Star Trek XI discussion [Spoiler]

[AllenS]

I cannot really say, why it did not feel like Trek. And I intentionally chose the word "feel", because it really is not something of the mind.

And yet, on the way out of the movie theatre, my wife who is a Star Trek fan said that this movie felt like Star Trek to her, far more than Next Gen and its spinoffs ever did.

I completely agree with her. I loved it, and as far as I am concerned it IS Star Trek.

Allen

[AllenS]

what came to me had nothing to do with the Utopia Gene Roddenberry had told us of.

which is exactly why I liked it. Utopia's, in addition to being impossible, create very boring stories.

Allen

[Balok]

which is exactly why I liked it. Utopia's, in addition to being impossible, create very boring stories.

The key is to recognize that utopia is the goal and that it has not been achieved - and may never be - but that it is a goal worth striving for. I felt that in the original series. In Next Generation, it seemed like they'd set the show a little close to that goal. DS9 seemed like it struck the right balance, explaining that even people supposedly striving for that goal sometimes fail significantly. Even Voyager explored this notion occasionally. Enterprise was, in some ways, like Next Generation except in the opposite direction - it was too far from the goal. Of course, all of this presumes that one's view of the Roddenberry universe was shaped by the Original Series as mine was. Young folks no doubt have a different perspective.

 

A problem I had with this movie is that it did not capture the feel of that struggle. It may have been there, but I didn't see it. What I saw was a good action story with some familiar characters. To the extent that the film told us about the characters' early lives, it succeeded. To the extent that it strove to be a solid action yarn, it succeeded. But was it Star Trek? In a lot of ways, my answer has to be no. I still had fun, though.

[Tricky]

I've been trying to crystalize what I felt about this movie all day. I liked it, and it was Trek-ish. But was it Trek? There in lies the question.

I guess, being a comic guy, I'm used to some movie being a "pale reflection" of the stories I know and remember: the Silver Surfer didn't serve some cloud, he served a 100' tall space god; the X-men were a long standing team by the 2000's, not just forming; the black costume made Spidey sorta evil, not a jazz dancing emo kid.

This is what I told my die hard Star Wars fans, when the Prequel trilogy destroyed the continuity they had come to know and love. Of course, in their case, most of it was non-canon, but they felt betrayed by Lucas all the same.

So, here we are; with a movie that shows a reality that is both familar and alien to us. All the parts are there, but in different configurations. This 'changed reality' is the safety valve that's supposed to keep the fans (aka US) happy: the crew and events that we all know and love are, did and will happen.
They just will happen differently here.

Btw, I think this is the first "omg, reality has changed" event I've ever seen where no one even considers changing things back! I can't imagine how they COULD do it, but no one seems interested in doing it.


I know this sounds wrong, but I might need another movie to decide if I like this "Ultimate Trek" setting (all apologies to Aslan C).

Oh, one more thing: I picked up IDW's "Countdown", the comic prelude to the movie. While I don't know how official it is, it does help with some of the smaller issues of the time travel, super mining ship and Spock's roll in all of it.

[RaconteurX]

Karl Urban as Bones and Anton Yelchin as Chekov really stole the show, in my opinion. Zachary Quinto as Spock and Zoe Saldana as Uhura also gave sterling performances. Simon Pegg as Scotty and John Cho as Sulu were underutilized, I thought, which was a shame. Bruce Greenwood as Pike overshadowed Chris Pine as Kirk, but Greenwood is a veteran actor and Pine's career is still in its infancy. I was saddened by the absence of Nurse Chapel, she was the one who should have been romantically linked with Spock (I would have cast Sarah Paulson in the role, personally. Loved her in The Spirit. Speaking of The Spirit, Gabriel Macht would have made a good Kirk). Ben Cross as Sarek and Winona Ryder as Amanda Grayson turned in fine supporting performances. Eric Bana as Nero was as contrived a villain as Shinzon from Star Trek: Nemesis, but that was more the writers' fault than the actor's.

I give it a thumbs up overall, but was not as blown away by it as I'd hoped. However, I intend to see it again and I do think they laid an adequate foundation for future films. Still, I wonder why Leonard Nimoy as Spock did not just tell them how to do a time-sling so they could either go back in time to destroy Nero's ship when it came through the original temporal rift, or (more Trek-worthy) jump into the future to either prevent Romulas from being destroyed or warn its inhabitants in time to evacuate them. The story was not horrid by any stretch of the imagination, it just could have been better and the pacing was uneven. This was no Wrath of Khan, no First Contact (which I feel are the best films featuring, respectively, the TOS and TNG crews), but it was as every bit as entertaining as The Voyage Home or Insurrection (which I consider the second best films of the aforementioned crews).

