Thoughts on new Star Trek movie (*spoilers!*)

I enjoyed the movie as a semi-trekkie, but I did I a few things that made me unhappy-
First, the shaky cam. I CAN'T STAND IT! It's alright in some shots, but in most dialogues there is no need for it.
Second, wouldn't the black hole instant;y obliterate everything that close? I understand it was necessary for those last dying words, but still...
Third, Cheklov's accent was a LITTLE too thick, but other than that fine.
 
Other than that I enjoyed it, beyond what everyone else has already stated, I'm not sure I have a lot to say. Some things did feel really rushed though. It almost felt like the last act was abridged somewhat... There was almost the feeling of a scene or two that were missing from the point Kirk takes command of the enterprise to the point where they emerge from Titan's rings. We pretty much cut from them talking about the plan to beaming onto Nero's ship. The movie could have been twenty minutes longer and I wouldn't have minded.

I didn't really notice the shakey cam being overly offensive in the way that the middle Bourne movie and Cloverfield were. But some less frantic editing might have been nice... even just a few frames in some shots would have been nice.
 
I did like it and I think it can lead to some fun new ST movies.

Alternate timelines, timetravel and such things never click too well with me but since I do not know very much about ST, I'm sure I missed most of it. But I never understand why people feel the need to rewrite stories. And I am no fan of blowing up planets.

Like others, I thought the villain was very weak and not at all what I expected from a Romulan. Granted, he was worker class but I thought making him Romulan was as unnecessary as introducing the Remans in Nemesis.
I felt a bit uneasy about Kork knowing what Uhura looks like in her underwear and her hitting on Spock but, oh well, nothing too tragic.

All in all, I'd say it's a good ST movie.

P.S.: It does not bother me at all but I'm curious: in the movie they talked about "Klingon Warbirds" - I thought that was a term reserved for Romulan warships while Klingons had "Birds of Prey".
 
I think I'm one of the few people who wasn't completely offended by Chekov's performance in the movie. I think the wictor wictor joke was sort of obligatory and he played his part well for the rest of the movie after that.

There's one thing I did like about Nero that showed a bit of romulan-ness. And that's the fact that the dude waited around for 25 years so he could get his hands on the red matter and have his revenge on Spock and the Federation. Very methodical, sadistic, and Romulan of him.

I agree about the shaky-cam but this is a problem I've been having with all action flicks recently and not just Star Trek. Come on people start holding the camera still again I want to be able to appreciate the work of the special effects and design teams.

I was also expecting something more massive and dramatic to happen when all of the red matter was ignited at once but the effect was mostly indistinguishable from using a single drop of it. And why the hell did the Enterprise have to open fire on Nero at the end when his ship was already being turned to salad by the black hole. That would've been the time to turn around and, you know, run away from the black hole.

A lot of people are complaining around the Internet about Kirk becoming a captain so fast at the end of the film but you know, I'm willing to suspend my disbelief there. The dude just saved the Federation I think he's proven himself worthy of the chair. I had a hard time liking Kirk in this though. He spent most of the movie treating everybody like trash with the exception of Bones maybe and I'm sitting there thinking, "Man this is the guy these people will learn love and respect and follow to the ends of the universe?" Granted Kirk's personality changes are explained by the death of his father.

The Enterprise being built in Iowa was a little odd. I heard one explanation that in this alternate universe the shipyard was built in Iowa as a tribute to Kirk's father but that's probably just fan blather. I can brush this one aside but I wish they would've shown us how they got the Enterprise from the ground into space I felt a little cheated that we didn't get to see that.

The final thing that bugged me was the look of the engineering room. It was just sort of weird that we have this Apple-plastic bridge (which I thought looked better in motion than I was expecting, I really enjoyed the bridge) and a warehouse/brewery for engineering. It didn't look like the two pieces belong to the same ship. Hell, engineering didn't look like it even belonged to a starship. I mean I suppose it was okay and a different way of visualizing the innards of Trek ships than we're used to but as a Trekkie it kind of took me out of the movie during those scenes because it wasn't what I was expecting and it wasn't a very welcome change. I did like that in most interior shots of the ship things were crowded and people were busy actually working and doing things instead of just walking aimlessly around endless corridors.
 
