Weak Plot, Good Everything Else?

[Bisz]

I’ve seen the movie two times now and although it improves with the second viewing I still feel that the plot is weak, the villain is weak and there are too many contrived situations BUT that the main characters, both in terms of the actors who play them and all the nice character moments are fantastic. I’ve noticed that there are a few people on here who seem to share my opinion, so I decided to make a poll to gauge the overall perceptions.

The Bad:
- Nero is a poor villain with weak and misplaced motivation, reminds me very much of Schinzon in Nemesis. His entire thinking process seems to be “The Federation failed when it tried to help us, Spock ‘betrayed’ us, so I’m going to destroy the entire Federation, and heck, without them Romulus will be better off anyway”.
- Nero wants to make Spock watch helplessly as everything he cares for is destroyed… so he strands him on a planet… 14km away from a Federation outpost? Yes the guy is ‘only’ a miner as people point out and not a military genius but that’s just dumb.
- Spock is upset at Vulcan being destroyed so he has Kirk thrown off the ship onto the closest planet with a Federation outpost… coincidentally, the exact same one that Spock is on, and only a few kilometers from Spock. Convenient!
- Kirk is a cadet being investigated for academic misconduct, sneaks onto a starship, is arrested for mutiny by the acting captain, and then at the end of the first mission is promoted to Captain? How many people did he leapfrog there?!
- There is some other stuff in there but in general, the plot is driven by contrived situations and coincidences, or so I feel.

The Good:
- Kirk is Kirk, well played and with some great lines, homour that works.
- Spock is Spock, well played and with some great lines, homour that works.
- Bones is Bones, well played and with some great lines, homour that works.
- Scotty is Scotty, well played and with some great lines, homour that works.
- Uhura, Chekov and Sulu are not bad either.
- The visuals (SFX, designs, uniforms, etc) are very good I think everywhere except the starship engineering decks with are just like 20th century water treatment plants.

In the end, I think we got a good movie, and what’s more, a good platform for future movies. As long as the key characters are good, which I feel they very much are, they can keep on making more movies, new plots, new villains, and there is a great chance of it working. Had they missed the boat on casting or portraying one of the leads it would be much harder to recover from.

 

[PluckyNinja]

Yeah, the coincidences bother a little but not enough to ruin anything at all. I am a sucker for time travel and big red balls of wibbly wobbly time travel enabling goo.

 

[Tralah]

Eh, the plot had its weak spots, but I thought it worked out all right in the end.

 

[Agent Richard07]

- Fun movie.
- Great characters and character moments.
- Visually stunning.
- Plot: Not the best that Trek has to offer.

That's pretty much how I feel as well.

 

[commodore64]

Yeah, the plot was probably the worst that Star Trek had to offer. If someone said an angry mining captain would travel through time to try and kill Kirk, I would've laughed. But the movie was fun and begged you not to look too closely at the plot. With all the eye candy and pretty good casting, it was easy to get distracted.

If there is indeed another movie, I really hope Kirk and the crew gets a nemesis worth fighting.

 

[Bisz]

I think that there is a lot of movies out these days with contrived plots and with convenient, yet extremely unlikely, coincidences needed to keep the plot going, not just this latest Star Trek. It seems to me that writers and producers get a story idea in their head and then do whatever is required to tell that story, often to the detriment of the story they are trying to tell. The quality of things we see on screen would be much better if they were able to step back and re-evaluate all of the coincidences they need to include to make their stuff work. If you have to pile coincidence upon coincidence upon a 1 in a million event to have something happen... maybe that something shouldn't be happening and they they need to come up with something else.

 

[Hoshi fan]

I was so lucky to be the 1st person to enter the theater for the 1st showing thursday. I agree with your points. Nero was Shizon BUT this adventure was alot better than NEMESIS. I had a problem with Kirk making CO so quickly and why is Starfleet made out to be so stupid. EXAMPLE lets see the klingons lost 47 ships and where going to send 7 ships crewed BY cadets!!! My god what happen to the fleet the movies always puts the STARFLEET in a bad situation. YES the acting was great. I can only say there were cheers and clapping though the film and thumbs up from the new fans! JJ did his job and I look forward to the next one and say IT may surprise us even more. Yes they were going to make mistakes but it was their 1st movie!

Treks Back!!!!!!

 

[Starbreaker]

Nero pretty much sucked, but it's an excellent film otherwise.

 

[BarryWaddle]

Nero pretty much sucked, but it's an excellent film otherwise.

My brother-in-law-to-be desn't think that Eric Bana is a good actor, so maybe that's why Nero sucked...All the nitpicking aside, there were basically 2 problems I had with the movie...The situations with Vulcan, and Amanda...But there are rumors of more young crew movies...Reset button, anyone?

