Star Trek

[Ironwood]

It's a fair question.

Hmmm.

I suppose I'd have to say that III and IV work well as 'follow ups'.  Indeed, if you'd left those three films out as the only legacy of the Original series, it would work really well.

Surprisingly, The Undiscovered Country I didn't like all that much.  It took itself way too seriously without that much merit.  The Voyage Home was a much better Trek film.

[stray]

Like I said, Shatner is irreplaceable. More irreplaceable than even.. Christopher Walkin (not that Walkin has anything to do with Trek... although that'd be sweet if he did). So far, the new guy is more of a slapstick type of funny. While Shatner is just so uniquely and horribly bad that he's awesome.

Would a Shatner Kirk be possible today though? I mean, was he a parody of overacting in the 60s or was that just the way things were for TV then? Not having been around then, I'm really curious.

I don't remember if it was Shatner or Walken (probably Walken), but I heard that one of them intentionally delivered their lines in that staccato way because it was hard for editors to chop up any of their lines. It was a deliberate way to get more screentime. Then it just stuck like a trademark..

More than likely this was Walkin.. He's smart enough to come up with something like this. With Shatner, it's probably like you say.. Overacting. I mean it seems more like overacting than being completely staccato like Walken does. And I don't think it was symptomatic of 60's tv, no. He just sucked (or stood above the frey, if that's how you see it  ). Although sometimes his overracting delivers fine results. His Twlight Zone ep is one of the best.

[Murgos]

I'd probably go 2, 1 then the reboot for my order of preference.

[Stormwaltz]

Well, hi! I watched this over the weekend for the first time. And I didn't read the thread. I expect I'll retread ground you already went over.

My verdict: It's a bad movie. I don't mean a bad Star Trek movie. I mean a bad movie.

Karl Urban and Zachary Quinto were great -- and I went in with severe doubts about the latter. Spock is the most iconic character Star Trek ever produced. Quinto isn't The Spock, but he's very Spock. Simon Pegg was a highly entertaining new spin on the character. Not much like the old Scotty, but I ended up disappointed he didn't have a larger role. Chris Pine's glowering with generic rage left me cold. Not enraged. Just uninterested. Not a character I have any interest in seeing again as a main character. Chekov was even more useless and annoying than his original namesake, but at least he only had two scenes. The rest of the cast was inoffensive.

The biggest problem I had with the movie was that the plot seemed to have been constructed by rolling on random encounter tables.

Alien battleship comes through a wormhole! While Kirk is being born! Wait -- why is a pregnant woman on a military starship? When was the last time you heard of someone giving birth on an aircraft carrier?

Spock maroons Kirk! Because... that's... logical somehow? Never mind! There are stupid looking CGI monsters to fight! Oh, look it's old Spock. In a random cave. Okay. I guess this is a moon of Vulcan, since he could watch Vulcan be destroyed from there (Why didn't Nero keep him on his ship for a better view? The world may never know). Why isn't the moon being sucked up into the black hole? Never mind! It's Scotty! With Mini-Me! And Scotty's on this moon because... uh, he just is, I guess. And then they beam on to the Enterprise! Which is, at this point, light years away and moving at warp speed. Shit, if you can teleport interstellar distances, why built starships at all?

There are just so many contrived situations and plot holes, it makes my head hurt.

I'm glad they left the Klingon stuff on the cutting room floor, because that was nearly as random as the ice planet BS. He disappeared for 20 years to fix his ship and wait for Old Spock to appear. No more explanation needed, thanks.

And one last thing, completely a pet peeve -- why the hell do the new engineering spaces look like terrestrial power plants? The first time they did it, on the Kelvin, I was completely thrown on how the guy who'd been on the ship was suddenly in a warehouse. There's just no design connection at all between the bridge and engineering. It doesn't feel like they're different parts of the same ship. It feels like filmed a few scenes in a power plant because they couldn't afford to build enough sets.

I'll stop rambling by saying something nice. I liked that they showed maneuvering thrusters firing when the ship turned, and that exterior space scenes were (mostly) silent.

[Murgos]

Alien battleship comes through a wormhole! While Kirk is being born! Wait -- why is a pregnant woman on a military starship? When was the last time you heard of someone giving birth on an aircraft carrier?

Research vessel.  Hence the name Kelvin.

Women serve on combat vessels all the time in today's military.  I'm sure some of them have gotten pregnant.

e: As I recall the only USN vessels that don't allow women are submarines.

