Star Trek
 

Saw it, loved it. The most fun I've had at a movie in a long time. Has plenty of stuff the fans will love, yet it stands on it's own merit as well. I won't add any spoilers, after the swanking we can get into that.

So for all those going tomorrow, enjoy!

Much as I love Star Trek, i'd like to confine my remarks to the thread already in progress ... seems to me it would work out better. We've already started talking about in there ... and I've barely begun to argue with JWBear about it. :p

On the other hand, since there are two threads, let's have this one allow spoilorz talk, and the "Star Trek Swanking" poll thread be for people who haven't seen the movie, since it's more about going to see the movie.



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So, responding to JW about what I liked:

Primarily, for what they were trying to do - - namely, come up with a scenario that brings all the characters together from zip to how we knew them at the start of the original series in the space of a week or so, I think they succeeded beyond reasonable expectations for such a hokey endeavor.

Yes, the casting was mixed, but the only character I truly didn't like was Uhura ... and Sulu was kinda meh. I think the others were great, most especially Spock and McCoy.

I also liked the growing Kirkitude of Kirk and how Pine played him like Shatner only in the final moments when he became Captain of the Enterprise.

Most successful, imo, was the interplay between the characters and how that was set up. The standout of this being Kirk and Bones. And, hahahaha, that scene were Bones keeps jabbing him in the neck with one shot after another to cure the onslaught of bizarre side effects is just brilliant.

The revenge Nero time-traveling plot was boring, but as a device for having a series of Star Trekisms and especially Kirkisms along its length, I thought the film did just fine. But yeah, giant inconquerable Earth-endangering Verjurish ships are ho-hum boring, and I found the use of Leonard Nimoy to be gratuitous and too much.


But the film was funnny, breezy, endearing, action-packed, nice-looking and, to me, very very Star Treky.

Oh, and I want to have Chris Pine's babies.




Now, I will address some of your issues, most of which - quite franky - I see as nitpicking:


The original Scotty was a professional; this movie turned him into a buffoon.

Scotty evolved to a comic relief character in the original series, a process accelerated in the movies. I think this Scotty was completely in line with that, and was set up as an eccentric genius that others will dismiss, but Kirk will trust implicitely.



Overall, I was bothered by the “Muppet Babies” version of the Enterprise crew that they presented us. They were all the same age and all at the academy at the same time. How convenient! It ignored that Spock, Scotty, and McCoy were older and more experienced, and that Sulu and Uhura were younger… And what in the name of the Seven Hells was Chekhov doing there?

Well, it seems pretty obvious that Muppet Babies Star Trek was the entire point. Yeah, it was a tad un-canonly convenient that they are all part of the same cadet class, but a dramatic license I accept for the story of getting them all to their ToS status within a week of meeting. Besides, and I think this was the only clever achievement of the thin plot - - it's an alternate timeline from the first minute of the movie, so there's no canon to adhere to. Everything's the same, but free to be completely different. Brilliant, imo.

BTW, it's "canon" that Chekov was aboard the Enterprise in first season before he was promoted to a Bridge Officer. To have him on the Bridge from the get-go in an alternate timeline is, imo, completely acceptable.




My second big complaint was the sets. $150 million and they couldn’t afford to build some sets??? The 20th century power plant interiors reeked of Sci Fi Channel Movie of the Week. Totally unbelievable, cheesy, and cheap. Every time they showed “Engineering” I was yanked out of what little suspension of disbelief I could muster.

Yeah, ok, but so? I thought they were going for a kind of early-Federation look, but I don't watch Sci-Fi Channel and I didn't watch "Enterrpise" to see how they did that same thing. Of course, the Bridge was ultra high tech, so this was inconsistent. But really, set design? Nitpick.

(The Bridge was awesome, btw.)




The destruction of Vulcan was one of the biggest WTF moments in my moviegoing career. If I hadn’t been with friends, I think I would have walked out on the movie at that point. And I shall never forgive them for killing off Spock’s mother.

First, I'll grant that I'm tired of the movies having to have some "big" destruction thing, either the Earth in mortal danger or the Enterprise being destroyed over and over again. But I liked this plot-point very much for setting up the tortured Spock of the original series. We are so used to Spock being so together and wise and ultra cool, but in the early series he was a tortured soul of stranger in a strange land. I think this plot point and its affect on Spock brings this element back to the character, and I like it.

So what if they destroyed Vulcan? It certainly was unexpected! And the alternate timeline allows for anything. Oh, and the actress playing Amanda was lame, so I'm glad they killed her off. Jane Wyatt she was not.

(Young Sarek, on the other hand, came off reasonably well, I thought)




There were many other things that had me squirming in my seat; the red goo that was so dangerous and powerful that a drop of it can destroy a planet, yet it’s stored an handled so casually

Really? Do we want our madman planet-destroying weaponry depicted with precise realism now in Star Trek? Since when?




a starship being built out in the middle of a cornfield – at a place that just happens to be where Star Fleet recruits from all over Earth report to (what, no direct flights to San Francisco from anywhere else?).

Seems to me a lot of military bases are in the middle of U.S. nowhere. Sure this was a stretch, if you're going to think about things in terms of real-world probable logistics. When has Star Trek ever gone there either?




They made Kirk into the same arrogant asshole we seen in nearly every action film out there. He was indistinguishable from dozens of others of that type. At no time did I believe him as Kirk.