 

[Kylan]

I have to go with 'Other'.

I neither completely hated nor completely adored the movie, but I didn't think the plot was weak, either.

I thought the dialogue was written terribly but performed beautifully, with the exception of Nero and Ayel, who clearly knew they were playing villains, but apparently not much else.

The shaky camera pissed me off, as did the plethora of supersonic sweeps and pans that turned so many shots into a blur.

I loved the view while in warp. The only improvement would be to add a redshift effect so that light coming towards the ship is slightly blue and light traveling away from the ship is slightly red.

The plot of Romulus being destroyed in 2387, yet an alternate timeline being created in which Vulcan is destroyed in 2256 instead is pretty interesting to me. What annoys me is the perpetual stream of uncanny coincidences surrounding this:

• First, Spock's singularity consumes the supernova, which is reasonable, but then proceeds to send Nero and Spock back in time. What happened here? Let's pretend that a black hole acting as a wormhole through time isn't crazy: Did the energy of the supernova get sent in first? Surely that would have made Nero and Spock's entrances much less significant.
• Kirk is jettisoned from Enterprise for mutiny onto a frozen planet. A gigantic furry white monster chases him until an even more gigantic fleshy red monster kills it, and then starts chasing him. Oh, look, a cave! Hey, Spock's here. Let's look around the planet. Hey, Scotty's here, too! What a serendipitous wasteland.

And so on.

With the exception of the Romulans, the acting pleased me more than anything. I was fully expecting to hate Quinto as Spock, but he delivered easily my favorite performance, followed by Scotty and Bones.

In the end, it was far too action-packed for me and it severely neglected what I've always felt Star Trek is about. However, I thought it beat Star Wars' prequels, and I'm anxious to see if its sequels get more cerebral now that this whirlwind of an introduction is out of the way.

 

[Bisz]

I have to go with 'Other'.

From reading your post... it seems like you though the plot was weak but the main characters were strong, so I don't get the "Other" vote.

 

[Brent]

The plot is great, it has to happen this way to reboot everything. Otherwise, it wouldn't have worked, time travel had to happen in order to change history. It now gives them a whole new universe of stories to write. It was a good transition.

 

[startrekwatcher]

It is definitely one of those films that is fun on a superficial level but you have to quickly shut off your brain before all the weaknesses start to come as you sit back and digest the film as a whole.

It's not the best Trek film ever. It falls probably somewhere in the middle. The effects were excellent. The casting was great but the characters were more or less plot devices and really didn't get a lot of time to shine, interact or reflect. Normally, I wouldn't necessarily mind characters being plot devices if I'm not too crazy about them but I actually liked this bunch so would have liked some more quieter moments. The movie didn't thave hose heartfelt moments that some of the better films did.

Regarding the plot--I was initially intrigued by what was going on with the Narada appearing and why he was searching for Ambassador Spock but the reveal fell flat. Nero was a plot device that deserved more interesting motivations, the glimpse into the 24th century was too shallow and brief and Spock's return could have been handled better.

The action sequences were great but unfortunately being at a theatre and not at home where you can pause or slow play back you don't really appreciate the details and choreography because in normal speed they are so fast-paced you can't take it in.

The production and updated set designs and costumes were really eye-popping.

One thing I've noticed is that films and tv shows sometimes try to cram too much in and move too fast these days. I think this film suffered a bit from this. I think sometimes slowing things down and expanding scenes to give them more depth wouldn't be a bad idea.

Overall, I thought it was decent but shallow/thin and certainly not the second coming of Trek.

 

[startrekwatcher]

The plot is great, it has to happen this way to reboot everything. Otherwise, it wouldn't have worked, time travel had to happen in order to change history. It now gives them a whole new universe of stories to write. It was a good transition.

I don't mind the reboot or using the idea of someone traveling from the past to fundamentally alter the Trek timeline. My issue is that if you are going to do something that bold I think you need to come up with a more interesting villian with a more interesting motive. Frankly ENT had a more interesting scenario involving the Xindi threat and Sphere Builders. That would have been more exciting and was than Nero and the whole convoluted incoherent explanation that was supplied. And I'd argue the destruction of Earth was far more unnerving and chilling in its portrayal than the destruction of Vulcan partly due to the fact any emotional fallout was glossed over for the most part because there were about a million other things going on.

 

[protocida]

- Nero is a poor villain with weak and misplaced motivation, reminds me very much of Schinzon in Nemesis. His entire thinking process seems to be “The Federation failed when it tried to help us, Spock ‘betrayed’ us, so I’m going to destroy the entire Federation, and heck, without them Romulus will be better off anyway”.

I tough his motivations made sense. But he'd make good use of some more scenes.

