what didn't you like about the movie?

[Temis the Vorta]

I'm surprised not to see this topic on Page One. Well I gave it 10/10, but I'll still admit that...

I wanted more development of the Romulans and didn't really get that. They seemed just like your standard Star Trek villains. Coulda been Klingons or whoever. Maybe next movie (or TV show! we need more than two hours every two frakkin years!)

 

[indranee]

I didn't like that it didn't have a Troi/Woof romance

 

[clint g]

Mary Sue Kirk and miraculous rank progression

 

[Jeri]

Would it have killed them to name the walking kid, "George?"

 

[Captain Martin]

I didn't like the love connection between spock and uhura that much ... I didn't like chekov either.

 

[label]

I didn't care for the Spock/Uhuru thing much. I also thought the absurdly fast promotion to captain was silly.

Still, the thing that bothered me the most was Spock beaming Kirk to the frozen planet. That was just too much too swallow.

Beyond that, I loved the movie.

Easily a 9.8/10.

 

[MANT!]

issues with the movie..damn!! Starfleet must have lost a buttload of Command Officers battling Nero to promote a fresh from the Academy Kirk to the command chair..(think they might have a recruiting problem later?)

Concrete floors in Engineering?...


Though the film did very well at suspending my disbelief!!

 

[Jolantru]

I'm really pissed that the movie ended and I had to leave the theater.

 

[M-Red]

I really enjoyed STXI. Even with several flaws, it was a home run of a movie. But...



...they destroyed Romulus in the Prime Timeline.


It took me a bit to accept Vulcan being destroyed. But if it's a new time-line and the goal is a re-boot, then go with it and do it over however you want. Vulcan was never destroyed in the Prime Timeline.....so, ok.


But why eliminate Romulus, most of the Romulan population, and the Romulan Empire from the Prime Timeline by destroying Romulus?


They could have made the exact same story but just called Nero and his gang of merry miners another species from a different world. Why destroy the Romulan homeworld? It was just completely unnecessary for the film's story. It seemed reckless and almost like a trivial matter by those who created the film. That, to me, seems like the film's great sin....not the destruction of Vulcan in the JJverse, but of Romulus in the actual one.

 

[GalaxyX]

I didn't like the Phaser weapons.

Well, I liked the actual gun designs, but I wanted to see beams, not bolts.

Didn't like the fact that there wasn't a single vulcan ship visible in space.

I don't think I have any other major issues with it. I think that's a pretty good sign the movie was great.

 

[CommanderRaytas]

A little more character development on the Rommies wouldn't have hurt, but I still thought it worked out fine, so..... well, it is what it is.

10/10 in my book.

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

Didn't like the fact that there wasn't a single vulcan ship visible in space.

It's hardly realistic to see spacecraft at the distance we were from Vulcan. And most ships would want to steer clear of the Armada-Destroying Spiky Thing Of Doom while evacuating the planet.

The thing that bothered me the most was the Spock/Uhura thing. I mean... I get it. I did pick up a bit of flirtyness in TOS, but- it felt weird here. I dunno, maybe if I get a while to get used to it-

And the Willy Wonka scene in engineering almost made me feel embarassed, but then I looked around and saw that nobody was facepalming, so I sighed a sigh of relief.

 

[MyCylon]

From the grading thread:

- Opening scenes: The opening with the birth and the chatter between Kirk’s parents was one of the worst scenes I have ever seen on film. I have no idea what they were thinking when they wrote, let alone filmed this. Myself as well as all of my friends with me at the theater absolutely cringed at these scenes. I can’t state enough how bad and unnecessary they were in my mind. I also found the scene with kid Kirk annoying. I get the point they’re trying to make. But what they put on screen was probably one of the most annoying ways to do it, I felt. On the bright side, they actually managed to lump together the two worst scenes in the entire movie at the very beginning, and it just kept getting better from there on.

- Bad guy’s plan: Really, wasn’t there one single little ground-based vessel or missile or torpedo that could have simply killed the drill? You could damage it with a phaser, so it shouldn’t have been that hard to take out. Plus the whole drilling really seemed to take some time. Kill the drill, and the bad guy’s plan is passé. Plus I do have to wonder about the strength of that ship. It may be from the future, but it’s still just a mining vessel. I would have been happier with a battle ship, I think.

