Re: Star Trek XI

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AWWWW C'MON!!!!

I've been waiting for your review all night! :angry:

Can't speak for the others here, but hearing your thoughts won't change what I feel or don't feel about the movie at this point in time. This isn't to say I don't value your opinion, quite the contrary, but like every other review I've read, I'd still consider it just that: a review.

Re: Star Trek XI

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I'm won't post any spoilers. It was great. Very entertaining and worth going to see on the big screen. I've been a CASUAL fan of Star Trek. I never liked the original TV show, but I get why people like it. I was always more of a "Star Wars" kinda guy. But I respect the Shat and Nimoy. I did remember watching TNG in the 80s...my Dad liked it and I was in elementary school then. But I digress...the movie is very well done, and it left behind 95% of the campness of the original TV show. What I think is really great about it is that if they keep this up...Star Trek is truly back; and with a whole new fanbase.

Re: Star Trek XI

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Since no one else has posted a review of the movie yet, I will go ahead and post mine. This is going to be spoilerific, so if you haven't seen the movie yet and don't want details, don't highlight the hidden text. If you do want to read it, simply click and drag to see it.

I saw the movie for the first time Thursday night. I went into it more or less at peace with the idea that this was going to be an alternate timeline and canon would be ignored. However, there seemed to be just so many other changes that I just couldn't appreciate the movie. I'll enumerate a few of these.

1. The visual style of the movie was rather jarring. I'm not necessarily referring to Abrams' directorial style of fast pans and odd camera angles, though that was somewhat a part of it. I'm thinking more of the amount of lens flare that was used in the space scenes. Past Star Trek movies, though done by many different directors and cinematographers, had a certain consistency in presentation. Direction was fairly staid and visuals were clean and crisp. The new movie departed from those aesthetics significantly at times, and although that's not necessarily either bad or good, it was an immediate difference to signal that this wasn't "your father's Star Trek."

2. In the past, Star Trek has tried to get the science at least somewhat right within the bounds of the story they were trying to tell. For example, as far as we know, faster than light travel is impossible, but it's pretty hard to do stories about galaxy-spanning federations without it, so you take it as a given that this problem has been solved. The new movie was an odd mix of trying to do science right at one point and utterly ignoring it at others.

A crew person is sucked out into space during a battle. Once they're out there, the screaming stops and silence falls, as there's no sound in space. So, kudos to Abrams & Co on getting that one right (though they later have plenty of sound from phaser fire, warp engines, etc.).

But then there are the things they get just totally wrong. The biggest of these is the supernova that destroys Romulus. The movie is vague about what star has blown up, but "Star Trek Countdown," the comic book prequel, calls the star Hobus and it is not the Romulan sun. Well, only a planet's own sun can physically destroy said planet (though a nearby supernova would certainly sterilize other solar systems of life by radiation). Moreover, Spock Prime's voiceover states that this supernova threatens to destroy the galaxy. Again, while it may wreak havoc on life in nearby systems through radiation, it's not going to physically destroy outside its own solar system. Even if it could, the e xp anding blast would be limited to the speed of light (actually, radiation would travel at that speed but the heat wave, etc would be signicantly slower). Well, since the movie itself is vague about what star blows, what if it were Romulus' sun? They should have had centuries of warning and could have simply migrated to a different solar system. A supernova wouldn't just sneak up on a technologically advanced race.

Then there are other, smaller issues with black holes. The Romulans use quantum singularities — atom-sized black holes — to power their warp engines, so why would they have to rely on Spock to create a black hole to "absorb" the supernova? And I won't even try to fathom how big a black hole would have to be to have a capture radius big enough to "absorb" a rapidly e xp anding supernova, and I won't go into what is theoretically necessary to pass through a black hole without simply being destroyed. Finally, if you could create an artificial black hole, you wouldn't have to drill to the planet's core (the drill hole could not stay open, due to the weight of all the rock around it anyway). You'd just drop the thing onto the planet. Of course, the whole drilling business looks way cool.

Last but not least is Spock Prime's witnessing of Vulcan's destruction from the ice planet (more on the identity of that planet later). In order for Vulcan to appear as a disc and not just, at most, a point of light, this planet would have to have been a moon of Vulcan. Unfortunately, Vulcan doesn't have a moon.

Now, I realize that those things are going to sail right past 99% of viewers, but when scientists go to movies, we notice those things.

3. Delta Vega. The writers have all but patted themselves on the back for their "cleverness" in creating an alternate timeline to ditch canon and the critics have rewarded them with praise for dumping Star Trek's "impenetrable" backstory. I feel about this to some extent about the same as how Valkrist loathes Phillipa Boyens' smugness about adapting LOTR. Star Trek's new writers can be as smug as they want to be about ditching canon but they also have ditched elements that would not have been altered by the destruction of the Kelvin. For example, Delta Vega. Delta Vega is a planet on the edge of the galaxy that was visited in "Where No Man Has Gone Before," TOS' second pilot. In the new movie, Delta Vega is either a moon of Vulcan or a planet very near Vulcan. The destruction of the Kelvin and the death of Kirk Sr. couldn't move planets. The writers were lazy and reused a name they remembered from TOS and gave no thought to where the planet was in relation to where the movie's action takes place. If they wanted to provide a vantage point from which Spock could see the destruction of Vulcan, and also be conveniently located near enough to Vulcan for Kirk to be ejected onto, they missed an opportunity to canonize T'Khut.

In TOS, Spock once states that Vulcan has no moon. However, in the original cut of ST:TMP, the establishing shot on Vulcan shows what appears to be an enormous moon (in one of the [non-canon] novels, someone quips that Vulcan doesn't have a moon, it has a nightmare). Trek fans and novelists have retconned this ST:TMP booboo into T'Khut, a sister planet to Vulcan which shares its orbit (much as how Romulus and Remus were depicted in Nemesis). Even calling the ice planet T'Khut would not have e xp lained Scotty, unfortunately. I'm not sure why Starfleet would have an installation on a planet or moon near Vulcan...if there were such a base, wouldn't it be the Vulcans manning it? And even if Starfleet had personnel on this world, couldn't they get supplies, like food which Scotty pines for, from Vulcan instead of waiting to be resupplied by Starfleet? Unfortunately, the facts presented about the base — the planet's identification as Delta Vega and the implication of its remoteness — add up to it not being near Vulcan. However, it must be very near Vulcan for Vulcan to be visible as a disc from it, which takes us back to the science problem again.

4. Logic lapses. Was no one on Vulcan capable of disabling Nero's drill? You wouldn't have to attack the Narada itself...even flying a small shuttle into the drilling platform would take it out of commission. Ditto when it's attacking Earth, directly above Starfleet headquarters. Yet only Spock figures this one out.

Why are Kirk and Sulu sword-fighting etc on the drilling platform instead of armed to the teeth with phasers?

Admiral Archer's beagle.... Nice reference to "Enterprise," but Jonathon Archer would probably be dead before Scotty ever met him, as he'd be 140 years old otherwise. Perhaps it was his son or daughter....

Little nit-picky things.... Why does Engineering look like a brewery/chemical plant/engine room of the Titanic? Why does Capt Robau's shuttle have those hanging plastic strips, like he's going into a meat locker or something? And when Scotty says he's going to eject the warp core, singular, why are multiple objects ejected? It seems more like he must have ejected antimatter containment pods.

5. The cast. Even though the cast did a good job, it was a bit difficult for me to accept the new actors as characters I've known and loved for 40 years. Perhaps they would not have stood out had the other issues above not distracted me from enjoying the movie, but as it was, it was just one more thing that made this feel not like a Star Trek movie.

6. Some of the humor got old pretty quickly, like McCoy's endless hyposprays, and not even ST V or VI had anything as silly as Kirk's swollen hands and tongue.

OK, lest you all think I hated the movie, let's move on to the positive. Being a Star Trek movie automatically qualifies a movie for a second viewing, even if the first viewing left me cold. So I saw it a second time Saturday, and liked it much better the second time. I feel you still have to check your brain at the door on some of the above issues, but since you know about them already, you can focus on other things. So what did I like?

1. The cast. Hey, they might not be the old familiar faces, but they did a good job. The two standouts were Chris Pine as Kirk and Karl Urban as McCoy. Pine just owned every scene he was in. And one thing that everyone seems to be in agreement on is how Karl Urban channeled McCoy so well.

2. One small thing I noticed was when the shuttle were entering the shuttle hanger prior to Enterprise setting out for Vulcan. In TOS and the TOS movies, the Enterprise apparently only carried 2 shuttles in what seemed to be an enormous hanger. Well in the new movie, it carries many more than that, and they have docking berths all along the walls of the hanger. Pretty cool!

