Partly entertaining with good action but...

[Lynx]

I watched the new movie yesterday.

I'm gonna give it a fair review, just as I promised. It wasn't as bad as I expected. I have to admit that I liked it in a way, at least when it comes to entertainment and action and I must also admit that it didn't give me the bad feeling I got when I watched "Nemesis" some years ago.

I think that the movie is OK as sheer entertainment if you simply want an exciting, action-loaded movie whatsoever with old Trek characters as the "good guys". The actors were doing a good job and those in charge of the movie had obviously did their best to get actors who had some resemblance to the original characters as we are used to see them in TOS.

But there were too much screwing-up of established Trek history there to annoy me.

First of all, mr Adams: Would it have been totally impossible to bring in Okuda as advisor or at least read through "Star Trek Chronology" before making this movie? Most of us Trek fans are a bit protective when it comes to established Star Trek history. To simply abandon all that by simply create "an alternate timeline" was actually the first shot which made the ship sunk. The golden opportunity to unite most of the Trek fans around this project went out of the window there and then.

With that said I must state that:

Spoiler: Certain events in the movie

The destruction of Romulus and Vulcan was bulls**t, to say the least. Totally unnecessary. Not to mention the silly Stardates. On the positive site was that events like the Eugenic Wars and things that never really has happened when they should have happened according to established Star Trek history seems to have been postponed and moved into the future which makes more sense.

Another thing is that..........I sometimes I didn't get the feeling that I was actually watching a Star Trek movie.

OK, we did have Kirk, Spock and the old heroes there. But this movie's Kirk could have been Jimmy Jones, Scotty could have been McGregor and Spock could have been Ixtyl from the planet Vorn and the movie called "Defending The Empire" and it would all have been the same. A good, entertaining SF-movie with lots of action but nothing more.

So I have mixed emotions about the movie. As sheer entertainment, it's good and if it gives Star Trek some good publicity and creates new interest for the whole phenomenon, than it's OK too and I could easy imagine to watch a similar movie if possible.

But if future movies, series and books will be created on the basis of this movie and the screw-ups of established Trek history, then you can count me out.

For the entertainment as such, I'll give it 3 points out of 5.

As for being a Star Trek movie, I'll give it 2 points out of 5.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

But if future movies, series and books will be created on the basis of this movie and the screw-ups of established Trek history, then you can count me out.

But.. what if in the new timeline KES LIVES?? And is nice and doesn't have her character violated?

Think of the possibilities!

 

[M'Sharak]

But if future movies, series and books will be created on the basis of this movie and the screw-ups of established Trek history, then you can count me out.

But.. what if in the new timeline KES LIVES?? And is nice and doesn't have her character violated?

Think of the possibilities!

I'm not sure that's a question we want to address, right here and now.

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

M'Sharak, you would make a horrible postal service worker.

Imagine how much would be left unadressed.

Ba-dum-boom.

 

[Thrawn]

The golden opportunity to unite most of the Trek fans around this project went out of the window there and then.

As of right now, almost every single post in the "pick your dream director for the next film" says "J. J. Abrams".

And 84% think it's "excellent" or "above average".

I think Trek fans are as united as they ever get around this project, actually.

 

[RoJoHen]

But if future movies, series and books will be created on the basis of this movie and the screw-ups of established Trek history, then you can count me out.

But.. what if in the new timeline KES LIVES?? And is nice and doesn't have her character violated?

Think of the possibilities!

Oh my. That is a conversation we don't need to get into.

 

[Amaris]

The golden opportunity to unite most of the Trek fans around this project went out of the window there and then.

As of right now, almost every single post in the "pick your dream director for the next film" says "J. J. Abrams".

And 84% think it's "excellent" or "above average".

I think Trek fans are as united as they ever get around this project, actually.

Oh yeah. This is as united as it gets.


J.

 

[CinC_UFPForces]

But if future movies, series and books will be created on the basis of this movie and the screw-ups of established Trek history, then you can count me out.

They're not "screw-ups"; they're distinct and intentional choices of artistic license. J.J. Abrams - that's Abrams, not "Adams"; J. Adams is a former President of the United States - could not give less of a damn about the finely-honed sensibilities of Trek fans and their protectiveness of established Star Trek history. He's been making that clear since just shortly before 2007, possibly 2006.

And yet despite that, he created a movie that not only sent the franchise from 0-60 in under 4 seconds, but he created a film more evocative of the founding spirit of The Original Series than anything that's aired since 1969. Believe me, I know, because I sat in that theater and experienced it. Twice. I can only be grateful to the entire cast and crew for that, even if the Enterprise is half the size of a battlestar.

I get it, you're pissed. That's cool. But I swear, sometimes I think the proof that the events of XI occur in an alternate, rather than altered universe, is that some of the criticisms of the film seem to be from an alternate universe.

 

[Phily B]

The problem with this bitching about canon is that Star Trek regularly violated its own canon dependant on the storyline. Its really fucking petty, I mean extremely petty considering some of the crap that has gone on in the TV shows. I haven't seen one decent argument about canon being violated, I mean some people have resorted to saying they should've had the sets look worse than the TOS sets. I am not joking.

