Star Trek 09 review thread

[Ford Prefect]

-What the hell was the "lightning storm in space?"

It's the visual effect created by travelling through time.

[SylasGaunt]

Spoiler

-The filmmakers...all of them...FAIL ASTRONOMY FOREVER AND EVER AND EVER. Black holes can blow up in your ship and not kill it instantly, but can kill a planet in a few minutes? I get that its somehow increasing in mass, but given how much smaller the spaceships are they should have been totaled instantly. Black hole + supernova = 0, even though supernova can blast planets all over the galaxy?

Nero's ship already survived going through a blackhole once. I'm guessing it's a technology issue more than a size one. The supernova is out there.. but then Star Trek is full of truly wacky phenomena. In fact haven't FTL shockwaves come up before?

-I feel like the worst kind of fanboy for saying this but...c'mon, the Enterprise only gets to unleash its full might at the end of the film? And Nero pwns Starfleet AND the Klingons, but all off-screen?

-What the hell was the "lightning storm in space?" I thought it was because Nero busted out his crazy drill that causes interference but then it should not have occurred in the Kelvin fight. And yet this is a major plot point because Kirk remembers it from what happened to his father. Oops?

It's the description the guy on the Kelvin used for the Weird Space Hole that Nero's ship popped out of in the beginning.

-WHAT THE HELL IS WITH THE TRANSPORTER. Range = infinite. Shields = no problem. Momentum? What momentum? One magic equation can get you from a planet to an FTL starship? I really had a problem with this, as there seemed to be no reason why the Enterprise can beam people into Nero's bridge but can't just start beaming people out into space. And did Nero even have transporters?

The transporter getting them onto Nero's ship was due to Scotty Fiddling with it. As for beaming people out into space, I think it's a somewhat different situation given how far off the Enterprise was from Nero's ship at the time. And they didn't beam into the Bridge, it looked like it's part of the same general area of the ship as where they were keeping Pike.

-Scott's transporter board couldn't detect life forms in the enemy ship in the immediate area of the beaming. Funny, but sketchy. Especially considering that Kelvin detected lifesigns on the ship earlier.

The Kelvin was much closer than the Enterprise was at the time though.

[The Nomad]

Went to see it with my girlfriend last night. I wasn't disappointed. Despite the flaws mentioned earlier in this thread, it rocks. (and my GF liked too, despite not being into Trek).

[The Nomad]

The list of dudes who make up aggravating nicknames? I'm so at the top of that list for coining "Battlestar Livejournal."

When do we start coining stupid nicknames for differentiating the two timelines? Like 'Neotrek' and 'Paleotrek'?

[Bounty]

If we're doing spoilers Spoiler

I didn't appreciate the voice-over at the end, with the motto of the Original Series. We didn't see any strange news worlds, seek out new life or new civilisations.

Well, he wasn't talking about the movie you've just seen, he was talking about the sequel

[Ilya Muromets]

Well, I just got back from the premiere. I can really say that I was not disappointed. I'm still suffering from post-movie afterglow, so I probably won't be able to give any review more in-depth than a string of positive adjectives. Since that really serves no purpose other than to echo previews posts, I won't do so.

However, I will offer an observation. Some comments on this site and others said something to the effect of waiting out the first few days to avoid the crowds. This seems to be common for the films of any major sci-fi franchise. It is in stark contrast, though, to what I saw in the major local theater I saw the premiere in. I caught the very first showing and noted that less than a quarter of the seats were filled. There were more people after the first showing ended and I got up to leave, but the total number of people still seated and about to be seated still numbered less than half the capacity of the theater. I guess that speaks something of the relative obscurity of Star Trek in the Philippines.

EDIT: screwed up the Italics tags

[Havok]

So I just got back.

I feel like I want to really analyze the shit out of it and tear it apart...

However, I'm going to leave that to the professionals here.

Anyway... My overall take, with some pretty major spoilers.
Spoiler

I found the characters a little too comical for my tastes. Chekov especially.
I feel like they nailed Kirk (Pine did a great job with his mannerisms) and Spock. Uhura didn't have much of a character in TOS so they went with "attitude" Uhura that came about in the movies, which worked out well. Scotty was also far more comical than I would have liked, but overall, I'm pleased with the characterization. Sulu was great, and while I feel like they didn't capture him totally from TOS, it is easy to envision this new characterization evolving into the Sulu we know. Chekov... man, either I didn't follow his character in TOS close enough or they got bit by the "Nuclear Wessels" brain bug... sorry Telisiwhatsit Slug, from ST IV TVH. Spock "Prime" was pretty cool and they handled his insertion into this timeline very well. Now that Pike isn't stuck in "The Menagerie", I hope that he makes an appearance in further sequels as a type of father figure to Kirk.

