Star Trek XI discussion [Spoiler]

[mechascorpio]

However, the writing was just sloppy. The plot holes were just heaped upon one another. Now it had some good scenes and it had some moments, but it was really like they just slapped the movie together. I mean just a few lines of dialogue a few tweaks to the story and it wouldn't have been such a travesty. I know origin movies are sometimes just throwaways, but I wish they had tried to make a more sensible story.

Although none of it jumped out at me during the movie, there was definitely some bad writing that occurred to me afterwards:

- The entire story seemed built upon convenience and coincidence, everyone in the right place at the right time. As Spock (Prime) said, "How did you find me?" How, indeed! Ooh, Scotty's next door! Delta Vega is very small, it seems.
- That everyone could so easily end up in their ultimate positions seemed, in retrospect, to stretch credibility. Uhura knew the Romulan language. I'm not exactly sure how it was justified that a 17 year old Chekov and a Sulu who, it seemed, had never left spacedock could end up at the helm of the new flagship. The Chief Medical Officer was killed, lucky for McCoy. By the time Scotty was on board, it seemed they just gave him his shirt and towel and made him Chief Engineer (although someone has pointed out that Olson The Redshirt had been Chief Engineer). It made the crew seem very small.
- I can accept that Delta Vega in this move is not be the Delta Vega of "Where No Man Has Gone Before". But is this one (an M-Class Planet according to the computer, not a moon) really so close to Vulcan that Spock could, well, you know.
- Regardless of Nero's ability to get past the Earth Defense Grid, would no one on the planet try to take out that drill before Spock arrived in the jellyfish?
- You'd think that at some point during the 25 years, Nero would have managed to confide in his henchmen what the plan actually was once Spock Prime arrived.
- As much as I love the Enterprise, new design and all, I'm not sure I "get" where everything is. It seems the bridge now occupies more space and levels than it used to (the window shot). Was the transporter room down the hall? The ship looked big on the outside, but felt rather small and empty (or, rather, full of pipes) on the inside.
- Speaking of things seeming smaller, Warp 4 seems to get you places a lot faster than it used to.
- Bad Sci-Fi. A "supernova that threatened the galaxy", whose impact/effect would have traveled light years to obliterate Romulus. Again, like the Enterprise and the warp drive, it made things feel small, and that one really nags me. Like you said, just a few lines could have fixed it.

Still, they didn't bother me one tiny bit during the film. While I was in the theater, I had the time of my life, more fun than I've had watching a movie in decades. And probably more fun than I've ever had watching any other Star Trek film.

Question: Sooooo. Stardates. Old system completely out the window now?

[Ensign001]

Actually, I didn't sign up just to post hate to be honest. I love this site. I have lurked for years. For some reason, I had the hardest time getting signed on.


As for your comments about the Enterprise. It uses Reverse TARDIS technology? It's smaller on the inside?

[Dan Stack]

No desire for a massive debate but I enjoyed it.

To be honest, it seemed Uhura got more characterization than she did in most of TOS. Though there was some Uhura flirting with Spock in TOS.

The actors all seemed to do a good job capturing the essence of their characters without diving into caricature. I kept expecting to see DeForest Kelly portating McCoy.

The rapid advance stretched belief, but its not the first time Trek has seen some whacky career tracks - Geordi LaForge goes from Lt. J.G. to Lt. Cmdr in little more than a year.

Did it feel like Star Trek? To me it did. Especially the old Star Trek with minimal use of technobabble. This was stretched a little bit with the magic transporter but its not the first time Spock and Scotty have pulled a techno rabbit out of their hats. But what I liked was that there was not the TNG tendency to try lots of technical solutions to problems. The problems had human solutions. Save the escaping shuttles by distracting the baddies at the cost of your own life. The sacrifice of George Kirk really worked for me, as did Pike's recounting of the tale.

One thing the original Star Trek emphasized was just how special a starship captain was. It was more than a rank and position. It was a vocation. Kirk often made it look easy in the original show, but at the same time you saw his private moments of doubt. There was not too much self-doubt in this movie save for his chat with Pike at the bar. But I think that was enough. You don't want your hero wallowing in doubt, but you do want him to be human.

[PGoodman13]

I rather like Ken Hite's take on it: "Spock travels back in time to remove Rick Berman from the continuity."

[mechascorpio]

One thing the original Star Trek emphasized was just how special a starship captain was. It was more than a rank and position. It was a vocation. Kirk often made it look easy in the original show, but at the same time you saw his private moments of doubt. There was not too much self-doubt in this movie save for his chat with Pike at the bar. But I think that was enough. You don't want your hero wallowing in doubt, but you do want him to be human.

This is a gem. Well said.

[Ensign001]

HA! Okay, that was funny, PGoodman13.

[The Tatterdemalion King]

I rather like Ken Hite's take on it: "Spock travels back in time to remove Rick Berman from the continuity."

