Star Trek 09 review thread

[dragon]

Finally got to see it and first impression is damn the Enterprise got big. Second what the hell, a supernova threating a galaxy. Also they form a black hole in the middle of his ship and then the ship hangs there. But other than that a few minor nitpicks I was very satisified. Can't wait for DVD.

Even though the relationship between Spaock and Uhara was a bit suprising.

[chitoryu12]

I think I spent the majority of the film quietly making references to everything that reminded me of Star Wars. The friend sitting with us, during the ice planet sequence, said "What, is a big white bear going to come out and get him?" mere seconds before Kirk got attacked by one.

Either way, this was an absolutely amazing movie. The casting was, in a word, perfect, and in a number of cases, specifically Spock and McCoy, I felt like I was watching the original series. Honestly, I'm quite happy that they made the phasers fire single pulses like the Star Wars blasters, which they were very obviously going for. Single, slow-moving beams look a bit cheesy compared to the spray of energy bolts delivered in battle scenes, and wouldn't have properly matched the extremely fast-paced battles, especially at the end.

A rather large thought for our day:

When Pike pitched starfleet to Kirk, his words were, and this is a direct quote, emphasis mine:

"You understand what it is, don't you, it's important, a Peacekeeping and Humanitarian Armada."

In fact, at no time in the new movie do we get an impression that the primary focus is science and exploration.

Even the Kelvin just seemed to be on guard patrol, and happened to catch the portal, and go investigate. It seems there is a fundamental shift as to what Starfleet does primarily, and the design of the Enterprise supports this. She's been re-engineered for massive shuttle ops, and more heavily armed, tying in with her suggested peacekeeping mandate .

Am I wrong, or does anyone else note this?

It definitely looks like that. I think the team decided it would make more sense to have such heavily-armed ships and crew if it was primarily military in nature, as opposed to scientific. It never really seemed to make much sense to have a science vessel that was literally a warship.

Of course, they could have just decided that it would be a good excuse for them to put in a lot of cool shit, like the orbital dive sequence.

[FSTargetDrone]

I think I spent the majority of the film quietly making references to everything that reminded me of Star Wars.

Pike:

"Punch it!"

That was my favorite.

[Oskuro]

Anyone notice this movie really fits the saying of "Who died and left you in charge?"

[Patrick Degan]

A rather large thought for our day:

When Pike pitched starfleet to Kirk, his words were, and this is a direct quote, emphasis mine:

"You understand what it is, don't you, it's important, a Peacekeeping and Humanitarian Armada."

In fact, at no time in the new movie do we get an impression that the primary focus is science and exploration.

Even the Kelvin just seemed to be on guard patrol, and happened to catch the portal, and go investigate. It seems there is a fundamental shift as to what Starfleet does primarily, and the design of the Enterprise supports this. She's been re-engineered for massive shuttle ops, and more heavily armed, tying in with her suggested peacekeeping mandate .

Am I wrong, or does anyone else note this?

It definitely looks like that. I think the team decided it would make more sense to have such heavily-armed ships and crew if it was primarily military in nature, as opposed to scientific. It never really seemed to make much sense to have a science vessel that was literally a warship.

It is only in the TNG era that Starfleet became a primarily scientific exploration body instead of a military organisation, which it was in TOS. This movie restores that earlier orientation.

[Big Orange]

Starfleet was always about exploration, but earlier on in Kirk's career the UFP was still exapanding and having a lot of friction with other still expanding regional powers like the Klingon and Romulan empires. Once the borders were relatively stable, Starfleet was more strategically orientated towards science research, exploration, law enforcement, and diplomacy (with the bright costumes reflecting that), but in later years the rising spectres of Milky Way worrying powers such as the Borg and Dominion prompted Starfleet to get more militant again (hence the widely issued drab grey uniforms featured in First Contact and the mid to late seasons of DS9 & VOY).

I saw Star Trek. Overrated, I'd give it 7/10.

Certainly ahead of the hokey (but related) Nemesis and streets ahead of the abysmal Insurrection. I thought Chris Pine was a little underwhelming, he only gave off Shatner smarm during the training simulation, but Quinto, Urban, and Yelchin were pitch perfect in their roles. I didn't mind Simon Pegg, but he was played up too much as comic relief. Ben Cross, Eric Bana, Faran Tahir, and Bruce Greenwood were impressive in their supporting roles.

I have mixed feelings about the production values - I kinda of liked the bright lights and genuine feeling of 3D in outer space. Headgear and hats being common among Starfleet personnel makes a change (helmets seemed to have vanished since the early TOS movies). The interior of the USS Kelvin seemed a lot more like the original Shatner Enterprise than the actual Enterprise featured in this reboot (who's command bridge vaguely resembled the original Excelsior command bridge). Nero's weird Borg-Romulan hybrid flagship was very impressive and scary, it looked amazing when revealed on the big screen, but it seemingly kept changing its scale (likely perspective with the other space ships it dwarfed).

