Alternate timeline was the only practical tool for modern producers to basically "do everything over", without enraging all the nerds to the point that they would stop buying all the new star-trek crap.
First, I went into the movie with the approach that it is star-trek-2.0, and I'm not expecting anything (style wise) from the previous (I am a triekkie, so I would go nuts if I hadn't just 'let it go' to start out with).
That said, I was pleased with how much they did touch back onto the original series. I thought most of my complaints would be about the story getting raped and mangled. (And they would have, had I not given up ahead of time, as per my sentence-2).
My only real complaint is that the movie was too A.D.D.. (Which has multiple dimensions and supporting moments.)
There was very little character development, and whatever development there was felt rushed.
It felt like : "Here's every major point in this person's life experience, pertaining to how they are here and how they are important, all crammed into 2 minutes"
And the action was over the top (in the bad way).
You couldn't get a rest. It was either : Chasing, running, falling, getting shot at, explosions, screaming, arguing, mandatory-micro-romance-scene, etc.
The non-stop-shit-happening was so over the top that I could barely take it.
There was no time for any setting of mood, or time provided to suspend disbelief and absorb into the film. I mean, how can literally EVERY LAST STEP SOMEONE TAKES lead, WITHIN SECONDS, to another disaster, that they LUCKILLY get out of, only to get into ANOTHER disaster seconds later. It got to the point where I felt like smacking my face and dragging down my palm. (I literally did at one point... Kirk fights with romulans, kirk jumps down ~4 stories inside the romulan ship... AND was followed... AND pulls the guys gun, AND pulls himself up after almost falling (all of this after the shootout in the cargo hold))
The things I liked :
- federation ship design was NICE. they modernized the look without wrecking the old style.
- actors were chosen well.
(pardon the name spellings)
Kirk looked like kirk. Attitude was as expected.
Spock looked right. He was less stoic than I would have liked, but he is younger than in the other movies. The eyebrow-raise was turned into a bit of a joke-moment-thing, rather than a moment of concern or enlightenment. But whatever.
Ohura was done well. I was relieved that she had more depth than in the other movies.
Sulu didn't get enough time, but the actor was decent looking for the part. Still think of harold and kumar though.
Dr McCoy was stellar. Looked right. Acted right. Mannerisms were honest to the original.
Chekov looked wrong, but he did the whole 'broken russian' thing well. Granted that it's all-wrong anyways (They have a 'v' sound in russian, so he man obviously must have a speech impediment because as a russian he should have NO PROBLEM saying a 'v' sound).
Scotty was a joke (literally). I wish they had made him a serious character. But I guess when you're working with a comic actor you just want to use him that way.
Things I didn't like :
Accidentally finding spock on the ice planet? wtf? Talk about stupid odds...
And the ice-monster thing? Come on.. it wrecks some giant snow-tiger-thing, but cap'n is out running/dodging it for how long? sigh... (another breaking suspension of disbelief)
The other vulcan kids that were picking on Spock would only do so out of emotion... so that's kind of out of character. No info is given about vulcan kids and their emotional state, so I can kind of let it go.
Scotty and the whole trans-warp-teleport-argument-thingy, just seemed rushed and out of place. And the "hey let's put in some other calculations and WHAMO!, your teleporter can now go way far!" moment was just too convenient. That sort of "Hey, let's do X Y Z and BAM, we've got a solution!" approach was more appropriate for TNG and later series. Just seemed out of place in the original star trek setting.
The Romulan design was just over the top. It looked way too obvious that they were trying to create a 'creepy scary' enemy. The tattoos, dark setting, jagged ship, etc... it was trying to too hard. I was left thinking "Oh brother... yes, I get it... they are the bad guys... "
The regulation that 'spock can't get mad'... yeah, I also thought that was too convenient. And kind of stupid. People get mad on a regular basis, that kind of rule is just unrealistic and again, breaks suspension of disbelief.
And old spock leaving young spock in the dark so that "kirk and spock can be pals-4-lyfe"? Seriously? Endanger the success of something so important as saving a planet by leaving one actor under informed, just to 'make pals'? That's just some stupid shit... Another broken suspension of disbelief moment.
2 or 3 continuity issues. Not star-trek-wise. I mean movie wise. A couple times the actors suddenly are somewhere without moving, or one moment have an item and in the next it's gone. Just editing screw ups. A few were just a bit too obvious. Not important enough for me to remember now, but I turned to my gf a couple times and said "um, wtf did he get the (whatever) from all of a sudden?" Another broken suspension of disbelief moment.
Teleporter lock being a game of 'pew pew shoot the dot with the box' is 'lulz'. Another broken suspension of disbelief moment.
Also, they could have picked something harder than 'the volume of a sphere' for background formula recitation during the vulcan kids education/testing thingy... it doesn't exactly reek of intelligence. Another broken suspension of disbelief moment.
There's more, but I could pick on the movie all day... (It's not this movie only, though. It's how pretty much every movie is made these days.)
I guess I just felt like I was being spoon-fed the whole time with cheap attempts at tugging an emotion out of me. Trying to make me scared, or worried, or excited, or angered, or whatever. Each attempt so obvious, and so poorly integrated, that instead of working, I just thought "oh come on!".
The movie had little substance beyond the purely topical "Bang, zoom, LOOK OUT!".
So, I just took it as a mindless explosion-show... and it was a good mindless explosion show.
What-evz...
But I won't call it a good action movie...
The days of setting up an intense moment for an hour are gone.
How long was it before you saw an 'alien' in 'alien'? An hour? (not counting the face sucker).
There was tons of time spent setting mood and place in blade runner, before there was any real fighting. (Unless you count the split second when the first replicant did one gun shot and the scene cut away...)
Even predator, or terminator. How much time were people wandering around before the blasting started? Talking about creepy jungle stories, or talking about the future?
Action movies used to really set a mood and place. Today's action movies just go straight into "boom". That's no satisfaction in shit getting blown up, if you've just watched explosions for an hour straight. Especially if you have had no character development and you don't give a crap about the people getting blown up, or doing the blowing up.
-scheherazade
