Star Trek 09 review thread

[Imperial Overlord]

I enjoyed the flick, despite all of it's imperfections. A few didn't bother me.

I was fine with the platform fight. Everyone brought guns to that fight. Sure most of them lost them quickly or were fighting over control of the guns, but that's pretty normal in action movies and somewhat plausible considering the close quarters and it was presented reasonably by the film. As for blasting the platform with disruptors, they didn't know that it would work before they tried it. They were improvising a solution since they lost the charges that would definitely do the job and it turned out to work.

Meeting Spock on the ice planet wasn't that unbelievable. Nero wanted him to live with the loss, so putting him down near the Starfleet outpost made sense. Spock gets to live in miserable conditions, reminded of his loss every time he looks at the sky and hearing about Nero's systematic destruction of the Federation over the subspace radio. Bumping into Kirk is a coincidence, but a much more likely one as they're both dropped near the same outpost.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

I'm pretty sure saving the world from something that trashed every fleet it came up against with just one ship would have been enough on its own.. or at least should be enough.

Why?

Saved. The. Earth.

Really, what part aren't you getting?

In any sane universe, the most Kirk would've gotten was a chestful of medals, a lot of press in his face, a glowing commendation on his record, and a choice spot on "The List" or whatever fast-track to the rarefied heights of officer-dom exists in the space navy he's serving in. If they were feeling especially generous, they might jump him up a grade or two upon commissioning, so he'd be a Lieutenant (J.G.) or maybe even a Lieutenant. But to go from cadet with obvious discipline issues to commanding officer of a ship large enough for the CO billet to (usually?) go to an O-6? Hahaha . . . no.

[Skylon]

Did you miss the part where Nero tortured Captain Pike exclusively to garner knowledge of Earth's defences? Why is it inconceivable that within minutes of warping into orbit the Narada pinpointed whatever weapon installations existed and blasted them to rubble?

As mentioned earlier in the thread, a quick shot of shattered starship hulls and weapons platforms orbiting Earth would have helped reinforce the success of Nero's interrogation.

The second the bug went in it was obvious that the interrogation would be a success. A shot of The Enterprise crew taking the bug out of Pike after they rescued him would have helped though.

You mean Pike being wheelchair bound at the end wasn't enough? Not to mention when he was beamed aboard Enterprise someone was waiting with a medical scanner pointed right at him.

[Bounty]

And he was drooling green puss. If that's not a clue that something's wrong, I don't know what is.

Not that a little brain-eating parasite messes with Pike's aim

[Worlds Spanner]

What about "cupcake"? He appears later as a security grunt.

The security department needs officers too?

Either that or he flunked out of the officer program and got repurposed as a guard.

Or, ya know, he was a freaking cadet, apparently unlike all the cadets we see on the bridge pretending to be officers.

[CaptainChewbacca]

In any sane universe, the most Kirk would've gotten was a chestful of medals, a lot of press in his face, a glowing commendation on his record, and a choice spot on "The List" or whatever fast-track to the rarefied heights of officer-dom exists in the space navy he's serving in. If they were feeling especially generous, they might jump him up a grade or two upon commissioning, so he'd be a Lieutenant (J.G.) or maybe even a Lieutenant. But to go from cadet with obvious discipline issues to commanding officer of a ship large enough for the CO billet to (usually?) go to an O-6? Hahaha . . . no.

You're about two pages behind on that discussion. Finish the thread first. I agreed with that viewpoint and suggested a plausible explanation for why we saw what we saw.

[Havok]

Also, while the fight on the drilling rig was a bit silly (like the rest of the movie, shocker) do note that both of the Romulans were packing disruptors (or whatever) that were wrestled or kicked away. At the close quarters that we saw it seemed pretty plausible.

Well the one who was fighting Sulu went for his axe before his gun, but then this is a pack of pissed off miners, not soldiers.

No, he went for the gun but Kirk disarmed him. He didn't have it once Sulu attacked him.