The storyline was silly and full of holes you could drive a Borg Cube through (come on, a sun going supernova threatening the Milky Way?! How can a seemingly unremarkable star mess up around 300, 000, 000, 000 other stars across 100, 000 light years?!), with Voyager's "Year of Hell" having a slightly better plot about a super ship causing a time paradox and a antagonist character with a better fleshed out motivation, even though that was silly as well and written by Brannon Braga. The best Trek movie since First Contact, mainly due to the fresh blooded production crew, yet First Contact was marginally better.

[AdmiralKanos]

First Contact also had a really great theme song, IMO. Whenever I think about that movie I can still hear its melodic, vaguely inspirational tones. The new Star Trek, by contrast, had a completely forgettable music theme; I know this because I have completely forgotten it.

As for the whole "exploration" thing, the TOS Starfleet was about "exploration" in the same sense that the 18th century British Royal Navy was. Exploration and conquest and projection of power were all combined into one. In the TNG era, they took the whole "exploration" thing to mean that they're like the UN Peacekeepers in Rwanda during the genocide: they're allowed to go into war zones but they're not allowed to shoot.

[Drooling Iguana]

First Contact also had a really great theme song, IMO. Whenever I think about that movie I can still hear its melodic, vaguely inspirational tones. The new Star Trek, by contrast, had a completely forgettable music theme; I know this because I have completely forgotten it.

Despite the fact that they played it over and over again throughout the entire movie. The entire score seemed to consist only of that one sequence of six notes in various tempos.

I have, however, completely forgotten what those six notes were despite all this.

[neoolong]

Ironically, I thought the Two Steps from Hell song for the third trailer was great. Don't think it was used in the movie though.

Furthermore, the actual song titles for the sountrack pretty much suck ass:

1. Star Trek
2. Nailin' the Kelvin
3. Labor of Love
4. Hella Bar Talk
5. Enterprising Young Men
6. Nero Sighted
7. Nice To Meld You
8. Run and Shoot Offense
9. Does It Still McFly?
10. Nero Death Experience
11. Nero Fiddles, Narada Burns
12. Back From Black
13. That New Car Smell
14. To Boldly Go
15. End Credits

[Havok]

Did they use "Hella"? Are you making that up?

[neoolong]

I wish I was. I wish I was.

[Bug-Eyed Earl]

Well, I thought the movie was great, but after seeing the science in this movie, this isn't too surprising. The Orion's Belt thing mentioned in the post is a slight spoiler for TF2: Spoiler

It's a clue that there is something hidden in the pyramids; Sam says that he read in his PRINCETON ASTRONOMY TEXTBOOK that the pyramids were built to resemble Orion's Belt; this is a fringe theory from Graham Hancock, which supposes that the pyramids are 12,000 years old to match when the positions of the stars in ORion's Belt matches the position of the pyramids.

[Darth Wong]

I like the way he justifies all of his stupid bullshit by saying "have read compelling theories". Sorry, but "compelling" is an important trait for a movie script, but not for a scientific theory. Scientific theories are supposed to have things like testable mechanisms and supporting evidence, instead of just being "compelling".

[Jack Bauer]

A possible explanation as to why the Narada was able to so quickly demolish the Federation armada at Vulcan: The ships warped planet-side in a tight formation, probably with their shields down. But even if they were up, we all saw that the Enterprise (which had its shields up later) still incurred damage from flying debris.

If all of the Feddie ships were tightly clustered together, Nero could have just missile spammed the lead ships. The ensuing explosions would have flung giant chunks of flaming wreckage, making short work of the surrounding ships. (Disclaimer: this idea may or may not have been postulated in earlier pages.)

P.S. I actually found the theme from the new movie to be quite memorable. I remember humming it days afterwards. I promptly downloaded the album and I still listen to the main march (i.e. "Enterprising Young Men") quite often.

[Bounty]

P.S. I actually found the theme from the new movie to be quite memorable. I remember humming it days afterwards. I promptly downloaded the album and I still listen to the main march (i.e. "Enterprising Young Men") quite often.

I really like Labor of Love. The movie could maybe have used a second recurring theme, because the main one can get overpowering in some scenes, but it's still a pretty good main theme.

[Themightytom]

"Nailin the Kelvin"???? Ok they have gone too far to make this accessible to a younger audience, I think that might appeal to like a 13 yr old.


Musical score has become sort of a benchmark of success with movies, especially Star Trek. Its not rediculously hard to come up witha catchy tune if you're planning to relaunch a franchise with a series of movies, i eman Batman had that brooding/building theme, the new BSG went CRAZY with original music during its run.

Star Trek did not impress.

Although that theme becomes REALLY memorable if anyone downloaded the game on X box, its the ONLY song they play and it gets old fast.

Incidently you cannot play that game without warping into an Asteroid every five seconds. It is actually WORSE than ST: Legacy.

