Star Trek 09 review thread

[Havok]

Maybe the klingon fleet at Rura Penthe was destroyed by different means but they didn't show that battle (though they should have in my oppinion to show how powerfull the Narada really is and that Nero lost because he left Spock junior alive instead of killing him instantly)

Actually, that's the thing, we don't see how powerful the Narada actually is. When facing both the Kelvin and the Enterprise, Nero holds its fire in an attempt to capture both ships.

It is certainly implied how powerful the Narrada is. Even if it used some other means to destroy the fleet of 47 Klingon ships, which is implying something we don't have any proof for, it still made short work of 8 Starfleet vessels in the time difference it took for Sulu to remember to take the parking brake off to when he jumped the ship to warp, with what looks like little or no damage to itself.

[TimothyC]

Didn't Archer survive in the old time line till the day Enterprise(NCC 1701) was commissioned?

Yep. He died the day after it was launched in 2245.

[Oskuro]

Just came back from a rewatch. I must say the lens flare abuse is more noticeable the second time through. Also, regarding some things discussed around here: Spoiler

-The Spockmobile enters the anomaly after the Narada, not before as some have stated. It is seen closer to the anomaly when the narada arrives, but it goes in afterwards.

-Regarding Kirk's promotion, Pike at first, when meeting him at the bar, comments on how Starfleet has lost his quality to rush blindly into action (a poke at the state of ST before the reboot?), and in the scene where he is granted command of the Enterprise, the admiral states that his display of courage and determination is in line with the Starfleet ideals. Couldn't it be that he was awarded command of the Enterprise as a political move, so that the new and celebrated hero, such a shining example for new recruits, is in command of the flagship? After all, the Enterprise was sent out on a deep-space exploration mission, not as a frontline vessel, it wouldn't be so terrible to have such a young captain (in essence making him Starfleet's PR).

-The shields seem to be ineffectual aganist solid objects. Forget the large chunk of ship that scrapes the nacelles. Small debris where bouncing off the saucer section with no indication of the shield doing anything, unless this shield is in line with the polarized hull from ENT or something.

-Regarding the deleted scene of Rura Penthe, I've noticed that Nero has the point of his right ear cut off, as well as puncture wounds around his skull (as if something had been nailed to it).

[Themightytom]

It is certainly implied how powerful the Narrada is. Even if it used some other means to destroy the fleet of 47 Klingon ships, which is implying something we don't have any proof for, it still made short work of 8 Starfleet vessels in the time difference it took for Sulu to remember to take the parking brake off to when he jumped the ship to warp, with what looks like little or no damage to itself.

I really wish they'd thrown in a line about "Disruptors are off line" or something when nero contronted the Enterprise. We didn't see what happened with the other federation ships, but if its "primary" weapon was offline because one of the other 7 (were their 8??) federation ships got a decent round off, it would

a. Not make starfleet look like a bunch of complete sissies.
b. Explained how the klingons lost 47 ships.

Although if the klingon ships were just bird of preys I can sort of see it, but the Nerada would have to have around 50-100 or so missiles to account for the ones it fired at the klingons, the federation ships and the jellyfish. Thats not out of the ordinary for a federation ship, but why is a mining ship running around with that many missiles?

I'm kind of looking forward to the deleted scene I hope the finish it. They really didn't flesh out the villian from what we saw in the movie. In TWOK they had a decent percentage of time devoted to telling khan's side of things, In nemesis they spent WAAAAAAY too much time describing Shinzon's side.

incidently, does anyone else feel like the plot point of federation ships being tied up elsewhere might become a plot point for the next movie? It feels like JJ Abrahms style to launch the next movie as happening immediately after this one with some kind of "bigger threat" looming.

[Patrick Degan]

Although if the klingon ships were just bird of preys I can sort of see it, but the Nerada would have to have around 50-100 or so missiles to account for the ones it fired at the klingons, the federation ships and the jellyfish. Thats not out of the ordinary for a federation ship, but why is a mining ship running around with that many missiles?