I think I'm one of the few people who wasn't completely offended by Chekov's performance in the movie. I think the wictor wictor joke was sort of obligatory and he played his part well for the rest of the movie after that.
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Agreed -- and everyone complaining about how he looked is missing the joke. He has goody modern teen heartthrob haircut instead of Chekov Prime's 1960s-equivalent Beatles look...
 
There was almost the feeling of a scene or two that were missing from the point Kirk takes command of the enterprise to the point where they emerge from Titan's rings.
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Agreed, i expected to see scotty tune up the engines, as the scene before that suggested.
 
frostytheplebe said:
Ok, so I guess the BIG question is... did this movie do what Star Trek fans hoped it would. BASED SOLELY ON YOUR OWN OPINIONS, did this movie give new life to Star Trek?
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I was sitting around watching the end credits and discussing the pros and cons with my friend (who has decided to hate the movie on a level that I usually reserve for Chris Nolan Batman sequels and people who kick puppies) and I was vaguely aware of a father and son duo sitting two rows behind us.

In the middle of the discussion, I happened to tune out my friend and heard the father (who sounded dismayed by the film we just saw) talking to his son - who was overjoyed with the movie.

Basically, the son said "And do you have any of them on DVD, dad?" And I could hear the father's tone clear up immediately and said they could watch some Star Trek when they got home.

To me - that made it all worth it. I was that kid once, after my dad took me to see Star Trek V. (Yes - Star Trek V! He hated it and I loved it! I was THAT kid sitting behind me!) I don't care how awful this film is to other weird-enabled Internet people because it accomplished something I've earnestly hoped to see in my lifetime. If a movie I don't like is going to bring interest in ST to a younger generation, more power to it.
 
LeHah said:
I was sitting around watching the end credits and discussing the pros and cons with my friend (who has decided to hate the movie on a level that I usually reserve for Chris Nolan Batman sequels and people who kick puppies)
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Wow, so you were behind us after all!

Anyhow, the movie was great. Great to see how well it did too. I had local friends here who went to the theater over the weekend and were turned away because the showings they could make it to were sold out. Not very long ago, we never would have expected the next Star Trek movie could do that.
 
To tell the truth I went to this movie extremely angry and determined to like the film to spite internet trek people who have torn this movie apart since it was announced. I was seriously worried that the film itself wouldn't reach me because of these emotions and I have to say the first two scenes built me to a point where I was ready to move on in a much more relaxed manner and found myself so engaged in the film that I actually nearly cried when George hears baby James' cries over the communicator. I was drawn in and it was done perfectly.

The car scene made me laugh, because the first time I ever saw a star trek that I can fully remember as a kid was Star Trek V. It so reminded me of the rocket boot scene that I was completely done with any negative sentiment and the fact that it's kid kirk makes it a funny scene rather than a serious one. A teen rebel Kirk would not have elicited the same types of feelings for me. Maybe for others this scene didn't sit well, but I loved it.

Overall, I loved this movie and I have seen it three times already and plan to see it a fourth before the end of this week. This is a fun movie, not a critique on what came before, but a fresh new face on something that fans themselves once robbed of it's ability to have fun by making every fact a do or die deal or missing the point of a scene for the sake of being annoyed by some pointless inconsequential detail.

-Rance-
 
vindicator said:
I actually nearly cried when George hears baby James' cries over the communicator.
-Rance-
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Funny, I had the same reaction. My own son was born just a month and a half ago, so I chalked my reaction up to my still vivid recollection of his birth. It really hit me when I imagined myself in George Kirk's place; the intense joy and pain of hearing your child for the first and last time, knowing he's there but never getting to hold him, really hit home.

The rest of the movie was great; I really enjoyed it. It was a great way to refresh a series that had become a bit stale (don't get me wrong - I have been a Trekkie since I was a small child, and enjoy the series as well as the movies, but like everything else, it needs to be pruned from time to time in order to keep growing).
The acting was great, the special effects and sound were mind-blowing (I saw it at an IMAX in San Diego) and they conveyed the spirit of the original series - they boldly went where no one had gone with Star Trek.

First time I ever choked up at the beginning of a movie though.
 
Was I the only one that enjoyed the ending credit art work? It was very sixties and it was just a small thing but I thought it was kinda neat and an attention to a small detail I felt I should mention.