To summarize in conclusion, this was Trek, just not Trek at its very finest (but certainly not at its worst).

[Cut]

After having some hours of sleeping (and reading some of the newer posts here) I think I can grasp a few more things.

I have enjoyed parts of the movie. There were moments I had to laugh really hard and by heart. But still the feeling was missing. This came with small mistakes, subtle ones. Simple things that the crew got wrong.

Mostly, at the beginning I was set back by the use of a car. I had seen this in the trailer and didn't like it then. Well, the movie shows it to be an antique. Check.

Then I didn't like the look of things at the heart of the Federation (Earth). The eqiupment's 'used' look bothered me, as it was so different from what we had seen in Star Trek before and reminded me more of the new BSG or even Starship Troopers. But that wasn't too bad.

What I really couldn't stand was the interior of the Starships. Not the new bridge (which seemed to be placed on th underside of the saucer?!) or the shiny corridors. Those were alright. But the hangar and engenieering sections seemed way out of place in comparison to what the rest of the ship (bridge, transporter room, sickbay) looked like. At least the hangar bay felt just wrong.

As did the Romulans. Come on. It needs a bit more than pointy ears and green blood to be a Romulan with a vengeance...

As did the whole weapons array. There was no Photon Torpedeo I recognised. Were there shields on the Enterprise? And all this blaster like energy weapons had little to do with what we had come to know as Phaser weapons used by Starfleet and the Federation.

Than the Federation being adressed as a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada. That's Starfleet, istn't it. The Federation is something bigger, that Starfleet serves. And I didn't like the officers outfits during the Starfleet Command / Academy sequences (these grey-ish things, with the hats).

Worst (with the weapons) was the use of the Warp Drive. The loud 'baang' whenever one ship went to Warp and the strange new cloud like effect surrounding the ship.

These subtilities would have giving a background feeling more trekish (at least to me) if done right. The sounds of the bridge, the look of the uniforms, some of the props (did they ever use the Commuicator?) were really nice and gave me the right feeling for the setting.

Those are things, that they should have dealt with differently for my taste. It would have been much simpler for me to feel at home in this alternate (as I have come to call it) Star Trek 2.0 universe, as it is now.

There are some technical issues as well: I had hoped we could have gotten a bit less handheld or moving camera action. Maybe I am oldschool, but I like it when the camera isn't swinging that wildly and that active. But that is just a personal thing. And cut sequences that aren't that fast paced, that it makes it hard for the eyes to follow and grasp the surroundings.

Aside from that there were some things I really, really liked: Scotty's side kick. That one doesn't belong in a Star Trek movie. It didn't feel right. But I liked it

I loved the performance of the guy that played Pike. That was probably my high point of the movie. That character just made the movie for me.

Actor wise I was surprised how nicely the McCoy guy got the shoes filled that were left by DeKelly. I can actually see a bit of The Shat in Chris Pine. I couldn't warm up to Quinto's Spock, though I have never seen 'Heroes'. Maybe a second feature film will help here. The Sulu and Chekov guys were fun, but a bit off from the original cast, don't you think? And what Sulu does is not fencing, that's swordplay

Anyway, I come to realise, that I like more things about the movie after a bit of sleep than I expected. Maybe I have to watch it yet again to see how it comes to me then.

One more thing:
I want to say 'thanks' to four posts here that I think were well written and helped me sum up my feelings: I reffer to the last posts of C5, Kirk Johnson-Weider, Tobian and RaconteurX before this one here. Thank you, guys. You helped me order my own thoughts on this matter.

A question on the other german audiences (Evan, Ergi...): Did you see the Original Language Version or the german translation? I have seen the OV version, so could you comment on the quality of the translation for me please?

[C5]

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.

Considering how barren this planet was, either Spock overestimated Kirk's resourcefulness, or he intended downright murder. Which could be, but then it would have been interesting at least to hint at 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.

What really irked me in this is that basically it was revenge of the worst kind (with hypocrisy to boot), and that everybody felt happy about it. The guy could have been captured and tried, or some of his crew could have been saved (maybe not all of them were blindly following him). That would have felt more in line with the Star Trek I know and love, where people are doing their best to suppress such behaviours, even if they find it hard (think Picard in First Contact). But they try.
Here, the fact that it was not even slightly alluded to makes me think that it simply does not belong to this timeline. And since I loved Star Trek because of the utopia element, this is where I realized it had been finally disposed with in this movie.

