The Official STAR TREK Grading & Discussion Thread [SPOILERS]

[CorporalClegg]

Though money says Vulcan will be resurrected with in this "franchise's" run.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if it's the major driving-force of the next film.

 

[Ridcully]

Man that was worth the wait...could almost not wait today...been along time since any movie had me feel this way!!
Great great great crew...and so many cool moments....
Good introduction, I bet a few good stories are in store for us!
Have not been so excited since Lord of the Rings!

 

[Brent]

EXCELLENT

Saw it this morning, seeing it again tonight. All I can say is, Finally.

 

[Gertch]

Saw it during the lunch time showing today with some co-workers. About a dozen people in the theater.

I voted Excellent.

Yes, there are some things the big villain from the future could have done in his grief to actually fix the future. And yes it was too easy to have the villain be from the future in a mining ship that in the past almost outmatches anything else.

I liked how they made use of character elements we're used to even though they didn't have to. They did a good job of showing this is an alternate timeline so they don't have to worry about canon going forward.

I'm looking forward to more!!!

 

[CorporalClegg]

One other thing: was anyone else put off by all the really contrived Kill/remove guy to insert character bits? It was even worse than "Caretaker" in this regard.

I mean come on, yup the most incompetent communications officer in Starfleet gets assigned to the Flagship only to be quickly removed for a cadet.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Though money says Vulcan will be resurrected with in this "franchise's" run.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if it's the major driving-force of the next film.

I hope not. That's not to say I wouldn't see it, or pre-judge it, but Star Trek had the balls to do something big and change up the whole thing for once, and I wouldn't like to see a u-turn.

 

[Brent]

One thing I liked, Uhura saying an "alternate reality", it drives a stake in the ground that says yes, this is a new universe for sure. It works for me, our star trek still exists in an another reality, and now the audience is watching this new reality, we just aren't able to see the old one anymore, works for me.

 

[Mysterion]

Well, that was better than I had expected it to be.

A lot of fun. Note to Berman and Braga: THIS is what a "valentine to the fans" looks like, okay? On the one hand it is a reboot opening the world of ST up to all sorts of possibilities for years to come. On the other hand, I think it is also a nice homage to the TOS we all know and love. Somehwere in a basement in New Jersey, James Dixon is finally having the massive brain cramp that ends his life, I suspect.

Bruce Greenwood rocks as Captain Pike. I very much hope we've not seen the last of him in any future movies. Also, did you notice his admiral's uniform in the promotion scene? Very similar to the uniform worn by Shatner as Admiral Kirk in the early part of ST:TMP.

Urban's McCoy is eerily similar to Deforrest Kelly without it being a hokey imitation. Simon Pegg's Scotty is a lot of fun. Wonder who the little guy following him around is, why he's there, and where he came from.

Quinto is a fantastic Spock in this movie, and so is Nimoy. I like Chris Pine's Kirk a lot more than i thought I would from what I had seen in the trailers.

The Enterprise looks pretty good here in motion. the stills released earlier this year didn't do it justice. My only quible is the engine room sets which just don't fit the look of the rest of the sets we see, and also doesn't really look like it should fit inside the ship we see from the outside.

It will be very interesting to see where future iterations of Trek go from here.

I will probably go see this again before the weekend is over.

 

[flcat]

I can understand why some fans of the old show might be upset by the changes. It's like somebody rewriting Harper Lee's "To Kill A Mockingbird" to make it more "accessible" to modern readers. I had similar beefs with Battlestar Galactica. If you're going to make it something different from the original...why call it Battlestar Galactica if not for some kind of commercial tie-in?

That said, I enjoyed the movie for what it was, a Star-Wars-esque summer action-romp. I thought everyone did a decent to good job with their characters, in particular Karl Urban as McCoy. I wasn't as overwhelmed by Pine as some here seem to be. To me, he seemed to be playing Brad Pitt playing Captain Kirk...but that's just my take. I think the movie will do well enough that we'll see at least a sequel or two.

 

[Gertch]

Quinto is a fantastic Spock in this movie, and so is Nimoy.

Thanks for reminding me - I was very afraid I would only see Sylar from Quinto's performance. Not because of him really but from myself. I'm happy to report that he did such a wonderful job I totally bought him as Spock.

I agree about Nimoy. It was great to see him and as always his performance was well done.

I can't wait til the next film, The Search For Vulcan.

 

[Michael]

If I'm not mistaken, the guy sitting next to Admirals Komack (whose name is very likely a reference to an admiral with the same name from TOS) and Barnett in Kirk's hearing after he cheated on the Kobayashi Maru test was named Chandra. That could be a reference to Captain Chandra from TOS' Court Martial.

 

[shipfisher]

The first viewing will have some of a "getting adjusted" factor for a lot of us old guard fans. Go back, relax and take it in again.

I enjoyed it the first time, but even more the second. Any aesthetic issues I had faded, even if I felt a tad more "at home" in the opening Kelvin sequence.

 

[Eddie Roth]

One other thing: was anyone else put off by all the really contrived Kill/remove guy to insert character bits? It was even worse than "Caretaker" in this regard.

I mean come on, yup the most incompetent communications officer in Starfleet gets assigned to the Flagship only to be quickly removed for a cadet.

With McCoy becoming chief medical officer, I thought so. With Uhura, no. There was a clear narrative motivation for her taking over. Also, Pike didn't promote her on the spot, he said "relieve Lieutenat so-and-so" because in this situation she was of more value on the bridge. And she stayed on duty during the crisis because she was needed. When Kirk takes command, he promotes her, that's the way I saw it.

 

[Trippy]

I have avoided this forum like the plague until I could see the film. I just got back. I have one thing to say right now:

Fucking fantastic!

