Star Trek and Wolverine walk into a bar…
Posted May 8th, 2009 by Howard TaylerSo… Star Trek and Wolverine walk into a bar. Wolverine pops out those shiny CGI claws and goes “rawr.” Star Trek beams him into oblivion.
Ranking my favorite films so far this summer:
1. Star Trek
2.
3.
4.
5.
6. Wolverine. But only because I’m being nice.
Interestingly, both Star Trek and Wolverine seek to do the same thing: Take an existing franchise with a large body of cinematic, print, and illustrated canon, and tell a revelatory, dramatic prequel story. Both franchises are burdened with reams of fanboy-only factoids, emotional baggage, and pop-culture awareness. Both are decades old. Both face the challenge of engaging the audience in spite of the fact that most of us already know who has to live because we’ve seen what happens next.
Both films must grin fearlessly in the face of an increasingly cynical movie-going public, an angry public which has been fed a steady diet of sci-fi-action-adventure-franchise, and is coming to this film with irritable bowel syndrome.
Star Trek succeeded where Wolverine failed. I won’t try to pursue the “irritable bowel” metaphor any further because I’m not a doctor, and I try to save my best poo jokes for the strip.
Star Trek is easily my #1 favorite for the year (not saying much, I know) and if it had come out LAST year it would have been my favorite then, too. Or maybe tied with WALL*E. That’s a tough call, because the films are so very, very different. I’ll say this much: If you’re a cynical movie-goer, tired of franchise movies, embarrassed at having ever been a Trekker/Trekkie/Trek-fan, but you loved Serenity, you need to reward Paramount Pictures’ good behavior by seeing this film.
If Star Trek and Serenity were to walk into a bar… well, I think we’d see a drinking game between Browncoats and Vulcans. There’d be too much mutual respect for a fight.
Feel free to discuss. Be warned, the discussion will contain spoilers…
Explore posts in the same categories: Movies, Reviews, Uncategorized
May 8th, 2009 at 10:08 pm
I absolutely agree that Star Trek is one of the better ones. They have done right by this series, and I await continuing movies with anticipation.
I will say this, these whole “Alternate Dimensions”, “Alternate Timestreams”, they seem to be an overused convenient excuse for writers and directors to reinterpret Sci-Fi genres. When done improperly, people get upset, but when done properly (as done in this movie, and the one in this comic), it works rather well, they begin at the beginning of the movie and it all goes from there, I didn’t realize it was until the middle of the movie when they actually mentioned it.
An example of bad: T3: Rise of the Machines was so bad that future writers are ignoring the movie events (the TV series ignores but minorly incorporates, and T4: Salvation is doing the same).
T4: Salvation is another one that I am highly anticipating.
BTW: Kirk dies.
May 8th, 2009 at 10:39 pm
Well, YEAH. We got that from the trailers.
May 8th, 2009 at 11:11 pm
The Sarah Connor Chronicles doesn’t actually ignore T3. It’s a sequel to it, in which history is changed so it doesn’t happen. Remember, the reason they jumped ahead in time was so that they could fight Skynet before Sarah died of cancer.
Even in-universe, T3 was so unpopular it had to be retconned away.
May 8th, 2009 at 11:13 pm
I totally agree about alternate reality episodes. Done right, they are some of the best episodes. Done wrong, and they make you want to send a bill to the producers for the hours of time you wasted.
I am really impressed they didn’t just send everything back to normal at the end of the movie. It will let them start over – heck, they could remake the original TV series again now, if they wanted to.
There were two really glaring things that kept Star Trek from being great for me. I reallize this is a bit nitpicky, but it really ruins the immersion to see the same stuff done over and over again:
1) Are black holes horrible engines of destruction, or awesome sources of time travel? Especially in the Trek universe, it seems like ships are constantly surviving planet destroying rifts and singularities to end up in heaven, alternate dimensions, and in the coincidentally relevant future or past. If /I/ had a starship, I’d be flying into the things all the time. “Hey! Lets see where we end up this time! I hope in the past, I need to send a message to myself so I didn’t forget mom’s birthday.”
2) There wasn’t a single freakin defense guarding Earth, Starfleet’s main shipyard and military academy? Really? Like the Moon isn’t armed to the teeth? No missile stations in orbit? No defensive ships? Nothing that could maybe disrupt a fragily hanging mining laser? I mean, this is like the 5th or 6th time Earth has had hostile enemies on its doorsteeps in the trek universe with no defense mounted for it at all.
OK, geek rant off.
Characters were great, action was great, story was great.
May 8th, 2009 at 11:15 pm
Is there a time delay on the posts, or approval process, or did the system just eat my post?
May 8th, 2009 at 11:19 pm
A Vulcan-Browncoat bar night. (*imitating the Doctor*) “I love it, I get chills!”
Wolverine wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. It suffered from the problems of any prequel, which is “how do we distract the audience from how they know the ending already?” The proper (and hard) answer is “good story.” The improper (but easy) answer is “distract them with the shiny.” It felt like someone wrote a really good plot, but then handed it over to someone who said “Need more RAWR! Smash! Slice! Dice! And your ending suxxor . . . NEED GRATUITOUS DESTRUCTION OF A NUCLEAR COOLING TOWER! There. Now movie is shiny. Grunt.”
I still have my doubts about Star Trek. Time travel is iffy. Prequels are iffy. Star Trek, often, is iffy. (I grew up with it. I know my Heisenberg compensators from my Jefferies tubes, and I know the stories behind each. That doesn’t mean I like the same thing that Star Trek has become geared to present.) On the other hand, I’ve yet to see a fully-negative review (maybe there’re some now that it’s been released generally), and more important than some ivory-tower reviewer’s opinion are those of the people who normally share my tastes.
Howard, you’ve been a consistent barometer (with a negligible margin for error) for what I would find good in a movie. I haven’t yet seen WALL-E, for various reasons, but that’s the only movie that you’ve talked up that I’ve so far skipped. I even went and saw Hancock when previously I’d been certain that it was a horrible movie just from looking at the previews — and I was very glad I gave it a try. I’m going to go see Star Trek tomorrow with an expectation that it will be a good film. My doubts will be along for the ride, but they’ll be on a leash so that they don’t rampage around the theater, spilling popcorn and lapping up unattended soda.
More comments to follow in the after-action report. ;)
May 9th, 2009 at 12:46 am
Expecting a perfect movie is an unrealistic expectation. That said, I thouroughly enjoyed Trek 11 and encourage others to see it.
Only thing I was disappointed with was that the bad guy Nero had way too few lines.
May 9th, 2009 at 1:14 am
Once you get past “Lens Flare: the Movie” it’s solid. The actors manage to become the original characters well enough, without feeling like they’re TRYING to copy them. Spock and Uhura having sloppy makeouts was a little disorienting, though. Makes me wonder when in the original timeline he finalized that “no emotion” ritual he mentioned.
I thought that Spock and Scotty in particular very well done, though I was concerned about Pegg for the latter role when I first heard about it.
Maybe in this universe Pike can get TWO lights.
May 9th, 2009 at 1:38 am
My only complaint with the movie was that they didn’t save Vulcan. Beyond that? It was a _marvelous_ movie. Clearly heavily inspired by Wrath of Kahn, which was the best source material they could have stolen from. (We saw it in imax!)
The “alternate timestream” thing was actually brilliant, because within the established tenets of Star Trek cannon it does _exactly_ what they want. Bad guy from post-TNG comes back 129 year to change the past, and creates an alternate timeline with its own continuity. (By no means the first, from the Mirror Universe to Tasha Yar’s daughter.) Since it’s a different timeline, you _don’t_ know how anything’s going to turn out within it (as Vulcan amply demonstrated). History is changed from the moment of Kirk’s birth, and this is the new history as it unfolds. That’s what they wanted the reboot to do, and within the existing series context that’s _exactly_ how you’d do it. They even brought in Spock Prime as a cannon immigrant from the original timeline, to bless the new series the way DeForest Kelley blessed TNG, and also to say “the original trek is still out there, somewhere, and of _course_ this isn’t it but it’s part of the same universe”. Alright then, so now the question is, is the new one _good_?
They then justify getting the same bridge crew together (but in a different way, and about five years earlier than in the original continuity so they’re younger and less experienced). The new crew has to earn the audience’s respect, and I think does so admirably. Starting with Kirk, who had the hardest job: being arrogant without being egotistical, an insubordinate womanizer but not a completely unlikable dick; that took an _amazing_ acting job to pull off and the movie wouldn’t have worked if he didn’t, but thankfully he did. Making Bones’ his friend in the academy helped, and Bones’ introduction explained a lot about his character and nicely set up the age difference and everything. Sulu’s introduction was great (Fencing!), he got to be the one to save Kirk’s bacon in their fist engagement rather than the other way around (and let’s face it: Kirk, Sulu, and officer Neverheardofhim are heading to the planet. Exactly one of these three is wearing a bright red space suit. You KNOW what’s coming. It wouldn’t be Trek if it didn’t. The twist is, Kirk and Sulu are junior officers who are merely a security escort for the third team member who is the senior officer and who was the one supposed to do the actual job.)
Quite possibly Spock got the most character development, and the Uhura/Spock relationship makes sense in context (it would not have worked at all if she’d shown _any_ attraction to kirk, that would a weird sort of incest, but with Spock it works). Chekov is _adorable_, and comptent (“I can do that!”) and _proudly_ 17 years old… Actually Scotty’s the one who feels a slightly shoehorned in, but not too badly (and they _did_ lose their original chief engineer when he went down to the planet wearing red)…
Fade pointed out that the new crew dynamic is actually a bit like a World of Warcraft raid party: Kirk’s job is to tank and draw aggro while the rest of the crew does its thing (dps, buffs, healing, and so on). He is by no means the only competent guy, his job is to hold the bad guys’ attention while everybody else fixes the actual problem. It’s an ensemble cast and they made the ensemble _work_, everybody is competent, important, and actually necessary to solving the problem.
The only part _I_ couldn’t figure out is “if you’ve got a black hole dropper, what do you need the drill for?”
May 9th, 2009 at 2:55 am
That’s not too hard. As seen when the ship is destroyed, the red matter does not just create singularities. It has to be subject to a sufficiently strong impact/heat. I guess the guys on the mining ship figured that the best way to make sure it would go off would be to drill into the planet’s magma core before dropping the red matter.
Why did they not just put the transport inhibitor on the main ship though?
May 9th, 2009 at 4:15 am
Hey, wait a moment. I thought he said if Star Trek came in first on his list Wolverine would be 7th.
May 9th, 2009 at 4:49 am
“The only part _I_ couldn’t figure out is “if you’ve got a black hole dropper, what do you need the drill for?”” – Easy answer? Dramatic tension. And it looked cool. And gave an excuse for a decent fist/sword fight.
I enjoyed the movie, but my problem was: Why wasn’t there some sort of orbital defences for Vulcan and Earth? To answer my own question: screen time. And it was already established that the Romulans were the Big Bad when the fleet got wasted. Of course, they could have dropped the drill and had more space battles, and I wouldn’t have complained at all. :D
May 9th, 2009 at 5:09 am
My speculation is mass… the ‘red matter’ needed some sort of critical mass to tip off the singularity. Having lots of red matter needed less mass? I dunno.
What I found more difficult to swallow was… ok, a singularity just forms in the middle of a ship, but doesn’t implode it. but can do it to planets.
May 9th, 2009 at 5:42 am
Singularities grow in strength as they draw in mater. As it was created, it may not have had enough mass yet to overcome the shielding that must have been surrounding the creation area. As it is dropped into the planet, it draws in mass from the planet, eventually imploding the planet.
I’m just guessing, I haven’t seen the movie yet. Three hours to go. SquEEeeeeeeee!
They worried about the same thing with the new super collider they built. We won’t know if they created any micro black holes with it for another two years, at which time it will be too late and the Aztec calender running out in 2012 prediction will come true.
May 9th, 2009 at 6:44 am
I did a bunch of soul searching after seeing Star Trek last night. I think I figured out some things for myself. One of those things is why I don’t like re-imaginings.