But I think Kirk Johnson-Weider summed it best : whether we like this movie or not depend on what we like Star Trek for.

Personally, I love Star Trek mainly for its optimistic tone and positive utopia. To a lesser extent, I also like that science is presented as a useful tool, which usually works well (that's a bit like the difference between robots in Asimov stories and standard unruly bad robots ones - no pun intended). I feel there are too many stories around about dark, oppressive futures with unreliable, worn-out technology, and I welcome positive ones.
And, sadly, I found none of that in the movie. The universe felt too much like our own, present time, only with some new technology around. In a way, it felt Mirror-Trekkish to me: same characters, same ships names, roughly same technology, no ideals, more brutality, more violence. Only it was supposed to be the regular universe, not a briefly glimpsed alternate one.
But, with the exception of Kirk, Scotty and Chekov, I found the characterization of the show's characters quite interesting, so I can understand that people who loved Star Trek for its characters loved this movie. It just is not enough for me.

Anyway, I still feel depressed when thinking back about this movie (which probably shows that I should either get a life, or invest less of me in fictional universes ), but watching it make me feel like a bit like watching my childhood's toys being burnt to the ground.

@Cut: I'm glad I could be of some help

[JALU3]

I hate to say it but, given the success of BSG, and other more gritty space operas in recent history (including firefly/serenity), was it any suprise that this utopian ideal that was the goal has taken a back seat to the flawed humanity with more futuristic tech that was depicted? We know that Paramount had no love for us, or the franchise. I mean look at what they did to the set (destroyed it), the props (sold those that they could), and documentation (only G(g)od knows what).
I to have said my piece, and have given no more here (but more in others (MTF)) until now, mainly because most of it has already been said more elequantly by others. But I have to respond to the doom that is painted that some have presented here.
The sad unfortunate truth about our beloved sub-genra is that the ones with the money have seen a formula that appears to work, and hated the franchise previously, so took that formula and made of the fictional universe that we all grew into Trek in. Therefore, since the formula works they see a way to create the franchise in an image more akin to their money making schemes, rather than the intent of the creator of the franchise. We will get new fans into our community, and in many ways we will disagree with why they came. But they came, so let us give them a chair, punch, and make a piece of cake (if it isn't a lie), and teach them of the heritage of what they will adopt as their own. Maybe then, they will see the errors of RST or ST2.0 (or whatever you want to call it), and come to appretiate the entirity of our passion for this fictional universe which Mr. Roddenberry so graciously left us to revel in.

[Tobian]

I'm slightly confused by this 'lack of utopia' and I heard exactly the same cries and wails during and after DS9 - Vulcan and earth of this film, to me, seemed like utopias. They were rich, healthy, happy, and highly educated, as were all Federation worlds as depicted in DS9 also. Nothing about how Earth was presented said anything other than 'utopia' because to be fair I can't see the Federation or Starfleet existing in the current world, so something HAD changed. So someone mindlessly attacks you and your ideals, err how does this remove the fact you strived for equality and utopia on your planet? Starfleet ALWAYS was the 'strong arm' of the Federation, those who 'fought' for that liberty and freedom.

Startrek is about a civilisation which has a near-utopia in a future where we have solved nearly all internal problems (emphasis nearly). It is however not My little pony, and they aren't sealed inside the federation by magical rainbows and fairies, where no bad can ever happen to them, hence they have Starfleet, which I might add was the original POINT of the Federation in the first place, a co-defence treaty between the signatory worlds, when they were being attacked by the Romulans, and later the Klingons. The Federation was really the vehicle for them to function in this, and greater things grew out of that.

I can't tell you that you did like this when clearly you didn't as it's your feelings, which are entirelly subjective, but the assertion that the Federation and Starfleet never did anything 'bad' and never hurt anyone is bullsh*t. Even Pickard has kicked some a*s mercilessly in his time!

[C5]

Nothing about how Earth was presented said anything other than 'utopia' because to be fair I can't see the Federation or Starfleet existing in the current world, so something HAD changed.

Your comment made me think in that I find myself unable to pinpoint where in that movie I felt that the utopia was absent - it is just that I did not feel it present.
Maybe it was the cars, the Nokia phone, the way Starfleet and the ships interiors looked - but Earth in the movie felt too close to our Earth in my mind, an Earth where we would happen to have a Space Army (that's what this movie Starfleet made me think of) and a few aliens barflies. And yeah, this is very subjective on my part, I agree.