As far as the visuals go, everything was very pretty, but there was a little to much "follow the missile" camera action for my tastes. There also was some funky camera work, namely the "spin", that while cool for certain shots, seemed to be misused in places.

The fact that the two big space battles (Earth fleet Vs Nero and The Klingons Vs Nero) were off screen sorta bugged me at first, but then I thought about how boring it would be to see the same thing happen over and over, as I already got enough of the mining ship firing it's missiles.

The Kobayashi Maru scene, may be one of the best in the movie.

The flat out "Alternate Timeline" explanations were great and there is no way ST nerds can interpret them any other way than how they were said. So no mashing this movie in to "Prime Canon"

The movie had a very grand scale, and the revision of Vulcan was pretty fucking cool and seemed very fresh to me. It's a shame it is gone now.

Overall, the movie was very good, definitely a blockbuster, a worthy reboot and a worthy inheritor to a name that was on the verge of death. And while I find it far less cerebral than I like, it was a top notch action flick that flowed great and didn't have any glaring hicups or SOD problems.
I give it an 8/10 or 4 stars.

[Havok]

Oops.
Spoiler

McCoy was about as perfect as you could have hoped for. The interaction and camaraderie you get in TOS and the movies between him Kirk is transferred brilliantly to this timeline in a matter of moments. Excellently done.

When do we start coining stupid nicknames for differentiating the two timelines? Like 'Neotrek' and 'Paleotrek'?

Uh... that will be "NEROTrek" and "Trek Prime".

You'll see.

[Androsphinx]

I think we all know it'll be Trek 2.0 (II).

[Skylon]

The list of dudes who make up aggravating nicknames? I'm so at the top of that list for coining "Battlestar Livejournal."

When do we start coining stupid nicknames for differentiating the two timelines? Like 'Neotrek' and 'Paleotrek'?

I was thinking Post-Crisis Trek, but that's just me.

[Worlds Spanner]

If we're doing spoilers Spoiler

I didn't appreciate the voice-over at the end, with the motto of the Original Series. We didn't see any strange news worlds, seek out new life or new civilisations.

Spoiler

I think that's what it's at the end. It's also transparently fan service, to have Nimoy say the words. It was HILARIOUS when he said "life-forms" instead of "life."

[Worlds Spanner]

I've just been prefacing names and places with XI, I've seen others using 2009.

[Bounty]

JJ<something> has been used a few time, too. Maybe we should just stick to nuTrek or something? nTrek?

[SylasGaunt]

Saw it last night at one of the early screenings (managed to snag a 10:30 ticket with some friends instead of waiting for the 12:01 show).

One thing I particularly appreciated was that they seemingly made sure to let the actors do their thing with the characters. Pine is playing Kirk, not William Shatner playing Kirk, something I appreciate.

I also find it funny that almost all the 'diplomacy' involved was initiated at the hands of Nero, except in the 'You will do this because I can blow your dinky little ass up 10 times over' manner.

The Enterprise also felt really really damn huge in this one. I mean, the Intrepid class ships from the OTL were if wiki is to be believed 344 meters. That's just a bit bigger than the CVN version of the Enterprise but it never really feels it when the characters are moving around in it. It's small and neat with a few consoles and decent carpets. The new Enterprise on the other hand has an engineering area that would feel positively cavernous.. if it wasn't stuffed with pipes, walkways, inert reactant tubes, multiple warp cores, etc. I also liked that engineering was considerably less pretty than the rest of the ship. The bridge may look like something out of the apple store but the engineering level looks downright industrial.

[Ilya Muromets]

Speaking of multiple warp cores, I can almost imagine all of the fanwank resulting from that. IIRC, that's the very first portrayal in Trek of a single ship having that many warp cores.

And how much do you guys want to bet the Nerada's drill and that whole "red matter" thing are gonna pop up in versus arguments?

[Bounty]

Speaking of multiple warp cores, I can almost imagine all of the fanwank resulting from that. IIRC, that's the very first portrayal in Trek of a single ship having that many warp cores.

And how much do you guys want to bet the Nerada's drill and that whole "red matter" thing are gonna pop up in versus arguments?

It was still referred to as "the" warp core. What was thrown out looked more like antimatter tanks - and it' fits with TOS' frequent implication that the power system was distributed, not a single reactor

[hongi]

The movie was solid.

