The Official STAR TREK Grading & Discussion Thread [SPOILERS]

[Captain Robert April]

What I'd like to see is some veteran Trek writers taking advantage of all this hype and putting together a pitch for a new series that stays within the established continuity, maybe even a Captain April series (hey, I'm biased; sue me). After all, there's a five year period that's begging to be told, and if it's still going strong, and Ray Liotta is up for it, sign him up as Pike and keep rolling for a while (I don't know if it'd be workable to do a retelling of "The Cage" or just skip around it, from the fight on Rigel VII to their finally getting to the Vega colony, and maybe just deal with the fallout from Talos and Starfleet's enacting of General Order VII).

 

[Nowhere Man]

What I'd like to see is some veteran Trek writers taking advantage of all this hype and putting together a pitch for a new series that stays within the established continuity, maybe even a Captain April series (hey, I'm biased; sue me). After all, there's a five year period that's begging to be told, and if it's still going strong, and Ray Liotta is up for it, sign him up as Pike and keep rolling for a while (I don't know if it'd be workable to do a retelling of "The Cage" or just skip around it, from the fight on Rigel VII to their finally getting to the Vega colony, and maybe just deal with the fallout from Talos and Starfleet's enacting of General Order VII).

I think that would be cool, but ray Liotta looks like shit now

 

[Captain Robert April]

Nothing a few weeks in Maui can't cure.

 

[Captain Ice]

If you liked The Voyage Home, you're going to love this.....

 

[Procutus]

Heading off to see it tonight at 7:30. I am really psyched for this.

 

[Bounty]

Saw it last night. It's everything I hoped it would be and more.

The prologue is possibly the first time I have ever physically been at the edge of my seat. The final scenes before the opening titles are *beautiful* - chaotically, tragically, gut-wrenchingly beautiful. If this sequence does not convince you that this movie is right than nothing will.

The movie proper than kicks off, and if I can level any criticism against it it's that Abrams gets the character pieces so spot-on that it's almost a disappointment when he cuts back to the action. Not that there's anything wrong with the action scenes themselves; there isn't a single action sequence in this movie that I would have left out. It's just that the universe is shown to be so rich and vibrant and alive you almost feel cheated when the villain tries to interrupt it.

I loved the imagery used in this film. There are scenes here I'd easily put on par with the TMP fly-by or the Enterprise rising out of the Mutara nebula in terms of sheer visceral impact, and I can't wait for the DVD to get some nice wallpapers for my desktop. Space has never looked this good.

What really bowled me over was what happened after the movie - people don't applaud, usually. I have never heared people applaud in a Belgian cinema in over fifteen years. People didn't applaud for the early screening of The Phantom Menace.

But when the credits started to roll, one person started clapping and the rest just followed. This movie really is something special. I don't care how much you dislike the concept or how much you dread a reboot, this movie is so Star Trek it hurts, and it's the best thing to happen to the franchise since... at least since TWoK, possibly since the day the first episode aired.

Kirk also goes to the Academy about eight years earlier in the original timeline and is an experience, seasoned officer by the time he's assigned command of the Enterprise, whereas in this case, we're talking the "Top Gun" school of "rising through the ranks on the merits of being smokin' hot!"

...no. Just no. If you had seen the film, you would have known nothing could be farther from the truth.

The problem involved time travel. Logic dictates that time travel be used to resolve it.

While it is not explicitly addressed, the movie makes it *abundantly* clear why Spock didn't take this route, and his actions in the movie follow a logical chain of events.

 

[Stag]

I have to wait until tomorrow night to see it, but can anyone comment on the music? I know about the bit in the end credits, but how was the rest of the score? The opening theme? Any fanfare when they show the Enterprise?

 

[Roshi]

One thing I really loved about the movie was the opening titles: you see huge bold letters (and the arrowhead), as if Star Trek was carved into stone. Meaning Star Trek is back, baby!
And the quotes! Oh so many quotes! "I have been and always shall be... your friend!"; the Sherlock Holmes quote too...
God, I have to return to the cinema tonight!

 

[Bounty]

I have to wait until tomorrow night to see it, but can anyone comment on the music? I know about the bit in the end credits, but how was the rest of the score? The opening theme? Any fanfare when they show the Enterprise?

The score was good. There's a new main theme that runs through the movie and is very catchy (I caught myself whistling it!). There is no opening theme as such; the movie has a "teaser segment" with its own music and then a title card with a music cue.

The reveal of the Enterprise is incorporated into the score of the scene that immediately precedes it - it's an organic outgrowth, you'll understand it when you see it. It is perhaps not as... obvious as cue as in TMP, but the music fits the scene perfectly.

 

[StarMan]

10 hrs 40 minutes till I'm in the theater quivering with excitement.

Honestly, it feels like Xmas Eve when I was 8.

