The Official STAR TREK Grading & Discussion Thread [SPOILERS]

Discussion in 'Star Trek Movies: Kelvin Universe' started by Agent Richard07, Apr 30, 2009.

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Grade the movie...

  1. Excellent

    711 vote(s)
    62.9%
  2. Above Average

    213 vote(s)
    18.8%
  3. Average

    84 vote(s)
    7.4%
  4. Below Average

    46 vote(s)
    4.1%
  5. Poor

    77 vote(s)
    6.8%
  1. DarthPipes

    DarthPipes Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Righter. Smarter, better educated (especially with all the new tech), and the best of the best to begin with. Pike's dossier on the official site said he made captain in about four years.

    1000th post! I'm going to see it again tonight.

    1001...blast!
     
  2. Trekker4747

    Trekker4747 Boldly going... Premium Member

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    That's why your car has two engines in it, right?

    ;)
     
  3. Amaris

    Amaris Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    You'd have a point if your car were capable of holding 400 people, and could sidestep the laws of physics. :D

    J.
     
  4. Aragorn

    Aragorn Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    If anyone cares, Deep Discount is selling the music score right now for only $9.97. Free shipping is an option.
     
  5. Roshi

    Roshi Admiral Admiral

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    ^^Neeeeeed!
    The score is nowhere to be found over here :(
     
  6. Trekker4747

    Trekker4747 Boldly going... Premium Member

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    The thing is, the warp core is supposed to be a huge, nearly flawless and complicated piece of equipment. It should be central to the engineering section not have several of them scattered throughout the engineering brewery room.

    Look at the engine room in TMP. You get a sense of power and magic from that ship's warp core. Up the production values to make better use of space/materials and you'd have one heck of a room. No brewery reuired.

    If a ship has one warpcore and it's disabled, well, that's what distress calls and rescue ships are for.
     
  7. Brent

    Brent Admiral Admiral

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    yeah well, i'm not exactly driving my car to Ceti Alpha V either
     
  8. El Chupacabra

    El Chupacabra Commodore Commodore

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    You can't polish a turd.
     
  9. bryce

    bryce Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    After finally actually seeing the film for myself - I feel about the same about it as I felt before I saw it:

    I wish some changes (in cannon, design, the time-line, style, *everything*) hadn't gone *quite* so far/been so drastic - while I think other changes were needed improvements.

    I hope future Trek movies keep the sense of BIG EXCITMENT AND ADVENTURE this film has - but will, in addition, have a bit more...gravitas and intelligent writing and "depth"...as well - which I felt this was lacking.

    But if the same writers of "Star Trek" write part 2 I will be happy - but I'd like them to add an additional...voice...who can add that depth and intellectuialism...

    The *only* other thing I felt lacking was the sense the TMP creators had to make the details of the ships and tech (in that film) look scientificly & engineeringly(???) realistic...I would like to see that care and thoughtfulness for realism and detail and what things actually *do* - not just "does it look cool!?" - return.

    Great "popcorn flick" - but needs just a *wee* *bit* more "re-watchability"...

    But all-in-all - I think it's a good restart of Trek for my *children's* generation - that their father (that being me) can also enjoy watching with them.
     
  10. ancient

    ancient Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Well, I just saw it. It was a very good action film, I liked it. It had some pretty questionable science. Like the ice planet that was apparently orbiting Vulcan...? Shouldn't it have been a dessert planet too? There were lots of things like that that were clearly part of the reboot not explained by the time changes. So I think this movie is certainly in a different universe and started in a different universe before Nero showed up. Only Nero and old Spock are part of the old cannon. But that's fine by me.

    My non trekkie brother really liked it. The audience reaction was very good. Lots of laughs, Nimoy got some applause when he showed up, and there was some applause for one of the Enterprise hero shots and at the end. I did hear someone say the skydiving part looked fun. So it is a crowd pleaser.

    In conclusion, it was well worth the 14 dollars I spent on the two tickets in and I give it an Above Average rating 4/5. The plot, if there was one, was pretty confusing and filled to the brim with unlikely coincidences, but there were plenty of great scenes.
     