I won't compare a movie to a series, because that would be quite unfair (a series can spend half an episode developing a particular idea, a movie can't). But in other Trek movies (the ones I liked, anyway), I felt that the issues of trying to build or maintain an utopia were, at least, alluded to (various jokes in The Voyage Home, the Picard/Lily scenes in First Contact, even a good deal of the plot of Insurrection - which I did not like much, though).
Here, I felt that the plot could actually have been transposed to one of those harsh, dystopian futures we see more and more in Sci-Fi settings (and which I personally don't like) without having to change a lot of lines in the script.
Again, something completely subjective on my part.

I'll try to give a little example of what I felt : the redshirt death. Now, it was fun, especially because oh so very predictable ("Kirk, Sulu, Whatshisname, you go"). But, in Trek, redshirts usually were usually killed while doing stoically their jobs and who, when faced with superior odds, did not adapt fast enough. Here, the redshirt is a hothead who dies because he 's so eager to fight that he ignores safety rules. It's quite subjective, but it doesn't feel the same to me, and not in a good way.

[Kirk Johnson-Weider]

BTW I do think that Bones called out to a 'Chapel' when he was in sick bay at one point, we didn't see her, but she was in a throw away line.

I can tell you some of the instances where this new Trek had clearly abandoned the utopia ideal. First, I will agree that Trek has never been a perfect utopia you have incompetent flag officers, officious ambassadors, and wackos every now and then, but the Federation and Starfleet was portrayed as 99% good. There is a brighter future when on a whole society has moved beyond a lot of the problems of today, yes, there are exceptions, but the exceptions are obviously problems to be addressed by the crew.

1) Nokia/Budweiser. This basically established that the future economy is pretty much like ours and that the same companies exist. I get product placements makes the studio money, but it makes 250 years in the future the same as today. I get that makes it more accessible to audiences, but it's a little ridiculous. I can guarantee that whatever the future is that neither Nokia or Budweiser will be around in 250 years.
2) Kirk's bad mother. Kirk's behavior at the beginning of the movie was aggravating, because it basically showed that Kirk's mother was fundamentally incompetent as well as all the schools and counselors Kirk was subjected to. It's a nice throwback to the 60s when that was true, but not today and certainly not 250 years in the future. I think that anyone who has kids or dealt with kids who have lost parents realizes that the sloppy portrayal of Kirk was written by people who don't have kids. You could give Kirk arrogance, but remove the chip on his shoulder because his father died. In reality from my experience with kids who lost parents - Kirk would have idolized his dead father and Starfleet far more than if his father had died. It was poorly thought out and went on cliche in the movie, but the subtext showed that Earth society at least in regards to young Kirk had totally failed.
3) Evil cadets. Next to the Romulans, who at least had a reason to be angry, the cadets who beat up a farm boy in Iowa were real villains. They started the fight and they beat Kirk senseless. Sure Kirk got in a few good hits, but he was clearly victimized by Starfleet cadets. Kirk gets in trouble for tweaking a program, but a cadet who nearly killed a kid apparently graduated and got posted to the flagship with no problem.
4) Women in secondary roles. The only roles for women really portrayed in this movie are as mothers and girlfriends. If Abrams and company had guts, which they didn't. It should have been a woman captain on the USS Kelvin. That would have been a better message than the fact that when it comes to being in charge it's all guys. Same with the dean or whatever of the Academy why not make it a woman. The message in this movie is that women can come along, but it's the men who are in charge. This isn't even true today let alone in 250 years.
5) Rampant favoritism in Starfleet. Scotty get's exiled to a desolate outpost by a senior officer who doesn't like him. Uhura gets not posted or posted to ships based on her personal relationship. Kirk gets made first officer and then captain on the whim of an officer who wrote a paper about his dad. Starfleet is a messed up organization when a new lieutenant is given the flagship for saving one out of two planets.
6) Bones' divorce. What does it mean his wife got the whole planet? That can't happen today in divorce proceedings so why would it happen 250 years in the future? I get the reasons for this story wise, but it was a clear jab at the future utopia.
7) Kirk on trial. In what legal system do you bring a cadet on charges of cheating in front of his entire class. Think this through. Even in an utopia you would have a few proceedings like this a semester and you are going to hold it in front of the whole class? This was idiotic, but it shows some sort of inquisitorial state at the Academy. Plus how do you graduate in three years when every week you have to have the entire class gathered to hear trials on why some cadet hasn't paid his parking tickets.
8) No themes for growth. The only growth in this movie was ambition, that and overcoming teenage angst. No one really grew in this movie, they only secured their positions. Kirk never learned to follow orders, which you have to learn before you learn which orders to disobey. There was no real growth and this went against the Trek tradition that every adventure is an opportunity for personal growth.