I thought Nero was hard done by. They really didn't develop him enough for me...Nero explains why he's pissed off at the Federation in one info-dumping speech and grandpa Spock fills in some of the details, but he just gets too little screen time in my opinion.

Good action movie, poor sci-fi movie.

The action scenes got a 'meh' from me. I thought the ship to ship battles were underwhelming.

[General Zod]

Ehhh...

Good action movie, poor sci-fi movie. Shiny and hollow, like a bauble on JJ Abram's Christmas tree.

Poor sci-fi movie? Explain this.

Somewhere along the way, a science fiction movie should use its setting and technology to do more than just look pretty, blow stuff up and set up things for the next movie.

Like. . . .what? Frankly this seems ridiculous. As long as the movie's entertaining and the plot isn't retarded who cares if there's an over-arching message?

[Androsphinx]

Like. . . .what? Frankly this seems ridiculous. As long as the movie's entertaining and the plot isn't retarded who cares if there's an over-arching message?

I said it was a good action movie. I just prefer my scifi to have content - Star Trek used to have some.

[General Zod]

Like. . . .what? Frankly this seems ridiculous. As long as the movie's entertaining and the plot isn't retarded who cares if there's an over-arching message?

I said it was a good action movie. I just prefer my scifi to have content - Star Trek used to have some.

Star Trek hasn't had a lot of decent "content" since the TOS. Unless by "content" you mean "ham-fisted attempts at moralizing a story".

[Androsphinx]

No, TOS and the TOS movies were what I was thinking about. I foolishly thought that since this is nTOS they might have felt the same way.

[General Zod]

No, TOS and the TOS movies were what I was thinking about. I foolishly thought that since this is nTOS they might have felt the same way.

There were a lot of TOS episodes that didn't have any kind of greater "message" to them. I don't really see the problem.

[hongi]

Like. . . .what? Frankly this seems ridiculous. As long as the movie's entertaining and the plot isn't retarded who cares if there's an over-arching message?

Someone explain the plot to me...so Spock screws up somehow (late?) and Romulus goes boom via supernova, but he still creates a black hole (why? If Romulus is destroyed, why bother?). Nero, who is nearby (why? Was he chasing Spock? The movie didn't give the impression that a lot of time passed between Romulus' destruction and the black hole's creation...) gets sucked in first so he pops out earlier in the other universe. He waits 25 years (and no one notices...? How did he get repairs done after being rammed by the Kelvin?) for old Spock to pop out.

^
That about it? Why attack the Klingons?

[SylasGaunt]

Someone explain the plot to me...so Spock screws up somehow (late?) and Romulus goes boom via supernova, but he still creates a black hole (why? If Romulus is destroyed, why bother?).

Because the blast is still a threat to other nearby planets like oh.. Vulcan.

Nero, who is nearby (why? Was he chasing Spock? The movie didn't give the impression that a lot of time passed between Romulus' destruction and the black hole's creation...) gets sucked in first so he pops out earlier in the other universe. He waits 25 years (and no one notices...? How did he get repairs done after being rammed by the Kelvin?) for old Spock to pop out.

His home was on Romulus along with his pregnant wife. And if the prequel comics are anything to go on the ship fixed itself. Even if you ignore them you can get a lot done in 25 years and of course with regards to nobody noticing.. need I add the obligatory 'Space if fecking huge!' point?

[General Zod]

Like. . . .what? Frankly this seems ridiculous. As long as the movie's entertaining and the plot isn't retarded who cares if there's an over-arching message?

Someone explain the plot to me...so Spock screws up somehow (late?) and Romulus goes boom via supernova, but he still creates a black hole (why? If Romulus is destroyed, why bother?). Nero, who is nearby (why? Was he chasing Spock? The movie didn't give the impression that a lot of time passed between Romulus' destruction and the black hole's creation...) gets sucked in first so he pops out earlier in the other universe. He waits 25 years (and no one notices...? How did he get repairs done after being rammed by the Kelvin?) for old Spock to pop out.

^
That about it? Why attack the Klingons?

Except. . . .

1. I haven't actually seen the movie yet, so I can't comment on the plot.

2. My point was to get Androsphinx to actually justify his position that SF somehow needs to be about more than advanced technology being the key to a plot-point (Thanks for completely missing that). It's nice for an SF movie to demonstrate why this technology is relevant to humanity somehow, but frankly I don't think that has to be a requirement; otherwise a lot of movies would come off as ham-fisted.