One possibility is that the Narada's missiles were originally part of its mining function: it would target an asteroid, blast it, and haul in the chunks with its manipulators for processing. Nero's crew adapted the ship to serve as a makeshift combat vessel, but since it was now stuck in the past, cut off from sources of supply, the Narada's arsenal would be limited to what was on board when she plunged through the singularity. Perhaps by the time of her second fight with the Enteprise, the arsenal was just about depleted.

[Themightytom]

One possibility is that the Narada's missiles were originally part of its mining function: it would target an asteroid, blast it, and haul in the chunks with its manipulators for processing. Nero's crew adapted the ship to serve as a makeshift combat vessel, but since it was now stuck in the past, cut off from sources of supply, the Narada's arsenal would be limited to what was on board when she plunged through the singularity. Perhaps by the time of her second fight with the Enteprise, the arsenal was just about depleted.

Oh my god thats it. The manipulator arms are the secret weapon1 it grabs birds of preys and eats them!!

Well I will give JJ Abrahms enough credit to assume that isn't so, even though his track record for non rediculous imagery isn't so good.

[Oskuro]

Oh my god thats it. The manipulator arms are the secret weapon1 it grabs birds of preys and eats them!!

Retarded as it might seem, attacking these ships with a massive chainsaw might be an effective tactic (you know, physical attack).

[Stofsk]

-The shields seem to be ineffectual aganist solid objects. Forget the large chunk of ship that scrapes the nacelles. Small debris where bouncing off the saucer section with no indication of the shield doing anything, unless this shield is in line with the polarized hull from ENT or something.

I don't understand why shields need to be effective against everything, it's actually more realistic that they wouldn't be. You develop armour and defences to counter the weapon systems you expect to have used against you (and maybe the ones you use yourself); if everyone uses direct-energy weapons, shields probably provide good defence against that; if you're facing missiles, point-defence. But who expects suicidal death-rams? If successful, it's only going to be a pyrrhic victory at best.

[tim31]

I don't understand why shields need to be effective against everything, it's actually more realistic that they wouldn't be.

*slaps forehead*

You realize we're going to be having to deal with people set in their ways about the way things were done in old Trek for months, if not years, right?

[Stofsk]

I don't understand why shields need to be effective against everything, it's actually more realistic that they wouldn't be.

*slaps forehead*

You realize we're going to be having to deal with people set in their ways about the way things were done in old Trek for months, if not years, right?

Fuck 'em, I say.

[Darth Wong]

I don't understand why shields need to be effective against everything, it's actually more realistic that they wouldn't be.

*slaps forehead*

You realize we're going to be having to deal with people set in their ways about the way things were done in old Trek for months, if not years, right?

That assumption was unfounded even in TNG. There were plenty of things that would just waltz right through their shields. Usually, any kind of radiation they hadn't seen before would just go right through.

[tim31]

And lo they would simply remodulate/recalibrate the shields to cover that little problem as well as all the existing hazards.

[ray245]

It's funny that even Roger Ebert seems to have a better understanding of science than the Trekkie fans who bash him.

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbc ... =ANSWERMAN

[Stark]

But who expects suicidal death-rams? If successful, it's only going to be a pyrrhic victory at best.

Unless - say - a mid-size ship that has been evacuated is used to ram a much, much larger ship, crippling it. That might JUST have a tactical value. But how do we know this could ever happen?

If only Narada's weapons didn't suck so bad it couldn't kill the Kelvin in sixty seconds after near-crippling it with the first shot. Clearly, wormhole-lag impaired systems response.

[Anguirus]

^ It's much easier to cripple a ship than to make X million tons of metal simply go away or stop moving. That's what the US Navy learned about kamikazes.

Nero should have aimed for the engines instead of the primary hull with his first salvo. Once Kelvin got up to speed there wasn't really anything to do.

[Stark]

What are you TALKING about? This is STAR TREK!