 

[Alex1939]

The Good, the Bad, the Ugly.

First impressions (2 hours post viewing movie):

The Good-

The special effects. Easily the best space scenes in Star Trek's history. The battle's looked great. The planet attacks look great. Excellent job with a few minor exceptions. I actually loved after the movie was over, the modern take on the original music, with excellent planet/space/sci-fi scenes. Really cool.

Chris Pine, I really enjoyed watching him as Kirk. I was most skeptical about this performance regarding the movie, but overall I was pleased.




The Bad-

The Snow Alien scenes were lame. They did not look convincing and they looked dated.

The time-travel plot was good, in the sense it allowed Nimoy to pass the torch to JJ. But if you think about it, and the "it's an alternate reality" scenes, bleh. It's better to enjoy this movie on pace, and not think deeply about one of the main plotlines, and the fact it erases everything in Star Trek post-Enterprise, and my dvd's have now vanished from my home.

Nero. He was ok. There should've been more screen time devoted to him. His ear/scar should've been explained in the movie. His ending wasn't epic enough, in my eyes.

Scotty's pet friend, I was very worried it was going to turn into a horrible Jar-Jar situation. At least it didn't get ugly like that. But it was pretty dumb, imo. I was disappointed in his character which surprised me.




The Ugly-

McCoy, I liked Urban ok. But when I think of ToS, I think Kirk, Spock, AND McCoy. In this re-imagining it's Kirk and Spock. McCoy is more on the level of the rest of the main crew. The scene with Nimoy and Quinto, near the end of the movie, didn't really work for me. I kept thinking, if McCoy were also in the scene, Old-Spock and McCoy could have a cool exchange. Did they even have a scene together?

Product placement, the Nokia add was horendous. That shit doesn't belong in Trek.




Overall-

I enjoyed the 2 hours I was watching the movie. Do I think it will stand up as well as some of the classics? No. It might rank 4th or 5th best star trek movie for my personal tastes.

I liked new Kirk, Spock, Sulu, Chekhov, and Uhura. Checkhov I thought was great, but I had very low expectations. As stated before, McCoy and Scotty I was somewhat disappointed with.

But I want to see it again, and already have plans to see it again with a relative... so on that basis, it's a success. I think this movie will help keep Star Trek around, and that's a plus.

 

[DarthPipes]

^Old Spock was staying in the new time line, he told young Spock that he can be in two places at once, because he is going to the new Vulcan colony.

Founding Father of New Vulcan I guess.

 

[Hermiod]

^Sums it up nicely. An Excellent from me.

 

[pookha]

seeing a lot of old familar faces around here..

... now I'm left with a Star Trek universe in which my beloved spin-off either won't happen or will be so different that I may wish it hadn't.

This perspective always mystifies me. I've heard it a lot recently since I'm a Spider-Man fan too and there was just a big continuity change in that universe too.

Star Trek episodes are just stories -- they were always fictional, they never really happened at all. Now, Nero's time travel erased some of the events of TNG in the FICTIONAL universe, but it's not as if the reruns and DVDs are going to disappear into thin air. You can still watch them an enjoy them just like you did before.

FICTION?! WHAT?! Of course we all know this. I don't particularly like this aspect of the fictional storyline which erases another part of the fictional storyline that I enjoyed. How is that mystifying?

I'm not trying to belittle your feelings. I can see you feel bad about this. I just don't understand why it seem so hard to like the new Star Trek universe and keep loving the old one too. Why does it have to be an either-or choice?

Why do I have to like both? Or enjoy both? I never said it had to be either/or. All I've said, and I'll say it again, is that the alternate universe saddens me because in it, my favorite spin-off of Trek will be seriously altered or gone. And AGAIN--yes, I know it's still the same in the original ST universe. But it doesn't change that feeling of disappointment.

And for the record, I did enjoy the movie. And (again, again) I see why they did it this way, agree with what they did in the sense of reviving the franchise as a whole, and look forward to the next installment. But I'm still sad about the above points.

i guess this is one of the great agree to disagree.
to me nothing is wiped out.
both realities will co exist.
they are not dropping all the books for instance based on classic trek for instance.

after thinking some stuff over one quibble is i might would have liked for the monster kirk stuff to either be shorter or go away and have a little more in there like..
more abot kirks recent back ground..
more of the background stuff from countdown.

 

[CorporalClegg]

Though money says Vulcan will be resurrected with in this "franchise's" run.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if it's the major driving-force of the next film.

I hope not. That's not to say I wouldn't see it, or pre-judge it, but Star Trek had the balls to do something big and change up the whole thing for once, and I wouldn't like to see a u-turn.

I should clarify. What I really meant is Vulcan's resurrection will be the focus--whether or not they succeed will ultimately be up to the suits.

In fact that'd actually be my wet dream: for this group to do some good old fashioned high concept Star Trek revolved around them trying to restore Vulcan and failing.

And I'd debate anyone who says high concept can't be successful in this day and age. Because, at least compared to today's standards, TDK was fairly high concept--certainly as much as any Trek episode.

I'm not asking for anything along TMP's lines. As much as I'd like it, I know it's just not a possibility, but I do think Orci and Kurtzman have a good intelligent script in them, one that can still maintain the charm and fun of this movie.

 

[The Boy Who Cried Worf]

The first viewing will have some of a "getting adjusted" factor for a lot of us old guard fans. Go back, relax and take it in again.

I enjoyed it the first time, but even more the second. Any aesthetic issues I had faded, even if I felt a tad more "at home" in the opening Kelvin sequence.

Well I'm not saying I won't watch it 8 or 9 more times in my life, I'm just saying I didn't like it so much.