I know it’s a bit late to post opinions, but I’ve just seen the movie (brilliant fun!) and finally sat down to read Countdown (waiting until now so as to avoid spoilers for film). Here are my incoherent semi-random thoughts (the best kind):
First of all: It’s an expanded version of Spock Classic’s mind-meld with Kirk in the film. It would have been cool if they snuck LeVar Burton or Patrick Stewart into the background for the film’s version, but you can’t have everything.
Back to Countdown: I enjoyed it. It wasn’t the greatest comic ever created but it was a fun read. The art was good for the most part, but Picard was virtually unrecognizable much of the time.
The Enterprise-E disabled the Reman warbirds really easily. Considering that Enterprise was utterly wrecked after a battle with one of the ships (in Nemesis) fighting three should have been suicide.
I liked that Spock Classic’s ship got a name (The Jellyfish!) and I found it both cheesy and touching at the same time to read that it is creation of the retired old Geordi. Then I saw an early episode of TNG and cringed.
Data’s resurrection was barely mentioned (yes, he was B-4 and ‘woke up’ – there’s got to be a whole comic series or novel in there somewhere).
I loved the floating hologram screens on the Enterprise, and the new uniforms were a nice change (I’m sick of those First Contact/DS9 ones).
The Vulcans acted bizarrely (and very much in Star Trek Enterprise-mode) – not only did they call the Romulans their greatest enemies (I could imagine vice-versa, but I always thought the Vulcans would instantly welcome reunification given the chance), but we meet the Vulcan Praetor? The Vulcans have a Praetor? (I’m sure one or two of you freaked at that). There seems to be some evidence that Vulcan isn’t even a member of the Federation anymore, by the way the Romulans discuss “war with Vulcan” instead of “war with the Federation”.
Also as a side note: There’s evidence here on Vulcan that Countdown ignores the Destiny novels – the city of ShiKahr appears exactly the same in Countdown as in the new Star Trek, whereas it was destroyed by the Borg in Destiny.
I wasn’t entirely sold on Nero’s descent into madness and evil (I thought movie Nero was a great, sympathetic, psychotic villain), but the tattoo backstory was good, and I liked how Nero got his Big Stick™. The pimped Nerada (with top-secret Romulan/Borg technology) was great, and nicely explains how space miners fly the most powerful ship in the universe.
After Worf got impaled I was expecting Nero to kill the entire TNG crew before falling into the black hole (no such luck!). I found Worf surviving a little cheesy.
I don’t recall seeing the Nerada using its cloaking device in the movie. I guess it might have been trashed when the Kelvin rammed the Nerada at the start of Star Trek.
That’s it.
4/5
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First of all: It’s an expanded version of Spock Classic’s mind-meld with Kirk in the film. It would have been cool if they snuck LeVar Burton or Patrick Stewart into the background for the film’s version, but you can’t have everything.
Back to Countdown: I enjoyed it. It wasn’t the greatest comic ever created but it was a fun read. The art was good for the most part, but Picard was virtually unrecognizable much of the time.
The Enterprise-E disabled the Reman warbirds really easily. Considering that Enterprise was utterly wrecked after a battle with one of the ships (in Nemesis) fighting three should have been suicide.
I liked that Spock Classic’s ship got a name (The Jellyfish!) and I found it both cheesy and touching at the same time to read that it is creation of the retired old Geordi. Then I saw an early episode of TNG and cringed.
Data’s resurrection was barely mentioned (yes, he was B-4 and ‘woke up’ – there’s got to be a whole comic series or novel in there somewhere).
I loved the floating hologram screens on the Enterprise, and the new uniforms were a nice change (I’m sick of those First Contact/DS9 ones).
The Vulcans acted bizarrely (and very much in Star Trek Enterprise-mode) – not only did they call the Romulans their greatest enemies (I could imagine vice-versa, but I always thought the Vulcans would instantly welcome reunification given the chance), but we meet the Vulcan Praetor? The Vulcans have a Praetor? (I’m sure one or two of you freaked at that). There seems to be some evidence that Vulcan isn’t even a member of the Federation anymore, by the way the Romulans discuss “war with Vulcan” instead of “war with the Federation”.
Also as a side note: There’s evidence here on Vulcan that Countdown ignores the Destiny novels – the city of ShiKahr appears exactly the same in Countdown as in the new Star Trek, whereas it was destroyed by the Borg in Destiny.
I wasn’t entirely sold on Nero’s descent into madness and evil (I thought movie Nero was a great, sympathetic, psychotic villain), but the tattoo backstory was good, and I liked how Nero got his Big Stick™. The pimped Nerada (with top-secret Romulan/Borg technology) was great, and nicely explains how space miners fly the most powerful ship in the universe.
After Worf got impaled I was expecting Nero to kill the entire TNG crew before falling into the black hole (no such luck!). I found Worf surviving a little cheesy.
I don’t recall seeing the Nerada using its cloaking device in the movie. I guess it might have been trashed when the Kelvin rammed the Nerada at the start of Star Trek.
That’s it.
4/5
[FONT=Times New Roman] [/FONT]