The first shot did indeed cripple most of the Kelvin; they had AMPLE opportunity to do whatever damage they wanted before Kirk even got it up to speed (or shit they could have moved). It's not my fault the Narada pretty much never moved at sublight and has massively disparate demonstrations of firepower. You pretty much have to say 'travelling through black hole broke guns' because otherwise ~10m to not kill a single ship ... and ~50s to kill seven ships into iddy bits is a bit loltastic.

[Oskuro]

I don't understand why shields need to be effective against everything, it's actually more realistic that they wouldn't be.

I agree with the notion, and at least this movie has Point Defense, but there are also lines where the characters expect the shields to stop the torpedoes, so, in-universe, they should work.

As for solid objects, guess the navigational deflectors can stop lasers but can't stop chunks of metal

[Revy]

The first shot did indeed cripple most of the Kelvin; they had AMPLE opportunity to do whatever damage they wanted before Kirk even got it up to speed (or shit they could have moved). It's not my fault the Narada pretty much never moved at sublight and has massively disparate demonstrations of firepower. You pretty much have to say 'travelling through black hole broke guns' because otherwise ~10m to not kill a single ship ... and ~50s to kill seven ships into iddy bits is a bit loltastic.

Maybe the Narada was using an 'Infinite Improbability Gun' ?

Seriously, this happens quite a bit in Sci Fi I think. The most recent example I can think of is in Stargate, where we frequently hear 'We cannot survive another hit' whereupon the bad guys *oh so* helpfully oblige and stop shooting. I mean didn't we just about see this exact same thing in SG1 with Anubis and the Prometheus? Anubis has a bigass supership that zaps the Prometheus down to the point where they cant survive a single shot more, and they go to ram him, and he instantly stops firing on them and just sits there. Even the other half dozen motherships sorrounding him just sit in orbit with their crews pressumably twidling their thumbs, as the Prometheus hurtles towards their boss' ship. Gah, maybe they wanted him blown to bits.

I blame character shields. They allow a ship with important characters to take all kinds of punishment up to but not including destruction, and then they instantly take effect and render the ship in question invincible, either by having the bad guys miss every shot after that or just plain screwing with the 'Fire Weapons' button so that nothing happens when they press it.

If I remember correctly, didn't this also happen in Nemesis? Shinzon blows the hell out of the Enterprise so it has no shields or weapons working, and despite have a bazillion guns glued to his ship he simply sits still and does nothing while they ram him. Again - character shields stopped the Fire buttons from working anymore. That must be quite frustrating for villains.

[Themightytom]

The first shot did indeed cripple most of the Kelvin; they had AMPLE opportunity to do whatever damage they wanted before Kirk even got it up to speed (or shit they could have moved). It's not my fault the Narada pretty much never moved at sublight and has massively disparate demonstrations of firepower. You pretty much have to say 'travelling through black hole broke guns' because otherwise ~10m to not kill a single ship ... and ~50s to kill seven ships into iddy bits is a bit loltastic.

Maybe the Narada was using an 'Infinite Improbability Gun' ?

Seriously, this happens quite a bit in Sci Fi I think. The most recent example I can think of is in Stargate, where we frequently hear 'We cannot survive another hit' whereupon the bad guys *oh so* helpfully oblige and stop shooting. I mean didn't we just about see this exact same thing in SG1 with Anubis and the Prometheus? Anubis has a bigass supership that zaps the Prometheus down to the point where they cant survive a single shot more, and they go to ram him, and he instantly stops firing on them and just sits there. Even the other half dozen motherships sorrounding him just sit in orbit with their crews pressumably twidling their thumbs, as the Prometheus hurtles towards their boss' ship. Gah, maybe they wanted him blown to bits.

I blame character shields. They allow a ship with important characters to take all kinds of punishment up to but not including destruction, and then they instantly take effect and render the ship in question invincible, either by having the bad guys miss every shot after that or just plain screwing with the 'Fire Weapons' button so that nothing happens when they press it.