3. This movie really moved along and once it kicked into high gear, it was pretty relentless.

4. It had a good soundtrack. I was relatively unfamiliar w/Michael Giacchino's work, having never watched any previous Abrams productions other than Cloverfield (which had only a single piece of music composed for it). But it had a great new theme, plus the complete theme from TOS was used at the end, and not just the opening fanfare. Pick up the CD if you're a soundtrack sort of person. Have to warn you though, it has the worst track titles I've ever seen.

5. It did have a much bigger, more epic feel than most of the past ST movies. Was that because Paramount lavished $150M on it? If they'd been that generous for some of the other movies, they might have felt more epic too.

6. The scene with Spock and Spock Prime at the end is priceless, with Spock Prime's admission of letting Kirk assume universe-destroying paradoxes if he told young Spock of old Spock.


Well, it's getting late and I need to be shuffling off to bed, so unfortunately I need to leave my list of pros and cons feeling unbalanced in favor of the cons. Suffice it to say, on second viewing I liked the movie quite a bit. I could boil down my dislikes to one thing, essentially. In their effort to make this movie a cross-over hit, I felt they dumbed it down. I know I'll draw fire for this, but to me Star Trek has always been a much more credible franchise than Star Wars. Star Trek has usually tried to get the science at least partially right, and I always felt its vast backstory was an asset, giving it verisimilitude, not a detriment. The new approach to Trek, however, is much more Star Wars-like. I don't argue that the franchise needed shaking up after the failure of Nemesis and Enterprise. I just wished they'd found a way to do it that was more true to long-time Trekkers instead of leaving us feeling like strangers at our own party.
Last edited by Olorin on Mon May 11, 2009 12:31 pm, edited 5 times in total.
"Olorin I was in the West that is forgotten...."

Re: Star Trek XI

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[quote=""Olorin""]Since no one else has posted a review of the movie yet, I will go ahead and post mine. This is going to be spoilerific, so if you haven't seen the movie yet and don't want details, don't highlight the hidden text.[/quote]

Thank you so much for your innovation in leaving your review hidden, not sure how you did that but it was a great way to give people a choice. Haven't seen this one yet as I am one to wait out the initial barrage of fans for an opener. I think I'm going to like it, not really a trekky like I am a LOTRingy. :)
Last edited by Olorin on Mon May 11, 2009 12:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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[quote=""Thranduil""]Thank you so much for your innovation in leaving your review hidden, not sure how you did that but it was a great way to give people a choice. Haven't seen this one yet as I am one to wait out the initial barrage of fans for an opener. I think I'm going to like it, not really a trekky like I am a LOTRingy. :) [/quote]

To do hidden text, simply select your text then click the dropdown arrow by the big "A" on the font formatting toolbar above, and select the color black.
"Olorin I was in the West that is forgotten...."

Re: Star Trek XI

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Ok, rather than do the hidden text trick, I will just preface this post by saying these are my thoughts on the movie, and that they do contain major SPOILERS.

So, read ahead at your own risk.

Like Olorin, a lot of my problems with the movie had to do with what can only be termed as "Hollywood science", which is about as faulty and full of holes as it comes. The premise of Spock's journey back in time as well as Nero's main motivation for revenge centers around the destruction of Romulus in the main Star Trek universe, but this event comes about due to a star going supernova. Now, this isn't necessarily bad science at first glance, and the ignorant masses will swallow it up and move on, except that for any one that knows better, this is a huge mistake. I grant that the movie does not make clear whether this star is the Romulan sun, but if you are going to establish in a comic book prequel that it is not, then at least come clean and say it. In the comic book, the Romulan senate does not act to evacuate the planet because they distrust Spock, even though his assertions of doom are backed by Nero's account.
Be that as it may, and however it might be possible (which it is not) that a far away supernova could possibly threaten another star system, it seems to me that it would be virtually impossible, if not downright assinine and illogical, that it would threaten the entire galaxy. The writers, of course, conveniently neglect to e xp lain this. As for the red matter and black hole solution, the least said, the better. However, this is science fiction after all, so some of the fiction must be taken along with the science, but even so, this movie makes a lot of things hard to swallow.

Vulcan, a planet full of some of the most intelligent and scientific beings in the galaxy, apparently cannot fathom what is happening to them, and do not act to evacuate their planet in the small amount of time that is available to them? This is a charter member of the Federation, one of the original five founding members, home to an advanced space-faring civilization, yet no Starfleet ships are in orbit to defend the planet, and only a paltry 10,000 vulcans make it off-planet. Even worse, the vulcan High Council, those responsible for the knowledge and culture of the entire species just hold hands and stand around waiting for rocks to fall on them until Spock comes to save them?!?

The list of head-scratchers goes on. Since when does it take a few minutes to warp from Earth to Vulcan? Even in normal Star Trek continuity this was not possible. Why is Delta Vega suddenly a moon of Vulcan? And how convenient that both Spock and Scotty are there, and just a few kilometers away from each other too. Since when does Starfleet strand its officers via pod capsule onto inhospitable worlds full of bad weather and nasty critters? Does the Enterprise lack a brig or confinement to quarters? Why does the Enterprise look so futuristic inside, yet its engine room looks like a crude oil refinery? Why are there nuclear symbols on silo-looking objects in the engine room when the ship is powered by dilithium crystals and a matter-antimatter reactor?

All these and many other things left me thoroughly confused and feeling that the writers and directors did a lot of things for convenience's sake, as well as for that 'cool' factor when in fact these actions and changes make little to no sense. It's one thing to do something in a movie to facilitate the action and plot, but it's another when you do it and give absolutely no thought to how such a thing could even approach the realm of plausibility.

Speaking of plausibility, we come to the bull in china shop: the destruction of the Kelvin. As the writers so smugly claim, this is then event in the past that causes history to branch off and give rise to the alternate reality that the movie takes place in. This is a fine theory, and one that has been e xp lored before in Star Trek. However, the results here leave much to be desired when one attempts to reconcile that event with the changes that are put before us. That Kirk evidently grew up to be a somewhat different person is infinitely acceptable, but that's it. Aside from the crew of the Kelvin, how does its destruction by an unknown agressor go on to effect such large and sweeping changes in Starfleet's history? The Enterprise gets constructed much later, and they do it on the ground instead of in orbit? Spock never serves under Pike, and they never go to Talos IV? All of the people that would one day form the bridge crew of the Enterprise now attend Starfleet Academy at the same time and all go on the first mission together?

Ok, so they had to figure out a way to get all these folks on the bridge together. I get it. But did it have to be done under such a ridiculous pretense? Did Nero cause more damage to the timeline than we were shown? What was he doing for twenty-five years? Don't skimp on important details people, because the audience is not as stupid and uncaring as you think, especially when a portion of it is being forced to accept these changes in lieu of an established universe that they have scrutinized for over forty years. I think we deserved a little more consideration than to simply be showered with non-sensical changes and being forced to accept them as is simply because it was time to change them. I can accept changes and innovation, but if you are doing it while respecting what has come before, as they claimed to do, then do it with a little more care, intelligence, and a little less arrogance.

Right. So did I like anything about this movie? I think some of the characterizations and casting choices were great. Pine as Kirk was quite good, moreso than I was e xp ecting. He displayed the confidence and ability to think on his feet that the first Kirk did, and a willingness to take charge when most would run away from danger. The womanizing aspect of his character left something to be desired though. His advances on Uhura were perhaps a bit more salacious than the gentlemanly Kirk of yesterday, but still in keeping with his Don Juan persona. However, the constant lascivious looks at passing cadets and raging hormone comments would be more at home in one of those 80's movies about horny young men in college. It got tiresome fast.

Quinto as Spock I had some minor issues with. When Spock was being Spock, I think he nailed it for the most part, though Quinto fell a little short of being able to portray his vulcan side as impassively and dispassionately as a young Nimoy. Some of the mannerisms were spot on, but where I had the biggest problem was with his human side. I know that we are seeing Spock at a stage in his life where he is still struggling to bury his emotions, and for the most part this was done well, but where they totally lost me was with his Uhura 'hookup.' So this is an alternate reality and these aren't quite the same characters that we knew, but that was way out of left field and I felt was way too uncharacteristic and out of place for Spock and Uhura. I was ok with the first instance of it, when while in a highly emotional moment for all, Uhura reaches out in empathy for Spock in the turbolift and attempts to comfort him. While the original Uhura was far too much of a dignified lady to lose her composure like that, I rolled with it and thought to myself 'ok... that's new and not so hard to believe.' Yet, their makeout goodbye scene in the transporter room was over the top and too hard for me to not think I wasn't watching Spock and Uhura at that point. Where Spock had seemed to regain control of his emotions in the first scene, all that is completely undone here, and the lingering kisses and touches were just too much. I guess Starfleet officers don't hold much for decorum while on duty and in the presence of others. The nail in the coffin was when Spock attempts to say that he loves Uhura because he might not come back. Ok, so not only do the ships in this new reality move at uber-super-duper warp speeds, but so do feelings.