I figure it like this: If you write a reboot, it has a responsibility to be better than everything it is replacing. If it does not handle its topic better than its predecessor, it as failed to perform its duty.
Star Trek has roughly 30 solid years of content and though this movie wasn’t specifically setting out to replace all 30 years of it, it has significantly altered everything. This movie was not better than the current Star Trek universe.
Now sure, they specifically wrote in the script a giant mallet to hit you over the head and say “It’s OK! This is an alternate reality! See? You’re not allowed to be disappointed!” Not only was that insulting, but it was also a cop-out.
I didn’t like the movie. There were a bunch of standard Hollywood-isms that really annoyed me; why can’t I let my eyes focus on a character when there’s a close dialog shot? WHY DO YOU KEEP MOVING THE CAMERA!? It is not adding “dramatic tension”, its making me ask “Why is the camera moving during this dialog scene?” Why do they have to blur every single action shot? Why do I have to bring sunglasses to counteract all the lens flares?
In the grand scheme of things, I can apply that to any movie and honestly that’s not the make or break in this situation. What made me unhappy at the film experience is that their “reboot” is supposedly replacing what I know to be The Original Series. They don’t want it to be an “alternate.” They want it to be the new marketable jumping point for a new franchise. They’re doing it wrong.
The fix is so unbelievably simple that I’m infuriated because of it. Here’s a hint… Go forward in time and use a new crew! Love story between human and Vulcan? Go for it. Blow up Romulus and Vulcan? Awesome shift in power in the quadrant, the Klingons are now set for some righteous revenge against the Romulans, that’s a perfect setting for a harsh and gritty new world. New ship? Sure! We LOVE new ships! Obviously its not the NAME of the ship that matters, the original Enterprise was plagued by as much bad writing as Voyager. Get a crew of younger people having to deal with the harshness of a bad setting? Fine, you want a younger and edgier setup? I don’t think it works well, but hey, you’re the ones that call the shots, fine, I’ll try and cope.
But don’t sit there and turn Kirk and Spock into heartless asshats that are going to FIRE WEAPONS on a ship that is completely disabled and being sucked in half by a singularity. But hey, they did tell us its an alternate reality so I guess I’m going to be told to forgive everything.
If they changed the names, changed the ship, and moved forward in time I would be a far less acidic critic. I, unfortunately for me, liked TOS for better and worse (Spock’s Brain, anyone). What would have been a better served plotline occurring after the Dominion War, has now just tossed a giant conundrum that disrupts EVERYTHING about Star Trek because you know that this won’t be a one off. They’re not done with this “alternate”. Heck, they’re already writing the sequel.
*rage off* *sigh*
Sorry to make this my first post on your blog but I needed to get this out somewhere. Also, Hi Howard! The strip is great, you’ve replaced my daily. The fact that there’s a full color strip every day with no fillers is something other web comic artists should really take a look at. :-)
May 9th, 2009 at 8:15 am
“But don’t sit there and turn Kirk and Spock into heartless asshats that are going to FIRE WEAPONS on a ship that is completely disabled and being sucked in half by a singularity.”
… and just tried to destroy the Earth, with a population of six or more billion innocent men women and CHILDREN. After having done precisely that to Vulcan, with _it’s_ population of six billion men, women, and children. And threatened to destroy every _other_ Federation homeworld as well.
Not to mention: a ship much more advanced than anything they knew, which therefor _might_ be able to break free of that singularity, for all either of them knew.
I think that showing Kirk making the “grand gesture” of offering assistance to Nero and his crew, in the interest of supporting peace with the Romulans, was a very good nod towards the idea of “Starfleet won’t hesitate to shoot when shooting is what’s called for – but they won’t hesitate to STOP shooting, either.”
^_^
Like all great films … not all of us will agree on what parts were especially good, nor especially bad.
Me, I loved the new film, and I can’t wait for more.
May 9th, 2009 at 8:19 am
So… you’re sayin’ that Summer Glau is a Vulcan? I can totally see that. It makes a lot of sense that a typical Vulcan nutjob would turn out to be a cyborg. Fortunately, I’ve no quarrel with morbid and creepifying.
In other news: damn you to Hades, Howard Tayler. We started watching the “new” Doctor Who from Netflix… and when we’re done catching up, my children inform me that we have to “go back” and watch all the originals. How much are they paying you to victimize poor sufferers of OCD like us??
But… no, I’m still not shaving off my soup-catcher for you, you devil comic artist!!
Heh.
May 9th, 2009 at 9:28 am
I liked it. It does make me want to go back and watch more TOS though. My era of watching it on real TV was TNG, and all the TOS I’ve ever watched has been on tape or internet.
I like how they found a guy who can ACT to be Kirk. That was nice. I was really annoyed by the wiggling camera. What, you used up all your budget on CG so that you had to pawn your steady-cam to buy Doritos? Seriously!
And as for the “turning Spock and Kirk into asshats” thing… well, they gave him a fair chance, and he said very clearly that he’d rather die a slow, painful, fiery death than accept assistance. They were only respecting his wishes. “Fiery death? You sure? OK, you got it buster! One fiery death comin’ right up!”
I did love the intros of all the cast members. I agree that Chekov is adorable. Sulu has some serious balls using his fencing experience to get him on the drill team, but the fact that he has a switchblade katana on him explains how he thought that might be useful. Scotty’s little alien friend is almost excessively cute, random comic relief, but he had just enough screen time to be cute without getting so much as to be obnoxious.
One thing that really surprises me is how seriously everyone takes Kirk. I mean, I know he was Captain Pike’s little golden boy from the beginning, but seriously, sneaking on board like that would generally get you just a long ride in the brig rather than having the captain willing to hear out your concerns on the bridge in the middle of a tense situation. But then, this is Hollywood, so I guess I’d better get over it.
May 9th, 2009 at 11:51 am
“Makes me wonder when in the original timeline he finalized that “no emotion” ritual he mentioned.”
Spock was going through the ritual at the beginning of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, but V’Ger showed up to toss a spanner into the works. As far as I know, he never finished it in the original Trek timeline.
That said, knowing Pike’s fate in the original timeline, was anyone else worried about Kirk was going to be able to find of him to rescue from Nero’s ship?
May 9th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
lost my last message, so, in brief:
one complaint; scene changes occurred suddenly, and it took me until halfway through each scene to figure out how it tied in to the rest of the movie.
Good stuff:
The movie was FILLED with little homages to the previous series, but adapted so that they ACTUALLY MADE SENSE. I won’t recreate the list i lost yet, though.
And Kirk’s handling of nero’s last moments was PERFECT. Paraphrased:
‘Your ship is dead in space and you are at my mercy. I am prepared to offer terms of surrender. Otherwise, i will resume the engagement until you are obliterated’
‘No surrender’
‘Fine. Fire.’
Kirk is NOT Obligated to take casualties boarding a hostile vessel, and he CAN’T risk the possibility of the vessel time traveling again, or being frozen in time and rescued at a later date. It’s unconditional surrender or unconditional destruction. And Nero can’t be trusted to honor surrender discussions anyway.
May 9th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
I absolutely love the movie. I’m sure when I rewatch it on the small screen in later years I’ll find reason to fault it, but on the first viewing I was really enjoying it, and intensely relieved it didn’t suck!
But theres is a still a part of me that can’t resist nitpicking. My favorite nitpick of the movie: Why didn’t they just teleport a squad of commandos on the Romulan ship with Jim and Spock? With the element of surprise they could have taken them… :D
May 9th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
There was Star Trek discussion among friends and fellow Keep patrons today at DK. The general consensus was “Awesome!” with a smattering of “I haven’t heard a single negative thing about it on the Internet!”
Since I *HAVE* heard negative things about it on the internet I found myself playing advocatus diaboli for a little bit. So yes, I can see where the negativity is coming from, but I’m not in the least bit put off by the things that were putting a few other people off.
May 9th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
Again, The movie was FILLED with little homages to the previous series, but adapted so that they ACTUALLY MADE SENSE. I’ve recreated the list now.
List of homages:
in TOS, Sulu was an olympic-style fencer. Thin little blades based on european history, of no use in actual combat, and sulu never tried. Picard had the same problem.
In the movie, Sulu uses an advanced materials (retracable) katana, that can actually survive and be usefull in combat. And his fighting style is NOT limited to the sportsman-like ‘olympic’ style.
First names: In TOS, minorities either didn’t have, or never used, first names. Uhura and Sulu only recieved names in non-canon novels decades later.
In the Movie, Sulu is introduced by his full name from the start, and Uhura TEASES kirk by refusing to reveal her first name, although it turns out that she did tell spock.
Spock actually has emotions, and uses them, even if he prefers to use cold logic for day-to-day operation…. he develops the emotional maturity in four years that took the original spock decades. Original spock helps add the final polish, but the ‘new’ spock had already done most of the work.
The music for the closing credits is the same music as the TOS theme song. But, TOS theme music was TERRIBLE, and the movie remastered the score to something that actually works.
Earth’s Financial system MAY ACTUALLY MAKE SENSE: Kirk offers to buy Uhura a drink, and she refuses: this may be evidence that money actually exists in this version of star trek. All previous references to actual money were confined to TOS, and those were pretty iffy.
Uhura kisses spock: which can be taken as a reference to the FIRST Multi-racial kiss on television, between uhura and kirk. except that this time around, the acting and character development are actually good.
Uniforms are better: The equipment they use for an orbital HALO jump is actually functional: in the previous series, they would have used generic EVA suits or shirt-sleeves, and then added a techno-babbble force field device.
Also, the new uniform, which appears to be simple black t-shirt and pants, with a colored mesh overshirt, looks like it might actually be comfortable and workable, while still superficially resembling the 70’s era tailoring of last time around.
Chekov’s accent is now cute and endearing, not blatantly soviet.
Sulu ACTUALLY OBEYS ORDERS to sacrifice his superior officers. in all the previous series, he would have had a philosphical debate with the rest of his crew, or refused the order outright, or taken the time to create a technobabble solution that saved him from having to face the dillemna.
In the new series, sulu’s decision doesn’t even get camera time.
Kirk: Sulu, if you see a tactical advantage, ENGAGE THE ENEMY SHIP. it doesn’t matter if I’m still aboard the enemy vessel.
And 20 minutes later, Sulu shows up guns blazing. Scotty gets LUCKY, and manages to pull kirk and company of the ships in time, but Sulu had no way of knowing that would work, SCOTTY wasn’t sure if it would work, and Sulu DIDN’T CARE. Obey orders, kill enemy, endanger superiors. Done. No screen time needed.
The Prime directive ISN’T EVEN MENTIONED. Ever. Hallelujah.
Original Spock doesn’t argue that they should try to defeat the time-traveling enemy as quietly as possible. No-one needs to take the time to argue that special circumstances overule prime directive or preservation of the time line. Big enemy shows up, we fight big enemy. The timeline gets screwed up, we put our best foot forward and live with it.
Spock EVEN REVEALS SCOTTY’s equations from the future.
But Original Spock DOES Imply, that Kirk shouldn’t tell New spock about old Spock in order to prevent a temporal paradox. WHICH SPOCK KNEW WASN’T TRUE, and LATER SAYS SO! The Prime directive is MOCKED! YAY!
spock and Mccoy’s age difference from the others is now explained: Mccoy joined starfleet AFTER a career as a doctor, and Spock was an officer when the rest were still cadets.
Main engineering now looks like a place where engineering actually occurs, rather than some computer screens around a technobabble warp core.
Shuttle bays are now proportionally sized, with visible locations for storing multiple shuttles. Also, no more forcefield airlocks that would kill everyone when they fail.
Equipment belts! which even look similiar to what TOS sometimes used! No more magic pockets which are just the right size, and adhere to the waist without visibile support! which used to dissapear when not plot-mandated!
Vulcan’s Killed by falling debris! no more magic plot powers making Vulcans invicible! (Take THAT inner eyelid!) Also, Vulcan’s and Romulans are still stronger than humans, and can still routinely beat kirk and most other humans in a fight.
Bonus points: Kirk no longer wears magic tearing shirts! But he still frequently loses fights!
Pike puts down starfleet as being too cautious and rules-oriented! and recruits Kirk to make it better! MHWAHAHAHAHA. Picard and Janeway are PUT DOWN!
