Rate the new Star Trek Film

[freyar]

Yeah, a ship crewed mostly by cadets, how lame! Wait, are we talking about the new Star Trek movie or Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn?

That was also a bit silly, but at least the senior officers were well-seasoned.

Re: my previous comments, maybe there is a secret plan to clear things up in sequels, in which case I'll feel a lot better.

 

[fanboy2000]

Thoughts *SPOILERS*

Some thoughts, in no particular, order. Possible *SPOILERS*

• The answer to my long-time question: why is the Chief Engineer always running the transporter? Because beaming people is actually fairly complicated.
• Admiral Archer? Next movie, I want a Sam Becket cameo.
• We have a good explanation of why Spock joined Starfleet.
• We now have a reason why McCoy is in Starfleet. Seriously, I'd always wondered why he just didn't stay on Terra Firma.
• Uhura is, finally, given a great set of skills.
• Green woman and mini-skirts? Setting back the feminist movement by 40 years shows real dedication to continuity. (It sounds snarky, but really, I just think it's fun.)
• What, no Caption April? Well, I guess the dedication to continuity had to end somewhere. Not that it's important.
• No mention of 5 year missions either. Probably a good thing as a continuous 5 year missions sounds rather silly. Not to mention it doesn't seem like that that's how the original series went.
• You know what this movie was really missing? Original series Klingons.
• I'm not sure, but it sounds like Scotty said "Caption Picard" as a swear word near the end of the movie.
• Ok, so enlistment actually means joining the Academy.
• And there are no Ensigns or lieutenant juniors grades, you just go straight to regular lieutenant. Do not pass go, do not collect $200.
• This is the first movie without any Klingons since Khan. In fact, it's the only movie without Klingons except for Khan.
• Costume Design: What does it say about Starfleet that they make all their cadets where red?

 

[Relique du Madde]

Some thoughts, in no particular, order. Possible *SPOILERS*

• Costume Design: What does it say about Starfleet that they make all their cadets where red?

[sblock="Spoiler...ish"] You know... I was half expecting that drill to come down over Star Fleet Academy and wipe out the entire student population.[/sblock]

 

[Fast Learner]

Good god I loved it. Grew up on TOS reruns and felt it was the perfect blend of the original and a totally fun action film, rebooted with glee. One of the most enjoyable films I've seen in many years.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

That was really surprising. I liked how the film really showed that it was "the road not taken", yet some things seemed to be destined to happen. And a time-travel story without reset button!

Indeed, that was a surprise. Not using the reset button was the only sensible thing to do, but I still miss Vulcan. (Though if you think about it - Vulcan never played a very central role in the series. Individual vulcans, yes, but the two most important got away anyway. )

I liked Urban's McCoy, though I wish we had seen more of him. Quinto's Spock was great - he was a different Spock, but still Spock. Pegg's Scotty was fun! The Kirk... well-played, but I'm still not sure whether Pine is the ideal actor, but still good. Chekov was funny, but sadly Sulu was really underused.

Sulu definitely needs more combat scenes, the one on the digging thing was too short.

I liked the characters, the actors were a good fit. At the end, at least Kirk and Scotty had a moment where they really looked exactly like the original.

I liked the re-design of the ship, it looked believeable without looking all grim-and-dark (like the realistic look of BSG), but rather Star Trek-like. Love that new warp effect and sound. The villain's ship was... very meh, however (and gave me bad Nemesis flashbacks)

I watched it with a friend yesterday and he said something similar to the ships design, and I think he's right. Well, in a way it's "consistent", but I'd rater prefered the Scimitar to be an anomaly.
Similar things can be said about certain areas on either ships - strange design that seemed to serve no purpose (and doesn't seem to fit inside the ship in case of the Enterprise) except to give us a good action scene. I think they need to improve on that (but Star Trek XI is far from the only Sci-Fi movie with that problem.)

