What minor changes could have made Star Trek XI better?

[polyharmonic]

Many people that hated the movie and even those that liked it have pointed out many areas that they disliked. Without doing a wholesale remake of the movie, what minor changes could have been implemented that would have made a big improvement for you?

For instance, many people were bothered by Kirk's apparent instantaneous promotion from suspended cadet to captain. The simple fix many suggested was a simple "fast forward four years later" caption.

I am thinking in terms of simple fixes like that.

 

[SonicRanger]

The only thing for me to ditching the "Delta Vega" name and setting one the nearby planetary neighbor of Vulcan seen in TAS and TMP. Call it "Erandi III" and I'd be almost totally happy.

 

[soot]

The ride-the-antimatter-explosion-wavefront ending. I know they wanted to end with a big boom, but I'm one of those loosers who care about scientific plausibility way too much -- at least when there's not a magical substance like Red Matter to pint he differences on. I'd've been happy if they just rode it out instead.

Funny enough, I wasn't at all bothered by the implausibility of Starfleet's system of hierarchy.

 

[Anticitizen]

The big problem I had is that most events in the film felt very contrived. It's as if they had a list of things they wanted to happen, and then sketchily connected the events together in ways that don't make a lot of sense. Kirk crash-landing within stone-throwing distance of Spock's cave, for instance, and beaming him light-years back to the Enterprise, all because they wanted Kirk to meet Spock Prime when nobody else was around. You could easily come up with a story that resembles the one we got, but stitches it together more soundly.

I'm not a 'canonista'; I don't like the 700-meter Fuglyprise but it doesn't ruin the film for me. Events that make me slap my forehead and say, 'oh, come on' do, however.

 

[darkwing_duck1]

My two biggies: a decent Engineering and getting rid of those ##^#% lens flares!

 

[Destructor]

Kirk crash-landing within stone-throwing distance of Spock's cave, for instance, and beaming him light-years back to the Enterprise, all because they wanted Kirk to meet Spock Prime when nobody else was around. You could easily come up with a story that resembles the one we got, but stitches it together more soundly.

This. Would have been SO easy to make this plausible. As it is, it really sticks in my craw.

 

[Sci]

I wish the bussard collectors aboard the Enterprise had been red and that the nacelle pylons had been straight and not curved.

I would have preferred engineering not to look like a brewery.

I would have preferred a "Five Years Later" sign when Kirk became captain.

I would have preferred that they not make the viewscreen into a literal window.

It's too bad Zachary Quinto doesn't have ear lobes.

That's about it.

 

[Skywalker]

-Drop the name "Delta Vega" (which isn't supposed to be the same planet as in WNMHGB anyway). Though, personally, I'd rather Nero kept Spock on the Narada ala Leia on the Death Star.

-After Kirk agrees to join the Academy, fast-forward five years instead of three, and make Kirk a lieutenant back at the Academy for Command School. Though I dunno how to explain McCoy still being there after five years, since he'd already gone through medical school.

-Make engineering more like Ryan Church's concept art.

-Not make the viewscreen an actual window (I guess they did this because they thought it was the only way to explain why the bridge would be at the top of the ship and not buried deep within it).

 

[bullethead]

You could easily come up with a story that resembles the one we got, but stitches it together more soundly.

Here's my idea:
Kirk's cheat in the KM test is a lot less obvious: he sets it up so that one of the cloaked Klingon ships has a fault in its cloak, giving Kirk a heads up and letting him blow up the Klingons before saving the KM, earning him a commendation.

Spock figures something is up, takes a look at the coding, and takes his evidence to the head guy, who basically lectures him on how life/space combat isn't fair. Spock is pissed because Kirk cheated and got away with it, and is displeased by Kirk's assignment to the Enterprise.

After Vulcan turns into a black hole, Kirk and Spock argue, but it doesn't get to point where Spock nerve pinches Kirk and dumps him on Delta Vega (it needs another name). Instead, Uhura picks up a distress call on the surface, which Kirk checks out in a shuttle because Spock pisses him off. The shuttle crashes because the pilot sucks at flying in arctic conditions and Kirk finds Spock Prime.

It turns out Spock Prime turned a holoprojector Nero left into a comm. device and gives Kirk the story of how he ended up in the past. Spock adds that the Romulans probably did something to that star going nova, because it started putting out pulses of energy at FTL speeds, which is what fried Romulus before Spock dropped the red matter into it.

So instead of going to the outpost, giving Scotty a formula he hasn't made yet, and beaming onto an Enterprise travelling at warp, Kirk asks to get beamed up with Scotty and takes things from there.

The only other thing I would add is Nero's idea that the Federation was behind Romulus getting fried, which explains why he didn't go blow up that star as soon as he got the Jellyfish. If the Federation can turn stars into FTL energy pulse generators of doom, then the particular star doesn't matter; so to Nero, blowing up the planets of the Federation makes sense because he doesn't know which one developed that tech.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

You could easily come up with a story that resembles the one we got, but stitches it together more soundly.

Here's my idea:
Kirk's cheat in the KM test is a lot less obvious: he sets it up so that one of the cloaked Klingon ships has a fault in its cloak, giving Kirk a heads up and letting him blow up the Klingons before saving the KM, earning him a commendation.

So basically in your version Kirk IS an assrat.

 

[sbk1234]

Engineering isn't a brewery.

Chekov isn't in it. (I love Keonig's portrayal, but the character is too young, and quite frankly, he doesn't really do anything to advance the story, that nobody else could do.)