May 9th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
The best part? The bit where young Francois Picard (grandfather to Jean-Luc) is killed by the falling drill while crossing the Golden Gate on his hovercycle.
BRILLIANT.
(You may not have noticed it, though. Watch more carefully next time.)
May 9th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
Loved the movie. Granted, it had nothing in common with TOS aside from the names but they pulled it off masterfully.
The more I think about it, aside from the five o’clock shadows that seemed mandatory for everyone with pointy ears, my only real beef was the spinny, swirly, Spock Ship. I mean, SERIOUSLY what gives with that? On the other hand, the 10 y/o sproggen thought it was terminally cool.
This is the third movie I’ve seen on the big screen in the last 15 years. I think I’ll go see it again.
Maybe twice.
May 9th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
REALLY? YES! does this mean Jean-luc will never exist? MWHAHAHA!
I haven’t been able to confirm this online… now i have to go see the movie again.
fortunatly, this time i can see it in IMAX!
# Howard Tayler Says:
May 9th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
The best part? The bit where young Francois Picard (grandfather to Jean-Luc) is killed by the falling drill while crossing the Golden Gate on his hovercycle.
BRILLIANT.
(You may not have noticed it, though. Watch more carefully next time.)
May 9th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
@Howard: “(You may not have noticed it, though. Watch more carefully next time.) ”
Now you’re scoring a percentage? Wonderful shillery!
May 9th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
@Krennson2 : You missed a bunch.
e.g. The reason that Scotty was exiled. (Nod to Enterprise) I’ll leave the rest for you to catch on your next viewing.
OBTW, re. Sulu’s swordmanship: “The edge wounds. . .”
May 9th, 2009 at 7:15 pm
Krennson2: You just convinced me I have to see it.
torchdragon: Sorry, but I hope they are rebooting it. See most of Krennson2’s list to see just some of the reasons why.
Especially getting rid of the Prime Directive. Roddenberry invented it to explain the lack of contact with aliens in the 20th century, but it’s blatantly immoral. (Stargate and Animorphs both have advanced civilisations with similar ideas, but those civilisations eventually either realise the error of their ways (Andalites), get wiped out (Tollans), or show themselves to be right bastards (Ancients).)
And that’s just one of the several serious dystopian elements the original “continuity” had that were never acknowledged. I don’t have a problem with a fictional society being messed up, but at least in B5 and BSG a lot of the characters noticed. Star Trek’s actually really creepy that way. On the other hand, it would be nice to have a popular series show a civilisation that’s actually pretty good, and re-booting Star Trek is probably the easiest way to get that.
Oh, and I put “continuity” in quotes because all sorts of things discovered in TOS and never mentioned again should have had profound consequences by TNG. That’s another reason why Star Trek needs a reboot.
May 9th, 2009 at 8:06 pm
I can only hope that, after George Lucas dies, somebody comes and reboots Star Wars. Alternate timeline and all.
Star Trek needed and deserved this reboot. I loved it. Now, I’m a bit more reluctant to say that today than I was yesterday, as I’ve had time to think about some things… but it was far better for me than the previews had me thinking it would be.
I can’t think of the last time I saw a movie twice in the theaters — I recall doing it in 1991 when I had two different dates, but perhaps I’ve done it since then — and I think I may well need to see this again on the big screen.
How can nobody be raving about McCoy? McCoy was AMAZING!
May 9th, 2009 at 8:35 pm
brenatevi:
If you just dropped a black hole at a planet, its mass would cause it to yo-yo back and forth for a long enough period for sombody to focus enought deflectors on it to eventually give it enough momentum to leave the planet. If you drill down to magma and then drop material which becomes a black hole at the center, you don’t have that problem.
Of course, As far as I know, “Red Matter” is another name for handwavium.
May 9th, 2009 at 9:56 pm
They can reboot Star Trek but until they do something about their armed forces it’s still going to be Star Trek. Which is to say enjoyable but I’ll snort and chuckle refuse to take it seriously.
Star Fleet commits their entire fleet without leaving a reserve.
No defense forces to protect planets.
Key officers sit in a bubble on top of the ship, exposed to enemy fire.
Promoting a guy to command of a major vessel who has not even had a tour as department head.
Etc, etc. All of them are there to advance the plot but they make the entire thing unbelievable as fiction: people just don’t do things that way.
May 9th, 2009 at 10:43 pm
Nero tortured Pike for something relating to Earth’s defense; maybe that’s how he got around them; if there were any.
May 9th, 2009 at 11:16 pm
Regarding the questions about the lack of defenses around Earth… did you all get up to use the restroom for the scene where Nero had Pike prisoner and tortured him with that parasite thing to get the codes to shut down the defenses?
Don’t feel bad though, I think Roger Ebert did the same thing. He quoted a few things as not making sense that actually did if you paid attention, such as why they had to parachute down to the driller.
May 9th, 2009 at 11:19 pm
I really enjoyed the movie, the only things I had problems with were the lense flares, shaky cam, and odd phaser sound effects.
The cast was shockingly good.
And in response to one other nitpick someone threw out… yes, we know Pikes fate IN THE ORIGINAL TIMELINE. They made a point about this one being different (Kirk not knowing father, Vulcan being… you know… blown up), so it’s possible that he could have died.
May 9th, 2009 at 11:24 pm
“if you’ve got a black hole dropper, what do you need the drill for?”
I’m no physicist but it seems to me that not all “black hole” phenomena are created equal. Some are vast unrelenting rips in the fabric of space/time that swallow whole stars and solar systems with seemingly insatiable hunger. Others are teeny tiny pin-pricks that collapse in on themselves relatively quickly. I hope this is at least vaguely true otherwise that whole ‘Large Hadron Collider’ thing is a colossally bad idea.
Anyhow, I got the impression that the black-hole dropper in Star Trek did not simply dispense arbitrarily huge black holes in a totally uncontrolled orgy of mass destruction but, instead, dispensed specifically calibrated black holes in a rather controlled… um… orgy of… uh… mass destruction.
I know, I know, it’s not much of a difference but it is in keeping with the villain’s MO. He didn’t want to kill everybody, everybody. He just wanted to kill everybody on a hundred and seventy or-so specific planets while letting a few very specific individuals watch helplessly.
I guess what I’m saying is, maybe dropping the black hole in the middle of a planet produces the desired effect of collapsing only that planet. Maybe it prevents collateral damage like the destruction of whole solar systems or accidentally killing the witnesses.
This doesn’t eliminate the problems in the climactic battle, though.
May 9th, 2009 at 11:33 pm
…I want my Pixar-animated _Schlock Mercenary_ movie…. :)
May 10th, 2009 at 12:07 am
I was surprised at Vulcan’s lack of defense, but I knew Earth’s would be down, thanks to the brain slug. Why a starship captain should have codes that shut down everything and no one on Earth can override it…well, maybe it is more secure to have just one root account :)
I really liked the movie. I had not seen any trailers or previews, didn’t know a thing about it, not even a poster, before the first scene. Our whole office went for an “off-site meeting”, tickets paid by the boss. Long time Trek fan, but was expecting a “so-so to bad” movie experience, based on previous results. Many people in our theatre cheered and clapped at the end. I did as well. So many good scenes. Very quotable.
After seeing a movie, I love to replay it in my mind and test it, rewrite parts, etc. I know that scenes get trimmed, some deleted, and the story loses “unnecessary” details, so I am fairly forgiving. For example, how could the entire planet of Vulcan not be able to destroy a relatively fragile mining laser? Kirk and Sulu took it out with rifles. Even if all “official” defenses were off, nobody has a shuttle? No private pleasure craft with hunting laser toting rednecks hanging off the sides? The only answer is air superiority by the Romulan mining ship. They must have deleted the scene where the Romulan officer grunts that all local air traffic has been destroyed.
The only thing that I was disappointed with was the Enterprise getting stuck in the black hole and having to escape in a too-common Hollywood mega explosion. Never mind if they dump their core, how do they power the warp engines that are keeping them on the edge? How do they then warp home? Why do they even allow themselves to be in that danger in the first place? Characters behaving out-of-character. Delete this scene please.
Having said all that, I loved the movie and have already encouraged many people to see it.
May 10th, 2009 at 12:41 am
Saw it tonight. The *worst* thing was the people with the whiny brat who sat right behind me, finding it impossible to find seats nowhere near anyone else *in a half empty theater*. He asked “What movie is this?” constantly, until the title came up, then for the next 15 minutes he constantly repeated “I wanna see Monsters VS. Aliens!”. Then he went on about being hungry. Somewhere around halfway through I think he fell asleep. At no time ever did his parents tell him to keep his mouth shut because other people wanted to hear the movie. I guess the word BABYSITTER is unknown to them?
Until Uhura ordered a “Cardassian Sunrise” I was wondering how they were going to fix things… then I thought “Ahhhh, it must be part of the “Enterprise” universe.” where they brought in the Ferengi and others that ‘real’ Trek (lack of) continuity had firmlishly established weren’t heard of until the TNG era.
Perhaps now I’ll find a way to watch more than the 2 episodes of “Enterprise” that I’ve seen and the stuf I’ve read about it- and gave up on the show because it chucked everything prior/after out the airlock.
As for the new old Enterprise, looks pretty good, like what the original Desilu crew might have wished they had the budget for. The TOS Enterprise looked like a stiff breeze would blow the engines and saucer off the main hull. ;)
If nothing else makes you wanna see this, MINISKIRTS! And the correct bloody uniform colors, at least on the Enterprise.
May 10th, 2009 at 12:58 am
@DevDotNull
Yeah, I caught that one.
I actually said “Awww… poor Porthos” out loud.
Anyone notice that the warp core isn’t one single piece either? It’s a lot of little bits.
May 10th, 2009 at 1:45 am
Yeahhhh. The warp CORES. Obviously couldn’t have ejected ALL cores or the ship would’ve been dead in space with no power.
May 10th, 2009 at 6:48 am
Well… More likely is that the ship uses 1 or 2 warp cores. What they were ejecting wouldn’t be the warp cores, it would be the anti-matter fuel storage.
Remember, the best way to produce a safe reactor is to simply not put enough fuel in it to cause a problem if it breaks.
May 10th, 2009 at 8:34 am
A few things from a particle physics nerd’s perspective:
The whole ‘time travel’ thing, it’s actually real. It is one hundred percent possible to travel through time using a ‘wormhole’ formed inside a black hole… but black holes are far to chaotic for it to actually form. However, if you ignore any research done on black holes after general relativity, it works. In fact, every black hole probably has a wormhole in it. Also it’s a great excuse to have Leonard Nimoy in the movie, so I won’t hold it against them.
I’m actually amazed that there was an entire Star Trek movie with no baloneyum. The ‘red matter’ was just vague enough to pass as anything, probably a large number of small partially naked singularities that only let red light escape. This is probably impossible, but if I ever get my hands on a particle accelerator I will definitely try to create some.
New Spock was awesome, new Kirk was awesome, new McCoy was awesome. They must make more movies.
May 10th, 2009 at 9:01 am
Wasn’t there an SNL skit about an airliner that did that?
“4) No more skimping on fuel: From now on, we will fill our planes with a full tank of gas, not just enough for one trip.”
May 10th, 2009 at 9:43 am
What really made me dissapointed with the whole movie was “why didn’t spock go to the sun that was going to go nova in 129 years and red matter the bejezuz out of it now? Why wait? Why not splain to Nero “We save now… no die then. Vulcan lives, Romulus lives, my Mom lives, your pregnant wife lives, we put ourselves in 129 years of suspended animation and go pick up our lives where we left off?”
And yeah, putting a cadet who hasn’t graduated, who was on acedemic suspension, in command of a Cruiser? I just don’t think so.
Also… In this reality Capt. Pike isn’t damaged and broken so he never goes to Talos IV (the managery/cage) to fufill the life of the broken woman there? How sad. She will live alone… Much weeping for her.
Lens flare didn’t bother me, shakey camera work didn’t bother me. (actually didn’t notice either so I guess it had its intended dramatic effect on me).