 

[wingsandsword]

We now have a reason why McCoy is in Starfleet. Seriously, I'd always wondered why he just didn't stay on Terra Firma.

Actually, that is a huge continuity nod showing they have really done their research. The idea that McCoy joined Starfleet after a bad divorce was originally though up during the original production run in the '60's. The episode was going to be about McCoy meeting his estranged daughter who had fallen in with a disreputable crowd. The episode was rewritten, losing this subplot and eventually became "The Way to Eden". They had never had the opportunity to mention it, but that was the actual original idea for his backstory.

Ok, so enlistment actually means joining the Academy.

I think "Enlistment" means joining Starfleet in any capacity, and Kirk was immediately put in for Officer training because of Capt. Pike. We have already seen enlisted crewmembers in Enterprise (which since it took place before this, are not affected at all by the timeline shift), and there were some explicit mentions of A Starfleet Academy Enlisted Training program in the TNG episode "The Drumhead" when a guest star held the rank of Crewman 1st Class.

And there are no Ensigns or lieutenant juniors grades, you just go straight to regular lieutenant. Do not pass go, do not collect $200.

Not unprecedented in Trek canon. Saavik held the rank of Lieutenant while in her Senior year at the Academy. The TOS Episode "Obsession" also mentions that in the original timeline, Kirk was a Lieutenant before his graduation. Apparently at Starfleet Academy in the 23rd century it is possible for outstanding cadets to earn a commission before graduation, and for graduates to be commissioned at higher ranks of Lieutenant J.G. and Lieutenant with some regularity (at least in the TOS era, we didn't see any examples in the TNG era of this practice, when it was much more like a modern-day Service Academy with commissioning upon graduation to Ensign).

This is the first movie without any Klingons since Khan. In fact, it's the only movie without Klingons except for Khan.

Well, they were the adversary in the Kobayashi Maru test, just like they were in Kahn. Because of how they finally explained the difference in Klingon appearances back in Enterprise, they can use either "old" or "new" Klingons without trashing continuity, because Enterprise left in a backdoor that said that the "New" Klingons were there back in that era, just much less common.

 

[Pbartender]

And there are no Ensigns or lieutenant juniors grades, you just go straight to regular lieutenant. Do not pass go, do not collect $200.

That may be going back to the idea of Star Trek being Horatio Hornblower in space.

Back then, as far as naval officers were concerned, you had...

• Midshipmen, which were the equivalent of a combination of Ensigns and Cadets.
• Lieutenants, which were fully-fledged officers. Relative seniority determined your rank within lieutenants. If there were 4 LTs on a ship, then you'd have a first, second, third and fourth lieutenant. If a more senior lieutenant joined the crew, you'd get bumped down. If a more senior liuetenant left the crew, you get bumped up. First lieutenants were automatically the "first mate", and would take command in the absence of the captain... Captains couldn't technically choose their first mates, except by ensuring that one particular lieutenant was the most senior lieutenant on the ship.
• Commanders, which were lieutenants half-way promoted to captain. Usually given to lieutenants who have been commissioned command of a ship by the Admiralty (as opposed to liuetenants would have assumed command of a ship, because their captain is otherwise indesposed).
• (Post) Captains, which was like gaining tenure. Captains are commissioned to command rated ships of the line... Like the Enterprise.
• Commodores, which are simply captains who are in command of more than one ship. Much like Commander, it was a rather temporary title. Once you went back to commanding one ship, you were a captain again.
• Admirals, who permanently commended multiple ships. If you survived long enough to gain enough seniority as a Captain, you automatically become an Admiral, even if you had no ships to command.

Of course, the movie doesn't precisely follow that, either.

Also note that anyone who commands a ship, regardless of rank, is called "captain" as a courtesy.

As noted elsewhere, at the time there was also the tradition of the Admiralty granting one special request to a newly promoted Admiral or to a retiring Admiral... Pike, in gratitude, could very well have made a special request to have Kirk promoted and posted to the Enterprise when he made Admiral.