As for the rest, McCoy was great, one of the few redeeming aspects of the movie. Uhura was ok except for what I noted above. She was ok, but I felt her role as written lacked a lot of the dignity and ladylike qualities that Nichelle Nichols brought to the original role, but I guess propriety would be too boring for today's audiences. Sulu was good, both in his moment of discomfiture on the bridge in bringing the ship to warp, and later when fighting on the drill platform. Chekov was also ok, and his fumblings of the english language brought back very fond memories of Walter Koenig. Scotty I was not so happy with. Simon Pegg alternated between being spot on and way off the mark for me. For one, he just couldn't seem to shut up at times, and that was annoying as hell when trying to envision him as the Scotty I remembered. Some of the humour was reminisncent of old times with the character, but I think there were more misses than hits, and the water filtration scene was an utter waste of time that served no purpose I saw other than to try to elicit some cheap laughs.

Supporting roles: George Kirk, Sarek, Pike, and Amanda all did great. Nero, as I feared, was completely short-changed and utterly wasted in what could have potentially been a very interesting villain. His revenge plot was given little depth beyond the obvious, and the added dimension he was given in the Countdown comic book was sadly left by the wayside. I sincerely hope some of his cut scenes make it back into a director's cut. Having said that, Bana did the best he could with very little. I liked him better than Shinzon, I'll say that much, and his greetings when onscreen were priceless: "Hello! I'm Nero."

What's left? Pretty much just a host of minor quibbles that range from majestic starships that now handle like x-wing fighters doing barrel-rolls, phasers that fire like turbo-lasers on a star destroyer, and hand weapons that fire like stormtrooper blasters. If you noticed the Star Wars comparisons, that's because there were blatant changes in that direction. Gone is what made Star Trek distinctive as a cinematic e xp erience, replaced by a barrage of fast-paced action, e xp losions, and dubious science.

I have yet to see this movie a second time, but I sincerely doubt it will improve with a second viewing as Olorin suggested, at least for me. I may have seen the birth of a successful relaunch of Star Trek for those who don't know any better, but for me the price is too high: the death and near complete disregard of a rich history and past. I went with two friends of mine, also lifelong fans of Star Trek, and while one felt almost exactly the way I did, the other was simply too bemused to care anymore. Not exactly a good reaction from us old fans.

Last point, and the reason that for me, the movie was worth seeing: Leonard Nimoy. It was indescribably gratifying and nostalgic to see him play Spock once more. About the only times where the movie elicited genuine emotions out of me (not counting disdain and disbelief,) was when he was onscreen, playing the iconic character that Quinto can only hope to emulate. For those brief moments, I truly felt like I was watching a Star Trek movie again and it made me feel sad that I knew it would be the last time I would feel that way. A real pity there was no plot-worthy oppotunity to have Shatner in this movie, because seeing these two men as Kirk and Spock one last time would have allowed me to close this final chapter of a beloved show in contentment.

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One small nit to add to what Val and I have already posted. A friend pointed this out today. How is it Chekov is able to get a transporter lock on Kirk and Sulu as they fall at terminal velocity thousands of feet, yet when the transporter has Amanda and the ground suddenly gives way beneath her, she is gone?
"Olorin I was in the West that is forgotten...."

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[quote=""Olorin""]One small nit to add to what Val and I have already posted. A friend pointed this out today. How is it Chekov is able to get a transporter lock on Kirk and Sulu as they fall at terminal velocity thousands of feet, yet when the transporter has Amanda and the ground suddenly gives way beneath her, she is gone?[/quote]

Ugh. Hadn't thought of that one, but chalk it up to it making for good drama while sacrificing logic and internal consistency, something this movie does not shy from.

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Random thoughts etc.

The ST novel writers are going to have an absolute field day playing in the newly altered landscape of the Star Trek prime timeline, with Romulus destroyed and the Empire in tatters. The repercussions of such an event could provide the basis for many stories, even perhaps...a new TV series? I suspect Frakes, Sirtis, and Burton would jump at the chance to put on their costumes again.

The new movie made a ton of money, almost $80M. Not only does that blow away all previous ST movie opening weekends, it's about twice as much as Nemesis made in its entire theatrical run. See http://trekmovie.com/2009/05/11/final-n ... an-begins/

A company called Quantum Mechanix is going to make detailed, large-scale museum quality models of the new old Enterprise, for an as-yet undisclosed price. See http://trekmovie.com/2009/05/11/quantum ... rise-more/

I did not catch the blooper of Chekov responding to an order given to Sulu. Just another example of the young ensign's over-eagerness, apparently.

So Val, some time back while we were thinking that the trailer showed a scene of Kirk making out with Uhura in bed, you said something to the effect that if that was the case, you felt sorry for the person sitting in front of you, as he was going to have your vomit running down the back of his head. So as it turns out, Spock is having the relationship, an even less logical turn of events. So tell me, did you eject your warp core, err, popcorn?

Speaking of the scene with Kirk and the Orion girl in bed in their underwear, when Kirk sits back and they have their argument, as Chris Pine sits down, his "parts" bounce. The ratings people must not have noticed that! I guess they were not watching it on IMAX like I was.

[quote=""Valkrist""]I have yet to see this movie a second time, but I sincerely doubt it will improve with a second viewing as Olorin suggested, at least for me. [/quote]

Yet I would still suggest a second viewing. Just give yourself a few days for the shock to wear off, and when you see it the second time, you may be able to focus more on the movies as a movie than on the boneheaded things they got wrong. You'll feel a lot better then. One thing I've learned over the years is that a lot of the ST movies left me pretty cold initially, but that since they are Star Trek, they automatically merit a second viewing.

[quote=""Valkrist""]Last point, and the reason that for me, the movie was worth seeing: Leonard Nimoy.[/quote]

He definitely had some touching moments, such as when he counsels Kirk to upset young Spock enough to show that he's "emotionally compromised," and he says that he can definitely say he's emotionally compromised, as he's just seen his world destroyed. I must say, though, I now understand that my idea for bringing Shatner back for a closing scene of old Kirk and Spock safe and sound in the 24th Century could not have worked, as our old Spock is now stranded in the past of the altered timeline.
Last edited by Olorin on Mon May 11, 2009 4:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"Olorin I was in the West that is forgotten...."

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I wisely refrained from eating any popcorn or candy during this movie just to avoid that. As it were, watching Spock and Uhura acting like lovestruck teenagers did make my stomach turn.

I honestly don't feel I can shake loose my dislike for this film, even with a second viewing. I don't think it merits another $12 on my part, though I will eventually get the dvd, but that's it.

Hadn't thought about what will happen with the novels now as I stopped reading those many years ago. I guess in my mind they ended with this movie, but I suppose they can continue to write new stories in the old reality, as well as new stories in the new one. As for a new tv series spinning off from that? Don't hold your breath. The original Star Trek is dead on the big and little screen.

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Slightly off-topic: just to add some perspective to the second viewing issue, here are the only movies I have ever gone back to see in a theatre more than once during first run:

Star Wars
The Empire Strikes Back
Braveheart
Gladiator
The Fellowship of the Ring
The Two Towers
The Return of the King

I wouldn't deign to place this movie among that august company.

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From The Washington Post. I don't know that I fully agree with it, but here it is for whatever it's worth.
The Trouble With Quibbles

With Films Like 'Star Trek,' Overzealous Fans Exert an Unhealthy Pressure on Moviemakers


I was commanded by Paramount's publicists -- the Legion of Women With Clipboards -- to come alone to an advance, clandestine screening of "Star Trek" a couple of weeks ago. I e xp ected the theater to be sadly semi-private, with just a few entertainment writers and all those empty chairs. But when I got there, it was packed with serious Trekkers who had all been there for hours and hours (of course they had), summoned by some magic e-mail. Really, they have been there for 43 years -- waiting, watching, assessing, obsessing. The night was at once joyful and as serious as a heart attack.

The lights went down. I always love this moment. It's the last chance for a fan to wonder if it's all going to be okay, if they did it right, if this is going to work out. The excitement, the concern, the communal investment: no turning back now. It reminds me of Dave Bowman drifting toward the monolith at the end of Arthur C. Clarke's "2001: A Space Odyssey." He says one last thing to Mission Control: Oh my God -- it's full of stars! And then he disappears into it.