- Nero wants to make Spock watch helplessly as everything he cares for is destroyed… so he strands him on a planet… 14km away from a Federation outpost? Yes the guy is ‘only’ a miner as people point out and not a military genius but that’s just dumb.

I don't believe Nero knew there would be an Federation outpost in Delta Vega.

- Spock is upset at Vulcan being destroyed so he has Kirk thrown off the ship onto the closest planet with a Federation outpost… coincidentally, the exact same one that Spock is on, and only a few kilometers from Spock. Convenient!

Delta Vega was near Vulcan, so, it made sense to throw Kirk there. And he had a good run before the found Spock Prime.

- Kirk is a cadet being investigated for academic misconduct, sneaks onto a starship, is arrested for mutiny by the acting captain, and then at the end of the first mission is promoted to Captain? How many people did he leapfrog there?!

He saved Earth, he saved the Federation, he saved Captain Pike and he defeated the ultmate ship. He deserved it.

 

[hyzmarca]

Neros motivations were pretty believable. He believes that Spock intentionally waited until Romulus was destroyed before stopping the supernova, or he wants to believe it. It's easier to hate this it is to grieve. All that emotional pain trapped inside him is overwhelming, but so long as he has an enemy to hate, so long as he remains consumed by his anger he doesn't have to feel it, not really.

 

[Chess Piece Face]

The plot wasn't weak - are you kidding me? How would YOU satisfy old fans and bring in new, non fans at the same time?

Nero isn't that fleshed out sure, but he IS IN NO WAY SHINZON. Shinzon makes zero sense. Come on. A clone of some random Starfleet officer that ends up being the captain of the flagship...and then the clone is befriended by Remans and they take over Romulus to destroy the Federation?

I am sorry but that is NOTHING like Nero. Especially if you read Countdown.

And as far as all these coincidences...remember, we feel like they are coincidences because we have known all these characters FOR YEARS. In the reality of the movie, at this point THEY HAVE NEVER MET. It is NOT a coincidence when Kirk meets Bones or Scotty or whatever.

You guys are being too hard on the plot.

The way I see it, there is only a single coincidence in the whole movie - Kirk meeting Spock Prime. And I can live with it because sheesh people...it's a movie.

 

[Sky]

The plot was awfully, awfully weak. The story relied on unbelievable coincidences and the motivations of the main players were not coherent enough. The plot holes were about large enough for the Narada to fly through.

I have no problem with the idea of reboot, as long as the story is good. This just was not a good story.

 

[dkehler]

The plot wasn't weak - are you kidding me? How would YOU satisfy old fans and bring in new, non fans at the same time?

Nero isn't that fleshed out sure, but he IS IN NO WAY SHINZON. Shinzon makes zero sense. Come on. A clone of some random Starfleet officer that ends up being the captain of the flagship...and then the clone is befriended by Remans and they take over Romulus to destroy the Federation?

I am sorry but that is NOTHING like Nero. Especially if you read Countdown.

And as far as all these coincidences...remember, we feel like they are coincidences because we have known all these characters FOR YEARS. In the reality of the movie, at this point THEY HAVE NEVER MET. It is NOT a coincidence when Kirk meets Bones or Scotty or whatever.

You guys are being too hard on the plot.

The way I see it, there is only a single coincidence in the whole movie - Kirk meeting Spock Prime. And I can live with it because sheesh people...it's a movie.

I don't even care about coincidences. The plot was still riddled with holes that stretch believability past the breaking point.

We are expected to believe that Nero simply hangs around for 25 YEARS simply so that he can make Spock watch the destruction of Vulcan, but not only that, after all of that excruciating waiting, he captures him then simply LETS HIM GO rather than simply make him watch it on the view screen so that he could experience the anguish that he's waited 25 years to put Spock through. Ridiculous.

Not to mention the whole transporting someone to a ship that is millions of miles away. As far as we know, they can't even do that in old Spock's time. Not to mention that it must be a great deal faster than warp speed. And why in blazes would Spock ever kick somebody off the ship instead of putting them in the brig? Preposterous.

Then there's the whole just graduated to Capt. of the Federation flagship in one easy step thing. Would it have been so difficult to simply have another "four years later" flash forward?

Let's face it. Yes, the characterizations were spot on for the most part and the movie was visually stunning and nonstop action. However, the plot was your typical action set pieces connected by the flimsiest of storyline that doesn't even hold up to 30 seconds of scrutiny. Its turn your brain off at the door time, but it would be nice if a Star Trek movie could be both visually exciting and modern while having a storyline that requires you to not think about it even a little bit.

 

[Venardhi]

Indeed.

I could list a few dozen things wrong with the plot and wouldn't scratch deeper than the most blatant issues.

I enjoyed most of the cast though, minus Spock. nuSpock was a douche and oldSpock was smirking through his recycled lines the whole time.