[Stormwaltz]

Research vessel.  Hence the name Kelvin.

Really? I never got that impression.

That's the most heavily armed research vessel I've ever seen...

Women serve on combat vessels all the time in today's military.  I'm sure some of them have gotten pregnant.

I'm sure you're right. But when they do, they put them on shore sometime in those nine months of lead time.

[Bunk]

And that's what happens when a sci-fi technical writer watches a Star Trek movie written for the Michael Bay generation...

Seriously thoug, I partly agree. I felt just about everything involving the Vulcan moon was utterly (fate will make me pick the random direction to run from the snow monster, to happen to run straight into Spock!). I just felt that overall the rest of the movie had enough good to make it an enjoyable ride. Turn off the brain, don't think of it as hard scifi, have fun.

[Murgos]

[I'm sure you're right. But when they do, they put them on shore sometime in those nine months of lead time.

I'm not sure why you are having a hard time with this, TNG Enterprise had whole families and children on it.

Being in and out of ports on a planet where nothing is more than 16 hours travel away is probably different than being in deep space.

e:  Lol quoted same text twice.

[Stormwaltz]

And that's what happens when a sci-fi technical writer watches a Star Trek movie written for the Michael Bay generation...

Hey, if I was going to be that sort of picky, I'd launch into a diatribe against "red matter."

And If I was going to indulge my ST nerd, I'd point out that Vulcan has no moon. No amount of alternate timeline handwaving can explain that away.

[Stormwaltz]

I'm not sure why you are having a hard time with this, TNG Enterprise had whole families and children on it.

Because this isn't TNG. Roddenberry made a conscious decision that in Next Gen, they'd cart families along on their exploration ships. They didn't do that in TOS or Enterprise -- Starfleet was a navy.

[01101010]

Chris Pine had some parts where he nailed the Jim Kirk role - actually had me thinking he was not a bad choice for the role - but overall, forgettable. Shatner owned the screen, Pine just doesn't... but damn if he doesn't get some of the dialog and inflection down pat (especially in the scene where McCoy is trying to get him on the Enterprise).

Karl Urban was dead on..save for the blue eyes. They really did DeForest justice. Quinto was ... more Romulan than Vulcan if you ask me. Way too emotional given the fact my mother made me watch ToS religiously when it was on. I mean making out with Uhura? 

It was just enough Trek to keep things moving in my opinion. If they can run 2 more of these movies with the same cast, they'll make some money. Not an earth shattering movie, but entertaining.

[Reg]

For some reason every once in a while they have to tell a bad story in the Trek franchise. The fact that it's Trek with generations of fanboys lets them get away with it.  A good story with the new cast will be very good and they're about due.

[Samwise]

I'm not sure why you are having a hard time with this, TNG Enterprise had whole families and children on it.

Because this isn't TNG. Roddenberry made a conscious decision that in Next Gen, they'd cart families along on their exploration ships. They didn't do that in TOS or Enterprise -- Starfleet was a navy.

I think Picard even said something in the TNG pilot episode about how unique it was that this new Enterprise had entire families on board, it being an exploration ship rather than a military one.  That's also why it had the detachable saucer section (to serve as a giant escape pod for all the non-Starfleet personnel).

[Trippy]

I'm not sure why you are having a hard time with this, TNG Enterprise had whole families and children on it.

Because this isn't TNG. Roddenberry made a conscious decision that in Next Gen, they'd cart families along on their exploration ships. They didn't do that in TOS or Enterprise -- Starfleet was a navy.

I think Picard even said something in the TNG pilot episode about how unique it was that this new Enterprise had entire families on board, it being an exploration ship rather than a military one.  That's also why it had the detachable saucer section (to serve as a giant escape pod for all the non-Starfleet personnel).

Constitution-class ships could detach their saucers as well. They just couldn't be reconnected like the Galaxy-class saucers could.

Also Federation combat ships were usually "multi-purpose" ships by design. It wasn't until the Defiant that they actually built a "pure" combat vessel.

[Ironwood]

Constitution-class ships could detach their saucers as well. They just couldn't be reconnected like the Galaxy-class saucers could.

You make me laugh.  Give me a hammer and enough time and I'll detach the saucer section of any starship.

 

[Riggswolfe]

The biggest problem I had with the movie was that the plot seemed to have been constructed by rolling on random encounter tables.