Uhura’s roomie was so sexy I think I am developing some kind of inexplicable desire along those lines. (I know this is a family friendly forum but are we allowed to use the word “Fetish” in such a context here?)
McCoy = Awesome. Space is Death and Disease wrapped in Silence and Darkness. LOVED IT!!!
Now that security redshirt is in fact working for “Capt Cupcake”. LOL. (I want a transfer to a ship where I havn’t punched the CO.)
The movie dissapointed me in a few ways… pushed my suspension of disbelief beyond any reasonable boundry, but it was still a joy to watch.
Jack
May 10th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
I loved it. But, being the nitpic’r :)
Why build a starship in the middle of a field in Iowa? Wasn’t Voyager unique in that it could travel in the atmospher? Roddenberry said that he invented the transporter because he couldn’t figure out how to get the ship on the ground. (Cool shot of Maverick . . . I mean Kirk, looking at it before reporting to the shuttle.
Wasn’t Uhura’s roommate a nod to TOS when Kirk fell for some green skinned local girl?
On len’s flares. If you read the Trivia on http://www.IMBD.com it points out that the lens flares were deliberate. So many CGI movies have dulled our senses, that the director wanted to add that bit of realism. (CGI scenes don’t have lens flares.) Howard put some interesting ones into a storyline a few months back.
Why was Spock the only one to go get the Vulcan high command? He couldn’t take an escort? He also didn’t put someone else in command. He told Chekhov he had the con, but there was no commanding officer at that point. (Bad, Spock!)
Is it standard procedure to EXHILE a mutinous crewmate? There was no brig on the Enterprise? They had to shove him out the airlock? Weird.
How coincidental is it that Uhura, Bones and Kirk all end up on the same recruiting shuttle? Sure, you can say that “No coincidence because it’s BECAUSE they were on this shuttle that they later were brought together on the crew of the enterprise. In other words, Kirk would have picked his crew from among his friends, which he met on the shuttle. Got that. But, how weird then, that apparently the same thing happened in the previous timeline.
Most of these nits (other than building the ship in a cornfield) were necessary to the plot, so I give the director a TOTAL pass on them.
One of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time. And I got to see it FREE . . . with FRIENDS! (Thanks, GWAVA and Richard!)
May 10th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
@rbliss (among many others)
“Why was Spock the only one to go get the Vulcan high command?”
I thought it was because he was so distraught he couldn’t think clearly. That said, I agree with you about command on the bridge; there were a number of moments where I was wondering about who was giving orders. Would they just sit there if no one came back?
[I seem to remember TNG implying there was a long chain of command]
Same thing with kicking Kirk off the ship: prob not OK, but Spock’s not thinking clearly. Maybe no one wants to challenge him because he’s Captain and most of them are newbies. Heck, maybe they think he’s so logical he couldn’t be making a mistake.
I loved all of the little in-jokes that I saw and I’m sure I missed a bunch. My absolute favorite was the “red shirt” moment–I saw it and just cracked up. I especially loved how one-dimensional the guy seemed.
So anyone want to point out more homages to the earlier series? I’d love to hear about them.
May 10th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
The Enterprise being built on the ground was one of the first things that bugged me when I was seeing early images from the movie, other than the fact that the Enterprise was built in San Fransisco. I did overcome this nit pic when I recalled that the TOS had established the fact that ant-gravity technology existed, and by its use the Enterprise could get off the planet without being torn apart by forces it wasn’t designed to handle. Being able to build your ship in an atmosphere does eliminate a lot of the problems and dangers of building in space.
I was so very afraid in the days leading up to this movie, but I’m not afraid anymore and loved the movie. Also, Beastie Boys + Star Trek = :)
David S.
May 10th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
Was in awe of the movie. Also, Uhura was HAWT!
*Ponders a hilarious cross-over fanfic OF DOOM!*
May 10th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
To rbliss
On Uhura’s green-skinned roommate: As I recall, a green-skinned seductress made only one appearance in TOS — in ‘The Menagerie’. In that episode, she seduced Captain Pike, not Kirk. I recall that green-skins appeared in TNG. They may have appeared in DS9 and Enterprise.
May 10th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
One thing that bugged me, although I can’t say that it’s wrong, was the blatancy of Kirk’s hack of the Kobiyashi Maru.
I expected something more subtle, like a delay in the arrival of the Klingon ships or something.
But this isn’t TOST, is it? :)
May 10th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
@antares: Two appearances. Another Orion woman is in _Whom Gods Destroy_ of TOS. (the prison planet. Queen to Queen’s Level Four)
As for Spock/Uhura…according to a vocal interview with Nichelle Nichols, the script originally called for those two to kiss. That didn’t get past the first reading when Shatner apparently said “If *anybody* gets to kiss Uhura, it’s the Captain!”
As a long-time continuity freak and fan, my four-word review is simply “When’s the next one?”
May 10th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
I liked the plot and the new characters. The green alien was a hottie ;)
The whole red matter singularity pseudoscience was a little iffy.
The only thing I definitely did not like was the space battles. So ILM now does Trek. Hmmm… I liked Trek battles before for the 3rd person camera pulled back strategic view. The first person shooter view might be more fun for the ADD crowd, but is less enjoyable for me.
May 10th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
I can’t confirm francois picard’s death. I’m pretty sure Howard made that up.
Fun facts:
Woman in the center of the screen, and in focus, almost always wear short sleeves and skirts.
Woman in the BACKGROUND wear short sleeves and skirts, or long sleeves and skirts, or long sleeves and pants.
this may be a way a way of saying that TOS Go-Go uniforms are now optional, or it may be a production shortcut.
There was also a really odd hairstyle that kept cropping up… woman with a lot hair, wearing it in a braid that stuck straight up from the back of their head. weird. may be related to the fact that only main female characters get to wear their hair down.
May 10th, 2009 at 6:12 pm
I was overall very pleased with the movie… storyline-wise anyway. As a franchise reboot it did it’s job. Amanda (Spock’s mom.) and planet Vulcan absolutely had to die for the story to work. It was much like Serenity where Shepard Book and Wash died. It made the story more immediate, and put the viewer in a much more uncertain frame of mind for the conclusion of the movie. There was a real threat that a beloved character could or might die. At that point, anything could happen.
Also, it set up the franchise for sequels that will be both fresh and unexpected. The shackles of 30 years of continuity have been shed, and good storytelling can finally surface again.
Star Trek as a visual thing though, is dead to me. The damn camera shook so badly I thought I was having a stroke. Action sequences are so far beyond viewable I had to look away from the screen. This movie should have been called Star Trek: The Blair Witch Project.
As good as this movie is, I should have waited for it on Blu-ray or home video. Watching this on a 40 foot or bigger screen is just torture. I’d like to hope they release an alternate version of the film where they used a damn steady-cam.
The idea of making a movie look more realistic or intense by shaking the hell out of the camera needs to stop. Steady-cams, Tripods and Dollys exist for a reason. JJ Abrahms needs to learn to use them. MI3 had the same problem, Terrific story and directing, but filmed by an epileptic monkey on caffeine. In today’s day and age there is simply no excuse but laziness for a camera shaking like that on a big budget movie.
New rule: It is camera MOVEMENT that makes a scene intense. Never violent shaking.
Go back and watch Serenity, the camera is always moving, but almost never shakes so badly you can’t tell what’s going on. In Star Trek the camera operator seems to be suffering some sort of fit. It is bloody distracting.
May 10th, 2009 at 9:06 pm
Where in Iowa is that deep, limestone canyon supposed to be?
May 10th, 2009 at 9:07 pm
Trekkies bash new film as ‘Fun, Watchable’. http://www.theonion.com/content/video/trekkies_bash_new_star_trek_film
May 10th, 2009 at 9:22 pm
@ jsm1978
Regarding the questions about the lack of defenses around Earth… did you all get up to use the restroom for the scene where Nero had Pike prisoner and tortured him with that parasite thing to get the codes to shut down the defenses?
I saw it.
Assume that these defenses are impregnable. The military then lets officers wander around out-system with the keys in their head? And doesn’t change them at regular intervals? And doesn’t have a backup plan to turn them back on again?
No mobile defense forces to back-up the system?
Nobody in the military would setup a system like this.
May 10th, 2009 at 9:27 pm
THE ABSOLUTELY STUPIDEST VILLAIN IN THE HISTORY OF TREK.
And plot flaws I -could not- forgive.
1) Why drill into the planet? a drop of the stuff would eat the
planet just as well from the surface. It ate a SUPERNOVA from the
surface.
2) He had TWENTY FIVE YEARS TO THINK ABOUT THIS….. and he captured
the red-stuff. WHY DID HE NOT GO SAVE ROMULUS HIMSELF????? ?? Why
attack Vulcan?
3) Why was he unable to figure out with TWENTY FIVE YEARS TO THINK ABOUT IT that Spock was on his way back to do JUST THAT (#2)
4) Spock has already time-traveled to fix a past mistake ONCE in this movie, but after watching Vulcan get eaten, he decides that he’ll just go with the exising 10K surviving Vulcans, and go make a colony somwhere and suck it up rather than try the time-travel thing again. 6 billion Vulcans apparently aren’t worth saving.
There are more, (lots more) but hell, that’s enough.
I did -not- have a good time.
May 10th, 2009 at 9:56 pm
@Krennson2
Howard and his brother Randy being two of the friends I got to see this with, I’ll point out that it was actually Randy who identified Francois Picard dying. He mentioned that you’ll probably have to get the DVD to verify it, but he was absolutely POSITIVE that Jean-Luc’s destiny got erased.
May 10th, 2009 at 10:28 pm
To those complaining about Spock and Nero not saving Romulus — they CAN’T save Romulus. In their timeline (which still exists) Romulus is gone.
It’s not a “Back To The Future” time-travel model. This is one in which Marty McFly could go back in time, marry his mother, and send things in a completely different direction without ever fading from existence.
Such timelines have been done before in Star Trek, as the TNG episodes with alternate-timeline Tasha Yarr show.
May 10th, 2009 at 10:56 pm
Well… Picard could have another father… this is Star Trek… maybe the next movie will repair the “damage” to Gamma 40 Eridani.
Maybe the next one (already in pre-production since March) will be a NewTNG movie.
As for the uniforms: you realized their pattern was the Starfleet Delta continuosly repeated?
And now indeed it’s time for a real life “Schlock Mercenary” production with J.J. Abrams as director, Howard Tayler book and exec producer, starring: Connor Trinneer as Kaff Tagon, Jolene Blalock as Ellen Foxworthy, Kevin Spacey as Kevyn Andreyasn, William Shatner as Gunther Thurl, Jeff Bridges as Massey Reynstein, with Jaleel White as TAG and Jason Statham as Schlock.
May 10th, 2009 at 11:07 pm
Trek was phenomenal. I still liked Wolverine, but I went into it with far fewer expectations. I’m old enough to have watched TOS when each episode was being broadcast for the first time, so for me there was a lot of baggage.
Surprisingly, the retcon – and the fact that the prequel enterprise looked more orgasmic than Picard’s last iteration – didn’t bother me. It opened the door to a brand new future, and a dazzlingly sharp one. More Trek is good Trek. I suppose if the movie had been a total failure like *Enterprise* beyond it’s first season, I would feel differently. As it is, I told my son and his wife that they have to push me into new Trek movies in a wheelchair when the time comes.
May 10th, 2009 at 11:24 pm
Sergeant.Schlock: “And now indeed it’s time for a real life “Schlock Mercenary” production with J.J. Abrams as director, Howard Tayler book and exec producer, starring: Connor Trinneer as Kaff Tagon, Jolene Blalock as Ellen Foxworthy, Kevin Spacey as Kevyn Andreyasn, William Shatner as Gunther Thurl, Jeff Bridges as Massey Reynstein, with Jaleel White as TAG and Jason Statham as Schlock. ”
Umm, no — I prefer my movies have Actors and Directors….
