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The Official STAR TREK Grading & Discussion Thread [SPOILERS]

Grade the movie...

  • Excellent

    Votes: 711 62.9%
  • Above Average

    Votes: 213 18.8%
  • Average

    Votes: 84 7.4%
  • Below Average

    Votes: 46 4.1%
  • Poor

    Votes: 77 6.8%

  • Total voters
    1,131
As a self-respecting viewer and fan of this franchise, I demand to not have my intelligence insulted on a regular basis! That good enough for ya, Sparky!?!

No, it's not good enough. Not at all. Fans who make demands of people in the creative arts are pathetic. You act as if being entertained is a right, and that Star Trek is not living up to your demands. How dare you. If you're not happy with Star Trek in its current incarnation then simply walk away. Star Trek owes you nothing.

This thread is 55 pages long and you're throughout the bulk of it, bad-mouthing a film you haven't seen. Your impotent rants have become quite tiresome.

I DID SEE IT! READ MY REVIEW AND GET YOUR FUCKING FACTS STRAIGHT!

While in April's defense, yes he did see it, I think you hit a nerve there Gilligan.
 
(I don't think Pine quite "had" Shatner. But who really does?)

Kevin Pollack?

I thought the way Pine said "Bones!" at the end was Shatner-like

Kevin Pollack's Shatner is great, but Chris Pine took away the campy edge and left us with awesome. At least, I think he did.

Something else this movie has done for me: Made me fall in love with the Original Series all over again. I have always loved it, but it's almost like a second honeymoon. It's wonderful, and now I'm saving to buy the TOS seasons on DVD.

J.
 
(I don't think Pine quite "had" Shatner. But who really does?)

Kevin Pollack?

I thought the way Pine said "Bones!" at the end was Shatner-like

Kevin Pollack's Shatner is great, but Chris Pine took away the campy edge and left us with awesome. At least, I think he did.

Something else this movie has done for me: Made me fall in love with the Original Series all over again. I have always loved it, but it's almost like a second honeymoon. It's wonderful, and now I'm saving to buy the TOS seasons on DVD.

J.

My excuse for coughing up the bucks for blu-ray just eventuated... :p
 
To aussie: Cool, I wondered what you'd think of it. :D

I was sitting two seats from aussie (his first viewing and my third) and was worried he was going to eat a chair if he didn't approve of the events of the second half. Thankfully he was happy enough.

I can't believe he kept himself totally spoiler free for the last two years. Stoic!
 
Kevin Pollack?

I thought the way Pine said "Bones!" at the end was Shatner-like

Kevin Pollack's Shatner is great, but Chris Pine took away the campy edge and left us with awesome. At least, I think he did.

Something else this movie has done for me: Made me fall in love with the Original Series all over again. I have always loved it, but it's almost like a second honeymoon. It's wonderful, and now I'm saving to buy the TOS seasons on DVD.

J.

My excuse for coughing up the bucks for blu-ray just eventuated... :p

Well, when Star Trek comes out on BluRay, I will be buying it ...and a BluRay player. :lol:

J.
 
...I want to weigh in on the "Kirk promoted too quickly" argument - When Pike is talking to Kirk, he mentions that Kirk's intellectual numbers are off the charts. He's a prodigy. He then is given command of a starship, attacks when everyone else retreats, and SAVES THE GOD DAMN FEDERATION! ... I have absolutely no problem, after the events depicted, with Kirk made Captain. HE'S FRIGGIN' JAMES T. KIRK! Buy into your own mythos!

The chararacters feel more comfortable, somehow. I find them easier to relate to here. They act like, well... real people. They have emotions and flaws and issues - past Trek series didn't always handle that very well. The main characters had a tendancy to be too pefect or too cerebral...
I think the juxtaposition of these two remarks is... fascinating.

Kirk can either be a superhuman prodigy who's so damn brilliant he leapfrogs over every officer in Starfleet, or he can be a regular, relatable guy with flaws. But he sure can't be both at the same time.

Personally, I thought TOS split that difference far better than this movie did. Kirk was obviously smart, talented, and an intuitive leader. At the same time, though, he suffered from self-doubt. He had insecurities. He was relatable. And while he'd been promoted to starship captain at a younger age than anyone else, he'd still achieved it the hard way—the real way—by climbing up through the ranks over a decade, and proving himself on repeated missions under a variety of circumstances.