"Star Trek" is full of stars. For a few seconds I turned away from the screen simply to watch its light reflected in the faces of the core believers. Half of them were literally nibbling at their fingernails.

After came the quibbling. Even when fans are pleased beyond ecstasy, there is a quibble. Amid the afterglow, in the line for the men's room, little notes were woven into the frantic conversation: This part could have been better, and what about that, or if only they'd done this. Mostly, though, the men relieved themselves and let out satisfied sighs: J.J. Abrams has not ruined "Star Trek."
Image

We won't leave behind much in the way of original scholarship or art, but future anthropologists will (kindly, one hopes) take note of how slavishly we tended to a garden of sequels, prequels, adaptations, remakes and reboots. It was all we talked about.

Someone in the future will draw a timeline of four of five decades in length to crack some code of emotion/nostalgia/reverence, which will finally e xp lain why we remade "Bewitched" and "The Dukes of Hazzard."(We did it because we felt . . . stuck? We did it because we were millennially inert, afraid to make something new? We deflected social upheaval by meticulously retelling already-told stories?)

The future will ask why there had to be so many Harry Potter books and why each film version had to faithfully replicate a certain number of pages; why teenage girls all but held knives to the throats of the creators of a "Twilight" movie, daring them to make one false move in casting choices or tone. Someday, someone will make some sense of why the Iron Man movie worked and the Hulk movies (either of them!) did not (for different reasons!). The future will decide, objectively at last, if "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" was any good or not, compared with other "X-Men" movies and compared to the original comic books. (We are incapable of knowing; we are capable only of arguing the arcane merits and letdowns.)

Trailers, which are mere suggestions of the finished product, now have the power to set off weeks of angst-ridden speculation or rapturous typing frenzies -- pre-quibbles! -- such as when grown-ups first encountered, earlier this year, the trailer to Spike Jonze's forthcoming adaptation of the beloved children's book "Where the Wild Things Are." (People reacted with relief; it looks right. It bears watching.)

We criticize films even as they play before us, tweeting our observations from the theater. Many people watch "Lost" each week at a keyboard, hitting send at each commercial break.

Without holding a single document of copyright entitlement, you and thousands (millions!) like you nevertheless e xp erience a chronic fear of violation: Your beloved boob-tube rerun is being made into a big-budget movie. The book you read eight times in fourth grade is getting adapted to the screen. The cartoon character that was on your favorite lunchbox is going to be revivified by sexy actors. They screwed up "Speed Racer." They got Spider-Man right and then ruined Daredevil. You brace yourself for the worst, because the worst happens so often.

The quibble can continue years after the product is released. Can it really be 10 years ago this month that the "Star Wars" people unfortunately met Jar Jar Binks? There you have the ultimate act of fan betrayal, "Episode I -- The Phantom Menace," instigating a decade's worth of Internet agonistes.

Has our quibbling worked? Yes, if you believe in the collective force of fans and the "wiki" social ideal -- that group input only improves the result, guiding by peer pressure if nothing else. No, if you think filmmakers are too beholden to fans. Quibbling does not produce a Heath Ledger-style Joker; that is the result of an actor and a writer and a director coming unhinged from the original material. Quibbling produces a "Watchmen" movie, which tenderly reproduced the 1988 graphic novel panel-for-panel and still failed -- pleasing fans, perhaps, but excluding newcomers.

All the church words and metaphors people come up with to describe blockbusters and devoted fandom apply: Is it faithful? Will I feel betrayed? Is it canon? Will I still believe? Summertime filmmaking is church now. Pity the producers, directors, screenwriters and actors who take on a science-fiction or fantasy project and must first make an appearance at Comic-Con or some such convention-center cathedral gathering, so as to genuflect before fans of the older version, the classic comic or the original TV show. There's a permission paradigm now: You must show fans your plans -- costume sketches; a glimpse of a vehicle or set design. You must demonstrate reverence. The just-cast star must sit on a panel and make up stories about his childhood love for [insert character here].
Image

For months, Abrams and his team of "Star Trek" writers and actors smartly paid lip service to "Trek" fans, to set them at ease and co-opt their support. The three trailers released before "Star Trek" seemed designed to reassure. Only the third and most recent trailer seemed in any way deviant, as a voice-over tells the new, hottie Kirk (Chris Pine) that he must fulfill his destiny and follow his father's footsteps, which, as anyone knows, is "Star Wars" talk -- a little like being handed a Communion wafer in a synagogue.

Then, as screenings of "Star Trek" got early huzzahs from Trekkers, newbies and movie critics alike, Abrams grew more bold in his press interviews for the film's release. He more freely admitted he was never much of a fan of the original show. Same goes for Zachary Quinto, who plays hottie Spock. It turns out they were going as much on creative instinct. The result is a "Star Trek" that moves relentlessly fast and feels newly born. It's nothing short of an office revolution: All the old guys got retirement packages (save one, Leonard Nimoy, on contract work) and the foosball kids were promoted to management. The conference room is a-shamble. Nobody knows where this all goes next. All we know is we want it to go.

Quibblers would have kept "Star Trek" more like its old self. Quibblers inhibit revolution. Quibblers would deny the basic law of forward motion in pop culture:

If you love something, they will remake it.
But if you really love it, you will set it free, and let them.
"Olorin I was in the West that is forgotten...."

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[quote=""Valkrist""]Slightly off-topic: just to add some perspective to the second viewing issue, here are the only movies I have ever gone back to see in a theatre more than once during first run:

Star Wars
The Empire Strikes Back
Braveheart
Gladiator
The Fellowship of the Ring
The Two Towers
The Return of the King

I wouldn't deign to place this movie among that august company.[/quote]

You're much more selective than I am, apparently. I saw all those more than once in the theater (except Gladiator), plus I saw all the Trek movies more than once, and Titanic, and others that I don't remember. Here's a related, though admittedly off-topic, question. What's the most number of times anyone has seen a particular movie in the theater? My number would be around 10.
"Olorin I was in the West that is forgotten...."

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Re: the article. 50% truth, 50% steaming pile of you-know-what. Not saying that Star Trek is a timeless classic, but according to the authour's final directive, everything should eventually be tampered with and changed? Bull.

Braveheart and The Fellowship are tied for me with five viewings each. The first I enjoyed thoroughly but would not have actually paid to see it five times. As it happened, I had some friends working at the theatre at the time, and four of the five viewings were free. The second was just the result of wanting to take in as much Middle-earth as possible before the movie stopped showing. I saw The Two Towers twice, and The Return of the King three times.

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One closing thought for tonight on the new movie. Given the movie's success and the presumed video release around the holidays, this may be the first time that Paramount puts out some cool trinkets with it as part of a gift set.

One other thought....anyone notice the TRIBBLE in a birdcage on Scotty's desk on DV?
"Olorin I was in the West that is forgotten...."

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I haven't yet seen the movie, so I haven't read any of your reviews yet.

Anyway, I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday that had seen the movie and he said that it was absolutely "friggen" great, etc etc. He was raving on and on. Mind you, up until the movie was released I was fully supporting this movie being great and fueling Star Trek and keeping it alive... but as I was talking to him, something he said made it click in my head... He kept raving on and on about all the new things they could do and he gave a couple of examples, and I said "wait, that didnt happen until, such and such, that totally violates canon..." He replied "Thats the great thing about this new movie... THERE IS NO CANON! THEY CAN DO ANYTHING!" And it clicked... no matter how good this movie may be... this isnt MY star trek... this is not what I want renewed... I want to see the prequel comic book story... I want MY "TNG-era" trek continued... There wasn't REALLY a reason for the "parallel/alternate" timeline, this movie could have been a sequel/prequel and left things alone, and still done some things with a movie trilogy that could fit into "the canon that we know"... but they've gone and "relaunched "Star Trek""... something apparently they have to do to movie series these days... they've taken Star Trek and MTV-ied it.

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I saw it last night and confirmed what I had been telling people all this time: This is really not better (if not completely worse) than any other Star Trek, it's just that people are giving it a chance for once.

Most people I hear say "I loved it, and I HATE Star Trek" have never even seen any of the others. I was right when I told my friends I didn't need to see this to know what was going on here. As now, having seen it, I think exactly the same.

My complaints are as follows:

You call that a soundtrack? The same five notes over and over? It sounds like a ten-year-old thought that up. As far as scores go, Goldsmith is still the man, corpse or not.