Alien battleship comes through a wormhole! While Kirk is being born! Wait -- why is a pregnant woman on a military starship? When was the last time you heard of someone giving birth on an aircraft carrier?

Well, in the "official" histories his mother did serve on the Kelvin while pregnant with him but was eventually dropped off on Earth for the delivery. My guess is that the battle caused a premature delivery. But in any case, pregnant Kirk mother on the ship was always part of the lore the only change is where and under what circumstances Kirk was born.

Spock maroons Kirk! Because... that's... logical somehow? Never mind! There are stupid looking CGI monsters to fight! Oh, look it's old Spock. In a random cave. Okay. I guess this is a moon of Vulcan, since he could watch Vulcan be destroyed from there (Why didn't Nero keep him on his ship for a better view? The world may never know). Why isn't the moon being sucked up into the black hole? Never mind! It's Scotty! With Mini-Me! And Scotty's on this moon because... uh, he just is, I guess. And then they beam on to the Enterprise! Which is, at this point, light years away and moving at warp speed. Shit, if you can teleport interstellar distances, why built starships at all?

Well, about the marooning:

1) As is shown later Spock is nearly insane with grief. Dr. McCoy rightly calls him to the carpet for this action and I would imagine that later this is probably officially reviewed but since Kirk and Spock saved the Earth it's probably swept under the rug.
2) My impression was that they were on another planet. Probably the equivalent of Mars for Vulcan. Nero stranded him so he could watch and Nero was free to leave and do his own thing. He wanted Spock to survive everything that was going to happen so he'd live with pain.
3) Well, Scotty was there because it was sort of the equivalent of being sent to an Antartica posting when you piss off an Admiral. Which is what he did. The novel, and apparently some unshown scenes, have Spock theorizing that the reason Kirk ran into him was because the timeline was trying to fix itself.
4) The transporting thing, I'd guess it still has a range so you can't use it between solar systems but the Enterprise wasn't out of range. That's just a guess and I have no idea if those kind of transporters are common in the TNG era or not.

And one last thing, completely a pet peeve -- why the hell do the new engineering spaces look like terrestrial power plants? The first time they did it, on the Kelvin, I was completely thrown on how the guy who'd been on the ship was suddenly in a warehouse. There's just no design connection at all between the bridge and engineering. It doesn't feel like they're different parts of the same ship. It feels like filmed a few scenes in a power plant because they couldn't afford to build enough sets.

You know, oddly enough, I liked Engineering as a power plant. It made sense to me. I've always thought Engineering in the past looked too "clean" or something. That power plant look seemed more realistic. However, I thought Scotty in the water tubes was just silly.

[Ratman_tf]

The movie is so boring and disjointed, that I find myself nitpicking small stupid things, because the big things are too megastupid to even bother about. Like criticizing the wardrobe of a bum.

For example. During the Kobiyashi Maru. We get that it's Kirk and an homage to Wrath of Kahn! Do we really need to see Chris Pine crunch and slobber all over an apple while JJ Abrams comes to your very theater to nudge you in the ribs with his elbow and wink?

This movie tried way too fucking hard.

[Kail]

Why isn't the moon being sucked up into the black hole? Never mind!

As far as I know, this is realistic.  Gravity is determined by mass and distance, and since neither of those change when an object collapses into a black hole (unless it loses some mass during it's collapse), it's gravitational pull doesn't change much outside it's former surface area.  It's when you get closer to the centre that it starts getting weird.

[UnSub]

For example. During the Kobiyashi Maru. We get that it's Kirk and an homage to Wrath of Kahn! Do we really need to see Chris Pine crunch and slobber all over an apple while JJ Abrams comes to your very theater to nudge you in the ribs with his elbow and wink?

During this part I thought to myself, "Kirk is an asshole who deserves to be thrown out of Star Fleet". He hacked a system to succeed at an important test. It's not winning when you cheat, but we are meant to side with him because he's the lead character.

Or even the scene where young Kirk drives a car over a cliff. WTF was the point of that scene? "Oh, that young Kirk is quite the rapscallion! Grand theft auto and property damage is a great lead in for becoming a military officer!" (Yeah, I know it happens in RL, but usually because the person turns themselves around, not because the universe determines them to be right all the time.)