May 10th, 2009 at 11:36 pm
That was a very awesome movie. I put it here in my overall listing of Star Trek Movies:
Genuinely good, movie-quality stuff:
VI: Undiscovered Country
—> New Star Trek Movie
II: Wrath of Khan
Would have made decent episodes:
TNG3: Insurrection
TNG2: First Contact
IV: Voyage Home
TNG1: Generations
Total waste of time:
I: Motion Picture
TNG4: Nemesis
V: Final Frontier
III: Search for Spock
Nero had a cool ship and all, but he was NOT no General Chang. Still, it would not be an understatement to say watching the movie was a couple hours of completely unmitigated glee and happiness.
Upon reflection, though, our time travellers suffer from a bit of glaring retardation, though. To sum up, Nero finds himself in the past, in command of centures future technology, -and- has the ability to captures cutting-edge Federation techology and a very very very smart ambassador who know everything about everyone. And then he decides the best way to make use of those resources is to go on a campaign of revenge instead of, I don’t know, turning them over to his homeworld and letting them steamroll the quadrant? Yeah.
Spock’s no better. He initially refuses to come on board the Enterprise because it would cause a time-rending paradox. Seems pretty lame and incoherent (hello? alternate universe?) but it does the job. Only, later in the movie, he says it was *really* to protect a budding Kirk/Spock friendship. Uh . . . well, that’s very nice of him, but did he realize what the stakes were? I mean, he’s very lucky they succeeded. It’s not like he knew they would, and they sure as heck needed every advantage they could get. And it’snot like he was concerned about timeline continuity. Dude has some serious priorities issues.
May 11th, 2009 at 12:15 am
What else could he do? he can’t build a modern-grade torpedo on a few hour’s notice. He doesn’t have plot-critical weak points memorized. And if Enterprise DOES lose, it’s a really bad idea for the one man with future technical know-how to die with them.
Frankly, it makes a lot more sense to send the current timeline’s enterprise crew after the big bad, and for him to start trying to get in contact with the rest of starfleet to start work on a long-term ‘plan B’
Trying to trick Kirk into getting along with New Spock doesn’t violate any of his key mission parameters, and may have unexpected dividends.
# Dove Says:
May 10th, 2009 at 11:36 pm
Spock’s no better. He initially refuses to come on board the Enterprise because it would cause a time-rending paradox. Seems pretty lame and incoherent (hello? alternate universe?) but it does the job. Only, later in the movie, he says it was *really* to protect a budding Kirk/Spock friendship. Uh . . . well, that’s very nice of him, but did he realize what the stakes were? I mean, he’s very lucky they succeeded. It’s not like he knew they would, and they sure as heck needed every advantage they could get. And it’snot like he was concerned about timeline continuity. Dude has some serious priorities issues.
May 11th, 2009 at 12:18 am
To the various concerns about homeworld defenses:
There are a couple of thoughts on how to defend a giant chunk of rock orbiting in space. Unfortunately, at this level of technology, they are all the wrong ones.
The Federation, at this stage of it’s conception and creation, does not have the engineering or technological resources to ’seed’ the ENTIRE SOL SYSTEM with small centrally controlled munitions, as would be the best way to defend a system.
Without that, you have to rely on defense platforms, which are essentially ships that can’t move. If you are facing superior firepower, the ability to move your weapons platform is /invaluable/. If you can’t move, the enemy will simply hit you until your point-lasers are overwhelmed, and you are destroyed. The second problem with defense platforms is that the enemy can attack one quadrant of a net you have covering an entire planet – divide your firepower by the surface area of the gas envelope of the earth. So your defense platforms are radioactive dust, because the enemy mining ship came in hailing as the USS Enterprise, and by the time the defense platforms figured out the difference, and their electronics were crashing under the effects of electronic warfare bugs FROM THE FUTURE transmitted on secure channels, they were being hit by weapons from up-well that they couldn’t hope to counter. Bye bye defense net!
So that leaves ships. Or /moving defense platforms/. The vast majority of the Federation Fleet was at the ‘Kerentz’ system, but i’m sure Starfleet had some kind of Home Fleet in the earth system.
I’m guessing part of that was dispatched to Vulcan. As for the rest… the mining ship killed 5 starfleet state of the art heavy warships while it was /stationary/. Unable to move. Possibly even taken by surprise! It didn’t appear to even do that with difficulty. So how, exactly, would a depleted fleet of ships (and inter-orbit craft, mining rigs, hell, probably shuttles) be able to take it on as it flits through the warp faster than they can move, drops weapons a /century/ in advance of their own, and is fricking huge?
The defenses of Vulcan, semi-mystical logic-lovers that they are, would have gone down without a whimper. Earth might have put up more of a fight, but against what is essentially an ultra heavy weapons platform with guns from the future, it also didn’t stand a chance. To destroy a ship like that with heavy chemical weapons specializing in long range warfare but without the maneuverability of a true warship, you need a bunch of ‘true’ warships, able to dodge around it, and hit it enough times to make it’s lack of multiple redundancy show against it. Be unhittable, rip it to shreds with sustained fire.
Nero was lucky or canny enough never to get into that situation – he fought static defense nets or small surprised squadrons who never had a chance to develop a strategy to use against his ordnance-carrier. Plus, he had a superweapon and tech from the future, so, y’know, kind of cheating.
IT IS NOT A PLOT HOLE. There are plot holes. This is just not one.
May 11th, 2009 at 12:29 am
Obviously, I can’t prove you’re WRONG, but it seems really unlikely. I watched very carefully the second time around.
the dialogue didn’t contain any names we could use to identify a picard. I didn’t see ANYONE on the bridge when it and the drill were in the same scene, and even if there were someone on the bridge, the resolution wouldn’t have been high enough for us to make out a nametag.
the only way you could tell that francois picard died on that bridge would be if you read a non-canon novel where francois picard died on that bridge during an alien attack, and then assumed that this must be the alien attack in question.
seems unlikely. although i am holding out hope that the butterfly effect will kill picard anyway.
# rbliss Says:
May 10th, 2009 at 9:56 pm
Howard and his brother Randy being two of the friends I got to see this with, I’ll point out that it was actually Randy who identified Francois Picard dying. He mentioned that you’ll probably have to get the DVD to verify it, but he was absolutely POSITIVE that Jean-Luc’s destiny got erased.
May 11th, 2009 at 12:57 am
BTW, I DO have problems with the idea of red matter. The two big ones are:
1. Why doesn’t it evaporate? it can be easily extracted from a larger mass of itself, it is light enough to be hand carried, light escapes from it, and a module the size of a breadbox contains enough strength or power to resist buckling. A black hole with that little mass really ought to evaporate within minutes.
2. Even if it DIDN’T evaporate, it’s gravitational bonding force must be so small, that at the atomic scale, it’s probably WEAKER than electrical, chemical, strong, or weak nuclear forces…. so how does it manage to attract MORE mass into itself? It takes a supercollider to force atomic material to convert into individual quarks while still merging anyway… and this ‘red matter’ is forcing surrounding matter to break down into the smallest form, compress without exploding, while still being so small and lightweight as to be hand-transportable?
but i also have some guesses at semi-reasonable solutions for other concerns about red matter.
Why did they fire red matter into the planet’s CENTER?
1. Because that kills the planet more quickly. if it started at the edge, it would gain mass at less than half the initial speed, and the far side of the planet would be twice as far away… if killing from the core took 2 minutes, killing from the edge might take 16. Yeah, that’s trivial, but it might allow a lot more than 10,000 to get away.
2. Breathable atmosphere is mainly comprised of carbon, nitron, and oxygen. All of those can fused together for net energy gain. Planetary cores are basically iron, which can’t be fusioned or fissioned for energy gain.
If the red matter were released into the planetary atmosphere, then as the air rushed towards the center of the black hole, the air would COMPRESS just before it entered the black hole. the more mass the black hole had, the greater the… compression front would be a few inches out from the black hole proper… theoretically, if the air compressed ENOUGH, in a sufficiently short time frame, you might get a fusion bomb. if you were very unlucky, the bomb might send the red matter clear of the planet.
If you send the red matter into the IRON core, nuclear bombs can’t occur. by the time the ATMOSPHERE starts to fall in, the planet’s dead anyway, and hopefully the black hole has enough mass to overpower any nuclear explosions anyway.
May 11th, 2009 at 6:05 am
@Krennson2: I’m not wrong. I’m LYING. That joke was too good to pass up.
May 11th, 2009 at 9:47 am
Why such hatred for Picard, Howard? TNG was my favorite series, though I really liked DS9 as well. [I like Ferengi's far more than I should.]
May 11th, 2009 at 10:16 am
Okay, yeah, I’m not sure what’s up with the picard bashing… but anyhoo…
the Trek was awesome, totally enjoyed it. Wasn’t sure where they were going with it for a while and totally assumed they would have “wrapped everything up” at the end to fix it, but knew I didn’t want them to, and lo and behold, they didn’t, which really allows them to boldly go forward with new (or re-imagined) adventures of beloved characters.
Okay, NOW we know why Redshirts always died on away missions: Kirk just plain didn’t like them ;-) I can always see him recording his captain’s log and smirking just slightly when he says, “Ensign Redshirt the 18th died in the line of duty…” MUWAHAHAHA
I absolutely loved how well they wrote McCoy in this, just PERFECT! Urban pulled it off well…
Also: I can answer everyone’s questions and concerns regarding the Red Matter:
Red Matter is pure distilled Liquid McGuffinite which works the exact way it is intended to by the “Hand of Fate” guiding the universe. As all McGuffins are created of McGuffinite, Pure Liquid McGuffinite, as seen in Star Trek, is very very potent and powerful and should not be addressed lightly… Let’s move onto other topics, shall we?
May 11th, 2009 at 10:34 am
# Dove Says:
May 10th, 2009 at 11:36 pm
Spock’s no better. . . . Dude has some serious priorities issues.
# Krennson2 Says:
May 11th, 2009 at 12:15 am
What else could he do? he can’t build a modern-grade torpedo on a few hour’s notice. He doesn’t have plot-critical weak points memorized. And if Enterprise DOES lose, it’s a really bad idea for the one man with future technical know-how to die with them.
Frankly, it makes a lot more sense to send the current timeline’s enterprise crew after the big bad, and for him to start trying to get in contact with the rest of starfleet to start work on a long-term ‘plan B’
————
Ha! This is Spock we’re talking about. If he *didn’t* have all the plot-critical weak points of that ship memorized, I would be disappointed in him. ;)
You make a good point about wanting to protect his person. I still think the odd teleconference would have been wise. Spock knows as much about techology of the era as anyone else, and may know about useful innovations ten, twenty, a hundred years out. He’d know in principle what one could expect to find inside and outside a Romulan mining vessel (ambassador!), and in practice what one could expect to find inside and outside this one. He also knows a thing or two about the ins and outs of red matter, like perhaps what sets it off, or what happens when you change the red matter to matter ratio. He’d be a wellspring of potentially tactically useful tidbits–at a minimum, he should be on call to advise and be asked an opinion on various plans. Forgoing that advantage to try and duplicate an alternate-reality friendship seems pretty weak-sauce.
Changing gears completely, I forgot to mention one of my very favorite things about the new movie: they use phasers to shoot down torpedoes. Yay! Part of me wonders if a conversation like this occured somewhere:
Research Guy: So . . . I read about this airplane that’s in development, uses a high-powered laser weapon. Kinda like phasers.
Star Trek Writer Guy: Yeah? What does it get used for?
Research Guy: Turns out, shooting down missiles.
Star Trek Writer Guy: Oh? . . . Oh! Hey, *we* should do that!
May 11th, 2009 at 10:40 am
@Krennson2
Why the center: My thought was that they required the pressure of the planet to activate the red matter. Kind of like in a nuclear explosion, you have to compress the uranium to actually get a reaction. (I’m probably blowing the physics here, but the concept is PRESSURE ==> Big BOOM.)
That’s why the red matter doesn’t spontaneously create a black hole and why it was dispersed in the final battle without creating a hole bunch of little blackholes.
May 11th, 2009 at 10:49 am
I don’t hate Picard. I fondly remember the fact that one of us was his ancestor at “Star Trek: The Experience.”
In fact, that memory makes the joke even funnier. If you’d prefer, though, we could kill off Tasha Yarr a few generations early.