Kirk needs more time to advance in rank and position. Explain this plausibly. (I like the idea of simply advancing it ahead a few years in time.)

No real windows on the bridge. (I can't believe transparent aluminum is THAT strong!)

 

[Royal Fizzbin]

My idea would have been for the "hearing" scene to end with Kirk being allowed to graduate, but with a restriction on his record precluding command (the Commandant would say something like "Cadet Kirk, I commend you for your original thinking, but unfortunately the fact remains that you still cheated, and because of that you will never be able to command a starship.")

Fast forward another three years, and the quickly-rising Kirk is fresh off his promotion to Lieutenant Commander and head of Security aboard the USS Farragut. The Farragut then receives the distress call to Vulcan. Farragut is destroyed by Narada but not before many of the survivors, including Kirk, are beamed aboard the Enterprise.

 

[barnaclelapse]

Honestly, for what the movie had to accomplish, I really can't think of any minor changes. It's the sequel I'm more interested in at this point, obviously, and I also think that any changes I would have personally made would have been fairly large ones to suit my own weird nitpicky tastes.

 

[L1A1 Rocker]

Just a couple of things:

Straighten the support pylons that attach the warp engines.
Rename Delta Vega
While I didn't have a problem with the "instant" captin rank so many have that maybe we should have seen a "2 years later" tag to see the transfer take place.

I did not have a problem with the "brewery" as I see this as only a section of engernering. I find massive uses of water to be very plausable. I do think that in the next movie we need to see something a little more familiar though.

 

[Sovay]

I'm a huge fan of TOS, and I loved the new movie. I think if I could change something it might be the whole spock/uhura thing, it's just weird and doesn't seem right for a Vulcan... perhaps that's not really a "small" thing, but it's the only thing that sat wrong for me. It would have been neat if nurse Chapel could have been in it properly. She was only called to off-screen by Bones and said "yes, sir!"... perhaps in the next one?

 

[Anticitizen]

After Vulcan turns into a black hole, Kirk and Spock argue, but it doesn't get to point where Spock nerve pinches Kirk and dumps him on Delta Vega (it needs another name). Instead, Uhura picks up a distress call on the surface, which Kirk checks out in a shuttle because Spock pisses him off. The shuttle crashes because the pilot sucks at flying in arctic conditions and Kirk finds Spock Prime.

It turns out Spock Prime turned a holoprojector Nero left into a comm. device and gives Kirk the story of how he ended up in the past. Spock adds that the Romulans probably did something to that star going nova, because it started putting out pulses of energy at FTL speeds, which is what fried Romulus before Spock dropped the red matter into it.

So instead of going to the outpost, giving Scotty a formula he hasn't made yet, and beaming onto an Enterprise travelling at warp, Kirk asks to get beamed up with Scotty and takes things from there.

See, that wasn't hard, was it? Easy and makes logical sense.

 

[Aike]

Tell the Vulcan in Science Council to stop smiling.

Made the number of Vulcans far fewer than six billion. There can´t be six billion living on the planet since all we ever see dirt and desert

 

[Sci]

You could easily come up with a story that resembles the one we got, but stitches it together more soundly.

Here's my idea:
Kirk's cheat in the KM test is a lot less obvious: he sets it up so that one of the cloaked Klingon ships has a fault in its cloak, giving Kirk a heads up and letting him blow up the Klingons before saving the KM, earning him a commendation.

So basically in your version Kirk IS an assrat.

Exactly.

The point of Kirk cheating on the Kobayashi Maru test was never to get away with it. That would be dishonest. The point that Kirk described himself as making in TWOK was that he didn't believe in no-win scenarios, and that a starship captain had to think outside the box and change the rules in real crises in order to ensure victory. The Cadet Kirk that was described in TOS and in TWOK would never try to actually get away with his cheat -- he'd WANT to be caught so as to make his point to the Academy.

The Kirk of ST09 might have been a little bit of a jerk about it (eating an apple and whatnot), but the part about him making no effort to hide the fact that he'd reprogramed the simulation is perfectly in-character.

 

[Devon]

Well I would have the bridge look more of the mood with Ryan Church's concept and its lighting. To me that was a beautiful rendering and would have easily been my favorite bridge. A bright future doesn't have to literally be a 300 Watt bright future J.J.

I would have kept the Klingon/Rura Penthe subplot in.

I would tweak the Spock mind meld explanation. Perhaps have that Spock and some Vulcans were studying the Hobus Star before it went nova or whatever and were going to throw the Red Matter at it. Nero was there but Spock and the Vulcans took too long studying it, it went nova, and a gamma ray burst destroyed Romulus. Nero suspects that Spock intentionally waited until it was too late or something and goes after him.

And perhaps fix the coincidences with Scotty/Kirk/Spock. Maybe Spock somehow manages to stay away from Nero with his Jellyfish, beams Kirk aboard from Delta Vega, they meet, and they warp to a nearby starbase where he knows Scotty might be. Or something like that.

Also, I wouldn't have minded seeing the film end with Lt. Kirk under the command of Admiral Pike on the Enterprise. Or put a title card on the establishing shot of Earth that says "Four Years Later" before showing Kirk being promoted to Captain. The promotion was something they could have handled a little better IMHO.

These would be a few small ideas I would put forth toward the script if I was a "consultant." However, I am not and I still love what they have done, but definitely some room for a few improvements IMHO to push this film even further than what they did.

 

[Mr. B]

Cut the lens flare, the brewery, the warp-core-shockwave-to-escape-the-black-hole BS and the gargantuan shuttle bays.