"STAR TREK" movie comments/reviews (spoilers)

[RickPeete]

I thought the movie was brilliant.  I saw it twice tonight (once regular, once IMAX at the same theater).  It was amazing and with so many 'nods' to what came before.  The audience really appreciated everything we saw.  I am SO PUMPED about this movie!

Some thoughts:

- New ship? Outstanding!!!!!  I got no problems at all with it other than the inside of engineering and below decks show too many pipes and duct work.  I prefer a sleeker look.

- Kirk making out with the Orion cadet.  Hmmm... interesting.  I did not think we had any Orions in Starfleet given that the Orion Syndicate were mostly smugglers.  Is this a nod to a possible RetCon based upon the episode in Enterprise?

- The whole 'alternate timeline'/Back to the Future explanation satisfied the reboot well enough.  Since Spock/Nero changed the past, that means nothing that we know in the past 40 years of Trek has happened.  Only the latest series Enterprise remains unaffected by the timeline change.  This gives them carte blanche to do whatever they want because there are no more continuity issues.

- I also like the fact that basically Sarek has given Spock 'permission' to explore his human side.  So it is now okay for him to have storylines that explore his relationship wth Uhura, his feelings, etc.  (I noticed that Bones did call for Nurse Chapel who was offscreen so I guess Chapel will not be a love interest in this timeline, just Uhura)

- We saw our first 'redshirt' death when the engineer died in the matter stream of the drill.  He was wearing a red jump suit...

- Mr. Greg Grunberg as the StepDad over the Nokia phone! Nuff said!

- I think Vulcans as the endangered species is an awesome twist.  This could be an ongoing plot through the movies (new series?) and leaves room for Spock/Nimoy to reprise his role anytime he wishes.  I wonder if Sarak will marry Perrin again...

- I thought the Kobiyashi Maru reprogramming was weak.  The way Kirk talked about it in Wrath of Kahn, I guess I was expecting something a little more dramatic in his altered simulation...

- Did anyone else see Spock giving Scotty the algorithm for Trans Warp beaming as being very similar to the scene in Star Trek IV when Scotty gave the engineer the schematic for Transparent Alumnium?  I thought for sure Scotty was going to say "So I invented the thing?"


Overall, I just LOVED this movie!  My family loved the movie!  My daughters say they are now Trek fans!  I want MORE!!!

-Rick

[Ricardocameron]

It was frakkin' awesome!  Loved the way Chris Pine channeled Bill Shatner's Kirk a few times, like when he entered the bridge saying, "Bones!", etc.
Nitpick:
The phasers are no longer "beam weapons" per se, but machine-gun like pulses, which was great, but i miss the old style beams..why not have both?  Also, the bridge sounds,door-swish,etc. were a cool homage, but wanted more.  Didn't much like all the white and glass of bridge and hallways, but we.  a great achievement and looking for more!!

Ya know you wanna see what you'd look like in the movie...
http://www.trekyourself.com/

[Rico]

Sounds like everyone is really enjoying it a lot.  Glad to hear that.  There is one thing I want to point out and hopefully clear up.  With regards to certain things happening in the movie in a certain way such as:   the Kobayashi Maru scene, Kirk with the Orion girl, Spock and Uhura, the new look of things, etc.  EVERYTHING in this movie can and is different than things we know from past Trek (especially TOS).  When Nero came back and the Kelvin was destroyed, Kirk lost his father, etc. it set a chain of events into motion that altered not just Kirk's life, but those around him, Starfleet and so on.  This is truly an alternate timeline now.  Hope that helps.

As far as it being a reboot - it isn't.  It's an alternate telling of the same basic story.  I know this is a fine line, but because they integrated the older Spock in, used time travel to create a new time branch, I don't find that it's truly a reboot.  A reboot to me would have been like they have done with Batman, James Bond, etc.  They just walk in and start over.  If this movie just showed us a young Kirk and Spock fighting some bad guy named Nero then yeah, it would really be a reboot because they wouldn't be trying to make things sort of fit together.

I came out feeling there are two timelines going on.  The one we see from this movie and the one that was TOS, then TNG, etc.  At least that's my take on all of it.

[cosmonaut]

I agree, this is what I meant as i said it's not a prequel. It doesn't lead to TOS.

[Rico]

Yep - exactly.  Just watch the first couple of minutes of this interview with the writers of the film.  They say almost exactly what I said above (and I even watched this interview after I wrote the above stuff).  Heck, they even use the same examples I give like Batman and Bond as being not what they did with Trek.  Good stuff.

Alex Kurtzman & Bob Orci Interview - Star Trek

[Feathers]

Right, I've absorbed enough to feed back a bit, but I think I pretty much agree with most of what's already been said.

Having read the comics up front, I was pretty prepared for the route the story was taking and appreciate the fact that they've gone to the trouble of tying the new in the with old. The comics carried the story well, but the use of Nimoy in the film really sealed it for me. We're on a divergant time line. TOS still happened...just somewhere else. I can live with that.