If I remember correctly, didn't this also happen in Nemesis? Shinzon blows the hell out of the Enterprise so it has no shields or weapons working, and despite have a bazillion guns glued to his ship he simply sits still and does nothing while they ram him. Again - character shields stopped the Fire buttons from working anymore. That must be quite frustrating for villains.

At least in SG they winked at it, one of the best exchanges was

Jacob Carter: "We're not gonna make it!"
....they make it...
Jack O'neill: "Ah see? I distinctly remember somebody shouting 'we're not gonna make it!' But we made it! Why be so negative? Why not just...wait and see?"
Jacob Carter: "What and miss the last chance in this world to be right?"
Samantha Carter: "Welcome to my world."

This movie had a lot of those gimmicks and it really did annoy me, for example dropping Spock off on a planet with a starfleet base so he could watch Vulcan blow up? What the hell was there no Vat Of Sharks available? They do it in every movie with a villian, the hero's overstate their distress and the villians underestimate the heroe's survivability often hesitating at the last minute to draw out the suspense.

One of the characteristics off kirk is supposed to be that he has "Something up his sleeve" ie: he had a plan or foreknowledge all along and plays up the situation to enable delivvery. this kir demosntrated that so some degree when he messed with Spock's head, but with the narada, the only ace up his sleeve was the enterprise, and maybe the jellyfish. Spocck didn't mention it on screen if I remember correctly, but maybe that was part of the "plan" to stop nero? I have to rewatch. Either way Spock was a better foil for Kirk than Nero was, at elast when HE dumped Kirk off he intended merely to delay him, and not kill him. (I think... maybe there's a cut scene where Spock is programming the escape pod to land on a nest of monssters)


Say what you like about Star Wars but story wise it fit together better than msot any Star Trek including the recent one. Tarkin lets Luke and co escape as part of an elaborate trap as opposed to being plain old cocky, and to be fair, evacuating from a MOON because a fighter is zipping around on its surface DOES seem rediculous.

[Darth Wong]

Well, I finally saw the movie last night with Rebecca at the theatre. First impressions:

• It was a lot of fun. However, it was also brainless. I have to agree with Roger Ebert on this one: it's nothing more than a Big Dumb Action movie which happens to use a Star Trek setting. It even has all the Big Dumb Action movie cliches, like the guy pulling out the sword when he would logically pull out a gun, and the parachute nonsense in general.
• It had plenty of nods to the original characters, clearly geared toward fans of the old show. I found most of these nods to be charming and amusing, as intended. In general, I found that I was pleased by the characterizations.
• I couldn't get past the Harold and Kumar thing. I tried, but I just couldn't. Every time I saw Sulu, I kept expecting him to say "Dude! Did Neil Patrick Harris steal my car?"
• I have to disagree with the people who disliked Simon Pegg as Scotty. I thought he did a good job. His only flaw was that he seemed ... small. He's not a substantial man, whereas James Doohan was. But that's through no fault of his own: he's simply a smallish guy. I could get over that.
• Kirk, McCoy, and Spock were well-done IMO.
• The new Uhura is a better character than the old one, even though the actress who played her was not anywhere near as classy or exotic. But let's face it: the old Uhura was a glorified receptionist. The new Uhura makes more sense as an important member of the crew, because of her alien language skills.
• I had no problem with the re-imagined Enterprise, and I don't particularly give a damn whether it's the same size as the original one. The hard-line Trekkies really need to get over themselves about ship sizes. If they want to be offended, there are far better reasons than the ship redesign.
• Words cannot express how pleased I was to see actual piping in the Enterprise, complete with bolts and flanges. Even if it made no particular sense in terms of what the piping was used for, or why it would snake around back and forth for absolutely no reason, or why it would have clear sections (although I understand that this was for comedic effect, it does take one out of the moment when you realize that things are designed onscreen for purely comedic purposes). Other more realistic touches included the phaser turrets.
• The scene with 10 year old Jimmy in the Corvette was stupid and should have been eliminated. I've said this many times before, but the genius juvenile delinquent is a Hollywood fantasy. Functional intellect is as much a product of hard work as it is of genetics, and someone who's into a life of juvenile delinquency at such a young age is going to wind up being a loser by the time he's 17. They should have skipped straight to Jim Kirk as a young man.
• Roger Ebert already covered this, but everything related to black holes in any way in this movie was utterly retarded.