 

[Nardpuncher]

Just got back and the movie was wonderful. Like Batman and James Bond before it...Trek has been revived and done right. I should say I've been a Trek fan for 24 years)

Captain Robert April, I hope you will see the movie, as it is entertaining in itself, not even taking into account that it's Star Trek...and I was nowhere near a gusher before it came out (I found the people that defended the movie's every little thing,like the bridge being too white,kind of childish) and that you'll come back here and tell us honestly what you felt.

 

[Nardpuncher]

10 hrs 40 minutes till I'm in the theater quivering with excitement.

Honestly, it feels like Xmas Eve when I was 8.

I must tell you to cherish these last few hours, as I just returned from the movie and envy those who haven't seen it yet. This only happened to me with Saving Private Ryan and Back to the Future. Odd I know, but that's just how I feel!

 

[urbandk]

I'd like to hear the comments of the people who voted "average" or "poor." I wonder what their response was too the film. Was it too faithful to the source material? Not faithful enough? etc...

 

[Messianni]

Wow, 21 people already around here have seen it. I suppose, it's premiering in a bunch of territories today, isn't it?

 

[Bounty]

Wow, 21 people already around here have seen it. I suppose, it's premiering in a bunch of territories today, isn't it?

Some countries have their premieres on Wednesdays, and it looks like there have been a bunch of open preview screenings.

 

[thumbtack]

I had chills at the end of the movie, when Old Spock did his monologue!

I thought it was great that Old Spock is going to stay in the new universe and help the Vulcan survivors. It makes him seem even more heroic and self-sacrificing.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Not that he has a way back, does he?

 

[The Super Brando]

I gave the movie an excellent rating, because it's freaking excellent. Here's my review I posted in another thread:

<SPOILERS>
They did a great job at making the Enterprise feel big. On the inside the sets are big, and engineering was huge. The Enterprise also didn't maneuver like an xwing or fighter ship. It moved like a huge cruiser.

The outerspace scenes were also really great. I thought Star Wars Ep 3's opening scene over Coruscant was the pinnacle of space scenes in movies, but it's now been supplanted. There wasn't any battle between fleets like that, but as far as spaceships in outerspace, Star Trek now owns that territory. I mean, it was beautiful to see.

It also was futuristic. It basically looked nothing like TOS. But they did incorporate all of the old sound effects for the ship, and it actually didn't sound out of place.

The bridge of the Kelvin and Enterprise really seemed like the command center of a large advanced vessel, with various stations communicating and being busy with ship operations. It felt as if you actually needed a full crew to run the ship.

I think they also did a great job at making the Romulans, and space in general, feel creepy and mysterious. When they came across a strange gravity anomaly it felt like a weird deep space mysterious thing. When the Kelvin was facing this huge alien octopus ship it just nailed that feeling of creepy alienness.

Simon Pegg sounded exactly like Scotty, it was eery.

The lens flare actually was pretty ridiculous. I read how JJ wanted to give a feeling like the future was literally bright and shiny and clean and optomistic, and that's cool, but it was just a little too much. Having said that, it was (I think) the only flaw of the movie, and it was minor. The pure awesomeness of that movie simply could not be diminished by something like that at all.

Btw, this most definitely was not an empty-headed summer popcorn flick. It wasn't just Michael Bay 'splosions. The destruction of Vulcan was handled very well. It had a huge emotional impact. The main characters were well developed, and the movie really is about them. Kirk and Spock are the center of this movie, and they're character arcs are done very well.

Most importantly, at it's core this was a Star Trek movie. It wasn't something else pretending to be Star Trek (like Smallville is a teeny angst show pretending to be a superhero show, or BSG was a gritty drama pretending to be scifi). The characters really were the characters we all know and love, the ships were exploration ships, Starfleet officers were intelligent respectable somebodies, and the future was advanced and optimistic.

Honestly, for anyone who doesn't like this movie, I just simply can't understand the way your brain works. I think there's two kinds of people who aren't going to like this movie: those who are close-minded and won't accept any scifi at all, and those who are close-minded and anal about their Trek.

This was just a great movie. Star Trek is back. I hope they make 10 sequels, and spin-off TV shows, and I hope this new Trek lasts 50 more years.

 

[Garak]

What I'd like to see is some veteran Trek writers taking advantage of all this hype and putting together a pitch for a new series that stays within the established continuity, maybe even a Captain April series (hey, I'm biased; sue me). After all, there's a five year period that's begging to be told, and if it's still going strong, and Ray Liotta is up for it, sign him up as Pike and keep rolling for a while (I don't know if it'd be workable to do a retelling of "The Cage" or just skip around it, from the fight on Rigel VII to their finally getting to the Vega colony, and maybe just deal with the fallout from Talos and Starfleet's enacting of General Order VII).

That's just not going to happen. It's full speed ahead with this new and signifigantly improved timeline. Seems you're the only one "begging" for that particular story to be told.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

That's just not going to happen. It's full speed ahead with this new and signifigantly improved timeline.

Yep.

There's already fan fic, and fan films, and that's where this kind of stuff will and should stay.