- Goofyness: I said above that I liked the humor. I also have to say, however, that I did feel the movie was really goofy at times. A prime example is Scotty ending up in the conveniently see-through water pipes that lead straight to the rotating knives (or some such). Scenes like that felt more like watching a Galaxy Quest movie rather than a new Star Trek film.

- Action: Some of the action could get a little tiresome and didn’t really feel very engaging, I thought. The space battles, in particular, came across to me as little more than a colorful frenzy with lots of noise. All in all, however, I thought the amount of action wasn’t too excessive and the fight scenes, in particular, were quite enjoyable.

- Lense flares: Maybe I only noticed this because I’d read about them, but I really feel they need to cut down on the amount of lense flares in the next film.


Oh, and since I've found myself in the minority on this issue, let me take the time to restate just how much I loathe the opening scene with the birth .

 

[maryh]

1. Didn't like Spock/Uhura, feel it changes the character of Spock too much. Don't like too much "office romance" in Trek. Too much of that in the spin-offs. Didn't want to see it enter in TOS too.

2. In general, don't like any emotional Vulcans. Preferred them when they were very different than humans, not merely like us but with just a differing culture. Vulcnas provided much more food for thought when they really were different than humans emotionally, mentally, and physically. Emotional Vulcans aren't a unique enough species so they can't provide us with something to compare and contrast humans with so they lost their ability to intrigue.

3. Didn't like the death of Spock's mother. Her character was never explored very much in TOS. She seemed like an intersting person I would have liked to know more about. They killed her off too soon.

4. Not enough McCoy for my tastes. No Spock/McCoy interaction that was so fun.

5. Still feels like a space opera instead of exloration show. As Rom Moore said:

"If JJ and all would have asked me, I don’t know that I would have given them a lot of advice about Trek movies. I think I would have been more concerned with trying to capture the spirit of the Original Series. I am more interested as a fan of that. Going back and capturing that feeling of being on the frontier and being on the edge of something that was something that was part and parcel to the Original Series. I have been showing The Original Series to my kids now because they are getting old enough to watch it, and I am always struck by how out there by themselves Kirk, Spock and McCoy felt. The Enterprise was always a long way away from Starbases. Messages would take a long time to go back and forth. There was really a sense of them being out there on their own, with no one to turn to for help. There was a great sense of the frontier and the unknown and not knowing what is around the corner and only having themselves to fall back on. I think we kind of got away from that with the subsequent series. We started dealing with the Federation a lot. There were other starships involved a lot. Starfleet Command was never that far away. Even in First Contact you are going all the way back to Earth. There was a big battle with a lot of other starships involved. When you are thrown back in time you are on your own, but it is all within the context of a very populated Trek universe where there lots of other people around and lots of things going on. There is something great about Hornblower and his sailing ship out on the Pacific all alone far removed from the Admiralty and having to face down these ships that would loom out of nowhere. The wits of Hornblower and the strength of courage of his men manning the guns, I would have said that is the spirit I would try and capture for the movie."

Feel the failed in this regard.

 

[indranee]

everybody is so serious in this thread. lighten up, people! Star Trek's makin' money and takin' names!!

isn't that something to be happy about?!

 

[Kruge]

1.) Dialogue: Awful, awful, awful dialogue peppered throughout the film, especially Nero's "James T. Kirk was considered to be a great man..." line, made me cringe both times I saw the film. I also thought the scenes between Alternate Spock and Alternate Sarek were terribly written as well...I don't care how stoic Vulcans are, it seemed like throughout the film all Sarek had to tell his son was basically a few variations on "you are capable of choosing which path to follow in life"...No shit? Really?
2.) Starfleet Academy Scenes: Or should I say lack thereof? When I was growing up watching TNG in the late 1980s/early 1990s, I always loved imagining how cool it would be to join an institution like Starfleet (my earliest childhood dream was to be an astronaut). I know the story needs to move at warp speed to match the brisk action pace, but I wish we could have seen more of Kirk, Bones, et al in school at least a bit more than we did. Maybe an inspiring lecture from an instructor that hardens Kirk's resolve to finish his studies or to become the kind of commander we know he will one day? Or maybe a quick scene of Kirk failing the Kobayashi Maru scenario, and the blow to his ego that would result? I don't know...."Three Years Later" was just too quick of a gloss-over for me.
3.) Delta Vega: Stupid Star Wars-esque/leftover Cloverfield monster chase scene, completely unneccessary, and essentially reduces Spock Prime's role to Obi-Wan Kenobi...the transwarp beaming thing was too contrived, even for a film that relies heavily on convenient coincidences for the plot to work.