[jamesraykenney]

Not only that, but I don't see how (or why) they'd need to go in detail on the plot. These are mass-market reviews, meant to give people an idea on whether the movie is worth seeing, not deep and insightful analyses. They highlight the good, they highlight the bad, they give a recommendation, that's it. If they don't highlight a lot of bad (it's not all praise if you read through the reviews, by the way; the pacing has issues and the score is so-and-so) it's because the reviewer didn't find a lot of bad to highlight. If that happens in one review, it's suspicious; if it happens in a dozen, maybe it's a sign that this might just be *gasp* a good movie.

I'm anxious to see what Ebert has to say too but it's a bit cheap to dismiss the other reviews just because they're enthusiastic.

You should not pay ANY attention to Ebert's review... It is obvous that he watched it, but did not listen to it. Actually, there are some parts of his review that make me think that he saw it with the scenes all jumbled up, as he talks about events in the movie happening, on one planet, that happened on a compleatly different planet... And he gets the order of events compleatly jumbled up!
I am seriously thinking he has Alzheimer's!
That is one of the worst reviews I have ever read in my life, and I live in Beaumont, TX and so was subjected to reviews by Sherry Fey for years!!!

This is very sad, because I always liked his reviews, and I would MUCH perfer to think that he has Alzheimer's than to lose all respect for the man as a movie critic!

I am tempted to write a review of his review, but I do not know if I can bring myself to be as mean as an honest review of his review would merit...

I will now shed a tear for one of the great movie critics...

[Crazedwraith]

In regards to Kirk as Captain of The Enterprise. I thought in the brief period between the line 'report to Admiral Pike' and us seeing Pike in a wheel chair that although Kirk was technically going to be Captain; Pike's flag would be on Enterprise and Pike would be actually command.

Because lets face it: Pike was a hell of lot more awesome than Kirk.

[El Moose Monstero]

I was entertained but disappointed. I think it'd been built up by everything to be this amazing movie, I was anticipating something like the Casino Royale for Star Trek, something to wash away the years of shite and give us something new but familiar. I think I'll be able to watch it on DVD in a few months and enjoy it for what it is, but it had a hard time with my expectations being so high.

I found a lot of it clumsy, the flashbacks and old Spock retelling really did nothing for me, the ice planet scene as mentioned was a definite low point. Quite a lot of the early stuff did nothing for me. I enjoyed the atmosphere, by and large, thought Nero didn't get quite enough development but also that I could have lived without the giant mining ship built by goth-ship-builders incorporated. I thought Uhura did well, McCoy was great, Spock was ok, Kirk was... mixed, and everyone else I could cheerfully have left to the sequel rather than crowbarring them in just to keep people happy. Nothing actually surprised me at all, it was apparent where vulcan-transport-sequence was going, and also apparent exactly how the bad guy would be defeated. As I said, I think my standards were set a little too high, probably even too high compared to the original movies. Bizarrely enough, if they do a sequel, I'll probably be able to enjoy that a lot more as they've got all the 'introduce the new universe' shit out of the way and can focus on actually writing a film instead of a series of introductions with some flashy things intermixed.

[dworkin]

Saw it with the missus, a good big-screen film. Brain to be kept in jar by bed tho'.

Introductions. While I was expecting the interminable introductions most of them were brief. Hello, chronic complaining person, names McCoy, thanks, pleased to meet you. Hello nutty professor in exile, name of Scott? Good, can we get back to the chasing of angry aliens? I despise long intros, especially for iconic characters (I'm looking at you Batman). Did I really need to be reminded that Spock has a troubled dual-heritage? Who in the fucking audience didn't know that? Likewise did we need the chase scene with the corvette and the bar fight to establish that Kirk is a bit of a rebel and loose cannon. Which person who's past breast feeding doesn't know it?

Design stuff. Star Trek takes place in the FUTURE! And in SPACE! As a result things have to look spacey and well futuristic. Thankfully the stuff looks like it's from the future and not a 60's effects budget. Although it was reminiscent of the old show so maybe it's the 60's of the future. It looked good and had all those things we want, like flying motorcycles (ok, ok there are all sorts of thematic elements and other symbolic crap in the corvette scene) and the opportunity to shag green women from other planets. That said I half expected the Romulan ship to have 'ACME' stenciled somewhere on it. It's a menacing alien vessel, so it's black and spikey and challenged in the interior lighting department. Is that why aliens are so cranky? Forever barking my shins, tripping over and falling off platforms would make me want to blow shit up too. I suppose if they just made it a massive fist of metal we would be now suffering ongoing Red Dwarf vs Trek jokes.