Spoiler

• Starfleet fire control systems appear to have a very interesting design feature: they can hit torpedo-sized objects, but only when they're fired at third parties, not themselves. USS Kelvin was completely helpless to shoot down torpedoes coming toward it, but it had no problem shooting down torpedoes which were fired at escaping shuttles. USS Enterprise was able to shoot down a small swarm of torpedoes fired at Spock's gyroship, but seemed helpless to defend itself. An entire flotilla of Federation ships was also obliterated by the Narada's torpedoes (offscreen), and you have to wonder why they too were unable to shoot down these torpedoes.
• What idiot designed the Narada? It looks like garbage, and there is absolutely no comprehensible reason for its peculiar shape. I understand that dark colours and claws and other assorted Nazgul-like pointy bits are supposed to make it look evil, and I understand that the producers were afraid the audience would be too stupid to differentiate good from evil without Tolkien-esque visual cues. But come on, you have to at least pretend that there's some functional purpose for it all.
• Captain Pike wrote a dissertation on the destruction of the USS Kelvin and he didn't recall the similarities between that incident and this problem at Vulcan until Kirk pointed it out to him? Huh?
• How is it that Uhura, a raw Starfleet Academy graduate who has yet to receive her first posting on a Starfleet vessel, is the only person in Starfleet who's made aware of the destruction of 47 Klingon warships the day before the mission? Just how fucking stupid is the administration in this place? How the fuck would Captain Pike not be aware of this critical piece of information? This was a pure plot contrivance, designed to manufacture an excuse for young Kirk to charge onto the bridge with his "critical news that Captain Pike doesn't know but I know since I overheard it in her bedroom" revelation. In many ways, the new Star Trek movie suffers from the same kind of horrible plot contrivances that Nemesis did, but it survives because the characters and personal interactions are so much better.
• OK, so you're Captain Pike and you've just been made aware that you're probably warping into an ambush. Don't you think it would be logical to ... oh, I dunno ... change course or drop out of warp a little early, instead of going exactly where you're expected to? Sorry, but raising shields was hardly adequate response to the discovery that you're walking into an ambush. It seems that Pike was promoted to Admiral after this debacle because Starfleet still has a policy of putting incompetent captains into the Admiralty before they can do any more damage.
• Why would anyone in his right mind send three guys in parachutes to disable the Narada's drill, when they could have just shot it out? They were right next to the Narada, which was in turn right over the drill (obviously). There is absolutely no reason that they could not have simply shot out the drill, especially since we saw Spock do exactly that later in his gyroship. Again, it was a pure contrivance, designed to manufacture an excuse for an action scene. And the part where Captain Pike asks for people who "have experience in advanced hand to hand combat" had me rolling my eyes. I know it was an excuse to show Sulu wielding a sword as an homage to the fencing scene in TOS, but it was fucking stupid. The whole sword scene was fucking stupid. Oh yippee, another Hollywood film where an Asian guy fights with a sword. In the original TOS episode, Sulu only pulled out the sword because he was experiencing temporary insanity, not because he actually thought it would work better for him than a gun on a mission.
• Sensors are far less magical in this version of Star Trek. They can't see what's ahead of them before they drop out of warp, the Narada can't tell the Enterprise is approaching until it's almost on top of them, they can't tell whether they're beaming people into rooms full of Romulans or full of nothing, etc.
• I'm sorry, but given the ease with which the Enterprise shot down the Narada's torpedoes and the heavy damage inflicted by Kirk Sr's suicide run aboard the USS Kelvin, I just can't buy the Narada destroying 47 Klingon warships. That's a pretty damned big force.
• The USS Kelvin must have had a very large crew, if 800 people got off thanks to Kirk Sr's delaying action. In fact, it must have been several times larger than the TOS Enterprise, despite the repeated emphases in TOS of how large the Enterprise was. Really, anybody trying to tie this continuity to the old one is screwed. Even if we accept that the time travel leads to an alternate timeline, there are too many things which don't connect. It's best to simply call it a reboot with a nod to the original series, and be done with it.
• In the 24th century, how could a single supernova "threaten the galaxy?" And how could Romulus be sitting right in its path and not be evacuated? Supernovas don't just happen with no warning, especially for people as advanced as the 24th century Star Trek is presumed to be. Did the Romulans know this was coming for a long time, and simply put their faith in the Vulcans to pull their fat out of the fire, with no other contingency plan whatsoever? To say that this violates the nature of the Romulans would be a titanic understatement. It violates the nature of any intelligent species. And how would Nero just sit by and patiently wait for Spock to save the day, when he has a fucking starship with transporters which could have simply beamed his wife and child off the planet to safety?
• For that matter, what the hell was their plan at Romulus? If the supernova was not Romulus' own star, then they should have had years to evacuate the planet, since the supernova cannot throw off energy or matter at greater than c. If the supernova was Romulus' own star, then what the hell kind of a plan is it to turn it into a black hole? That wouldn't save Romulus.
• Why would Spock Prime meekly allow his ship to be captured by an angry Romulan, when he's not an idiot and would surely understand the destructive potential of the red matter he's carrying onboard?
• Did the shields actually do anything in this movie? They appeared to be largely useless.
• How many hours did Spock waste flying the wrong way, while Kirk was marooned and then eventually found his way back to the ship? How could he turn around after all that time and still catch the Narada just as it reached Earth? Is the 23rd century Enterprise really going to be that much faster than the 24th century Narada? Smells like more sloppy writing. Then again, the whole idea of the fleet marshalling far away from Earth is stupid to begin with: if someone just wiped out the second most important planet in the Federation and headed toward Earth, it's hard to believe the Admiralty would say "All right everyone, rendezvous immediately ... way over there! We'll be just fine here!"