But at what cost? : P

[Kirk Johnson-Weider]

Okay let's be fair the technobabble in this movie was as bad as any Star Trek episode or movie. You had red matter, a galaxy consuming supernova, trans warp transporters, Titan's magnetic fields to hide the Enterprise, time travel, quantum singularities right and left, vaccine which produced comedic plotline, etc. It is not a fair defense to say that this movie did not use technobabble and convenience to further the plot. The human decisions were no more or no less than most other Star Trek movies and the science and logic in this movie was a lot worse than most.

I agree one big problem with TNG and later Star Trek was an over reliance on technology to solve problems, but this movie did that as well. In fact, most of my problems with the movie were the times when it fell on old Star Trek story tricks.

I really wanted to like this movie, but to be honest I felt like the writers spent more time getting in homages to Star Trek than crafting a good story. The best lines in the movie were from other Star Trek movies, that's insane why plagiarize the old movies when you can come up with new dialogue. Though it's the homages I think that have wowed most audiences along with a sprinkling of youthful enthusiasm and big explosions.

I mean come on. Seriously, was anyone impressed with the villain and his back story? How about the space combat? It was pretty lackluster, there was more movement and dynamic in the antiquated Wrath of Kahn between the ships than in this one. What was the vision of the future in this movie? Was there a vision of the future? Also admit it - red matter is pretty stupid, isn't it? If you removed the Star Trek homages and dropped the plot of this movie in a generic sci-fi movie how would it do?

I'm of the opinion that it's nostalgia and euphoria from the old Star Trek alone which is catapulting this movie. Remove that and you have a fairly mediocre action/adventure movie with a poor plot. The sad thing is that all it would have taken is a few tweaks to the story, probably another rewrite of the script, and you could have had the best of all Star Trek movies. It was the missed opportunities in this movie that really, really aggravated me.

It probably is too many hours narrating Trek RPGs that twisted my view of things. I mean if as a narrator you came up with this adventure involving Romulan miners with red matter, time travel, destroying key worlds, and promoting a PC cadet to captain...okay...yeah, I guess most players would actually like that.

[Dan Stack]

btw one other thing occurred to me... A classic red shirt death. Alas poor Olson, we hardly knew ye. At least you died showing us the platform was dangerous, which is the true job of any red shirt.

[C5]

I went watching this movie with a very negative bias, so I'll probably never know (unless I manage to find a memory-erasing device) if my utterly negative opinion of the movie is due to this bias or not.

Sorry, but the movie never felt Trek to me. Not my Trek, anyway.

What I liked best was the relationship between Kirk and Spock, and how it evolved from antagnism to hints of a future friendship. Surprisingly enough, the Spock/Uhura thing was also welcome, as was, on the whole, Uhura's and Spock's characterizations. Even the Sylar jokes I intended to crack (in my head only) disappeared after a few minutes of seeing Quinto's onscreen.

Other than that... I fear my disbelief never suspended enough for me to buy the movie. Maybe it was the bad humour (Kirk's hands, Chekov's accent, Scotty's pinball water sequence and his Ewok friend), some Trek references that really fell flat for me (a cocktail named after the Cardassians ? I can accept that the timeline has changed, but I really felt that one was just there to have a mandatory Trek reference), product placement (something I never expected in a Trek movie), the feeling that the interior of the Enterprise was now some big hangar... but there were too many things I could not cope with which made me unforgivable toward any scenaristic oddities.

And gave me a very very nitpicking mind.
For instance, I don't quite get how it comes all the ships sent to Vulcan were crewed with cadets. Was Starfleet in shortage of, you know, regular crewmembers ? That, and Kirk's subsequent promotion, reminded me of the movie Last Action Hero : "Hey, here's a kid who's seen something, team up with him for the inquiry".
Equally unsettling to me was the whole ice planet sequence. Spock has apparently forgotten that a brig exists on the Enterprise, or in this timeline Starfleet regulation for dealing with uncooperative crewmembers is now to drop them to the nearest habitable planet. Then follows a monster chase which to my knowledge is of no interest (apart from seeing Kirk run and scream like a frightened teen in a standard horror movie), a surprise reunion with Nimoy-Spock and Scotty, who conveniently happens to have built a super mega transporter. I think it was at this point that I sighed out of boredom.

I was about to forget what was the nail in the coffing for me : the ending. Nero is helpless and about to die anyway, and Kirk, after an hypocritcal proposal for help, decides to kill him outright. That's right, he destroys a helpless foe in cold blood. Will this Kirk grow in the Kirk who was ready to help his son's murderer to escape certain death ? Allow me to doubt it.

I could go on like this for a while, but it would not serve much. As has been said above, this is a subjective matter, and debating about it is about as relevant as debating about food tastes.

The bottom line is, I did not like this movie at all, and it left me with a very sad feeling. The Trek I knew and loved has now been replaced by this grim reality, and, if other Trek has to happen in the next years, I fear it will belong to this continuity.

And, as I feared too, lot of people apparently liked this movie, so it will probably .thrive

[Evan van Eyk]

Equally unsettling to me was the whole ice planet sequence. Spock has apparently forgotten that a brig exists on the Enterprise, or in this timeline Starfleet regulation for dealing with uncooperative crewmembers is now to drop them to the nearest habitable planet.