 

[Thrawn]

The problem with this bitching about canon is that Star Trek regularly violated its own canon dependant on the storyline. Its really fucking petty, I mean extremely petty considering some of the crap that has gone on in the TV shows. I haven't seen one decent argument about canon being violated, I mean some people have resorted to saying they should've had the sets look worse than the TOS sets. I am not joking.

Hell, just go from TOS > TMP > TWOK, and look at all the enormous changes made each time there.

 

[Phily B]

HE KNEW CHEKOV

TWOK FILM SUCKS!!

 

[Therin of Andor]

The problem with this bitching about canon is that Star Trek regularly violated its own canon dependant on the storyline.

In fact, the only reason Richard Arnold started talking about "canon" at ST conventions is because Gene Roddenberry used to get perturbed when fans asked GR silly questions like, "Why didn't Kirk call in a few dreadnoughts from the 'ST Technical Manual' to help battle Khan?" and "Why do the Romulans call each other Romulans when we know from the novels that they are called the 'Rihannsu'?", etc.

The ST licensed tie-ins were never meant to direct the direction of the parent series or movies. "ST canon" was the body of work that the tie-ins had to be derived from, not vice versa. Writers and editors of tie-ins are the only people affected by ST canon.

Canonical ST has always been free to cherrypick from its own canon, to produce the best possible scripts, even if that meant some rewriting of history occurred. (And canonical ST was always free to cherrypick what scriptwriters liked from the licensed tie-ins.)

 

[Thrawn]

^ Amazing, how many times that has to be explained!

Bob Orci's Q&A on TrekMovie.com shows how this works from their perspective too; people ask him about all sorts of things not shown onscreen during the movie, and he always responds "there's no answer to that in canon; I guess we'll see!", even when talking about deleted scenes. But by the same token, regarding time travel, he also explicitly states they ignored some previous canon based on newer scientific information, as is of course their wont to do.

 

[Lynx]

But if future movies, series and books will be created on the basis of this movie and the screw-ups of established Trek history, then you can count me out.

They're not "screw-ups"; they're distinct and intentional choices of artistic license. J.J. Abrams - that's Abrams, not "Adams"; J. Adams is a former President of the United States - could not give less of a damn about the finely-honed sensibilities of Trek fans and their protectiveness of established Star Trek history. He's been making that clear since just shortly before 2007, possibly 2006.

And yet despite that, he created a movie that not only sent the franchise from 0-60 in under 4 seconds, but he created a film more evocative of the founding spirit of The Original Series than anything that's aired since 1969. Believe me, I know, because I sat in that theater and experienced it. Twice. I can only be grateful to the entire cast and crew for that, even if the Enterprise is half the size of a battlestar.

I get it, you're pissed. That's cool. But I swear, sometimes I think the proof that the events of XI occur in an alternate, rather than altered universe, is that some of the criticisms of the film seem to be from an alternate universe.

Sorry for the wrong-spelling of J.J. Abrams. I wrote my comments early in the morning, just before starting my work so I guess that I wasn't really awake then.

And no, I'm not as p***ed as you think. As I wrote before, I did find much of the movie quite entertaining.

When it comes to screw-ups of established Trek "canon", I can actually accept that sometimes, just like when I read one of my favorite Voyager books where the author has come up with something which later has been contradicted by some event in the series.

But

Spoiler: these events

The destruction of Romulus and Vulcan

were just too much. Totally unnecessary.

And yes, there were some other minor details too.

However, as long as the events are explained as happening in an alternate timeline, I can live with most of it (except for the events mentioned in the spoiler) and see this as an on-off event of pure entertainment.

My objections were about the possibility that this alternate timeline would be regarded as "official" and that future movies, series and books would have the events in this movie as background for future stories, then you could count me out.

Besides that, I'm still waiting for a good series with new characters.

Teacake wrote:

But.. what if in the new timeline KES LIVES?? And is nice and doesn't have her character violated?

Think of the possibilities!

Well................on rare occasions I do change my mind about certain things and this could be a reason to re-consider any previous statement.

 

[CinC_UFPForces]

My objections were about the possibility that this alternate timeline would be regarded as "official" and that future movies, series and books would have the events in this movie as background for future stories, then you could count me out.

This is indeed the case.

 

[Phily B]

Romulus isn't destroyed in the current timeline.

Vulcan was destroyed to shake things up, it was necessary and I'm sure you would've prefered if it if they had hit the reset button - unlike 90 percent of the Trek fanbase who were tired of seeing that shit in Voyager and Enterprise.

 

[nx1701g]

My objections were about the possibility that this alternate timeline would be regarded as "official" and that future movies, series and books would have the events in this movie as background for future stories, then you could count me out.

This is indeed the case.

And it's already been worked into the history of Star Trek: Online.

 

[superdeluxe]

My objections were about the possibility that this alternate timeline would be regarded as "official" and that future movies, series and books would have the events in this movie as background for future stories, then you could count me out.

It is the official timeline, I guess cya then!

 

[CaptainWacky]

Ixtyl from the planet Vorn can't do a mind meld or nerve pinch. Everyone knows that.

 

[Qonos]

Also one point here, the Star Trek Chronology is a Book published by Pocket books, a subsidiary of Simon and Shushter which was Sold to Gulf-Western which BECAME Paramount Studios, If the Parent company who owns the publishing company that puts out that book wants to ignore it for something new Lynx... They have that right.