Crappily-edited introduction stories. I knew it'd be this way. Not many people know how to do step-by-step introductions to characters well. Least of all when they switch back and forth from Iowa to Vulcan too many times. Okay, we KNOW where we are now, cut the subtitle crap.

Space Battles. We're in space. Where are all the cool 2009 space shots? I went to this hoping for some newly envisioned shots of space and planetary stuff with cool atmospheric settings. Oh, well we got enough close-ups of Spock and Uhura. Too much interior not enough exterior. And this is another one of my e xp ectations gone horribly right. I knew in the way of "jazzing things up" we'd get too much senseless hand-to-hand (and "katana sword") junk despite being on a ship with torpedoes, lasers, and more crew than the five people on the bridge. Yeah, OK. The space battles it did have were really cool. But as always with J.J., they were diluted by his frantic camera and too many lense flares (which I enjoyed at first but it really got aggravating). Way too fast, way too rushed, and really set aside for an over-abundance of close-ups and Kirk, Spock, Kirk, Spock, Kirk and Spock, Kirk Kirk Kirk, Spock Spock Kirk, Spock, and Uhura.

And last but not least: Eric Bana. WHAT THE ****? Nero was amazing! Loved Bana in this. In such little time he STOLE the show. He was definitely the best part of this movie, yet they threw him under the bus WAY too easily. What the hell was that about? I was e xp ecting a fight at least as tough as Shinzon and his Scimitar. But nope. They got rid of Nero SO easily and so quickly. And in that cliche-nobody-viewing-this-has-seen-star-trek-before-so-they'll-think-we're-being-original-by-ripping-off-the-whole-warp-core-into-the-black-whole-thing-where-the-e xp losion-blasts-us-far-enough-away-from-it.... thing. Give me a break. Poor Nero. What a shame. What a travesty. I want a recut. I mean... it did help for Kirk's character: "You got it.", but what a waste of Bana's performance.


And one last bit which adds to that... this is a new timeline. They e xp lained it well. They can do ANYTHING they want. They could have had Nero be what Shinzon should have been. They could have killed off some crewmembers. They could have done anything to make this story definitive and stand-alone great. Yet they preserved everything for a happy ending. What are they planning on doing making MORE Kirk & Spock movies? Jesus. Just end it already. And it doesn't even have to be a happy ending. They called the old ones campy? This is by far the most cheesy Trek I've seen. Infinite possibility here yet they don't take advantage of it to *nearly* the full potential.


It was fun. It wasn't bad. Some people did great jobs with the mannerisms and all. But I don't get the new hype at all. It could have been MUCH better, needless to say.
Last edited by Sedhal on Tue May 12, 2009 4:54 am, edited 3 times in total.
-_-

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523
Another canon violation occurred to me a bit ago. Kirk was born in Iowa. That's canon; it was said in ST IV. However, in the new movie, he's born in space. I suppose it could be argued that the Nero attack caused his mom to go into premature labor and that if Nero hadn't appeared, the Kelvin was heading straight back to Earth, but that's a bit of a stretch. I think we have to assume that if Nero hadn't appeared, Kirk would probably still have been born in space.

Just another example of making sure you should know what you're doing before you pat yourself on the back by saying that changing the timeline allows us to change everything.

But I have to say I'm somewhat appalled that pretty much to a one, every review I've read has lauded the movie for ditching the "impenetrable" canon that "painted Trek into a corner," which is why "normal people hate Trek." Give me a freakin' break. Most of the movies have gone out of their way to try to be accessible to non-Trekkers. How many times have we had it e xp lained to us that Worf is a Klingon? Even ST II, which relied the most on back-story, retold the essential part of Space Seed in about 2 minutes. If people are too stupid to follow that, they should just stay home. And not breed. :angry:
"Olorin I was in the West that is forgotten...."

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Agreed.

I think what we are witnessing with this movie is revisionism, indoctrinated into people's minds by what JJ and his gang have been preaching for the past couple of years. You make a statement about something enough times and people will begin to accept it as fact after a while. Judging by how the reviews are painting this movie vs. the old Trek, it's becoming painfully obvious that people will change their opinions because you're labelled a square, a nerd, or a quibbler, if you don't embrace the changes and start pointing fingers at the old material for being too restrictive. To me, that just adds up to a shifting of the blame squarely onto the shoulders of past Trek writers, while absolving yourself of any responsibility for a blatant lack of creativity and compelling storytelling. :angry:

On the Kirk thing, nice catch once again. One thing that wasn't made clear either is what role Kirk's mom performed on the Kelvin. At that particular point in time in Starfleet, families were not the norm or even regulation among starships, so why was she there? Granted she could be part of the crew also, but if she was that close to her due date, should she not have been dropped off at the nearest starbase some time ago? Seems a little stupid to place her life and that of the child in danger like that. Come to think of it, I never liked the concept, even in TNG. Just another example of where implausible things overruled common sense in this movie in favour of taking the easy way out and telling a 'cool' story.
Last edited by Valkrist on Tue May 12, 2009 5:07 pm, edited 4 times in total.

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In the reality that is my mind... (which can be a scary place...hahaha)... MY original "normal" time line that was going before Nero went back in time.. is still continuing on.. and MAYBE one day... someone at Paramount will one day have the you-know-whats to continue the CORRECT time line...

And to hear the star trek Canon be ridiculed is appalling... the writer's, etc of Trek have came up with of hundreds of hours of stories and facts in 28 combined seasons and 10 previous movies, that overall, created an entire universe full of interwoven facts of all these different species and histories and people ... that in and of itself should be commended to ridiculed. Yes there were inconsistencies along the way, but overall, it was woven together great.


A little off/on topic... this thread was started 3 years ago... and now we have had the movie released.... we have come full circle.

Re: Star Trek XI

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[quote=""Valkrist""]

On the Kirk thing, nice catch once again. One thing that wasn't made clear either is what role Kirk's mom performed on the Kelvin. At that particular point in time in Starfleet, families were not the norm or even regulation among starships, so why was she there? Granted she could be part of the crew also, but if she was that close to her due date, should she not have been dropped off at the nearest starbase some time ago? Seems a little stupid to place her life and that of the child in danger like that. Come to think of it, I never liked the concept, even in TNG. Just another example of where implausible things overruled common sense in this movie in favour of taking the easy way out and telling a 'cool' story.[/quote]

I wondered what his mom was doing on board also, given that in that era, families were not on ships. I assumed that she was part of the crew. Whether she would have been rotated off at a starbase, I hadn't pondered.

I loathed the families-on-ships concept of TNG. I accept the idea that a 10-year mission is a bit long to e xp ect someone to serve when they might be wanting to start a family at some point, but a starship is simply too dangerous a place, even with a separable saucer as a lifeboat. So logically, I thought it was a bad idea. Dramatically, it caused us to have to suffer through how many bad episodes about misbehaving children? Every episode with Wesley, for starters. Then there was a stretch in Season 5 that earned that year the title "Year of the Child" among fans. All of these episodes just reminded me over and over again of how dumb it would be to have families aboard ship.

[quote=""BladeCollector""]In the reality that is my mind... (which can be a scary place...hahaha)... MY original "normal" time line that was going before Nero went back in time.. is still continuing on.. and MAYBE one day... someone at Paramount will one day have the you-know-whats to continue the CORRECT time line...

And to hear the star trek Canon be ridiculed is appalling... the writer's, etc of Trek have came up with of hundreds of hours of stories and facts in 28 combined seasons and 10 previous movies, that overall, created an entire universe full of interwoven facts of all these different species and histories and people ... that in and of itself should be commended to ridiculed. Yes there were inconsistencies along the way, but overall, it was woven together great.[/quote]

"Our" reality, the prime timeline, does continue. The writers have e xp licitly said that. It may have even been mentioned in the movie itself. Whether Paramount ever goes back to it or not is another question. I'd think certainly not while Abrams is in charge. All he and Paramount are going to listen to are all the critics and all the never-watched-Trek-before types that are screaming how great this movie is.

As for all those ridiculing Star Trek's mythos, it is little more than simply another slap at Trekkers, those weird, overweight, can't-get-a-date, people in goofy uniforms and rubber ears—or so they stereotype and marginalize all of us.

It would be really interesting to know what Rick Berman thinks of the new movie. I'm sure we'll never know. He will be very diplomatic and just say it was great. But it must be tough for him to swallow. His stewardship, though it became anemic toward the end, guided Star Trek successfully for fifteen years, sometimes juggling two series and a movie at the same time. And now he's forgotten like yesterday's trash.
"Olorin I was in the West that is forgotten...."