I found this odd at the beginning as well, but I assume Spock simply figured Kirk to be resourceful enough to get out of the cell - after all he managed to come aboard Enterprise irregularily in the first place as well. Considering that Kirk was the only one who had managed to "sabotage" Spock's Kobayashi Maru test, he might have though he might be better off the ship.

I was about to forget what was the nail in the coffing for me : the ending. Nero is helpless and about to die anyway, and Kirk, after an hypocritcal proposal for help, decides to kill him outright. That's right, he destroys a helpless foe in cold blood. Will this Kirk grow in the Kirk who was ready to help his son's murderer to escape certain death ? Allow me to doubt it.

I found this quick change strange as well. Why first offer to help and then shoot him? However this Kirk will likely not grow into the Kirk you are referring to, because "James T. Kirk was a great man, but that was another life". The Kirk we know had a father and probably mother to teach him such things - the new Kirk's youth seemed to have been rather bitter.

I don't say I like this development, but atrocities have been done before in Trek (e.g. "In the Pale Moonlight") and it might be plausible.

[PGoodman13]

I found this quick change strange as well. Why first offer to help and then shoot him? However this Kirk will likely not grow into the Kirk you are referring to, because "James T. Kirk was a great man, but that was another life". The Kirk we know had a father and probably mother to teach him such things - the new Kirk's youth seemed to have been rather bitter.

I don't say I like this development, but atrocities have been done before in Trek (e.g. "In the Pale Moonlight") and it might be plausible.

Atrocity? You mean like murdering 6 billion people in cold blood?

[Cut]

So I have now finally seen the movie myself and am not that impressed. I have to admit that I am more dissappointed than I had thought I would.

That movie simply wasn't Star Trek for me.

I tried, I gave it a chance and I was very anxious to finally be in the cinema and be able to watch some two more hours of Star Trek. But what came to me had nothing to do with the Utopia Gene Roddenberry had told us of.

What I got was not what I had expected from Star Trek.

It is not enough to give some actors known character names, some similar looking props and phrases and uniforms to make a Star Trek movie. And he overall look had too much in the way of the new BSG that I could get warm with. Why does nowdays all things have to be gritty and used-looking.

There has to be a certain feeling to all of this. There were sparks of that, every now and then, but nowhere near enough to make this movie a beakon of hope for the reboot of the franchise into something I'd be onboard with.

I find it hard putting my feelings into words, maybe tomorrow I'll succeed.

I am a bit sad... I feel like I have lost or at least moved away from an old and close friend...

[Kirk Johnson-Weider]

I think I finally understand the divide on this movie. It comes down to what you look for in Star Trek. If you see Star Trek as swashbuckling adventure with some technobabble and humor tossed in then this movie was perfect. If you see Star Trek as being about a vision of tomorrow with some thoughtfulness tossed in then this movie was a great disappointment. This is the divide. Sure some of us fall in the middle, but I think it's this divide that is why some love this movie and some don't.

I think if I could have accepted that this movie was just brainless fun I would have probably really enjoyed the movie. However, that's not Star Trek to me. Still I guess that it is very possible that J.J. Abrams and company could find vision and thoughtfulness in a sequel. You reel in the public with goofy fun and then you try for something more substantial in the next movie. Somehow I doubt that. I just need to look at the new Star Trek franchise as more like the Mummy series of movies, which is a more comparable franchise now than the old Star Trek movies.

I just don't know if I can make that mental leap.

[Balok]

I enjoyed it a lot while I was watching it. I felt the actors did a good job, the plot moved quickly and the effects were spot on. I understand why there are so many differences, and I understand why the studio felt the need to reboot the original series. Most of the Next Generation crowd have aged out of their roles, and the DS9 and Voyager crowds never got a chance to prove they could capture a movie audience. Plus, there's the need to appeal to more than just the Trek fan base, especially since Enterprise's ratings kept declining. That left the original series characters with new actors and a plot that would have mass appeal. I think this film achieved both goals.

Continuity comments

 

However, as a person who does enjoy his continuity, I'm always going to think of this as the adventures of another Original Series crew, happening in a parallel universe. Anything else basically means they've flushed 40 years and hundreds of episodes of events down the proverbial commode. But I'm okay with that, if we get good stories. When that stops, so does my attendance, becuase that parallel universe view also means I'm not as invested in these versions of the characters.

The plot has a few holes, most of which have already been cited, but I found they did not overly bother me while watching a slam bang action space opera. What bothered me most about them is that a few slightly different words of dialogue would have corrected the problem. The issue with

 

the destruction of Romulus comes to mind. It didn't have to be a supernova; it could have been a cosmic string, or something else localized and hard to predict. But I'd bet that Abrams selected supernova because people unfamiliar with science will still understand what a supernova is, generally. If you view his other shows (Alias, Lost and Fringe) you already know that he is perfectly willing to completely ignore scientific plausibility to keep the plot moving. He does the same thing here.

All that said, I think he did a good job, and I'm almost certain to hop in line for the sequel I'm sure they'll ask him to make.