[Sir T]

During this part I thought to myself, "Kirk is an asshole who deserves to be thrown out of Star Fleet". He hacked a system to succeed at an important test. It's not winning when you cheat, but we are meant to side with him because he's the lead character.

Oh they did that in the movie? That idea came from a trek novel, believe it or not.

[Stormwaltz]

2) My impression was that they were on another planet. Probably the equivalent of Mars for Vulcan. Nero stranded him so he could watch and Nero was free to leave and do his own thing. He wanted Spock to survive everything that was going to happen so he'd live with pain.

I'll grant the possibility for most of those, but not this one. Vulcan was the size of Earth's moon in the sky, and Spock could clearly see what happened to it. Venus and Mars are just bright points of light viewed from Earth -- and Earth looks the same viewed from either of them.

Why isn't the moon being sucked up into the black hole? Never mind!

Gravity is determined by mass and distance, and since neither of those change when an object collapses into a black hole (unless it loses some mass during it's collapse), it's gravitational pull doesn't change much outside it's former surface area.

The red matter caused Vulcan to implode. For that to occur, it must have added mass, which would have disturbed anything orbiting the planet.

During this part I thought to myself, "Kirk is an asshole who deserves to be thrown out of Star Fleet". He hacked a system to succeed at an important test. It's not winning when you cheat, but we are meant to side with him because he's the lead character.

Oh they did that in the movie? That idea came from a trek novel, believe it or not.

It's a key character point in Wrath of Kahn. The problem with how they did that scene that Pine's Kirk was such a cocky ass about it. Shatner's Kirk would've played it straight, seemingly all innocence, with a smirk and a twinkle in his eye the whole time.

I also felt the reaction from Spock and the academy was overblown. If the purpose of the Kobayashi Maru is to see how a cadet responds to a no-win situation, Kirk had already taken it twice and provided an answer. Not to mention that reprogramming the sim is also an answer. In Kahn, he mentions he was "given a commendation for original thinking."

[NowhereMan]

Yeah that bit was played wrong and the reaction was written wrong. If the whole point of the test was dealing with a no-win situation why the hell do they have people retake it again and again? Like you said if Kirk had been at least acting innocent during the test he wouldn't have come across as a total prick. There were a few character changes like Scotty that worked with the actors playing them and just made sense. Spock being somewhat more emotional was believable as an adolescent coming to grips with his shared heritage even if it was 'Spock' rather than Spock.

[01101010]

It's a key character point in Wrath of Kahn. The problem with how they did that scene that Pine's Kirk was such a cocky ass about it. Shatner's Kirk would've played it straight, seemingly all innocence, with a smirk and a twinkle in his eye the whole time.

This was an easter egg for all the trekkies to get their "ah ha! I get that reference!" moment. The way my mom described it when she was reviewing the movie was that she knew the reference and it tied the movie down to ToS more - though I knidly disagreed being that it was over-the-top and unnecessary since Khan was not even know at this time to Kirk. I let the cocky assholish nature that Pine played in that scene go since it felt like it fit with the rest of the "rebel without a cause" attitude the director gave him to play with. Sure, Shatner would have played it more coy, but Shatner's Kirk had a different childhood and different circumstances shaped them.

I also felt the reaction from Spock and the academy was overblown. If the purpose of the Kobayashi Maru is to see how a cadet responds to a no-win situation, Kirk had already taken it twice and provided an answer. Not to mention that reprogramming the sim is also an answer. In Kahn, he mentions he was "given a commendation for original thinking."

Again, the whole Khan thing relates to the "other" reality. Playing with time and reality afforded this movie, IMHO, way too many liberties to walk around in clownshoes spraying the audience with silly string. Kirk being able to take it more than once I can justify since I reroll in almost every pc game I have played. First time was to observe the situation, second time was to try to tweak something to see if that works, third time - well when all else fails, change the system to fit your desired outcome. I don't necessarily agree with it, but I can understand the thought process.

[Khaldun]

Taking it more than once always made sense to me if the point is to make you face the no-win scenario. The first time you don't believe that it's no-win, the second time you still don't believe--maybe there's some way to make it work, and then finally you face it and learn whatever Starfleet thinks you need to learn. This especially makes sense if they mix the test randomly into other simulator exercises where you are in fact learning how to win or beat the scenario.

[Ard]

I really should not dip into this thread, but I do want to remind you guys that this really is not the same Kirk that took the test in ToS.  This actually is a much cockier Kirk that grew up completely without his father, which was also part of the point of the car scene (as dumb as it was), and pretty much everything he did throughout starfleet. 