The characters. Well, they're icons. Kirk's brash, Spock's stoic and McCoy moans. There is not a lot here that we don't know. Will they be different at the end? No. Just to shit with people I would of made Spock fully vulcan, but brought up by his human mother-in-law and has problems because mom thinks the vulcan over the top stoicism is going too far. He would still have all that Spock angst and not be a fucking absurdity. McCoy could of started out ethusiastic and gradually became pessimisstic over the movie series as more and more bad shit happens. Character development? Bah.

The plot. Angry alien threatens earth/galaxy/your mom with super-weapon. Enterprise saves day. Angry alien was good. He's just this guy who's had his planet blown up and been squished through a black hole. And since his ship seems conducive to OSH injuries and vitamin D deficiency he's somewhat on the psychotic side. He blows planet's up by drilling a hole into them and then dropping in a black hole. Fun. His driller thingy fucks trek stuff up meaning we have close range fisticuffs action and obligitory red shirt death. His black hole dropper he stole from future Spock who despite only needing a drop at a time, literally brought enough for everybody. A Get Smart quote floated through my head when I saw this "If only he had used the red matter for goodness and not nastiness." He blows up Vulcan, he fucking blows up fucking Vulcan. For that I will forgive this film anything. Now Nero, there is one other truly annoying federation world, Betazoid. If only.

Science. Arrrgh! A black hole is a giant sucky thing. Stars are giant fusion reactors, therefore nuclear, therefore they can explode without warning. Simultaneity? Of course! That's obvious. Starships that look like they'll never kiss atmosphere let alone ground are built in Iowa. If you can travel at many multiples of c why don't you just run away if you want to? Actually that last one does make sense, it's just the first time I've seen it in Trek.

Odd bit: Sulu's sword. Am I the only person who thought 'sabre'? Sulu states his close combat proficiency is 'fencing' which sounds silly until he pulls out the amazing ACME extendo-weapon. A weapon which uses the blade and point. I thought it was a joking reference to another popular space franchise.

Another odd bit.The red matter. Seems to be one drop, one black hole (or giant sucky thing). Why did Spock bring so much? Was there a rash of supernovas in the future? A very big rash?

Time travel: Even in Trek where physics is quite odd, time travel to the past is easy. I would of much preferred Spock's explanation to be along the lines of "Actually, you have to be careful to avoid time travel, if you bothered to study you would know that". The good bit about time travel in this movie is that stuff that happens, stays happened. Vulcan is now a giant sucky thing, Winona Ryder wont be in the sequels, Romulas will get the toasty in the future, a large bit of Starfleet is debris that has since fallen into the giant sucky thing. As a result the Enterprise and rather green crew will be called into action sooner than expected.

Summary: I liked it. I liked playing 'catch the reference' and the new look. Watchable and enjoyable. As an intro movie? One of the better ones. As a movie itself? Okay to good. Will I want to see it again big screen? Nah.

[SylasGaunt]

No, he went for the gun but Kirk disarmed him. He didn't have it once Sulu attacked him.

I think we're thinking of different Romulans. I seem to recall the one Sulu shoved into the incinerator having a pistol in his holster but I'd have to see it again to be sure.

[open_sketchbook]

No, he went for the gun but Kirk disarmed him. He didn't have it once Sulu attacked him.

I think we're thinking of different Romulans. I seem to recall the one Sulu shoved into the incinerator having a pistol in his holster but I'd have to see it again to be sure.

He is non-military though, and maybe the thought process went "Sword, eh? Well, let me axe you something!" rather than the more professional "lulz sword" followed by the pistol shot.

[LMSx]

In tribute to the whining fanboy a few posts above who couldn't stand critical thought, here's a repost of a few paragraphs from Roger Ebert's review that I really agree with:

Chris Pine, as James Tiberius Kirk, appears first as a hot-rodding rebel who has found a Corvette in the 23rd century and drives it into the Grand Canyon. A few years after he’s put on suspension by the Academy and smuggled on board the Enterprise by Bones McCoy (Karl Urban), he becomes the ship’s captain. There are times when the command deck looks like Bring Your Child to School Day, with the kid sitting in daddy’s chair.

