing CGI than practical effects, so it is likely as much an issue of just not having people with the skills needed as it is one of not wanting to spend the time and money to do it.

Actually, it is just as expensive to do CG vs Practical on a frame by frame cost basis. There are things that are easier to do in CG vs Practical, like space ships fighting or theoretical planes or ships, but it takes a lot of hours to build the 3D objects, setup the renders, render the various layers and masks, then do the various compositions of the frame data.

As an example, it took 2.5 years to do all the CG for Frozen, at a cost of 3,000,000 man-hours. Just one scene example, Elsa's ice castle took 50 people 9 months to deal with just 36 seconds of footage.

CG is best when used to enhance the practical effects, such as adding smoke or flames to practical fires/explosions, extending the practical sets (as long as the guys doing the comp get the camera set right).

Producers/Directors have been using CG more as a crutch towards proper planning of a shot on the set, 'cause they can "always fix it in post"... For me, CG just breaks my ability to watch. Scenes like Batman on his batcycle when he hops up on one wheel, spins around and drops down... just painful as the comp is just awful.

Chill out. The movie will be good, or it will suck, and if it Into Darknesses and leaves so many gaping plot holes behind it crashes wookieepedia... that might not be such a bad thing....

Into Darkness has its problems but plot holes (logic, omissions or story elements that directly conflict with what the screenplay has already established) was not one of them.

If it doesn't conflict with the "rules" of what the story has presented, it doesn't count as a plot hole. It's just bad or lazy writing.

Some things are a hole or at least continuity errors: The Dauntless being highly classified, but Admiral Robocop has a model of it sitting on his desk for any visitor to see. Imagine if the Sec of the Air Force had a model of a top secret stealth plane sitting on his desk before the thing had even finished developmental testing...

Other things are serious errors in logic or possibility that conflict with what the screenplay establishes or attempts to establish later: Robocop is supposed to be holding Khan's homies hostage to coerce Khan into playing with Robocops scheme to trigger a war with the Klingons, but Robocop shoves them all into Torpedoes and sends them on the Enterprise to be shot at Kronos... Even if you argue that Robocops plan was to kill off all the Khaninites in a single event (ok, I sorta get that) he sends the Enterprise, with Kirk in command but not in on the plan, to do it, when the preceeding establish that Kirk was relieved of command giving Robocop the option to put someone else in command, and the following events establishing that Robocop has enough people in on his plan to build and crew a massive warship at a secret construction facility that inexplicably doesn't include anyone that could command of the Enterprise earlier that would have been in on the plan and guaranteed to follow through...

It was a good movie, and I enjoyed 90% of it... but by Kahless's beard it's plot didn't make any sense beyond the current scene being viewed.

1: It makes no sense. How could Khan's blood have such a strong healing ability when there was no sign of Prime Khan being able to do so and the two universes split long after Khan was frozen? Even if Khan somehow managed to design Vengeance is less then a year how did they have time to build it given that it took at least three years to build and commission the much smaller Enterprise once construction began? Not to mention the absurdity of anyone putting a hidden shipyard that close to Earth.

2: The space battles in the Abrams Trek movies were awful. Outsidof the Kobyashi Maru in every on screen space battle the good ship was disabled in a few seconds, often not getting a shot off then either ramming the bad guy ship or launching boarding parties. The closest they got to breaking this pattern was when the good guy boarding party got sent in before the good ship engaged the enemy and near the battle's end a small ship which had been seized by one of the boarders made a suicide run against the bad guy hip.

I don't mind battles like this happening sometimes but there were literally no on screen space battles outside of simulators which were resolved ship to ship with no boarding actions or kamikaze runs.

Star Wars Aftermath excerpts.

http://www.ew.com/article/2015/07/16/star-wars-exclusive-actual-opening-aftermath-reveals-tragic-violent-uprising

Aftermath seems pretty good, based on that excerpt.

Well, good or bad, it's clearly about to become the canon bible.

Read the excerpts.. they're pretty basic scenes not unlike ones you'd find in a film trailer. However the writing seems a little dumbed down with short and sometimes choppy sentences. It's almost like someone wrote it with character limits for a given sentence or passage.

Read the excerpts.. they're pretty basic scenes not unlike ones you'd find in a film trailer. However the writing seems a little dumbed down with short and sometimes choppy sentences. It's almost like someone wrote it with character limits for a given sentence or passage.

I'm going to have to agree. The writing style shown in those excerpts has me far less enthusiastic about reading it now.

Read the excerpts.. they're pretty basic scenes not unlike ones you'd find in a film trailer. However the writing seems a little dumbed down with short and sometimes choppy sentences. It's almost like someone wrote it with character limits for a given sentence or passage.

Not a fan of Hemingway?

Read the excerpts.. they're pretty basic scenes not unlike ones you'd find in a film trailer. However the writing seems a little dumbed down with short and sometimes choppy sentences. It's almost like someone wrote it with character limits for a given sentence or passage.

Not a fan of Hemingway?

I've never read Hemingway so I wouldn't know.

Read the excerpts.. they're pretty basic scenes not unlike ones you'd find in a film trailer. However the writing seems a little dumbed down with short and sometimes choppy sentences. It's almost like someone wrote it with character limits for a given sentence or passage.

Not a fan of Hemingway?

I've never read Hemingway so I wouldn't know.

His first job as a writer was as an overseas reporter and at the time he was doing it, you were charged by the letter for your messages (sent via telegraph). So he learned to be very succinct. And this style carried over to his novels and other works.

When I was in High School the joke was:

JOKE: Why did the chicken cross the road?

HEMINGWAY: To die. Alone. In the rain.

Read the excerpts.. they're pretty basic scenes not unlike ones you'd find in a film trailer. However the writing seems a little dumbed down with short and sometimes choppy sentences. It's almost like someone wrote it with character limits for a given sentence or passage.

Not a fan of Hemingway?

I'm actually not a big fan of Hemingway's writing, but I can at least respect that he managed to get a lot of economy out of his writing. There was a lot of subtext hidden between the lines. That's not the case with the excerpt listed. I find it to be just outright bad. It looks like bad fan fiction.