To me, this is the crux of it. Either you bought Kirk or you didn't, and your enjoyment of the movie is very affected by this ... because it's basically the story of Becoming Kirk.

I thought Chris Pine was pretty cookie-cutter at times, I admit. But overall, I thought he had a nice through-line of becoming more and more Kirk ... certainly more and more as he interacted with the other characters.

So I was sold on Kirk, and I guess that makes all the difference.



As I've said, imo, the movie was funny, endearing, well-paced, easy on the eyes, and relentlessly Star Trekian. Loved It.

Or, as Onion News perfectly encapsulates it. :p

To respond to some of your points:

That doesn't make it right. imo. Why follow the trend from the later movies which i disliked, btw) if your goal is to "reboot" the entire mythos?

This movie takes place 7 years before the events in the first season of TOS. I still don't buy Chekov being on the Enterprise in any capacity.

Enterprise had sets that looked far better than the crap we saw in this movie. There is no excuse for putting a freaking chemical factory on board the USS Enterprise. It was lazy and cheap.

If he already was a "tortured soul" in TOS, why did they need to do something that wasn't part of original canon to make him so? It doesn't make any sense. the destruction of Vulcan was just a gratuitous excuse for more "gee-whiz" special effects.

Star Fleet Academy is in San Francisco. Why were recruits from all over the globe going to Iowa first? As I asked, do they not have direct flights to SF in the future? Canon has established that the main Starfleet shipyards were in orbit around Mars. Why would you build a huge masive starship on a planet's surface? Illogical. Small things, yes, but all the small inconsistencies add up to one big annoyance.

Without getting into finer details, which I reserve the right to do later, yes, I loved the movie, no, it wasn't perfect, but, it was a delicious departure that was camp, and IMO, not abusive to the original.

And - they said it in the movie - it's an alternate universe, so I didn't bother trying to get hung up on what I thought others would or should be like, because life's circumstances may have been completely altered with the death of Kirk's father. Maybe someone missed out on an important mentor - any number of things could have changed the timing or motivation behind the storyline. So long as they kept the basic elements, I planned to be pleased, and I was. (though I wonder if my ultimate enjoyment of Scotty had more to do with the fact that he was played by Simon Pegg, whom I have a huge nerd crush on)

Oh, and Uhuru... yeah, didn't care for her much...

Okay, so after reading iSm's post again, I mostly agree with him.

And yeah, Iowa... which, incidentally, is where J is at the moment as a part of a special test squadron. Was everyone getting on that transport from around the globe, or was it a regional transport center for Starfleet? I need to think about that one some more. Maybe it was a bit odd that there was a "shipyard" in Iowa.

Oh well, it got the cute Kirk on board.

The wherehouse looks to the sets were the one thing that bothered me as well. It just looked too different than the clean look in TOS (for those unaware, The Original Series). I was a little confused about the distruction on Vulcan. Didn't that go completely outside the realm of the history line already established, or did I miss something?

It was supposed to. The movie is set in an alternate universe from the original Star Trek series.

OK...I really liked it. I'm teetering on the L-O-V-E word, but at this point I can say that I'm deeply "in like" with it. I entered the theater completely unspoiled, and for that I was grateful. I agree that the film isn't without it's faults, but overall I found it to be a ton of fun. And unlike the Star Wars prequels, I thought this was a completely worthy addition to the series. It got a hardy round of applause at our showing and regardless of the following gripes, the film still earned two very big thumbs up from the Swanies.

I thought the casting was fantastic, and though I agree that Uhura was my least favorite of the regulars I don't blame that one on the actress. I didn't buy her relationship with Spock at all, and frankly I'd be happy to never see Uhura-Spock loving ever again. I didn't despise the actress, instead my issue was with how the role was written.

I really liked Chris Pine's Kirk. I loved seeing the John Wayne/Capt. Kirk swagger come out once he donned the yellow shirt and walked on the bridge at the end. Kirk has always been a rebel. He's always been mischievous. He's always been a hound dog. He's always had a fair amount of confidence. ;) I have to say that I loved watching his development into officer material during the course of the 2 hours.

For any old Alias fans there...did the big red ball bring back any memories? Mr. Swanie and I both looked at each other with a "you've got to be kidding me" look when it came on screen. J.J. was never able to explain away "the circumference red ball of whatever" during the show's 5 seasons, so I guess this was meant to be some kind of redemption? :D Regardless of his intent, it certainly gave us a good laugh.

I guess my biggest sticking point with the film is the idea of an alternate reality. In one sense, I see it as a brilliant move to keep the future prequels fresh and interesting. They can play with history of the series and throw us a bone here and there since not everything is bound to change (ie. the ceti eel and Pike, how Bones got his nickname, seeing how Kirk beat the Kobayashi Maru, etc.)...but my big complaint is that they're inevitably going to screw with the series' history too. With the exception of the destruction of Vulcan and could someone please explain to me how 2 Spocks can live side by side without causing the universe to implode somehow (isn't that one of the basic rules of alternate realities...that you're never allowed to meet yourself without suffering some dire conequence?)...I thought it worked reasonably well for this installment. I'd like to reserve my final judgment until prequel #2 comes out. I hope it continues to work, but I could see it sucking too.

And finally for my most minor gripe...I hated having to wait to hear the theme until the end. Once I was in my seat I wanted to hear "the" music and it was cruel and unusual punishment having to wait until the final credits. ;)

Hated it. I'm going to collect my thoughts and post more later, but yuck.