...

The special effects are slam-bam. Spatial relationships between spaceships are unclear because the Romulan ship and the Enterprise have such widely unmatched scales. Battles consist primarily of jump-suited crew members running down corridors in advance of smoke, sparks and flames. Lots of verbal commands seem implausibly slow. Consider, at light warp speeds, how imprecise it would be to say “At my command ... 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...” Between “2” and “1,” you could jump a million galaxies.

I thought about these things during “Star Trek” because I could not help myself. I understand the Star Trek science has never been intended as plausible. I understand this is not science fiction but an Ark movie using a starship. I understand that the character types are as familiar as your favorite slippers. But the franchise has become much of a muchness. The new movie essentially intends to reboot the franchise with younger characters and carry on as before. The movie deals with narrative housekeeping. Perhaps the next one will engage these characters in a more challenging and devious story, one more about testing their personalities than re-establishing them. In the meantime, you want space opera, you got it.

I'm not sure if they intentionally played it for laughs when Pike went to the Narada and everyone started playing hot potato with the Captain's position. (didn't it end up with Chekov, the 17 year old wunderkind? I couldn't stand listening to his accent)

Spock "Prime" kind of damaged the flick, too, in that the "YOU WILL BE GREAT FRIENDS TRUST ME" message seems like it undermines dramatic tension between Kirk and Spock. Well, now they both know the other has a Heart of Gold! Once the phrase "time continuum" escaped Puny Spock's lips, that was another "ugh, Sci Fi" sigh, akin to the last half season of nBSG when everyone started lecturing about The Special Destiny of Hera. I just....want some human drama.

All that said, this reboot has promise, and I'll be interested to see what they spin up for a sequel. I think Abrams made some smart choices with the actors overall so the characters will be in good hands- but like Moose said, I think it would have been better to hold off on introducing the complete cast until later.

[DesertFly]

Consider, at light warp speeds, how imprecise it would be to say “At my command ... 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...” Between “2” and “1,” you could jump a million galaxies.

lol, because he couldn't possibly be keeping the bridge crew updated on the time until the computer pulls the ship out of warp.

[Master of Ossus]

Drill apologists: Where the fuck was Spock's drill?

If it's so much easier to handle singularities if you bury them down into something, why didn't Spock need one when he was planning to use red matter to save Romulus? Was his plan to just shoot the red matter in the general direction of the supernova? If so, why wouldn't that be a lot harder than killing a planet with it?

[Kuja]

Drill apologists: Where the fuck was Spock's drill?

If it's so much easier to handle singularities if you bury them down into something, why didn't Spock need one when he was planning to use red matter to save Romulus? Was his plan to just shoot the red matter in the general direction of the supernova? If so, why wouldn't that be a lot harder than killing a planet with it?

Presumably Spock's plan was to deploy the red matter in deep space so that when the shockwave got to it they would eat each other. Unfortunately he miscalculated - or something interfered - somewhere along the line and the shockwave struck Romulus much sooner than expected.

[Junghalli]

Drill apologists: Where the fuck was Spock's drill?

If it's so much easier to handle singularities if you bury them down into something, why didn't Spock need one when he was planning to use red matter to save Romulus? Was his plan to just shoot the red matter in the general direction of the supernova? If so, why wouldn't that be a lot harder than killing a planet with it?

As eye-bleeding nonsensical as the drill was, I'd say using a drill on a star would make even less sense. At least the crust of a planet actually can be drilled through (although I suspect realistically an unsupported shaft going down to the mantle would probably collapse under its own weight faster than you could drill - especially if it's in the thick continental crust instead of thin oceanic crust as it seems to be in the case of both Vulcan and Earth). With a star you'd be trying to drill gas.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Seemed like Spock was planning on deploying the Red Matter into space as he did in front of the shockwave, he wouldn't have needed a drill.