 

[Silver Moon]

....silliness such as the ship full of cadets, etc, etc.

Long tradition on that one, the aforementioned Star Trek II, plus there was a DS9 episode where Jake and Nog wound up on a Defiant-class ship of cadets. There are also at least a dozen Star Trek novels that also reference ships manned by mostly close-to-graduation cadets.

 

[Lurks-no-More]

My vote's on "Excellent!", and I'm not much of a ST fan overall (SW is more my thing).

If they can maintain the quality and the energy, I'm definitely looking towards more movies in this vein.

 

[Eridanis]

I gave it four stars - I don't know if it's the best Trek of all time, as only time and repeated viewings will decide that for me. It definitely felt better than a 3.5 vote, so there you go.

I thought they did as good a job of balancing multiple masters as could be expected. They needed - no, wanted - to pay homage to the past. They needed to bring in new viewers to make money. They had to tell a good story, one that would hold the attention of thoughtful science fiction fans as well as people whose idea of "skiffy" (as Harlan Ellison would say) is formed completely by Star Wars and Independence Day.* I think Orci and Kurtzman did a better job servicing all these needs than anyone could have expected, and their Trek-loving script was given an A+ treatment by a non-Trek-loving director in Abrams. Perfect combination of interests and skills.

I loved Bruce Greenwood's portrayal of Pike. I was genuinedly inspired. "I dare you to do better..." And him pulling the weapon out and shooting the Romulans when Kirk was saving him was awesome, showing that he was broken but not defeated. And "I am relieved." I would love to see this character again in the sequels, serving a role for Kirk similar to how Pellew serves as a mentor for Hornblower. (After all, as Spock Prime says, Kirk Prime looked up to his father and was inspired by him to join Starfleet... Pike in this timeline is already serving that role.)

Nimoy was right on as an aged Spock. I don't know how much of his quietness and his touch of frailty was acting and how much was Nimoy's actual condition (I suspect people are not giving him as much credit for acting as they should) but I thought it was right on for the character. And I love that they did not kill him off in the end, like 95 out of a 100 dramas would have done. It's ironic that Spock Prime is now older and likely retains more knowledge of Vulcan culture than his father, and important consideration in a Vulcan-less timeline.

I've never seen any of Simon Pegg's movies, but I'm going to seek them out. He was genuinely funny, and kicked the movie to another level when his Scotty arrived. (One of the few things I disliked about the movie was his alien sidekick, who seemed to step right out of Star Wars and onto this movie. But there wasn't much of that character, so no big deal.)

It's a shame that the main female character was basically written as the female love interest cog in the plotwork, but luckily Zoe Saldana did a lot with Uhura. She's obviously got a lot more going on above the shoulders than the equivalent character would have in a lot of other movies. I found her Uhura to be a lot more integral to the ship than Nichelle Nichols' was (which was no fault of the actress, but rather the scriptwriters and their times, methinks).

That brings up a point that I wanted to make about this movie. You get a real sense that every single person on that bridge was extraordinarily intelligent and gifted, and had worked hard to earn a place on that bridge. So refreshing from most entertainment these days, filled with slackers and people made heroes for thumbing nose at authority. It was great to see a work where some things need to be earned. (Yes, Kirk thumbs his nose, but he demonstrates competence while doing it, so that it is effective and is rewarded rather than punished.)

Karl Urban's McCoy has already been praised. I'll just concur, and say I'm relieved that a line that sounded kind of twee in the previews ("Space is disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence") was far more awesome in context.

And I MUST have that image of Enterprise in front of Saturn as my desktop background soon. Please, please, Paramount? I heart starship pr0n.

All in all, I only see one movie a year, if that. This was so good that I hope to go again to see it in the theatre, something I've never done.

*No offense to lovers of those two works. SW is science fantasy/pulp, and ID4 was a summer blockbuster with SF trappings.