... 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.
You're talking OMD/BND? That got me to drop Spider-Man like a hot rock.
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.
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?
Well, here's the thing. Sure, in story terms, the original Trek universe (with all its old stories) "still exists." But the prospect of ever seeing any
new stories set in that reality, at least on screen, has now been reduced to essentially nil. Sure, there can still be novels and comics, at least in theory... but the film production dollars will go to this "alternate reality." And the more popular it becomes, the less likely we'll see even the spin-off material set in the original reality. So to a very real extent, this version of Trek succeeds only at the expense of the original.
Well again as I said yesterday, the time travel element isn't the main reason I didn't enjoy it. The main reason is I myself just found it boring. Scenes that were meant to be action packed and exciting simply didn't work for me. I wasn't invested in the characters and the plot became far too predictable and by the numbers.
Yeah, that sums it up pretty well. Anyone familiar with action-film formula could see how this movie was going through the paces.
J.J. Abrams Raped Star Trek. Seriously, he took the series and had his way with it.
I think it was consensual.
Sad, but true. Ultimately, Star Trek is what the franchise's owners say it is, and they cheerfully consented to Abrams remaking it in his image. That's showbiz for you, emphasis on the "biz." All that really says, though, is that the owners value Trek for very different reasons than the fans do.
Considering how deeply we have gotten into some very long, divisive, and often convoluted arguments about alternate timelines, parallel universes, canon, and continuity can't that in itself be proof that Orci, Kurtzman, and Abrams failed to create a really coherent motion picture that succeeded in presenting its story and its internal logic well? Once again I think this points out that the use of time travel as a plot device in Sci-Fi has really come to a dead end.
Not at all—time travel can still make for some great, fascinating, thought-provoking SF. It may well be at a dead end in terms of
Trek, though.
Last night someone asked what was the message of this film. I think it was on another thread. I could not come up with one right away. But after sleeping on it, I think they were trying to say major elements of the universe will unfold in a specific way. Meaning there is such a thing as a destiny...
The other message I think they tried to convey was, circumstances do not dictate your fate. He was a troubled kid and had no direction. Pike challenged him and he chose to better himself.
Well, that seems a little inconsistent. The first theme is simply awful, downright dispiriting. The second one is a lot closer to Trek's humanistic core, though. Philosophically, they all but cancel each other out.
I feel silly. J.J Abrams pointedly said, "Purists, stay home." It was sound advice and I should have listened. But I told myself, "Tai, you're not a purist. Sure, canon and Star Trek lore is important, but if it means revitalizing the franchise, ensuring that Star Trek endures and bringing in a whole new fanbase... then it's alright to let some things slide."
I think this movie will make enough money to put a sequel into production. I think general audiences will embrace it as a fun summer sci-fi flick. I just don't think I can get on board. Not with this creative team.
The cast was wonderful. ...
The movie was awful because of the story.
Hear, hear. I couldn't have put it better myself.
Many of the plot flaws, shortcuts, and implausibilities you describe were the very same ones that prevented me from enjoying the story. (And I didn't get away with just $10.25 per ticket... I paid $17 to see the damn thing in IMAX.
)
What I don't get is, why was Spock late to stop the supernova? And what difference would it have made if the "red matter" stopped the shockwave or not? What exactly would the planet Romulus have done anyway WITHOUT A STAR TO ORBIT? Of all the ships in the vast Romulan Star Armada there to witness the death of their civilization it was a bunch of terrorists (why were they terrorists in the first place?) on a mining ship that just happened to be on hand to pick up the failed ambassador, piloting their only hope? The whole sequence was just painfully bad.
Some of that (not all) was rationalized away in the prequel comic book
Countdown. (Which doesn't help an uninitiated viewer of the movie, of course.) In particular, the star that exploded wasn't actually the Romulan home star, but another one—the explosion of which somehow grew in strength as it expanded and "threatened the whole galaxy." (Yes, that's so scientifically illiterate it beggars description, but that's how they set it up. If they wanted a star-system-level threat that propagated faster than light speed, a little imaginative SFnal thinking could have devised one—Diane Duane did it to great effect in her Rihannsu novels—but instead they took a cheap shortcut.)
Look, I'm not a purist. What I am though, is a fan of Star Trek. And as best I can tell the only thing this movie added to "Star Trek" was a rehash of the Nemesis plot and the creation of an alternate reality Enterprise crew where the only major differences are an uglier ship and the utter annihilation of the planet Vulcan... which in terms of the advancement of Star Trek lore, feels like a giant Fuck you.
Word.
What I don't get, is that Nero could have used his time and energy to destroy the STAR that fucked up Romulus.
So why did he go after Vulcan and Earth? He could have taken care of the star and theoretically, his wife and race would still be alive. No revenge needed, with his wife and race alive, he would have had no reason for it.
Yeah, but if he actually stopped to think things through then he wouldn't be a scenery-chewing Villain, and the story (allegedly) needed one of those.
Of course, the heroes weren't much brighter. It's a classic "idiot plot"—it only does what the writers need if the characters act like idiots.
The script was clever and entertaining. Pleasing purists is what made the franchise unbearable by the Bakula years anyway. I think they did a great job giving us fanboys something to hold on to while giving it a mass appeal. I, for one, want as many people as possible to enjoy Star Trek because that means sequels and more TV shows.
If "mass appeal" means more sequels in the spirit of this movie, I don't see how that leaves anything worth holding on to for fans.
Oh, you are so right. He did buy a ticket, so he did his part sponsoring the sequel. 