[Count Dooku]

There is also the possibility that Starfleet was expanding dramatically both in fleet size and operational size and large numbers of personnel were needed for all the new ships and facilities. Hell, there were only two personnel on that Federation outpost on delta whatever ice planet. Anyway, it's possible that with lots of new ships and bases and posts, SF needed lots of new people and the possibility to advance quickly due to potential is high.

Remember, they were being deployed on a rescue mission to Vulcan (if I recall), not a combat one. Little to no risk, and certainly no combat expected. With the majority of the fleet deployed in a far away sector, better to have cadets man the ships than for them to be undermanned. Though probably useless around the ship (with few exceptions), they could probably be very helpful planet-side.

I give it the ranking of a plausible plot device.

[Patrick Degan]

On the matter of Starfleet's rather nebulous rank/seniority structure: I've spoken in other threads about the "Age of Sail" metaphor which was the underlying premise for the Enterprise's voyages in the original series. If you take that concept and apply it to nST's version of Starfleet, it becomes a bit more acceptable to swallow the idea of Kirk's swift rise to command given how Age of Sail navies often had midshipmen as young as 15, junior lieutenants as young as 20 or 21, and full post-Captains as young as 26 or 27. Lack of seniority was not a bar to rapid promotion especially in a time when navies were starved for command personnel and were on war-footings. The future Lord Nelson won promotion to the rank of post-Captain in the Royal Navy at age 21 in 1780, and was 47 when he died at Trafalgar in command of the British fleet.

Now, the movie handles Kirk's rise to the eventual captaincy of the Enterprise somewhat clumsily. But the combination of daring action in the field, exhibition of initiative and courage, saving an entire world, and connections (re: Admiral Pike) in combination with a Starfleet which is clearly trawling for officers and fodder in large numbers to man its ships opens up pathways for success which were not available in the TOS reality.

[18-Till-I-Die]

First let me preface what i'm about to say with two things: One, i've seen almost every Star Trek episode but i'm not a fan...i always watched them to snark on the retarded "idealism" (read: impossible, self-absorbed borderline racism human-centric dickery) that Rodenberry seemed to think the world would descend into. Secondly, reading some earlier posts in the thread, i want to point out that i couldn't possibly find a way to care less about what movie critics think. I wouldn't wipe my ass with ANY critic (movie or otherwise) if only because my shit deserves better. If i want to pay some idiot to tell me what to think i'll watch South Park and get TWO idiots to tell me what to think for the price of one.

At any rate...

I loved this movie, it was a joy to watch from beginning to end and i felt it was more like what Star Trek would have been like years ago if the writers had any intelligence at all and CGI had been invented in the 60s. It does away with all of the mind numbing bullshit that makes my soul ache with laughter everytime i watch an old ST episode, like everything reversing polarity through the neutron stream of the electron quantum deflector dish...no technobabble to be found in this movie, thank Jesus. You cant possibly imagine how refreshing it was to watch Star Trek where characters did things to accomplish a goal instead of developing a new particle and projecting the polarity overcharge quantum flux subspace deflector dish. JUST THE IDEA of how simple half the solutions were astounded me...i mean, my God, they actually just used stealth to get past the Narada. Stealth! No multi-spectrum continua quantum quantum, just hiding...like, you know, actual people would do. That almost startled me. I was almost knocked out of my seat.

It also does away with the rigid, almost inhuman "perfect" characters i was so used to in Star Trek, and replaced them with, God help us, human beings. With like, emotions and everything! I mean my word, how on Earth is this possible. They had relationships with each other, and expressed feelings in something other than a monotone, and there was a conspicuous lack of mental uniformity. Why if i didn't know better i'd say they were almost like those primitive, backwards people from the infantile 21st century before the world became inhabited by the inhuman automata of the future and Gene Rodenberry's Mary-Sue wunderkind Wesley Crusher.

When i took my girlfriend to see this movie, she wanted to see that Quinto guy who she thinks is sexy or something, she writes Heroes fanfics i can't understand her shit. She loved it even more than me. But for me, this was like some kind of early Christmas present, because i've honestly never liked Star Trek before this. I have always considered Star Trek to be pretenteous bullshit, and have seen nothing to convince me otherwise. This movie changed that...now i still think the tv series Star Trek is pretenteous bullshit, but the movie of the same name is good.