  11. Bob The Skutter

    Bob The Skutter Complete Arse Cleft In Memoriam

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    I took my non-trekkie niece this afternoon, she only talked once during the entire film, which was to point out she knew Kirk was going to miss the platform jump since he likes hanging off the edge of things.
    So either she was mesmerised by it, or so bored her brain melted, bur she said she liked it a lot.
     
  12. Goji

    Goji Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
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    I haven't read all 51 pages of this thread, but I saw the movie last night and I have some thoughts to post.

    For the most part I thought it was excellent, and I voted that way in the poll. It isn't my favorite of the Star Trek movies, but it's definitely near the top.

    If I have a serious complaint about the film, it's that the action scenes were near impossible to watch for me. During many of them, particularly the attack on the Kelvin and Sulu and Kirk's stand aboard the space-drill, I just gave up trying to follow what was actually happening. I imagine it will play a little better on video, and at least it wasn't at Michael Bay levels of incomprehensibility.

    The cast was mostly great. Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto were marvelous, and I was sad that Simon Pegg got as little screentime as he did. I liked John Cho and Karl Urban too. The new Uhura didn't leave much of an impression on me (neither did her odd romance with Spock), and Chekov struck me as the weakest of the new bunch.

    Eric Bana as Nero, however, did little for me. The Trek movie series has rarely had truly memorable villains, and it hasn't found one here either. I particularly scoff at the notion of this guy and his entire crew apparently spending 25 years doing absolutely nothing but sitting around and waiting for Spock to show up. Maybe it's the fact that I, myself, am only 22 years old, but I find that a little hard to swallow. I mean, revenge is sweet and all, but after the first solid decade of puttzing around the bridge of his mining ship, I'd expect there to be some serious reconsidering going on.

    I was also a little unclear on how or why the rest of Starfleet is apparently unwilling or unable to take on Nero. There was, I believe, a single line explaining where the real fleet was, but I recall it not making a lot of sense to me at the time, and I can't remember it now. Oh well. Not a big deal, it's always been the case that the Enterprise is the only ship around whenever something big goes down, it's only slightly sillier in this case since the entire crew was so fresh out of the academy.

    I didn't have a problem with the ridiculous use of the transporters, mostly because it's always been a silly concept. I did wonder when Chekov suddenly became an expert on beaming though, and why having Sulu and Kirk crash into the transporter pad would be any less damaging to them than crashing into the ground would be, but hey, suspension of disbelief and all that.

    I liked that there was such a focus on humor. I could usually count on decent comedic relief with the TOS crew, and I was glad to see it back (the humor of the TNG cast and crew will NOT be missed by me). Some of the jokes fell flat. They went overboard with Kirk's side-effects to McCoy's injections. One or two were funny, but by the time his hands tripled in size and his tongue went numb, I was ready to move on. Simon Pegg as Scotty was naturally very funny, but I didn't get the running joke of him yelling at some strange little alien. What the hell was that about? My favorite joke was one of the simplest. Chris Pine's delivery of the simple line "Stop that!" after McCoy injects him one too many times had me laughing hard.

    I could go on for quite a while about this movie. It was engaging and always entertaining. It could have benefitted from a better villain more than anything else, and I won't hold Nero against this movie. It's the first Star Trek anything I've been excited about since the end of DS9 close to 10 years ago. Since then I've been of the opinion that Star Trek should just be retired, so crappy new material doesn't continue to tarnish the old. But if we can get more like this movie, I'll gladly reverse that stance. I hope we see several more in the coming years.

    *** 1/2 out of ****
     
  13. Amaris

    Amaris Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    ^ I don't think Chekov's an expert on beaming, I think he's just very, very good with numbers and calculations such as mass, gravity, inertia, etc. He is a navigator after all.

    J.
     
  14. JoeD80

    JoeD80 Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Only the ships in space dock were close enough. I took this to be an intentional homage to the other movies where the Enterprise is the only ship in the quadrant.
     
  15. DarthPipes

    DarthPipes Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 3, 2006
    Yeah, this was one of my few problems with the films. Abrams decided to take a page out of Batman Begins and Quantum of Suckatude by editing the actions scenes so quickly you couldn't pay attention to them. I want to actually see the fight. All the quick cuts were ridiculous. I'd like to tell him and other filmmakers that not being able to follow the action scenes is NOT good filmmaking.
     
