My thoughts on the movie and on Checkov

I just watched this earlier and as I knew all along, Checkov should never have been in this movie becuase either going by the established age of 17 given in the movie or even the semi official age of 13 (MemAlpha says he was born in 2245) he was too young to even be in the Academy and given a bridge position. How can he possibly be in at all at that age? If they wanted to put him in the movie they should've done a scene of him on Earth somewhere, maybe seeing the drilling laser shoot from the sky, much like what they did with Cyclops in the Wolverine Origin movie.


About the Enterprise, I know it's a different ship and all but the interior was massive, Engineering itself was way too large compared to the TOS version, even the TNG era versions. The phasers were cool though but I didn't like the hand phasers, well the sound of them anyway.

Just a couple of questions for now were all the crew made up of cadets with cadet ranks like with Lts Uhura and Sulu and because of the situation they were all pressed into action like with what happened in TWOK?

The use of stardates was just lame, JJ didn't even try to come up something to use to precede the TOS version he just used the calendar year with month as a decimal, altough I did like that he established that Kirk was born on March of 2233 - SD 2233.2?

I better add that I did enjoy it mostly but it just didn't have that Star Trek feel to it. It just seemed like JJ just wanted to cram everybody in together just to show that they all serve together from the beginning. I'm confused as I doubt that the altered events of the destruction of the Kelvin resulted in this to happen.

Just a short review for now and a couple of question.

 

What I got was that he was super smart... sort of like the 14 year olds you see going to college.

 

What is Checkov's actual purpose on the bridge? In both TOS and here..

 

Pavel Chekov is the Enterprise's Navigator, he also has controls for the ship's weapons routed to his station (but so does Sulu).

 

the Enterprise's navigator, BUT, get this, he also substitutes for Spock at the science officer station when necessary

 

I walked away with the idea that Chekov is exceptional with numbers, which is why he knew how to beam up the falling Kirk & Sulu, while accounting for mass, gravity, rate of descent and friction.

I also like how the transporter requires you to remain still. That's a nice limitation in the movie.

J.

 

About that, why did Spock kneel down when beaming to Vulcan?

 

My Guess is that the planet was breaking apart. No use beaming down standing up if your gonna fall flat on your face straight away. Crouching gave him a good footing.

I guess anyway

 

His age was a little odd, but I figured he was exceptionally smart while still maintaining a youthful awkwardness. It was great to see him get more screen time to flesh out his character.

 

I think he was preparing to break into a run.

 

the actor who played chekov looks a little older than 17, & it is unusual for someone so young to be in such a position.

if I think back to red squad in DS9 'valiant' the crew there looked like 18-20 years of age IMO.

 

I actually thought that most of the crew on the Enterprise were cadets, sort of like in ST2...didn't the Admiral order all of the cadets at Kirk's hearing to report to the ships? The only people that were officers that were shown were Captain Pike and Spock. Uhura and McCoy were definitely still cadets, so it would make sense that Chekov was just a younger cadet, say a first year, that was showing an aptitude that got him assigned to that station. Same for Sulu...while he wasn't shown at the academy, he obviously had some good piloting skills or they wouldn't have put him at the helm in a combat situation.

 

Why is Chekov the hardest name for even ST fans to spell properly?

 

Haha because it isnt a real Russian name...if it were Chekhov it might be getting closer

I thought the accent was annoying, but I like Anton Yelchin...and the scene where he lost Spock's mother, the look on his face...heartbreaking

At least he's given something to do, and the fact that he proves his worth several times in the film almost makes up for the "Wulcan" bs

I would have liked to have heard "wessels" one last time though

 

For the first time in my life, I like Pavel Chekov.


I really don't care that he's 4 years older than he 'should' be.

 

Irrelevant.

I said for STAR TREK FANS to spell.

We should be USED TO the spelling after 42 years of seeing it.

 

I haven't been ALIVE 42 years

 

Actually, it's the second-hardest. You wouldn't believe how many people spell Khan "Kahn" . . .

 

I really loved this guy's take on Chekov.

I did. Chekov was, to me, always a light, goofy, character and this guy did that well. Especially with his use of a "w" sound in place of "v."

I just wish he had incorrectly attributed some achievement to Russia.

Uhura anyone?