May 11th, 2009 at 11:04 am
I loved the movie. But, contrary to opinion above me, there were some big hand-waving technical screwups. The writers don’t seem to understand the vast distances in space.
A star goes supernova and threatens to destroy the galaxy? And it somehow destroys Romulus, but sucking it into a Black Hole would fix it? If that’s the case, then it’s not Romulus’ primary, because destroying it would leave Romulus without a sun. So this supernova somehow destroys a planet light-years away with very little warning.
Vulcan implodes…and Spock watches it from the surface of another M-class planet.
There are no ground-based fighters (or even phaser-armed shuttlecraft) on Earth? One of them could have cut the tether holding the drill.
Then there’s Pike’s age. He appeared to be in his 30s when he visted Talos in 2254 in The Cage/The Menagerie. But in 2258 he looks like he’s in his 50s.
Kirk is 21ish and could make officer “in four years”. Yet Checkov is an officer at 17?
Another throwback: Uhura was supposed to be posted to USS Farragut. That was Kirk’s first deep-space assignment. This was mentioned in Obsession, the episode with the cloud creature at Tycho IV.
May 11th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
Then there’s Pike’s age. He appeared to be in his 30s when he visted Talos in 2254 in The Cage/The Menagerie. But in 2258 he looks like he’s in his 50s.
He just looked like he was in his 50s. In the alternate reality Pike was rode hard and put away wet.
May 11th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
Regarding: “the FIRST Multi-racial kiss on television, between uhura and kirk.” … A kiss between Sammy Davis Jr and Nancy Sinatra on TV predates this by about a year and there are numerous examples of other multi-ethnic kisses on TV (White/Hispanic rather than White/Black).
May 11th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
I saw Star Trek XI on Friday night. The next morning I figured the only word that discribed it for my was vav’a'lI. That is very hard to translate because the ‘lI at the end could be argued to ‘wI from a Klingon contexed, but the Human fraize is definatly ‘lI.
lets try contexed; the movie asked “Who’s your Daddy.” and we all said “%$#& Yess!!!!”
May 11th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
@tedwood “Vulcan implodes…and Spock watches it from the surface of another M-class planet.”
Definitely creative license. But, since it was in a flashback, it could be interpreted as a kind of “dream sequence.” In other words, the image depicted how Spock experienced the disaster. He didn’t literally see Vulcan explode in the sky; he telepathically “felt” it explode … sort of like Obi Wan “feels” Alderaan explode in SW4.
But yeah, that’s a handwaving explanation.
May 11th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
@tedwood – “Kirk is 21ish and could make officer ‘in four years’. Yet Checkov is an officer at 17?”
I believe he said Kirk could make CAPTAIN in four years. He would be an office immediately upon graduation.
“Another throwback: Uhura was supposed to be posted to USS Farragut.”
That was mentioned in the movie — she confronted Spock and demanded to be assigned to the Enterprise instead.
May 11th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
4 years of academy -> officer. Captain takes a lot longer. In the original timeline, he was promoted to Captain in 2264, age 31.
I was refering to Uhura’s posting in the movie, that she got out of to get on Enterprise. Probably to be with Spock, because she knew he was posted there.
May 11th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
“4 years of academy -> officer”
Hmmm … yeah, but perhaps he was a genius :-)
May 11th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
The movie was made of awesome and geek cookies. I geeked out so bad when the redshirt died, I think the people behind me thought I was having problems. My husband did the same when the Enterprise ejected multiple cores, suggesting a design improvement need that had been driving him crazy since he was introduced to Trek. What? Redundancy? Spares? The capability to distance lives and hardware from big explosions when things go wrong?
As for why Nero didn’t just try to fix things from the past, that seemed pretty obvious. One way or the other, it -had- happened to him in -his- personal past, and that couldn’t be changed. That’s what he screamed at Pike when Pike said Romulus still existed. “Don’t tell me it hasn’t happened, I saw it happen.” For him, it could never be undone anyway. His wife, his life, his world was destroyed. As I understood it, the time-travel was a fluke, an unintended and uncontrolled consequence of the black hole. If he could have, Nero would have gone on a revenge-spree in his own time, or any time, so long as he could make those he blamed for his pain, Spock and the Federation, suffer as he felt he had.
May 11th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
for those nit picking about Kirk’s age. He was suppose to enter The Academy in his mid teens. So he entered late due to his father’s death. Kirk was one of the youngest captains in the fleet. The screw up of time line lead to him becoming a Captain at 25 instead of 31 on merit. Pike was suppose to command Enterprise’s first mission and then Kirk the next, but Pike was injured by Nero and Kirk took over for him.
I wonder if Kirk will now be the one who is kidnapped on Talos IV. I wonder if Dr. Boise was the one that got killed in the movie I can’t remember. Boise was CMO under Pike’s command. So he won’t be there at Talos Either. I also wonder if Pike will be injured on that cadet training cruise.
This alternate reality leaves so much to be explored.
May 11th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
Robert April oversaw Enterprise’s construction and was her first Captain, from 2245-2250. Christopher Pike took over in 2250. He was promoted to Fleet Captain in 2265, and Kirk was given Enterprise.
May 11th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
@tedwood: “Then there’s Pike’s age. He appeared to be in his 30s when he visted Talos in 2254 in The Cage/The Menagerie. But in 2258 he looks like he’s in his 50s.”
Ouch, damnit! C’mon, Pike looked a dapper and distinguished 40-something there. Either that or I’m the one who’s been “rode hard and put away wet. . .”
@ all the other Tech nit-pickers: Gimme a break, it’s Star Trek; without technobabble, hushaboom, unobtanium, transtators, and handwavium, it’d be just another Discovery Channel special.
Sure, there’s lots of problems with continuity and tech. Ergo, the reboot. Granted, putting a wet-behind-the-ears Mid-Chitter in command of the Flagship of the fleet really went over the top.
Heck with it, it was the best installment since Wrath and/or Country. That’s enough for me.
May 11th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
“If Star Trek and Serenity were to walk into a bar… well, I think we’d see a drinking game between Browncoats and Vulcans. There’d be too much mutual respect for a fight.”
Though they might take some ribbing for the borrowed design elements.
May 11th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
Um… I occasionally hear about the Enterprise being the flagship, but there’s not usually an admiral on board, is there? So in what sense is it a flagship?
May 11th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
Beats me, just another Trek “feature.” Kinda like the way Kirk’s boots kept changing, depending on the terrain in TOS.
Let’s be real for a second, how many SF films could pass the “Real-Life Physics Smell Test ™?”
Precious few, ergo the “suspension of disbelief” all us fen have to accept in order to get anything like entertainment from the Big Screen.
I could find a minimum of a hundred “BS Moments” in this, or any other, SF film. (You could prolly find 200. . .) It’s still fun. Especially when it’s compared to the ongoing farce that constitutes “Real Life ™.”
Frankly, I just appreciate having the chance to relax and enjoy the ride. If only it happened more often.
May 11th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
WOOT!!!!! Something in WordPress worked better than anticipated!
Thankyou^100
D-
p.s. It’s the trademark symbol. Put “tm” (less quotes) inside parenthesis and it, unlike anything else in WP, does the right thing!
May 11th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
@Mi262: I just hollered “Porthos!” apparently, the rest of the audience didn’t get it. For Heaven’s sake, any Trekkie should have at least watched the first season of Enterprise and been able to get the joke.
On the bright side, the second time out, three or four others caught it.
May 11th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
(I really need to consolidate all this silliness in one post)
@cadrys: Batgirl!!! She’s the second hottest lass onscreen in the last 40 years.
May 11th, 2009 at 7:50 pm
The sun of Romulus is going to go nova, so Spock is going to toss a drop of mysterious “red matter” at it to create a black hole to save Romulus.
Uhh. Ooops. Romulus would then be orbiting a black hole with the mass of the star + one drop of red matter. Romulus now *freezes* instead of fries- though there’d be time to evacuate some Romulans.
Either way, Nero is the type of person who would go nutzo killing spree over the death of the Romulan homeworld.
Next, why does a *mining ship* have anti-ship torpedoes? Is every Romulan ship armed to the teeth?
Next^2, Vulcan has no colonies? No tourists visiting other planets? What about Vulcan ship crews or Vulcans serving on other ships? No Vulcans on stations in other systems? There would have to be more than 10,000 Vulcans off the homeworld, plus the ones rescued from Vulcan. Same for Romulus, even if their homeworld has vastly more people than all their colonies and other Romulans off-planet, at that point in ‘history’ there should still be several million of them not on Romulus.
The drill wouldn’t need to make a hole all the way to the center of a planet, it’d just need to punch down to just above liquid rock. It’d be physically impossible to drill down to a depth where the pressure would pinch the hole shut *and keep the hole open* after stopping the drill beam. That’d be making a volcano, which is what the planet killing insane Romulan does not want to do.
May 12th, 2009 at 5:47 am
Okay, now that I’ve regained the ability to say words other than “awesome”…
Why was Spock Prime carrying so much red matter in the first place?
It’s pretty rare for product placement to improve a movie, but it’s so nice to see brand names on stuff in Star Trek.
Whoever chose Chekov’s authorisation code is mean.
Ensign ShirtChief Engineer Olsen died of stupidity. And, I think, of disobeying a direct order, but I’m not certain what the command chain was at that moment.Vulcan collapsed way too quickly. Unless they’re throwing conservation of mass out the window, the black hole at its centre doesn’t weigh more than the planet plus the bomb. So it should take minutes. Okay, screen time…
After listening to Spock Prime explaining his actions to Spock the Younger, I wonder if sentimentality is the first symptom of Vulcan senility. He’s not far gone, but I think he’s going.
The lens flares didn’t bother me until the scene at the end where Pike is relieved.
remmon: “Why did they not just put the transport inhibitor on the main ship though?”
I thought it was a side-effect of the drill, which just happened to be very convenient for Nero.
Dev Dot Nul: I thought “the spinny, swirly, Spock Ship” was like that because it was built around the red matter containment system.
bdunbar: “Star Fleet commits their entire fleet without leaving a reserve.”
On two separate assignments. Maybe if things have been peaceful for a few decades, they might have been unprepared for simultaneous crises.
“Key officers sit in a bubble on top of the ship, exposed to enemy fire.”
That’s gotta be a trope. (Aside: Thank you, Howard, for having a sensible explanation for the Touch-and-Go’s ridiculous bridge.)
“Promoting a guy to command of a major vessel who has not even had a tour as department head.”
He became acting captain because the captain made him first officer. Which struck a lot of people as irresponsible, but Pike did want to shake Starfleet up.
He became captain permanently by saving the world. It’d be bad PR not to promote him for that.
nbaucker, jsm1978, resleeved and bdunbar again: The interrogation wasn’t for codes, it was for frequencies. So it’s still Star Trek, where you can neutralise just about any enemy technology if you know its frequency, and frequency hopping is way rarer than it would be if sensible people had that sort of tech.
me262: If it was Porthos, he lived an awfully long time for a dog.
bizzybody: The Onion video seems to be saying this movie doesn’t have the usual Star Trek Thinly Disguised Message of Tolerance. I thought they at least tried for that by having Spock be bullied for being half-human.
I figured the 10,000 in Spock’s estimate included starship crews, but I was surprised by the lack of colonies. It’s illogical to put all your eggs in one basket like that.
rboatright: Picard’s clone from Nemesis was stupider than Nero. (Though Nero may be crazier.)
Dove: Using phasers to shoot down missiles raises the question of why they don’t do that more often. It should be an easier shot when they’re coming straight toward you than side-on, unless the missiles jink around a lot, which as I recall it they didn’t.
Standard Star Trek writer solution to an illogicality: avert it just this once. At least this time the aversion probably doesn’t hinder rationalising the usual rule. Come to think of it, in Generations the only reason they couldn’t shoot down the star killing missile was that it wouldn’t be in flight long enough to lock onto (which was a massive failure of astrophysics, but anyway).
May 12th, 2009 at 6:03 am
He drilled because he’s a miner, and he has the f-ing big drill and he’s by GOD going to use it.
And, symbolically, the big “E” cutting off the F-ing big drill is somehow emasculating Nero.