Re: Star Trek XI

527
The writers have revealed the scene that they wrote for Shatner, which was ultimately rejected and not shot. From MTV:
'Star Trek' Writers Reveal The William Shatner Scene That Never Was

'We wanted to really bring him back in the right way,' Roberto Orci says of why the idea never materialized.

SANTA MONICA, California — This past weekend, $76.5 million worth of people saw Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto and Leonard Nimoy onscreen in J.J. Abrams' blockbuster "Star Trek" reboot. The one person they didn't see, however, is larger-than-life "Trek" icon William Shatner.

During the course of the film's production, a bizarre battle of words erupted between Abrams and the 78-year-old original Captain Kirk over a never-filmed, top-secret scene. Recently, we got the spoiler-heavy details on the very different ending once intended to be Nimoy and Shatner's final time together onscreen.

"We did write a Shatner scene," Roberto Orci, one of the film's writers and producers, e xp lained. "And we were ultimately split internally. We didn't want it to be a gimmick; we wanted to really bring him back in the right way."

If you've seen the new "Trek," you know that Nimoy portrays the original Spock in a series of scenes that has the character traveling to an alternate dimension and making contact with younger versions of the Enterprise crew. In one heart-tugging moment, "old" Spock addresses "young" Spock and e xp lains their eventual friendship with Kirk; in the Shatner version, however, young Spock was to be more skeptical.

"Elder Spock tells young Spock, 'I couldn't tell you the truth about what's happening, because if I had, I would have robbed you of the benefit of realizing the greatness that you and Kirk will achieve together — and the amazing friendship that you'll have. You had to discover that for yourself, and I couldn't get in the way of that,' " Orci's writing partner, Alex Kurtzman, revealed. "And in our original version, younger Spock says, 'I'm still not sold.'

"Elder Spock said, 'Well, don't take my word for it,' and he handed him a little disc — a DVD, really — that projected a hologram, and then he walked away. And the hologram was of Kirk," Kurtzman continued. "It would've been Shatner."

The scene was an attempt by the writers to adhere to "Trek" canon — which depicted Shatner's Kirk as being killed in 1994's "Star Trek: Generations" — yet still give him a presence in the film via a final recording he had taped before his death.

"If you follow 'The Next Generation' [TV show], elder Spock went off to Romulus to be an ambassador in two episodes called 'Unification 1' and '2', and [our] idea was that it was a long, long mission, and Kirk would have died by the time he returned to Earth [because they] just wouldn't have the same lifespan," Kurtzman e xp lained of the Vulcan. "And so [this DVD] was essentially Kirk sending Spock a goodbye."

"His final message," Orci interrupted.

"It was a 'happy birthday' message [with Kirk saying], 'This is the last time I'm going to be able to wish you happy birthday, so I want to tell you how much you've meant to me and how amazing it was that we had all these adventures together,' " Kurtzman said of the alternate ending, which would have provided the last act with a powerful voice over the film's final scenes.

"That narrative, that voice-over," Kurtzman said, "became a link [to be heard] over [scenes of] this new crew coming in ... a young Kirk accepting the medal and becoming captain of the Enterprise."
"The entire ending of the movie, where you're seeing young Kirk being promoted," Orci added, "all that was going to be [played out with Shatner's] voice-over."

Ultimately, the Shatner ending of "Star Trek" was abandoned for a whole variety of reasons. "Whereas our elder Spock had a very organic reason to be there, we didn't have that same benefit with Kirk," Kurtzman e xp lained. "Because Kirk died in the movies — he died in canon — it was very hard to come up with a way to bring him back in the movie that didn't feel contrived."

"Ultimately, we decided internally that we were split," Orci remembered of the decision to abandon the Shatner ending. "The decision was that it wasn't quite enough to justify wasting his time."

Still, it's pretty obvious where Orci fell in the internal debate. "It was a nice voice-over. It was more than a scene," he e xp lained. "I think it could have worked, personally."
I can tell you, if they had included that scene, whatever my misgivings about the movie up to that point, I would have WEPT. So I think it was a big mistake not to include that scene.
"Olorin I was in the West that is forgotten...."

Re: Star Trek XI

528
And from People, something interesting if not uplifting. They interviewed the original cast and got their take on the new actors. I'll post just a link as it's kind of long, but I have to post Shatner's quote, since it's both pithy and self-serving.
"My impression of Chris Pine is that it's perfect casting. He's young and he's handsome and he will be rich."
Here's the link:

http://www.people.com/people/article/0, ... inalstcast
"Olorin I was in the West that is forgotten...."

Re: Star Trek XI

529
[quote=""Olorin""]I can tell you, if they had included that scene, whatever my misgivings about the movie up to that point, I would have WEPT. So I think it was a big mistake not to include that scene.[/quote]

Ditto.

Truly a missed opportunity in every sense, and one that will sadly never come again. "Risk is our business," Kirk once said, and the writers should have had more faith in themselves and gone ahead with this scene. It wouldn't have felt contrived at all, and it would have been a nice gesture on their part to allow us old fans to say farewell. :'(

Re: Star Trek XI

530
As I imagine you gleaned, one of the writers was for it, one was against, and I think Abrams made the final decision. Maybe we need an online petition to get them to film the scene for the DVD/BD release. God knows this movie will make enough money that they could afford to do it.
"Olorin I was in the West that is forgotten...."

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531
Yes, I was thinking that JJ was probably the Trek non-loving twit that axed the idea. :angry:

I wouldn't count on this ever happening though because it would be impossible without Shatner's cooperation. If he was already against doing a cameo for the movie, I seriously doubt he would do an extra scene for a dvd recut. They would have to throw millions at the guy, in which case he would be a fool to say no.

lol... I just read our first couple of posts in this thread from three years ago. Amazing how what was then just a rumour actually came to accurately describe the movie we saw a few days ago. :huh:
Last edited by Valkrist on Wed May 13, 2009 5:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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[quote=""Valkrist""]Yes, I was thinking that JJ was probably the Trek non-loving twit that axed the idea. :angry:

I wouldn't count on this ever happening though because it would be impossible without Shatner's cooperation. If he was already against doing a cameo for the movie, I seriously doubt he would do an extra scene for a dvd recut. They would have to throw millions at the guy, in which case he would be a fool to say no.

lol... I just read our first couple of posts in this thread from three years ago. Amazing how what was then just a rumour actually came to accurately describe the movie we saw a few days ago. :huh: [/quote]

No, I doubt they'd ever do the scene, either. I guess it depends on too many factors, high among which would be whether Shatner and Nimoy would even be willing. I wonder if they ever discussed the scene with Nimoy during filming. If they had, he could have told them right off whether he liked it or not, and I suspect he could also have told them whether Shatner would go for it. If he and Shatner do indeed complete each other's sentences, then I think Nimoy would have been a good judge of what Shatner would have thought. As far as what Shatner would ask to do it now, who knows? I guess it depends on how badly he wants one last shot at Kirk. He can't count on still being alive when they start ST XII.

I just went back and looked at those early posts. Yes, eerily prescient. We only failed to take into account one thing: sprinkle some magic altnerate timeline dust over the project, and all things become possible.

Right.
"Olorin I was in the West that is forgotten...."

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Hell, it would have been better than the ending they had. I was thinking during the scene in the auditorium at the end "umm.... this is SO awkward. Are they really ending it like this?" No wonder, they originally planned to actually have something meaningful over that gutwrenchingly awful bit of character interaction.
-_-

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536
According to Memory Alpha, the Star Trek wiki,
The TOS: episode "Where No Man Has Gone Before" depicted a planet named Delta Vega, located near the galactic barrier. Although the Delta Vega depicted in Star Trek is located in the Vulcan system, writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman named it after the planet in "Where No Man Has Gone Before". In an interview with TrekMovie.com, Orci said, "We moved the planet to suit our purposes. The familiarity of the name seemed more important as an Easter egg, than a new name with no importance."
So that huge blunder was an Easter egg, huh? Moral of the story: when a Star Trek writer uses a holiday reference, something is going to stink. (Remember, the Enterprise series finale was described as a "valentine" to the fans.)
Last edited by Olorin on Thu May 14, 2009 12:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"Olorin I was in the West that is forgotten...."

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That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. If they wanted to include Easter Eggs, there's better ways to do it than with an idiotic move such as moving an entire planet. Kind of insulting to our intelligence, actually. Also, it's a good thing Vulcan doesn't seem to have any oceans, because having another planetary body that close would wreak havoc with the tides. Notice they didn't call the new Delta Vega a moon, but a planet. :huh:

Here's one noteworthy Easter Egg though: when Kirk is being all cocky during the Kobayashi Maru test, he is busily chomping on an apple. In Wrath of Khan, when Kirk smugly admits to Saavik that he cheated on that test, he is also eating fruit (not sure if it was an apple.)