On the character front, McCoy bore the strongest similarity to the 'original' for me while Scotty was the weakest. I'm not sure what I think on Spock and Kirk. They were obviously different but they were portrayed well enough that I didn't need to question the differences. I guess I mean that with McCoy I could shut my eyes and believe it was De Kelley. With Kirk and Spock I couldn't shut my eyes but the spirit of the character was there. With Scotty...Hmmmm, I'm not sure what to say. He seemed just a little wrong and was playing it far, far too comedically.

Having said McCoy was 'closest' to the original, I also felt he had the least reason to be there. Getting the 'Bones' nickname established was good but the whole sequence with Kirk getting the fat hands and tongue, while funny, felt just a little contrived as if it had been put in place only to give McCoy a reason to have some lines. It's only a small gripe though.

One clever move was the fact that Nero had appeared 25 years in the 'past' from Kirk's time. That gave scope to change just about anything and a convenient handle to hang every difference on. Much more believable than arriving there to find everything already different.

Some bullets:

• Giving Chekov an access code with 'Victor Victor' in it was just plain funny.
• We had Scott "Giving it all she's got.."
• The whole 'You lied' sequence at the end was very remeniscent of ST 6.
• Loved the tribble in the background.
• Didn't like the reference to Klingon warbirds (has that term ever been used for Klingons?)
• Pike in the chair was very 'Menagerie'.
• Didn't like the sheer number of pipes etc in engineering but I would also argue that TOS et al was probably a little too 'clean' in the engine department.
• Spock's final greeting made me laugh - 'Live long and Prosper' being seen as too self-serving.
• Paul McGillion's cameo was nice though I think he would have been a better Mongomery Scott than Pegg.
• 'Old' Spock's greeting to Kirk in the Ice Cave and the genuine warmth showed there worked well.
• Spock's 'Not really' when Kirk proposed that Spock should appreciate that rescuing Nero was the 'logical' thing to do was brilliant and I could feel the character had settled. (I guess having Nimoy around does no harm when learning to play Spock).
• Spock's rejection of the Science Academy dur to racist statements worked for me.

The whole destruction of Vulcan was a very interesting twist and may make for some interesting future stories. A large stabilising element within the Federation has been removed which may lead to some interesting future stories. Nimoy also had a much larger part than I had envisioned which only added to the strenght of the film.

The one thing that confused me, and about the only negative I can take from the film at the moment, was the fact that they went out and crewed the fleet with cadets. I'm assuming that they were used simply to bolster numbers on the ships rather than staff them fully but the fact that they took on standard duty uniforms and ranks seemed odd. Did I miss something there?

There were times when I was thinking 'Hang on, this is Star Trek!'. That didn't mean I wasn't enjoying it, but I had dropped out of ST mode.

Overall, I loved the film - enough action to keep me engaged and enough familiarity that I felt the alternate time line to be believable.

Roll on the next installment!

[billybob476]

Not really reading this thread yet, but I just wanted to post this here for posterity.

[Rico]

Thanks Joe - good idea.  Just a reminder, I hope that all those that have seen the movie (and those that see it soon) will send in a video for the podcast this weekend.  Some great comments folks and I'd love to have you on the show, saying them yourself!

[jedijeff]

Saw the movie last night, and over all enjoyed it. A lot of the points Mike (Feathers) made was things I noted as well.

I had been steering clear over any spoilers for the past few months, so a lot of this plot was a surprise to me. My brother gave me a quick break down of the comics on the way to the movie, so I had some background going into the movie on that.

For the first part of the movie, I was trying figure out how it all fit in with the other Trek. Once they got to the point where they had explained that when Nero had arrived, and at that point the timeline was changed, I was able to put those thoughts aside.

I really liked Zachary Quinto as Spock, the way he portrayed the character was exactly the way I was expecting it, I thought he did a great job, and probably my favorite of the new cast. The Spock -Uhura relationship was new to me, but once they got to the point where they explained the new timeline, I was not as hung up on it. Part of me shed a tear for the Old Timeline Nurse Chappel though  :'( . It took me a bit to warm up to McCoy, early on, I did not really care for the character, as it just felt like a character with a lot of McCoy one liners. but midway through the movie, I felt he really grew into the character, and looking forward to what they do with him in the next movie. I think I will really like Kirk, and looking more towards the next movie to get a real Idea of him as a captain, since for the majority of this movie he wasn't. Sulu and Chekov I thought did a good job, and pretty much as I expected, Chekov young with a lot of energy, and Sulu being the steady and cool helmsman (even if he made a mistake at the start  ;D ) . Scotty, I am not so sure on, I felt there was a bit to much comedy in the character, and pretty much every scene he was in was comic relief. I am hoping in the next movie they tone him down a bit. I was not really surprised that they elevated Uhura's character in the sense that she stood out more. With her being the only female lead cast member, I expected they would give her more screen time. It will be interesting to see how her relationship with Spock will affect the Kirk - Spock friendship, if Spock will draw on her like Kirk does with McCoy.