-Rance-
 
vindicator said:
Was I the only one that enjoyed the ending credit art work? It was very sixties and it was just a small thing but I thought it was kinda neat and an attention to a small detail I felt I should mention.
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No, you weren't the only one. That and working in the theme from TOS for the closing credits music was a nice touch, I thought.

As for the movie as a whole, there's not really all that much more I can think to add to what's been said by others, up-thread.

When I first heard about the time travel thing, I was a bit skeptical. Most time travel stories that I've seen/read (including H.G. Wells' The Time Machine) have bothered me to one degree or another (most of the exceptions being the ones that play with relativistic effects, like Haldeman's The Forever War or Heinlein's Time for the Stars, though ST: First Contact was enjoyable enough that the time travel thing didn't bug me even if it did involve "fictional particle of the week" technobabble), particularly when they play loosey-goosey with paradoxes, causality, and such.

Being that I was desperate for something to replace Nemesis as the latest ST movie, though, and not wanting to be a net.tard (more often than not, I find that "if some internet idiot says it, looking at the opposite is probably a good use of time" is a decent general guideline), I put a leash on that.

And I'm glad I did. The time travel thing in general (save for the method, which made my Inner Amateur Physicist twitch hard) was fairly decently handled, I thought. I am, though, hoping that old-Spock will at least consider becoming a hermit, instead of short-cutting (so to speak) a bunch of stuff. The transwarp transporter (and when did that get brought up? I don't remember it being mentioned anywhere prior to this movie, off the top of my head) was kinda-sorta necessary without a massive rewrite of the script, but ultimately I've always thought that science fiction in general should be more focused on the people, with the tech as a supporting role, not the "star attraction" (erm, pardon the SF pun :p ).

Anyway, overall I'd probably give it about a 8.5 or 9, out of 10, overall, in spite of some flaws (Nero being the biggie, with other minor issues not worth reproducing here).
 
Overall, I liked it alot.. but there were a few small things that bothered me.. or left me with questions..


As they seem to refer to 'Enterprise' as backstory at least in part (Admiral Archer and his prize beagle).. what happened to all the Vulcan colonies? its pretty well established that the Vulcans have spread out to many worlds in the E timeframe.. thus movie-Spock's comment about being one of perhaps 10,000 Vulcans left alive is somewhat questionable..

What about Kirk's (James T.) brother? Unless I am wrong, it was his older brother Sam (Samuel) who died in the TOS episode with the flying fried egg creatures.. "Operation: Annihilate!" Perhaps its not explicitly said whether Sam is the older brother or not.. but I always thought he was..

Oh.. and the comically bad scene where Scotty beams into the water tank.. how did that make it past the cutting room? surely there were better 'alternate' scenes filmed that they could have used..

I felt Nero was a bit lame.. but not horrible.. but his ship..? wtf? that had to be one of the WORST designs for a "mining" vessel I have ever seen.. and the scenes with that ship and the black hole just screamed PROPHECY to me.. ;-)

And why do you need to drill a hole to use the red matter.. it seems to me (from events in the film) that a simple missile/topeado loaded up with a dab or two of red matter would accomplush the same effect just as well.. and a crapload faster/easier..

Anyway.. I did like it.. :D

-J
 
Capn Johnny said:
I felt Nero was a bit lame.. but not horrible.. but his ship..? wtf? that had to be one of the WORST designs for a "mining" vessel I have ever seen.. and the scenes with that ship and the black hole just screamed PROPHECY to me.. ;-)
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Well, the backstory explored in the "official prequel" graphic novel (Star Trek Countdown) is that the Romulans (Post destruction of Romulus) upgrade Nero's 'simple' mining ship with what is essentially Borg technology and weapons. All those spikey things on the front of the ship are part of that upgrade.
 
Well, the backstory explored in the "official prequel" graphic novel (Star Trek Countdown) is that the Romulans (Post destruction of Romulus) upgrade Nero's 'simple' mining ship with what is essentially Borg technology and weapons. All those spikey things on the front of the ship are part of that upgrade.
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That makes sense. The Borg were fans of designs that incorporated massive wastes of space.

Nero's ship, like the Scimitar from the Star Trek Nemesis, were designed to look enormously scary. While I think the mining ship was leaps and bounds cooler than the Scimitar (which looked like a bat on methamphetamine), it still has those massive, Death Star-like bottomless pits.
 
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