Re: Star Trek XI

538
Yes, it was an apple, and that was an example of an appropriate nod to the fans.

But the Delta Vega thing goes back to the writers' inability to grasp what will be well received by the fans and what won't. If these guys knew the first thing about Star Trek fans, it's that they would not consider the misuse of a name just for the sake of hearing the name to be fun or good. If you're going to use the name Delta Vega, then it had better be for a planet near the edge of the galaxy. If you're going to have a planet so near Vulcan that Vulcan appears in its sky as a disc, you had better call it T'Khut or just not give it a name.

I guess to me the Delta Vega thing has grown to be a bigger screwup than supernovae that can destroy other star systems. You can almost overlook the supernova. Star Trek movies have often overstated things to the point of absurdity. VI was full of grandiose statements: "The crew of the Starship Enterprise will not be the instigators of full scale war on the eve of universal peace." "He was the last best hope in the universe for peace." And from II: "I'm talking about universal armageddon." Well, the universe is a pretty big place (said Jody Foster's character in Contact). You don't have to envoke the entire universe to remind people you're out in space. (Hmmm, Nick Meyer, perpetrator of the scripts of both movies I quoted....) Anyway, for a franchise that overuses the term "universe" so frequently, Spock's quote in the new one about a supernova that "threatened the galaxy" doesn't seem so bad, especially if you don't have the prequel story to know that it literally was threatening the whole galaxy. But Delta Vega contradicts established Trek cosmology in a way that can't be excused by an altered timeline, and that they did it because they thought it would make the fans happy is awfully ironic.

I suppose I'm being what the media and all those Trek-disdainful critics would think of as a stereotypical "Trekkie," obsessing over minutia that only a Trekkie would know or care about. However, I am not wearing latex ears or a uniform as I write this, and the reason why it bothers me is that they had a halfway decent idea—give Spock a vantage point from which to observe the destruction of his homeworld—and they screw it up. Oh, oh, random thought—in "The Immunity Syndrome," when Spock senses, from across the vastness of space, the deaths of the crew of the Intrepid, he winces in shock and pain. Yet now, from just apparently a lunar orbit away, he e xp eriences the destruction of an entire planet and shows less effect than if his favorite baseball team lost a game. I suppose the psychic death shriek of all those Vulcans could not escape the event horizon of the black hole.

Anyway, contrary to what's suggested by my continued ramblings, I do not hate this movie. I think it's going to settle firmly into line along side past entries like VI and Nemesis, where I keep saying "if only, if only" whenever I watch it. What gets me is that I sense that its place among non-Trekkers is being carefully shaped and groomed as "the good Star Trek movie," as in, one that a "normal" person can like.
"Olorin I was in the West that is forgotten...."

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540
Someone called Darth Mojo (http://darthmojo.wordpress.com/2009/05/ ... #more-1201) attended a Q&A with Kurtzman & Orci, the writers, and brings back some interesting details on things in the script:
Trek scribes speak, complaints addressed – UPDATED

Last night in Hollywood, Creative Screenwriting editor Jeff Goldsmith hosted a special screening of the new Star Trek movie, followed by a Q&A with writers Alex Kurtzman & Roberto Orci. While I have yet to publish my official review, readers are aware that, while I found the film to be entertaining, I felt it was somewhat lacking in depth. I attended tonight’s screening in the hopes that the writing duo would be grilled about fans’ criticism, and thankfully, Mr. Goldsmith did not disappoint. The duo spoke about their history, how they approach writing and their personal e xp eriences with last year’s strike, but the heat was turned up when Jeff pulled out a hefty printout of fan questions gathered from around the net, designed to help all of us get a better insight into the most common complaints people have had about the new movie….
At this point be forewarned, ultra-spoilers follow!
Note that while I will do my best to remember the juiciest details, you can download a podcast of the entire Q&A here (currently being edited, audio should be posted on 5/15 – Mojo).
WHY TIME TRAVEL?
Many (including myself) have wondered what the point was of going to such great lengths to reconcile existing Star Trek cannon with a new story. Why bother with all this alternate-timeline hooey? If you’re rebooting the franchise and starting over, then just start over! The problem with that, according to Kurtzman & Orci, is that audiences might have assumed this new movie was simply an attempt to tell a story about Kirk & Spock from back before the original series, and everything that happened in Trek lore is still destined to happen. Where’s the fun in watching this crew take on the galaxy if we know Kirk will eventually be killed by Soren, Spock will become an ambassador to Romulus and everyone else lives? By history being altered, nothing has yet been written – Kirk really could die on the next mission and Khan might end up selling shoes. With a whole new timeline, stories are no longer beholden to “established” history and while everything we know and love is still there, how it plays out is no longer written. If you’ll pardon the cliche, essentially it means that everything old is new again!
THE CORVETTE
A deleted scene established that Kirk’s stepdad is a real bad mofo, and he forces young Kirk to wax & polish the car. He threatens that if he finds even one spec of dirt, he’s going to beat the kid senseless (I still think it’s a dumb scene, but at least this provides a lot more motivation for it). Other tidbits about this scene: The Beastie Boys song may be a blatant attempt to make Star Trek seem more hip, but if you look closely at the dashboard, the station playing it is listed as ”oldies.” Also, what the hell is a cliff like this doing in famously flat Iowa? Again, close eyes will see that the sign Kirk blows through reads “quarry” (i.e. a man-made pit). Another scene of 10 year old Kirk that didn’t make the final cut (I’m not sure if it was filmed or not) also involved a young Carol Marcus! Props to the boys for diving so deeply into the Trek mythos (they both admit to being Wrath of Khan junkies).
FAMILIES ON BOARD?
A fan asked why George Kirk’s pregnant wife was on board the USS Kelvin, since families weren’t supposed to be brought on board until the Next Gendays. “Because she’s a Starfleet officer” e xp lained the dynamic duo. This is also alluded to in another line about Kirk’s mother being off-world.
25 YEAR WAIT
After the incident with the USS Kelvin, did Nero and his crew really just hang around the black hole for 25 years, playing Fizbin and waiting for Spock to emerge? Couldn’t they have used that time to, say, help Romulus avert eventual disaster? Turns out a major cut scene e xp lains what happened during that time frame. After being rammed by the Kelvin, Nero’s ship was crippled; a convoy of Klingon Warbirds captured the crew and held them in a prison camp for all those years. Eventually the Romulans escaped, reclaimed their ship, blew up 47 Klingon vessels and returned to their mission (some of this is discussed in dialog which remains in the film). The good news is that these scenes were completed and there is hope they may surface on the DVD.
COINCIDENCE ON HOTH
The motherlode of the film’s many handy coincidences involves the banished Kirk conveniently running into Spock Prime (as the writers coined him early on) in his cave on Delta Vega. Much to my surprise and delight, even this jaw-dropping moment has an e xp lanation! In the minds of the creators, the focus of the plot is that Nero’s destruction of the timeline has altered history to the point that the all important friendship of Kirk and Spock is now threatened. If these two don’t come together, the fabric of space and time itself is endangered (as we have witnessed by the universe itself being saved countless times over the last 40 years). Kirk “coincidentally” running into Spock Prime is an example of fate itself trying to bring these two together. That’s how important it is. In fact a line about this was included during Spock Prime’s mind-meld speech, but was removed at the last minute (the writers said this particular was labored over more than any other section of the script and they now regret not including the line about fate). While this doesn’t completely forgive a very hackneyed sequence, it does address the most egregious moment in the film and I appreciate that an attempt was made to address it. In the wake of criticism over this scene, perhaps the line will be restored for the DVD release. It would make a world of difference.
NEXT ON JERRY SPRINGER
A lot of people found themselves scratching their heads over the unlikely romantic pairing of Spock and Uhura. The inspiration for this came from the original series, where apparently there are scenes of these two flirting (if anyone reading this remembers which episodes they’re talking about, please fill us in). Since the rough-and-tumble badboy is always the one to get the girl, the writers wanted to pair Uhura up with the less obvious choice. Besides, since Uhura is a smart, mature woman, they felt that she would probably gravitate towards the more interesting, intellectually mature man.
GREEN GIRL BLUES
There was a lot more material further e xp laining Kirk’s relationship with the hot green chick. Since she worked in the computer lab, Kirk was essentially sleeping with her to gain access to the simulation computer so he could cheat on the Kobyashi Maru. In a cut scene, Kirk tells her that if she gets an email from him while he’s taking the test, she should open it; she does, and it launches a virus which installs his cheat-patch.
SPOCK, MEET SPOCK
Why didn’t the universe e xp lode when Spock Prime met New Spock? What about all the time-honored SF theories that going back in time and meeting yourself will lead to anti matter e xp losions, tears in the fabric of space/time and dogs and cats living together? In doing their research on the latest fringe science theories, the current thinking is that events which create huge paradoxes (like going back in time and killing your grandfather) no longer will result in cataclysm, but the instant creation of an alternate universe which allows for the new reality (and I’ll back them up on this, since I’ve read material on the subject that basically says the same thing).
ALL BLOWED UP
Why did Kirk feel the need to fire all weapons at a doomed ship? After all, Nero’s vessel was mere seconds away from being crushed inside the black hole. Not true, said the Trek scribes – Nero’s ship was built to travel through black holes, so if Kirk hadn’t done anything, the bad guys would have slipped away and emerged god knows where (and when) ready to do more evil.
LENS FLARES: THE MOVIE
Why on Earth did JJ Abrams turn Star Trek into a two-hour commercial for lens flare plugins? I have to admit, upon my second viewing of the film I found this visual motif to be highly distracting and irritating. Flares, reflections and luminous ghosts simply appear everywhere, even without any obvious sources. The reason? JJ wanted a visual metaphor that stated “we have a bright future ahead of us.” No, I’m not making this up.
E XP LOSION SURFING
Would creating a big e xp losion on the event horizon of a black hole really create a shockwave that the Enterprise could surf to safety? No. But the e xp losion would alter the nature of the event horizon and create a space-time ripple that would… do something. Ok, my memory of this answer is a little shaky, but the pair did impress the crowd with a well researched solution that did make sense – you’ll have to listen to the podcast for the details.
Overall, I have to offer props to Kurtzman & Orci for having good answers to just about every moment in the film that elicited a “***?” Had some of these cut scenes and dialog been retained, the truck-sized holes in plot and logic might have just been big enough to squeeze a Smart car through. I’m impressed that so much thought did go into moments that most people wouldn’t think twice about – but, then again, give me a million dollars and a year to write a Star Trek movie and I guarantee you I’ll do a whole lot a thinkin’!
"Olorin I was in the West that is forgotten...."