The one thing that did not really sit to well with me in the movie was the rapid promotion of a lot of these characters to their positions. Even if it was an alternate timeline, it still picked at me a bit that Kirk could go from a Cadet that was not even assigned to a ship to the Captain in such short time. Maybe it is nitpicking, but how does a person with no command experience get to captain a ship. He has no experience to draw upon, and just felt like a big leap for me, even given the circumstances.  I must admit that sat in my head the entire movie. I felt that way with a few of the other characters as well in how quickly they got their positions. I know it is a movie, and I should put that aside, but I am not sure if that is something I will ever be fully happy with. I am looking forward to the next movie, as I really do want to see this Kirk as the actual Captain of the ship.

I enjoyed the movie a lot, and I get what they did with resetting the timeline. They are free now to do what they want in the Universe and they do not impact what has happened in the other series and movies. That was evident with the destruction of Vulcan. But part of me shed a tear for the past timeline walking out of the theatre. It felt like I was saying goodbye to a friend of 40 years. It will be interesting to see how they handle the Star Trek property going forward, and what they will do with the two timelines. I wonder with the Novels, if they will have to classify them somehow to what timeline they fall into.

I theatre I saw it in was about 2/3 full, so sounds like a lot of the rest of you, in that it was not completely full. I think that might be that a lot of people still thought the movie was opening on Friday. A bit of a sour note, the movie stopped for us right at the end during Spock's talk, so we never got to see the ending credits. There must have been an issue with the projector, as they got it going a few minutes later, but no sound and near the end of the credits. The theatre did give us a free movie pass for the mistake, so that made up for it, but I think I will want to go again to see it all the way through.

[RickPeete]

The downside to having the 'two' timelines is that future movies, books, comics, etc will now have to identify which timeline they are covering.  I am not sure if having the two timelines is good for the fandom in the long-term or not because I think we need to embrace the new timeline in order to get Paramount and the powers that be reason to make more movies.  They are certainly not going to make more movies in the original timeline.

I am such a Trek fanatic from the 60s.  I love everything about it, starting from the Roddenberry premise of the show and the future it portrays.  My fear is that the original timeline is going to end up the venue for fanfic and books but will likely wane as the new generation of Trek fans 'vote with their wallets' for the new timeline.  This will be especially true if this movie makes a ton of money and its sequel does equally well.

Is having a combined fandom in the one timeline a better investment to ensure Trek's future?  I don't know.  It just seems if they try to keep two timelines going, it is diluting the available resources in creativity and funding for the franchise as a whole.


Thoughts?

-Rick

[RickPeete]

So now that Vulcans are homeless (Jen's words), I was thinking...

Okay so Carol Marcus invents the Genesis Device in this timeline but this time her son does not use protomatter because he knew who his father was from Day One and had no inner insecurities driving him to make that bad decision.

So what do they do?  They program the Genesis Device to recreate VULCAN!

Oh and BTW: With only ten thousand or so Vulcans left (offworld, on ships, etc.), what does this mean for those who enter Pon Farr?  They cannot return to their ancestral lands.  Many will no longer have living spouses (perhaps that breaks the 'bonding' so no Pon Farr...).  This might be there first challenge once they establish this new colony.

-Rick

[RickPeete]

Did anyhone say "Oh no they didn't" when Nero introduced the organism from Ceti Alpha Five but said it was from a different planet and is digested rather than being placed in the ear?

I kinda felt like they should have either followed the canon on that detail to the letter (in terms of how it worked) or have come up with a totally different approach to extracting the information (like using the Romulan interogation techniques they used on Geordi in TNG)...

Just my two cents.

-Rick

[Feathers]

I agree. Longer term it's going to be hard to service both timelines in the areas of books etc and could well be confusing but I don't think we're looking at a xoheeen long term view here. I think we've seen 'what needs to be done' to get Trek back in theatres (not my words). What follows from this is yet to be determined.

I'd hate this to spell the complete death of what's come before but in the terms we're discussing it is quite possible. Time will tell.

I like the recreation of Vulcan via Genesis idea...

[Meds]

I think as we have had no more tng , voyager, ds9 films then i think we can safely say that time line is now finished as far as franchise goes. Enterprise is before the film so that is in either time line. I think it's best to maybe even think of it as a parallel universe.

[X]

here is my take.

The timeline has been changed so many times that there is no correct timeline.

This timeline seems to be a continuation of Enterprise and Enterprise is a result of First Contact.

Then it is changed again by the entry of Nero making something New.

I like it and find it pretty easy to understand. It also isnt the first time trek has made more than one timeline work.

We have the TV/movie timeline. Then the books and then the shatnerverse.