Other than that, I really enjoyed this movie, and can't wait for more...even the lens flares didn't bother me that much, although I thought I may have damaged my retinas when I saw it in IMAX the first time, but hey, it's the new style in cinematography, so whatever.

 

[Sub-Odeon]

Oh there are plenty of reasons I should have NOT LIKED this movie:

1) Nero was a two-dimensional villain with very little to make him genuinely scary.
2) Time travel. For frak's sake, this is getting old...
3) Rubber tech planet-killer weapon. For frak's sake, this is getting old...
4) Neither rebooted Kirk nor rebooted Scotty showed much of the stoic dignity of the original TOS characters.
5) Kirk goes from suspended cadet to... Captain of the Enterprise. OOoooohhhkkay? Yah. Uhhh...
6) Once again, Star Trek is all about the bridge officers, plus Bones. Apparently, there are very few enlisted personnel in Starfleet.
7) Why does the Narada have to lower the weapon into the atmosphere?
8) Unless the Narada is in geosync, why isn't the weapon shredded being dragged through the atmosphere?
9) Why must the Red Matter pellet have a hole drilled for it prior to creation of the black hole?
10) Why does Scotty seem oblivious to the destruction of Vulcan when apparently he's manning an outpost in the Vulcan system when Vulcan vanishes?
11) Why maroon Old Spock on that same outpost world, when you could just as easily make him watch from the Narada and then off him?
12) Even with the correct math, how can Scotty and Kirk beam to the Enterprise while she's been at warp for hours? And do it using an antiquated transporter from a shuttle? The ship would be many light-years away at that point, and if memory serves, even TNG-era tech can't really do that.

And so on, and so forth.

In the end, this movie tells its story with such vibrancy and oomph, even seeing it a second time, I am hard-pressed to give a damn about all the errors.

I will say that Trek XII cannot enjoy the same "cushion" and will have to be a much sharper, much tighter film. I hope Abrams doesn't think he can just churn out a Trek XI replica and get the same results. The next script must be superb. But Trek XI delivers what it needs to deliver above all else: emotional relevancy. That's how you get and hook an audience. And Trek XI manages this nicely.

 

[24thcenstfan]

A few things...

-Lens Flares
-Uhura relegated to being the hand holder for half the movie.
-Chekov (the character was overexaggerated and detracted from the movie)
-The phaser weapons were loud and functioned like a Toys R Us special.
-Learning that R2D2 was in the movie.


I'm sure I could come up with more, but in general I enjoyed the movie. My complaints aren't major for the most part.

 

[Franklin]

everybody is so serious in this thread. lighten up, people! Star Trek's makin' money and takin' names!!

isn't that something to be happy about?!

Hey, one must not foresake the integrity of an artform for mere money.

Seriously, just two major things:
First, perhaps the pacing of the story was too fast and the movie too short. The plot could've been a lot stronger if a little more time had been taken to develop the story (the conflict part). Would any of us had really complained if the movie had been 10 or 20 minutes longer?
Second, I didn't like the way Kirk and Spock dispatched with Nero, but that's been talked to death. Suffice it to say the simplest way the scene would've worked better for me was if their dialog had been reversed.

 

[Borgminister]

I'm surprised not to see this topic on Page One. Well I gave it 10/10, but I'll still admit that...

I wanted more development of the Romulans and didn't really get that. They seemed just like your standard Star Trek villains. Coulda been Klingons or whoever. Maybe next movie (or TV show! we need more than two hours every two frakkin years!)

10/10 here too--for what the movie had to do, it was outstanding.

My only complaint? Movie was too damned short...

As soon as they all were on the bridge in their TOS clothes, I was ready for their first adventure together.

And AMEN on the t.v. show...!

As Rom Moore said:

Who is this Rom that you speak of?

Seriously, I'm so happy that Moore was not involved in this movie given his current mindset, which I think precludes his doing exactly what he mentioned there.

And what I think the movie did just fine--as an introductory vehicle.