Rebecca had two comments:

1. "They saved Star Trek!"
2. "I think they actually ended up making it more like Star Wars, but without the Force."

I'll say this in favour of the movie: in recent years, Star Trek had become such a caricature of itself that one might be embarrassed to say he watched it. This movie changes that. However, it also deflates much of the self-important bubble of Trek fandom, which used to point to the supercilious airs of the show as a way of establishing that they are more "serious" sci-fi fans than you are. They can't do that any more: the new Star Trek is hip, and fun, and cool, and it's also a Big Dumb Action movie. Nothing more.

[Stark]

Flash and I have similar opinions - we enjoyed the movie, have no interest in seeing it again, and everything we liked and enjoyed came down to the performances and characters, while the plot (and pretty much everything JJ Abrams was responsible for) wasn't really that great. Someone claimed it was 'a plot not based on technobabble' so we certainly got a laugh from that.

[Ted C]

Either way Spock was a better foil for Kirk than Nero was, at elast when HE dumped Kirk off he intended merely to delay him, and not kill him. (I think... maybe there's a cut scene where Spock is programming the escape pod to land on a nest of monssters).

In his defense, Nero was not trying to kill Spock. He wanted to maroon Spock somewhere that he would survive to witness the destruction of Vulcan, Earth, and everything else Spock valued. Nero's entire motivation was very personal revenge on Spock.

[Stark]

I'm pretty glad there was no way Nero could have achieved that simply by locking Spock in a room on the Narada with a television set or window, too. Otherwise, dropping him on the magically close-to-Vulcan ice planet with the Starfleet base that didn't notice Nero drilling into Vulcan and where Spock was able to live for decades would just be stupid!

[Bounty]

and where Spock was able to live for decades

Eh? He was there for all of a few hours at the outside.

[Stark]

Oh really? I thought the implication was that Nero dumped Spock there ages ago. If he only dropped him there when he arrived at Vulcan, even stupider. Plot is contrived?