The support cable down to the drill is all spikey-and stuff because it’s symbolic of the raping of the planet that they’re drilling into, the spikes aren’t FUNCTIONAL they’re decorative.
Similarly, the spikeyness of the SHIP is that way, because it could be. The miners are so rich they can make a BAD ASS ship, not just a cheap functional one. Inevitably, joints and spikes and stuff are weaker than a solid body ship, but a solid body ship doesn’t look so COOL and knife-like and stuff. We’re not just Romulans, we’re Romulans with FACIAL TATTOOS!!! Bad-ass.
Having said that, here are my plot questions….. Many of these have been mentioned above as well, but this post serves to accumulate them.
1) One drop of red matter will eat a supernova from the surface, but the Vulcan Science Academy sends Spock out with a 60 cm sphere of the stuff. Why?
2) One drop of red matter will eat a supernove FROM THE SURFACE but we DRILL into a planet to drop it (see paragraph one above)
3) Even if Spock had beaten the supernova, romulus was still doomed to be circling a dark black hole and freezing in the dark, why was Romulus not evacuated?
4) Why did Spock not follow the “Temporal Prime Directive” and act to prevent the alter from branching? Why did he abandon the TPD and allow the alter to continue?
5) Why did Nero attack the Klingons? Just because he’s a bad-ass? So, for 25 years Nero quietly hides in the dark waiting for Spock, and then, at the dawn of the movie he attacks a bunch of Klingons? Uhhhhh.
6) Vulcan didn’t have any shuttles, any mining craft, any inter-planet craft, anything that could have lamekaze attacked the drill cable?
7) the space drop team from the enterprise to attack the drill cable never CONSIDERED that someone might not make it, and so only ONE of them carried explosives? The federation does not practice contingency planning?
8) dropping a white-hot meters wide beam of energy into San Francisco Bay doesn’t make a wave?
9) EARTH doesn’t have a single shuttle, mining ship, etc that can do a kamekaze into the drill cable? (See Vulcan above) Ignore the codes that got through the system defence… NOT ONE PILOT can get his ship moving and attach the cable a-la Independence Day?
10) Nero has 25 years to think about this, but attacks the federation BEFORE he goes and uses the red-matter to save Romulus? He’s 100 years back in the past in a super-advanced ROMULAN SHIP, he could go to romulus, save the planet, evacuate everyone with DECADES to spare and THEN go eat the Federation… but NOOOOooooo….. Vulcan must die! — he’s mentally retarded.
there’s more of course, but that will do for now. I -hate- movies where the bad guys do stuff “because they’re bad” instead of because it makes sense.
It’s one of the reasons Eric Flint and David Weber are my favorite SF authors. Their bad guys always have REASONS for acting…
May 12th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
1) Yay! Two consecutive posts with the same first question. Is there a limit to how long small amounts of red matter can be stored?
2) There’s been some speculation about what conditions cause red matter to form a black hole, so it’s vaguely plausible that dropping it onto a solid surface or into water will waste it.
3) It wasn’t necessarily Romulus’s primary. It threatened to destroy the galaxy, remember? Of course, that doesn’t make any sense either, but whatever.
4) The TPD was a lost cause. By the time Spock arrived, Kirk had already grown up without his father.
5) Presumably the deleted scenes where the Klingons capture him, and his shipmates bust him out, still happened but was cut for time because the movie was about Kirk and Spock.
6) Again, the movie’s about Kirk and Spock, not the people who get shot down for not having a first name. The reason given for opening the parachutes late was that the platform had defences. Maybe they survived by staying too close to the cable for a clear shot.
7) Contingency planning? What, like seatbelts? Never heard of it.
8) The wave would have had to be CGI, and CGI water never looks right.
9) Likewise, see (6). And I thought it was frequencies rather than codes, but now I’m not sure. Obviously I’ll have to watch it again.
10) Maybe he sent Romulus a message warning them to evacuate in a century or so. It’s not like he has to ferry them himself. Heck, if the Romulans know when that star’s gonna blow, they might even get a tactical advantage out of it. More likely they won’t, but if red matter still gets developed in this timeline, they’ll have plenty of time to kill it before it becomes a problem.
So, gut the Federation, then the Romulan Star Empire can take over what’s left of it, and still stop the supernova because now they already know about it.
See? Nero may not be smart enough to keep Spock Prime somewhere where he can keep an eye on him, but at least he’s way smarter than Shinzon.
May 12th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
Oops. While I was editing that, I changed a singular to a plural without changing the verb. Oh well.
Sooner or later the odd-even thing’s gonna come up. Given how much Nemesis sucked, maybe the rule is odd or even sum of the digits?
May 12th, 2009 at 10:06 pm
Sooner or later the odd-even thing’s gonna come up.
It’s a reboot. We start indexing again from 0. Or maybe 1. Who cares? Neither number is even, but this was easily the most enjoyable movie in the franchise.
May 12th, 2009 at 11:37 pm
What do you mean neither? Zero’s even. And Nemesis was 10th, and it sucked, so the odd-even thing was broken before the reboot.
Or the numbering starts over with a new rule, which we’ll invent retrospectively. The old rule was odd numbers and multiples of five sucked. (Yes, 5 fits both descriptions. This is entirely intentional.)
But yeah, who cares? It’s just an artefact of the human mind’s tendency to seek patterns. I’d call it superstition if I thought anyone took it seriously.
Wait, this is Star Trek we’re talking about. Of course someone takes it seriously…
May 12th, 2009 at 11:52 pm
OSHA visits the Enterprise. http://www.basketcasecomix.com/?p=625
May 13th, 2009 at 6:09 am
A good odd-numbered (I’m calling it 11) Trek? The chain has been broken!
Someone call Fleetwood Mac!
May 13th, 2009 at 6:57 am
After further research I see that zero actually has parity, and it is non-arbitrary. Neat. I learned something new, and it’s not even 8:00am yet.
We’re obviously re-indexing the reboot from zero because a) this movie was good, and b) it rhymes with Nero.
May 13th, 2009 at 7:21 am
I still think Galaxy Quest gets a serious look as the best Star Trek movie ever. If you count one, the current movie is number 12 and our pattern is intact.
May 13th, 2009 at 8:32 am
Someone else who is going to see it again may confirm, but I believe Spock Prime’s mission was to use the red matter to reverse the supernova, not necessarily cause a black hole; I think the black hole effect turned out to be a very bad side effect of mis-use of the red matter. used properly it is supposed to fix a broken star; used recklessly (without reading the directions) it creates black holes… I guess red matter is kind of like Viagra, it started out as a medication for one thing and gets totally redirected in purpose for something else.
So… I guess we need to find out of Pfizer was the maker of Red Matter(tm)…
May 13th, 2009 at 11:16 am
@tedwood “Vulcan implodes…and Spock watches it from the surface of another M-class planet.”
… in the same system.
At first I had the same reservation you voiced, but then I learned that Vulcan is *IN* the Delta Vega star system. So, it’d be like Kirk watching Earth go “boom” … from *MARS*.
Vulcan was “Delta Vega III”; old-Spock was on “Delta Vega IV”.
Earth is “Sol III”; Mars is “Sol IV”.
^_^
May 13th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
http://popculturezoo.com/archives/2529
An examination of what this movie changes, and doesn’t.
He got the reference to “Enterprise” via Adm. Archer’s beagle but completely missed the Cardassian Sunrise and not a word about the NCC-1701 being built in Iowa instead of San Francisco.
I missed the dog reference, having seen at most two episodes of “Enterprise”. I shall endeavour to correct that. (The only Trek series I’m sure I’ve seen every episode of is TOS.)
May 13th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
rbliss: I just looked up the release dates of Galaxy Quest (1999), Insurrection (1998) and Nemesis (2002), and you’re right. Galaxy Quest is 10, Nemesis is 11. The chain is unbroken.
justmike: The supernova was stopped by using a black hole to dispose of it. The astrophysics of that are all wrong, so it’s still Star Trek.
Pax: From Mars, Earth is just the blue evening star. Spock’s view of Vulcan is like Kirk watching Earth go “boom” … from *LUNA*. Or maybe closer. You’d expect those two planets to be tidally locked, in that case.
May 14th, 2009 at 5:23 am
I enjoyed the film immensely and, being a geek, got a fair few of the little homages to the other series. I’m also REALLY looking forward to seeing how they will deal with the Klingons in this “new” timeline, I don’t mean their appearance, I mean how they use them as a race. In TOS, they were THE bad guys, with a few notable exceptions they were shown as evil, underhanded and completely opposed to the federation, in TNG they’re not, its going to be interesting…..
All that said, 1 or 2 nitpicks:
1 – The Romulans. In TOS, no-one had even SEEN one before Kirk, only the Vulcans knew much about them (and they weren’t telling), so why is it all common knowledge about their relationship to Vulcan all of a sudden? And please, the tattoos? Bit too much mad max/doomsday influence there.
2 – The time travel thing as a plot device has been really overdone in Trek now, although I see why they used it here, and with good effect.
I grew up watching TOS, didn’t really enjoy TNG for a while, but I like this new re-imagining of the whole series; in Enterprise, they were really careful not to upset the whole continuity through to Voyager, now all that doesn’t matter and there is so much more for Kirk & co. to blunder into. I’m really looking forward to it!
May 14th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
Not only does everyone know about the Romulans, Uhura speaks all three dialects of Romulan. (By the way, since just about every other language has the same name as the species, are we English?)
Maybe the destruction of the Kelvin prompted Starfleet to find out more about the Romulans?
Does that explain the Cardassian Sunrise? Did Romulus have contact with Cardassia?
May 14th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
Well amazing movie. the reboot is great.
One thing about shooting down torpedoes. Nero’s ship seemed to fire low velocity cluster munitions, probably used break up a planet’s surface. They seemed chemically or nuclear driven. If memory serves, torpedo tubes are essentially a giant rail gun firing targeted antimatter warheads. When the Enterprise opened fire on Nero at the end, their torpedoes, while lower yield seemed much faster than nero’s.
Did it ever show the name or registry number of the Constitution class in Iowa?(i can’t remember) if it never does, it could be any of the hundreds of Constitution class cruisers built.
May 14th, 2009 at 11:03 pm
The ship being built in Iowa was the 1701…the Enterprise. There’s a shot where the registry number is pretty clear, but you blink and you miss it.
All in all, it was a fun and entertaining flick. I enjoyed it, even though it is not the Trek I grew up with. I concede that it is the Trek that is here from now on. Remember, if we can’t adapt to change, then how will we ever get by? At least there were many Trek moments in the movie, and Karl Urban stole the show as McCoy…it actually felt like he was channeling DeForest Kelly himself! Yep, I’ll definitely be going back to see it again. And yes, I made sure to buy the new Toy Enterprise. Got it sitting right next to my computer…right next to the picture of Magnum PI…I’m a nerd with style!
May 15th, 2009 at 7:15 am
Yeah, I’m a nerd too. I bought the phaser, communicator and tricorder!
May 15th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
Sam wrote:
“From Mars, Earth is just the blue evening star. Spock’s view of Vulcan is like Kirk watching Earth go “boom” … from *LUNA*. Or maybe closer. You’d expect those two planets to be tidally locked, in that case.”
Well, okay, point conceded. But at least it’s a lot *closer* to believability, than seeing it from another star system entirely … yes? :)
May 15th, 2009 at 6:43 pm
Apparently, concrete is a major starship building material in this timeline… You can see it in much of the Kelvin, the Enterprise engine room and the outpost on Delta Vega IV.
Budweiser bottling plant! They couldn’t find any spare change in the production budget to fab up some stuff to cover the woodgrain form marks in the concrete for the starship scenes?
May 16th, 2009 at 8:42 pm
I’m sorry… what in the existence of concrete makes it a bad substance to use in a starship? It’s not like, when you have anti-grav at the level they do, it’s a weight issue…
And a starship IS a city in space.
May 17th, 2009 at 8:25 am
what in the existence of concrete makes it a bad substance to use in a starship?
My rule of thumb for starships is if you would not see it in an seaship then it breaks my suspension of belief.
Concrete might well be a valid material for starship decks. But it looks wrong.