It's not just this movie jettisoned an utopia, but it jettisoned today's societal standards. It was as if the 1960s came back around in the 2250s. Any of the above scenes could have been handled a little differently to keep the conflict, but also hit the utopian standard. It was a conscious decision to remove any vision of a future society from this movie - it was basically today with spaceships. This is where the movie really failed for those of us who want a vision, a hint, of a better brighter future. In this Star Trek movie there was nothing.

[Dan Stack]

The Kirk on trial bit... I imagine that allegations of cheating would be treated very seriously. And Kirk munching on his apple and able to easily rescue the ship would broadcast loud and clear to his fellow cadets that he had done something. I can easily see something like that being handled publicly.

[C5]

Thanks a lot, Kirk Johnson-Weider, for explaining thoroughly why I felt uncomfortable with the utopia (or lack thereof) as presented in this movie.

By the way, the apple during the Kobayashi was something else I found disturbing. I was happy to see the Kobayashi Maru test being featured, and I was beginning to look forward to how it would be handled. But the way Kirk acted during the test disappointed me a great deal; it's one thing to cheat and another to show everyone you're cheating. Or it should have been made clearer later on that Kirk's main drive was to show that he could hack into the simulation's computer, not just to pass the test.

(I also wondered what exactly McCoy was supposed to do on the bridge during the test, and why he was the one checking on sensors, but that is a level of nitpicking I'm trying to stay clear from so far )

BTW, I voted "Something completely different" on the poll, because there wasn't a "Definitely not Star Trek" option (or harsher).

[Dan Stack]

If I were to guess on the apple front Kirk wanted to get caught. He wanted to make it clear how much he rejected the whole concept of the test. That seemed to be indicated by his interaction with Spock at the hearing. He seemed to hold a real contempt for the very concept of a no-win scenario. If I were to guess, first time he took the test he thought he may have done something wrong but could pass it if he tried it again. Second time is probably when he became convinced it was absolutely positively no way to win fairly.

[Kirk Johnson-Weider]

The Kirk on trial bit... I imagine that allegations of cheating would be treated very seriously. And Kirk munching on his apple and able to easily rescue the ship would broadcast loud and clear to his fellow cadets that he had done something. I can easily see something like that being handled publicly.

No, really not. It was done for purely theatrical purposes to dovetail Kirk's trial with his promotion in the exact same room and situation. It was sloppy theatrics and it also didn't build the tension.

Legally, you would never have a hearing like this with the entire class having to sit through such a hearing. It would be an infringement on everyone's rights. Kirk was possibly going to be expelled. You don't need to do that before his entire class, in fact, you never would. If Kirk was not expelled it would just encourage what he did and raise his status in the class, thus if they were making a point they had already decided to expel Kirk and thus it was a sham trial. This was a classic example of the poor writing in the movie.

Here is how the scene should have went.

Kirk arrives in a conference room. Those who were in the simulation are there. Spock is also sitting a little ways off from this group. Uhura gives him an annoyed, but also a worried look. He is a fellow cadet after all. Kirk sits next to Bones and asks, "so what do you think this is all about?"

Bones gives Kirk a disapproving look, "oh, I think we both know what this is all about - I hope you have a plan."

Kirk looks worried and gives a weak smile.

The judge calls up Kirk and lays out the charge.

Kirk demands to know who made the charge.

Spock steps up.

Scene goes about the same.

You end it with the presiding officer saying they will reconvene tomorrow and that Kirk is on academic suspension.

Kirk is walking back to his quarters. Pretty girl comes up and wants to hook up with him, but Kirk has a moment of seriousness and turns her down and looks quite thoughtful. He is starting to grow up.

You then have Kirk sitting in the conference room with Bones before the proceedings begin. Both look worried. You have the announcement over the intercom that all cadets are to report for duty as there is an emergency situation at Vulcan.

Then you continue as they did.

However, you have signs of character growth by Kirk. It sets things up better as Kirk is trying to redeem himself a little, he's still cocky, but he is starting to grow up and take responsibility for his actions.

It's a better scene, because with it not being before the entire class it has more impact. There is a possibility Kirk could be expelled. The tension is allowed to build a little better and you have a small group whose reactions you have to watch. You also have a little character growth as a result.