Now people tell me it's "poorly writen", or whatever. Yeah sure, i'm sure i'm supposed to care, but the problem is...i don't think it was badly writen. It was writen to get the plot functioning, there were no plot holes i could see, the characters were engaging and interesting, the visuals were beautiful (though the fucking lens flare was distracting at times) and i honestly cant tell you how much i loved this movie. This is as good as i've ever seen Star Trek, and frankly the only reason it took this long to come up with something as simple as "get rid of technobabble" and "make the humans act normal" is because the Trekkies have a sexual fetish about canon that hurts the soul of any right-minded human being. Before this movie, Star Trek was, in my eyes, an irredemable mishmash of Rodenberry's overwrought idealism and borderline "white-man's-burden" mentality and the non-sequitor technobabble that filled practically every episode after the Original Series. After this movie, i'm praying to God that they let Abrams handle the rest of the series and use this new reboot universe from now on, AS IS, no bullshit retcons to "fix" it.

Now of course, the Trekkies i know are already shriving themselves in resposne to the movie. I've heard at least fifty variations of the same reasoning that it wasn't "idealistic" enough and that it "raped canon". And my response was about fifty variations of, "Thank God it is and thank God it did!" because honestly, idealism is just a Trekkie codeword for pretenteous and the canon sucks. For a non-fan (anti-fan?) like me, this movie was spectacular. It was everything i wanted in a movie, and nothing that i hated about Star Trek. And if Paramount has any brains at all, every other movie and series in the future will follow suit.

This movie wins Teh Cinema.

Twice.

By the way, this is the only, only review i've yet seen that even remotely makes any fucking sense and it's not by a professional critic. So right there, it gets fifty "Not Suck" points from me. The guy is a douche, and looking past his flouncy bishonen hair is difficult, but he gets it. Mind you it's all he gets because any grown man who names themselves after the Spoony Bard from Final Fantasy has issues, but gets it he does.

Anywho, i await my flaming, having stepped on both Trekkie and movie-snob toes and knowing how overwhelming both are on the Internetz...

[Galvatron]

I've already seen it twice. Once on Friday morning with Dad and again on Saturday afternoon with Mom and Sis. Everyone loved it. Even my brother, who loved TOS and thought everything afterward was "dork shit," took off work and saw it today by himself. He said it was outstanding!

I just hope it makes a ton of money and sends the loudest possible "fuck you" to Rick Berman and any who would follow in his footsteps down the road.

[Spyder]

They destroyed a planet full of people that have no logical reason to get out of bed in the morning, the rest of Star Trek was blinked out of existence and I did find it entertaining despite the multiple glarring flaws and wanton abuse of science.

BLACK HOLES DO NOT WORK THAT WAY!

I like it.

[LMSx]

On the matter of Starfleet's rather nebulous rank/seniority structure: I've spoken in other threads about the "Age of Sail" metaphor which was the underlying premise for the Enterprise's voyages in the original series. If you take that concept and apply it to nST's version of Starfleet, it becomes a bit more acceptable to swallow the idea of Kirk's swift rise to command given how Age of Sail navies often had midshipmen as young as 15, junior lieutenants as young as 20 or 21, and full post-Captains as young as 26 or 27. Lack of seniority was not a bar to rapid promotion especially in a time when navies were starved for command personnel and were on war-footings. The future Lord Nelson won promotion to the rank of post-Captain in the Royal Navy at age 21 in 1780, and was 47 when he died at Trafalgar in command of the British fleet.

Now, the movie handles Kirk's rise to the eventual captaincy of the Enterprise somewhat clumsily. But the combination of daring action in the field, exhibition of initiative and courage, saving an entire world, and connections (re: Admiral Pike) in combination with a Starfleet which is clearly trawling for officers and fodder in large numbers to man its ships opens up pathways for success which were not available in the TOS reality.

I feel like even if Kirk had been "merely" been granted a commendation and a promotion to a midlevel position, absolutely no one in the audience would have blinked if Kirk starts the sequel as a Captain, considering this movie's basically about his awesome potential. So considering he could plausibly be a captain either way, the route the writers chose seems to have very little payoff for the implausibility they add.