May 17th, 2009 at 9:34 am
what in the existence of concrete makes it a bad substance to use in a starship?
My rule of thumb for starships is if you would not see it in an seaship then it breaks my suspension of belief.
Concrete might well be a valid material for starship decks. But it looks wrong.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t the US have quite a few merchant ships during the 2nd world war with concrete hulls?
May 17th, 2009 at 10:26 am
A fleet of 38 concrete ships were commissioned during WW1 but only 12 were partially finished when the war ended. They were sold off and several were finished by private owners. None survive except as deteriorating piers and breakwaters.
Several concrete ships were built during WW2, mostly as unpowered barges, some of the barges were refrigerator/freezer ships for transporting and serving food in tropical areas.
Two of the powered concrete ships from WW2 were sunk as piers in Port of Newport (Yaquina Bay, Oregon). Now they’re breaking up and for some reason when they were sunk the fuel tanks were left full. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4184/is_20080128/ai_n21217121/
As for the steel Liberty Ships, only two out of 2,751 built are still operational. They’ve been used many times in TV shows and movies, one was in the episode “Heavy Metal” in “Sliders”. A few are museum ships or were converted to other, stationary uses. The majority were sunk during the war or later scrapped after being used for commercial shipping or have been sunk as artificial reefs or as foundations for piers.
534 Victory Ships were built (in the USA, a few built elsewhere) of which none survive in operational condition. Their fates were mostly the same as the Liberties, though more are museum ships, several are still listed in the US National Defense Reserve Fleet with some of those slated for disposal and at least two currently being scrapped.
May 17th, 2009 at 11:07 am
It’s probably not concrete at all, but a spray-cast foam that is easy on the feet while still being hard enough to bounce spanners off of.
[/trekkie apologist]
May 18th, 2009 at 7:26 am
I’m sorry but I have to ask, What were you all smoking that you liked this? It was badly cast, as usual they chose popular actors over actors that could play the part or had any kind of chemistry. But I could forgive that if the story was good. It wasn’t.
A romulan from the post ‘Nemesis’ era has come back in time to destroy as much of the UFP as possible. Why? Because something destroyed Romulus and Spock promised him Federation help if they could but there was nothing they could do. So rather than use time travel to save his people he’s going to go back to erase the people who tried to help him but couldn’t.
Even as a revenge plot this is idiotic, it makes the villain just laughable. (To say nothing of that ridiculous hand weapon he’s toting around.)
Then we get to Kirk, Kirk as a rebellious youth makes sense, but they went past that and tried to make him an asshole. The actor however couldn’t even pull that off. He just comes off as not caring about anything, ‘I hate this’ and ‘this is important to me’ scenes come off with the same level of smarminess rather than the charm Shatner put into the character.
The worst scene in my opinion is the Kobayashi Maru scene. In Wrath of Khan, Shatner’s Kirk makes it a point of pride that he cheated. This Kirk, eats an apple and looks bored.
Spocks childhood makes no sense whatsoever. Logical bullies? Being a bully is the result of deep seated inferiority driving a need to make oneself feel superior by putting weaker targets down. No matter how they play the scene it comes off stupid.
Spock goes downhill from there, the temper tantrums totally break the character. The last second revealed romance (and I use the term loosely) with Uhura makes even less sense, since there was no build up to it. (Some might argue the ‘favoritism’ argument about her assignment might be a clue, but really it comes off like she’s his star pupil not his love interest.)
Bones exists only to deliver one-liners from half of the series.
Scotty won the least annoying character award, because he got so little screen time.
Chekov, ignoring that he shouldn’t have been there, has become a clone of Westley Crusher with an accent, and way to much is made of ‘V’='W’ jokes.
Sulu, no just no.
Uhura:see spock, character unremarkable otherwise.
The special effects were average, the soundtract was way too loud.
This movie was bad, can ye not tell good from bad anymore, has the unending stream of shit from hollywood so jaded your senses that a mildly better looking turd now qualifies as a good movie?
This movie is a joke and so I leave you with one:
http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1910892
May 18th, 2009 at 7:04 pm
Sutekh: Wow, there’s a lot in there I disagree with.
I thought Zachary Quinto played Spock pretty well, but his recognisability was a bit distracting: “Oh, hey, it’s Sylar!” I don’t think anyone did a brilliant acting job, but then the script never called for brilliant acting, so didn’t give scope for it. (Contrast the final episode of SG-1, which had a scene that absolutely relied on good acting, or the seduction of Anakin to the dark side, which was written as drivel but saved by Ian McDiarmid’s acting.)
“So rather than use time travel to save his people”? That’s been addressed above. This is not Back to the Future.
Nero’s not an idiot. Sure, he’s crazy, but that’s not the same thing. In his grief, he’s convinced himself that Spock could have gotten there sooner. It’s not easy to accept that nothing could have been done. And the rest of his plan makes sense in a psycho kind of a way: with the Federation (and possibly the Klingons) out of the way, the Romulan Star Empire will be able to grow much bigger, and be able to do something about the supernova this time around (especially if he took a few moments to send them a warning). It’s not a brilliant plan, but it’s pretty good for a madman.
If the handguns weren’t silly, would it still be Star Trek?
I think Kirk starts off as a jerk so he has more room for character development, though I’m not sure that he actually got it. The Kobayashi Maru scene shows him to be more of an attention-seeker than the version of him that knew his father.
Vulcans aren’t actually emotionless, they’re just extremely repressed. Kinda puts the bullies in a different light, doesn’t it?
I recall Spock losing his temper twice in the movie. The first time was as a child, the second time was under the stress of having seen his home planet destroyed. His relationship with Uhura didn’t strike me as a plot thread so much as just something Kirk discovered about him as they were getting to know each other. More interesting for Kirk’s reaction to it than for itself.
Bones exists to deliver one-liners from half of the series, and to give a great speech in the first scene he’s in. Oh, and to get Kirk onto the Enterprise in the first place.
Scotty the least annoying? He bloody deserved to be beamed into the pipe for using someone’s pet instead of a lab rat.
For Chekov to be Wesley, he’d have to endanger the ship with his experiments.
What’s wrong with Sulu? And what are you saying about Uhura? How many characters do you want characterised in two hours?
If it was too loud, that seems more like a complaint about the cinema. And I love the sound of the warp drive. Kinda like a sonic boom, kinda like it’s abusing the space-time continuum.
I tend to avoid the unending stream of shit from Hollywood until it appears on TV, or someone I know gets it on DVD. The last three movies I saw in the cinema were The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (good), Yes Man (good) and Star Trek (good). I think the last bad movie I saw in the cinema was Star Trek: Generations.
As for the College Humor video: Wait, so Spock’s Leia? So the original slash couple (Kirk/Spock) is… uh huh. Right.
May 18th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
Hey, what happened to my post?
May 18th, 2009 at 8:19 pm
Oh, there it is. Maybe it was delayed because I repeated Sutekh’s description of Hollywood’s output.
Hmm… Somehow that post seems oddly disjointed.
May 19th, 2009 at 7:44 am
@Sam
r.e. Nero’s failure to save Romulus: This has been debated much here and elsewhere on blogs. So, I watched for this the second time I saw the film. Nero states something to the affect that he plans to “Not only save Romulus, but make the Federation pay.” Apparently, he plans to save Romulus after kicking some Federation butt. Remember that he didn’t get access to the Red Matter until Spock returned. Nero had been in this timeline for 25 years waiting for Spock. I’m not sure how Nero figured out has to use Red Matter and blow up (in?) Vulcan in such a short period of time. But maybe Red Matter is the Star Trek equivalent of TNT. Nero was a miner, after all.
The premise of the movie makes more sense when you realize that Nero is crazy not stupid.
So, with Romulus’ future secure, where’s Nero’s motivation? It’s personal. He’s not punishing Spock and the Federation for the destruction of his home world, he’s punishing them for the destruction of HIS FAMILY. “Don’t tell me it didn’t happen! I SAW it happen.” Nero can’t go back to the future, so, his family is dead and he blames that on Spock. He had 25 years to sit around and plot revenge. He’s gonna be just a little psycho about it.
Kobayashi Maru test: This was brilliantly true to the original reference. If you remember, Kirk ate an apple while retelling the story years later. It’s perfectly in character for him to be cocky. I don’t think he looks bored. Perhaps a little too smug, but he’s about to “stick it to the man.” He’s reveling.
Spock childhood: I liked this scene. It shows that Vulcans have “mastered” their emotions by training, not by genetics. Why wouldn’t Vulcan kids be bullies? Some of the biggest bullies I’ve ever worked with were brilliant computer science geeks. If anyone should have been secure in their own skins, it was people being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to do what they are good at. And yet, they still found it necessary to belittle those around them. Human kids are not little adults and I’m glad that Vulcan kids aren’t simply miniature versions of their elders.
Spock/Uhura romance: Okay, I’m kind of with you on this one. I’ve never understood the human/Vulcan romance thing. How can Spock, who is striving to master all emotion be actively pursuing a romantic relationship? I’ve seen human’s display less emotion than some of his PDA scenes: Really, guys. Get a room! Plus, while no hint is made of any physical relationship between them, isn’t it against some Academy code for a professor to date a cadet? I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t fly in any military academy in THIS century. I thought maybe the film makers were going to try to make Uhura represent Spock choosing his human side, and tie it into some sort of Oedipal extension. Not so much. They just wanted to show some suck face time and get Kirk’s reaction to being bested once again by Spock.
This is not “Lawrence of Arabia” or “Citizen Kane.” It’s space opera. It’s two hours of watching things go BOOM in space (and then for us, wondering why it went BOOM in one scene and dead silence in another.) But, the story is the thing and JJ Abrams tells a good story. He had the nearly impossible competing tasks of not alienating the base, laying the groundwork for new actors to play old characters without burdening them with 40 years of back (and future) story, drawing in new viewers, and making something that people actually WANT to see.
YOU may not like it, and that’s fine. But, to say that it’s a mildly better looking turd puts you at odds with literally millions of people voting with their dollars. I saw this for free the first time, and spent my own money to see it a second time. I know many people who’ve done the same thing. (About 300 of us saw it for free the first time.) It’s never going to win an Academy award, but that’s wasn’t the goal.
Get used to these characters. They are going to be the face of Star Trek for many years to come: possibly the next 40 years. It you’ve got a problem with that, there’s always DVDs of the old stuff.
May 19th, 2009 at 9:43 am
Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t the US have quite a few merchant ships during the 2nd world war with concrete hulls?
I’ve seen a motor boat made out of bricks. Heavy sucker. But it floated and (with a very big outboard) scooted right along.
And if you put that in a movie not as a ‘brick motorboat’ but as a vehicle it would look odd and out of place. Wrong, in other words.
Reality has nothing to do with ‘looking’ wrong.
May 19th, 2009 at 9:14 pm
rbliss: I think you’re responding to Sutekh there, not to me.
bdunbar: Was there a practical reason for making it out of bricks, or was it just for the awesome?
May 19th, 2009 at 10:33 pm
Was there a practical reason for making it out of bricks, or was it just for the awesome?
I have no idea. I suspect for the awesome.
May 19th, 2009 at 10:44 pm
@Sam: yes, of course, you’re right. :)
On the cement boat deal there are colleges that hold concrete canoe competitions every year.
Also, three of the 4 longest floating bridges in the world are located in and around Seattle. The I90, 520 and Hood Canal floating bridges are all made out of concrete . . . and they really do float. One of the bridges ( I think it’s I90) is relatively new. The old one sank when someone forgot to close the vents before a big storm came up. It’s a popular dive location in Lake Washington in Seattle.
May 20th, 2009 at 7:21 pm
The part of the Hood Canal Bridge that replaced the part which sunk has been refurbished. The other part is being replaced currently.
It was available to purchase for a mere $400,000 http://web.archive.org/web/20061215203530/http://www.frenchcreekboatsales.com/Custom/Spec1009_hood_canal_bridge/spec1009_hood_canal_bridge.asp
That company merged with Pacific Boat Brokers, couldn’t find the listing on their new site.
400 people, $1,000 each+ expenses for moving it = exclusive party barge with built in light aircraft landing strip. :)