[CaptHawkeye]

P.S. I actually found the theme from the new movie to be quite memorable. I remember humming it days afterwards. I promptly downloaded the album and I still listen to the main march (i.e. "Enterprising Young Men") quite often.

I really like Labor of Love. The movie could maybe have used a second recurring theme, because the main one can get overpowering in some scenes, but it's still a pretty good main theme.

Labor of Love was the only song from the movie I liked. So what Mike said is generally true, the soundtrack sucked. Interestingly I thought The Final Frontier and Insurrection, two of the weakest movies of the series, had the best soundtracks.

[neoolong]

I think the soundtrack worked fine in the movie. It may not be memorable outside, but I had no problems with it while I was watching the movie. If it's catchy and I want to listen to it outside of the movie, all's the better, but it's not a dealbreaker.

[Themightytom]

P.S. I actually found the theme from the new movie to be quite memorable. I remember humming it days afterwards. I promptly downloaded the album and I still listen to the main march (i.e. "Enterprising Young Men") quite often.

I really like Labor of Love. The movie could maybe have used a second recurring theme, because the main one can get overpowering in some scenes, but it's still a pretty good main theme.

Labor of Love was the only song from the movie I liked. So what Mike said is generally true, the soundtrack sucked. Interestingly I thought The Final Frontier and Insurrection, two of the weakest movies of the series, had the best soundtracks.

Am I alone in thinking Final Frontier was as much dfinitive of the old timeline Kirk as this new one was supposed to bhe?

He climbs a mountain with no equipment, leads a raid on a terrorist stronghold, mounts a gueriall mutiny to retake his own ship and shoots god in the face with a torpedo.

All while looking good in cheap toupee

[The Romulan Republic]

I don't know about best soundtrack, but most memorable for me would probably be a close one between Wrath of Kahn and First Contact.

And technically, Spock shot that imposter deity, not Kirk.

[Big Orange]

First Contact also had a really great theme song, IMO. Whenever I think about that movie I can still hear its melodic, vaguely inspirational tones. The new Star Trek, by contrast, had a completely forgettable music theme; I know this because I have completely forgotten it.

The Search for Spock had some of the best music , too. I wished the score writers for this movie tried to emulate TSfS's score (Moog synthesizer and all) instead of emulating Lost's more floaty soundtrack. I also think the computer and control interfaces should've been strongly 1970s/1980s themed so not to date this film as a mid to late 2000s one, while future Spock's ship should've also had a control interface that was more TNG themed, but I'm just nitpicking.

As for the whole "exploration" thing, the TOS Starfleet was about "exploration" in the same sense that the 18th century British Royal Navy was. Exploration and conquest and projection of power were all combined into one. In the TNG era, they took the whole "exploration" thing to mean that they're like the UN Peacekeepers in Rwanda during the genocide: they're allowed to go into war zones but they're not allowed to shoot.

I imagine the UFP's foreign policy could be a relatively more benign, more strategically cautious, and less corrupt form of Neoconservatism, with the UFP bureaucrats and admirals/generals administrating the "conquered" territories having more than just a pair of eyes and spinal column, with no narrow focused corporate-religious ideology to follow. Not only will Starfleet save a world from its own homegrown tyrant, but have a better proposition to a subject world than just slave camps, unlike the Klingons, Romulans, and Cardassians.

[Anguirus]

Wow, I must be the only one who really liked the score. It's no Jerry Goldsmith, and it does heavily repeat its major theme, but I found it very catchy and enjoyable anyway. It sounded like Star Trek music without being repackaged Horner, Goldsmith, or Courage. (But then it used Courage's theme at the end, awesomely.)

Also, who on earth cares what stupid names they give the tracks?

[Jon]

I think the score was fine, though Giacchino seems to have played it a little safe, but he's still got a way to go yet, if they bring him back for the next film hopefully he will mix it up a bit- he seemed to rely to much on his existing material, I definitely got a LOST vibe from various parts of his composition. My favourite part really was the music that played just after the Kelvin had slammed into the Narada and the shuttle convoy was escaping, leading into the title. I thought the arrangement of the courage theme at the end was a little forced- but I liked how Giacchino weaved his own theme into the 'To Boldy Go' theme just before the credits too.

[Kane Starkiller]

The Search for Spock had some of the best music , too.

Best fucking scene in the history of Star Trek. Damn I must have seen Star Trek 3 more times than all other films combined. And yes it's music blows anything before or after it out of the water.

EDIT: Which reminds me. The new Star Trek should've used the red uniforms from ST2-ST6 series as a base rather than redoing those from the 60s.

[Patrick Degan]

The new Star Trek should've used the red uniforms from ST2-ST6 series as a base rather than redoing those from the 60s.

The better uniforms in that movie were the ones worn by the Kelvin crew —sharper cut, a nice blend of styles from all three eras, and somewhat harkened back to the simpler schemes (USAF blue and khaki) from the first two TOS pilots.