[Lakov_Sanite]

I really should not dip into this thread, but I do want to remind you guys that this really is not the same Kirk that took the test in ToS.  This actually is a much cockier Kirk that grew up completely without his father, which was also part of the point of the car scene (as dumb as it was), and pretty much everything he did throughout starfleet. 

The same goes for spock as well post-vulcan.  The uhura thing is a little romulan sure but vulcans aren't celibate anyways and it's believable enough.  Everything after vulcan explodes is completely fine with me.  Here you have a younger spock than when the series started and he is immediately hit by the near destruction of his entire race. That's not exactly something you can recover from, in fact while vulcans pride themselves on logic, this event would probably shake their faith in that dogma. 

Bones/scotty/chekov/uhura/sulu are all basically the same characters but in this timeline both kirk and spock are very different people.

[Polysorbate80]

in this timeline both kirk and spock are very different people.

Kirk has to be different; I don't think anyone could try to reprise shatner-kirk without drifting into parody at some point.

Spock, well...it wouldn't be parody, but nimoy-spock is still too iconic.  Not letting a little reinvention occur would hamstring the actor.  Plus Spock wrasslin' with his emotions is usually entertaining.

[Raguel]

My problem with that scene is that from Wrath of Khan, I got the impression that while Kirk cheated, he just changed the scenario from "impossible to beat" to "extremely difficult, but doable". This Kirk made it brain dead easy to pass.

[HaemishM]

This Kirk is not subtle - see the car off the cliff, the idiotic, doomed bar fight. He's a complete cunt in the beginning of the movie, and even after "beating" the Kobiyashi Maru, is not ready for the burdens of leadership even though he thinks he is. By the end, he's willing to work with a guy who tried to torpedo his entire Starfleet career because he's matured a little. But he's not the old Kirk - he's going to be more impetuous and more overconfident. The lack of a father figure in this timeline had that significant an impact on him.

[Slyfeind]

Come to think of it, I really liked Kirk until he got on board the Enterprise. He was an engaging character on Earth, and I could actually empathize with him at certain points. But the moment he set foot on the Enterprise, he was completely unnecessary.

[Riggswolfe]

Or even the scene where young Kirk drives a car over a cliff. WTF was the point of that scene? "Oh, that young Kirk is quite the rapscallion! Grand theft auto and property damage is a great lead in for becoming a military officer!" (Yeah, I know it happens in RL, but usually because the person turns themselves around, not because the universe determines them to be right all the time.)

This scene actually makes sense when you get the whole context, which you don't in the movie because a large part of it is edited out. So, here's the context::

1) The car was his dad's car.
2) His stepdad had just kicked his brother out of the house. (That's the teenager Kirk drives past and waves at.)
3) His stepdad had essentially taken that car as his own which Kirk resented.

Unfortunately, they edited out the entire part of the scene where you see the stepdad kick out the brother and the stuff about the importance of the car is, I believe, in the script (and definitely in the movie tie-in novel) but isn't represented onscreen.

[Reg]

Wow, knowing that makes a huge difference. How stupid of them to leave that scene in without any context.

[Evil Elvis]

Context or not, it was a lame scene.

[Kail]

The red matter caused Vulcan to implode. For that to occur, it must have added mass, which would have disturbed anything orbiting the planet.

Not really a significant amount of mass, automatically.  As far as I can recall, they sort of handwaved the whole thing, but there wasn't much of an indication that the people carrying this thing around were toting several hundred thousand tons of matter.  In theory, you can get black holes down to very small (milligram) masses (theoretically, down to planck mass), the idea being that you can drop it into a gravity well, it falls to the centre, and then the planet (or whatever) falls into it.  Might take a while to get started since it's going to have an extremely small radius, but once it does get started, it's going to get bigger fast.

Not to say they weren't toting around hundred thousand ton masses in some kind of Star Trek brand gravity negating jar, but unless there's an actual reference to the mass of this stuff, I'm inclined to assume that it weighs less than a mountain (and shifting a mountain on earth does not send the moon crashing into us).

[Polysorbate80]

Black holes as small as you're talking about would evaporate almost instantaneously.  I R not scientist enough to know what size hole would be needed to be stable long enough to be dropped from orbit, fall into the center of a planet and then consume it.