  16. ST-One

    ST-One Vice Admiral

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    :techman:
     
  17. bleumonique

    bleumonique Lieutenant Junior Grade Red Shirt

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    CONTAINS MORE SPOILERS -

    Miri,

    I agree with you in regards to Pine and Quino. (I think Quinto is a rather hot Spock too!). I can see that Quinto worked very had at making it look natural, so much so that it didn't look like work. (the Walk!) :vulcan:

    Although I love him, I too think Urban was trying a bit too hard as Bones (his American is always a bit stretched), but I think Pegg was very funny, and not completely imitative (good brit-scot). I still think he would have drowned, but...

    Another thing about Urban, he so excels as a bad-guy, he might have been a good Nero . I liked Bana, but I don't think he was given quite enough to do. And why an American accent?

    But I thought Yelchin's natural "family" accent was perfect, especially when he tries to "clean up" his english so that the Computer can understand him better. (classic Chekov W's for V's, so charming) I thought he might have been too young, but he IS supposed to be the youngest on the ship, so it works. Quite a character leap for him, acting-wise, and I think he pulled it off (Lets see how he does in Terminator Salvation - :))

    You could see that Cho was having so much fun. Love the look on his face in the "retry" for Warp Speed. (How about that extension blade!?!)

    Saldana was a nice Uhura, but the mystery is missing - that quiet-cool that was/is Nichelle is hard to replicate.

    Re: "Spock leaving the Enterprise to rescue the council and his parents...no way would Spock have left his duty on the ship."
    I thought this VERY thing!

    Re: "Pike in the wheelchair at the end...no medical breakthrough for this??"
    Well, it was the same in the pilot/The Menagerie - and there Pike was completely disabled and only able to communicate positive/negative through his chair/machine.

    An odd thought: Aren't Orion girls supposed to be much more on the animal side? I don't think Kirk would have made it out of there without giving her a proper...shag.

    On the movie as a whole, I just had fun with it. And I'm still thinking about it today. Good sign that it has the ability to stay with you. :techman:

    ~ Monique :borg:
     
  18. bleumonique

    bleumonique Lieutenant Junior Grade Red Shirt

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    This kind of editing does seem to be annoyingly common. And most of the time, its not that they don't have the coverage or footage shot, its that they simply think it makes things go faster.
     
  19. NL-Inkslinger

    NL-Inkslinger Ensign Newbie

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    I just got back from it. To call it "excellent" would be a mild understatement. I'm still in awe.
     
  20. Lapis Exilis

    Lapis Exilis Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Eh, I had no expectations of the film and still found it rather disappointing, though, as I said, I can see where this is enough of a start to possibly generate something interesting down the line - but I'm not holding my breath.

    The big problem ultimately for me is Kirk. They get a perfectly fine, energetic, handsome young actor to play him and then forget to give him any sort of story. Spock's story was fair, serviceable if not inspired, but what was Kirk's arc? What did he learn? Why should we believe he's an extraordinary leader? The story assumes these things but never shows them to the audience. In fact, Kirk was largely written for laughs, and yet the film was still constructed as his rise to leadership. This disjunction leaves a huge hole in the tale. When Kirk receives his command at the end - who cares? We didn't see him earn it. We didn't see what was distinctive about this character. We didn't see his ability to take risks, not just gamble recklessly, but take huge risks based on the possiblity of astonishing payoffs. We didn't see his idealism - his deep and unshakeable belief that, while beings are flawed, they can achieve extraordinary things when it is demanded of them; nor did we see his values - his belief in exploration, honor, mercy and compassion - that was turned into a joke. It was funny, but it was a low point for the much vaunted core of this movie - the Kirk/ Spock partnership, which is above all based on these shared values that make it possible to overcome their deep differences.

    If they don't get Kirk right in future projects - he is not Han Solo, and he is not simply a swashbuckler - then Trek will continue as it has for the last 15 years. Cheesy space opera with silly characters who are constantly said to be heroic, but who never act like heroes. This movie walked the line of making the characters cartoonish (though at least it acheived some real humor, something that has not ever been Trek's strong suit), I hope they can keep some humor but find some gravitas somewhere.