I thought Kirk was great, as were Scotty, Bones & Sulu. I had a bit of a problem with the Sylar thing, but I recognise that he was bloddy good as Spock. Chekov's accent was overdone, and Scotty was too skinny. I was very dissapointed with the layout of the bridge - It should have been more like TOS bridge, or TNG. I didnt like the Spock/Uhura relationship thing, but I understand they have to cater for the modern generation. While I dont like the destruction of Vulcan, it was a shock and did add to the movie. Nero was a pretty poor villain. And at times there was too much of a Staw Wars feel about the space battles. I loved the references to the series - such as the deep trench from Enterprise, Pike's wheelchair etc.

Overall, the movie turned me from a hater to a lover !! It could have been better, but it was excellent.
This is a bit odd. Aside from the cast (which almost everyone agrees was pretty terrific, myself included), you describe almost nothing but criticism for the film... but then you say you loved it. I just don't get that. :confused:

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... 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... nor did we see his values - his belief in exploration, honor, mercy and compassion - that was turned into a joke.
I completely agree. The writers are trying to have their cake and eat it too. They want us to accept this Kirk as a new character with a new background and an unknown future... yet at the same time they're leveraging the audience's affection for the previous version, a Kirk who had proven to be "a great man," as even Nero acknowledged. Taken on its own, his character arc just doesn't add up to anything.
 
Who says Kirk doesn't have things to learn? Also, isn't a lot of the fleet destroyed by Nemo? Captains are at a premium. This is how Spock and Bones will help Kirk in his command decisions.
 
and finally suck in that elusive mass audience that doesn't want to actually think about what they just saw

You know, everyone I know who's seen the movie, fan and not-already-fan, has done plenty of thinking and talking about this movie and its themes.

I don't know many people who can't or are disinclined to think at least as deeply about what they see as CRA.
 
and finally suck in that elusive mass audience that doesn't want to actually think about what they just saw

You know, everyone I know who's seen the movie, fan and not-already-fan, has done plenty of thinking and talking about this movie and its themes.

I don't know many people who can't or are disinclined to think at least as deeply about what they see as CRA.

Oh yes. If anything, this movie has got me really digging in deep over Star Trek, the mythos, what is and is no more, the ramifications of this new universe, and I most assuredly want to know more about how the Federation works here, Starfleet, I want to know their futures, I want more stories! It's got my imagination soaring, and it thrills me. :D

J.
 
Aside from giving the more emotional and unfair critics of this movie their only way of dismissing the fact that are so many people enjoying this film, the real failure of the "non-fans are stupid mundanes who aren't smart about Trek like us" argument is that you have to give non-fans more in order to attract them to a movie like this, not less. You have to move them, provoke them, entertain them, intrigue them - in other words, you have to offer them a real damned movie, not "Star Trek 11: The Romulan War." They are not presold; they will not be suckered by the words "Star Trek" in a movie title. They must be won over.

And in the main the population at large is easily as intelligent and discrimating as people who are predisposed to believe that liking Star Trek proves in and of itself that they're thoughtful and smart.

Someone will say "Oh yeah, they're so smart - that's why they make hits of crap like Transformers."

The obvious answer to which is "well, they were smart enough not to see Star Trek: Nemesis, which puts them one-up on most of the fan critics.
 
You know, everyone I know who's seen the movie, fan and not-already-fan, has done plenty of thinking and talking about this movie and its themes.

I don't know many people who can't or are disinclined to think at least as deeply about what they see as CRA.

Oh yes. If anything, this movie has got me really digging in deep over Star Trek, the mythos, what is and is no more, the ramifications of this new universe, and I most assuredly want to know more about how the Federation works here, Starfleet, I want to know their futures, I want more stories! It's got my imagination soaring, and it thrills me. :D

J.

Yup--the way I look at it, the best is yet to come, since they've now re-established the original gang in the pop consciousness of the general public, and (largely) satisfied the fan base. No small feat.
 
Star Trek: Directed by Michael Bay!

I just got back from seeing it.

I was pleasantly surprised by the characters. I feared they might come across as wooden, but the actors did a good job bringing the old characters to life.

The story was okay even though it was a bit of an off the shelf plot line; evil alien bent on destroying the Earth. Seen this storyline many times before. In this case it was done reasonably well. Nothing special or innovative but competent.

The area this movie really failed was the cinematography. The shakey cameras and extreme close ups twere very frustrating to watch. I felt like I was watching a Michael Bay movie or that awful Battle Star Galactica series. The space battles, fist fights and phaser fights were completely unwatchable.

The interior of the Enterpise was also poorly done. The bridge was okay, but the engineering section looked like a boiler room underneath a sky scraper. I'll take the engineering section featured in TMP any day.

One last thing; did the technology that enables doctors to determine the gender of a baby before it's born get lost or something?
 
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