Re: Star Trek XI

542
This brief excerpt is taken from a blog where three old school Trek fans get asked to comment on the new movie. I'm posting this one question here because the answers are just too funny and reflect well what I thought of this particular scene also:


When Spock takes the elders from that temple, exactly what do you think they were doing in there?



C: They were playing ring-around-the-statue, a Vulcan favourite for over 5000 years. Either that or they were praying, despite how that would seemingly conflict with logic.



J: Something not very logical!



L: I like to think they were convening the tribal council to vote Winona Ryder out of the movie, but that's probably just me.

Re: Star Trek XI

543
Ha ha, pretty funny! I also wondered what they were doing in there. A cave is probably not the best place to be in an earthquake, and they were having continuous earthquakes by that point.
"Olorin I was in the West that is forgotten...."

Re: Star Trek XI

544
Here's something interesting from TrekMovie: Abrams had to vastly increase the size of the Enterprise. Look at this:
New Enterprise - 725.35 meters long?
One question that keeps coming up is, ‘just how big is the new Enterprise? Well Gizmodo says that they have got it confirmed that it is a whopping 725.35 meters long, or over twice as long as the original. Here is an info graphic they crated to help compare it to real and other imagined space vehicles.
Image

Click to bigify at Gizmodo
No wonder they were able to fit so many shuttlecraft into the hanger deck....

You know, the bigger this thing is, the harder it is to believe that it would have been built on the ground vs. in orbit.
"Olorin I was in the West that is forgotten...."

Re: Star Trek XI

546
Ok... I've seen the movie.. They only mention that Nero created the alternate timeline... They didn't prove it. Yes he altered reality but did he really create a new one... I would have more respect for JJ if he would have just "relaunched" the movie and not tried to tie it into the correct star trek. Has anyone added the new trek to your ranking lists of the movies?

Re: Star Trek XI

548
[quote=""BladeCollector""]Ok... I've seen the movie.. They only mention that Nero created the alternate timeline... They didn't prove it. Yes he altered reality but did he really create a new one... I would have more respect for JJ if he would have just "relaunched" the movie and not tried to tie it into the correct star trek. Has anyone added the new trek to your ranking lists of the movies?[/quote]

The writers have said that it was a new timeline and the old one still exists, even if it's not e xp licit in the movie. Of course, if it's not said in the movie, there's nothing to stop them from changing their minds later....

As to the ranking, it's a bit early for that, at least for me. However, even as we speak, I am just now completing my rewatching of all 10 prior movies. I may post my current ranking of them in a bit.
"Olorin I was in the West that is forgotten...."

Re: Star Trek XI

549
So BC, when are you going to give us your review? I imagine you're still digesting it. I didn't want to post anything about it for a while, until I'd had a chance to let it settle, and then see it a second time. Having just seen it a 3rd time (which is a result of not getting all my friends together for the first viewing), I can definitely say I like it for what it is while purposely choosing to overlook what it isn't.
"Olorin I was in the West that is forgotten...."

Re: Star Trek XI

550
Overall, as a movie, I enjoyed it, I was entertained, etc. I can see how it is raking in all the money and where everyone has been saying it is such a good movie and "star trek is soooo cool now".

I liked the casting of Kirk. I didn't like how he oogled at every girl that walked by, but they were trying to establish him as a cocky ladies man... was it me, or was there a scene/line in the movie, where he did a "Shatnerian" line delivery?

I thought Quinto as Spock worked out nicely... his relationship with Uhura is appalling and unnecessary, and quite frankly, illogical. He was her teacher, Spock does not strike me as a "date your student" kinda guy. Anyway, his mannerisms were good, something about his voice though, maybe it wasn't deep enough, something... I can't put my finger on it.

I agree with Scotty, some lines were really "Scotty" others... not so much...

Urban as Bones was SPOT ON for me! His whole cynical, complaining, griping about everything, his friendship with Kirk... great!

Chekov and Sulu were really good as well...I think maybe Chekov's "v" and "w" pronuncation joke was a bit over-the-top and forced...Koenig's just flowed a lot better for me.

Uhura was nice as well, but after seeing her in the movie... I dont know why she is getting so much publicity on the movie memorobilia/posters... no reason to break up the Kirk/Spock/Bones trio.

Nero was a great bad guy, wish he would have been developed more. The movie was a bit over 2 hours, but still seemed rushed. I wish they would have developed him more and given him some screen time "alone".

I thought Sarek was done nicely as well.

I am a huge trek fan, as most of you know, but do to my age, I wouldn't say I am a TOS connoissuer, but for me, that's how the cast lived up to my e xp ectations.

Now onto the movie... I have pretty much the same gripes as most people such as:
the moving of a really well-known planet, and become a moon? sister planet? of Vulcan, which they launch Spock onto and Kirk happens to get stranded there as well, which happens to be the place where Scotty is at too (and what was Scotty's little friend... he looked like an Ewok made of tree bark)
why do you need to drill to the core to set off the "black hole-in-a-can" red matter,
is it SO HARD to make a prequel movie and not screw up canon?
What was Nero doing for 20+ years?
Why didn't Starfleet follow up on the Kelvin's attacker?
Why did Spock come out 20+ years later, but was instantaneous for himself?
What is Spock prime going to do now?
Why don't we as Trek prime fans steal Pine's Kirk from this timeline and bring him to ours, haha?
Why is the Enterprise so BIG?
For being such a logical species, its not very logical to stay in a cave singing "Kumbaya" or playing Red-Rover Red-Rover, or whatever they were doing.
As much as I didnt want to see a "Kirk in Starfleet Academy" movie... a scene or 2 showing him in the Academy, other than sleeping with the green girl and cheating on the Kobayashi Maru (which was a nice touch). He went from being a bar fighting wild child to the top of his class... I'd like to see a little of it (yes he still had his attitude, but he was right on most occasions when he defied authority)


I wonder if Klingons in this parallel timeline have smooth or bumpy foreheads? I'd like JJ to figure that one out.

I feel like I am complaining a lot... I liked the movie more than it seems. It just isnt the movie I wanted to see, but I enjoyed it. I am gonna need to see it again to really digest it.

On another note... the movie has already made 165 million plus... so its already into profit. (150 million budget)... already made more than any other trek movie that I know of.

And did I miss something, but did Kirk get promoted to Captain immediately out of the Academy?
Last edited by BladeCollector on Sat May 16, 2009 4:10 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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