Rate the new Star Trek Film

[wingsandsword]

I'm getting really tired of time travel in sci-fi. When used well it's excellent. However, most of the time I think it's just a lazy plot device. It wasn't used awfully here, but I'm not convinced it was strictly necessary.

While not strictly necessary, they could have made it a pure origin story/flashback, the alternate timeline lets them work without the "Smallville problem" of doing a lengthy prequel series (such as future movies, a TV series ect.) with a predetermined outcome.

They can refer to backstory events that are still canonical (like Star Trek: Enterprise, or Cochrane breaking the light barrier ect.) because they still happened, and they can bring in other alien races we know to exist at their leisure as they are discovered or interacted with before they otherwise would be (Borg, Ferengi ect.), and thanks to Future-Spock they have someone with knowledge of the galaxy and science from a century ahead, providing a nice explanation if they want to have things like Holodecks appear before their time, a little like him bringing back what was bleeding-edge transporter technology. Since they coudn't even do that in TNG.

I'll assume perfecting Transwarp beaming was something Montgomery Scott did after he was rescued and set loose into the 2370's, guess he didn't retire after all. Since the year Future-Spock came from was 2387, and we hadn't seen much of that far into the 24th century (Voyager came home in 2378, Nemesis was set in 2379, so we haven't seen a thing of what has happened in the last 8 years or so, Scotty might have really revolutionized Transporting instead of retiring). Given the load of Future-Tech and Borg Tech that Voyager came home with, they could have had a sizable jump in technology especially with the Transwarp technology Voyager used to get home and the super-long distance subspace communications Lt. Barclay invented to communicate with Voyager during the Pathfinder Project.

This is a semi-fan wank, but it may depend on how strong the black hole is. If you've read anything on the LHC/Black Hole debate, it's the same general principle. Small black holes will "evaporate", but perhaps the added bonus of a planet's gravity helps stabilize it long enough.

Though I'll admit, the whole black hole physics was wonky in the movie. I chalk it up to deus ex machina.

Personally, my fan-wank on the Red Matter issue is that it's probably Romulan technology. We know that in the TNG Era (2360's+) Romulans use artificial singularities as power sources for their starships. We also know that malfunctions in these quantum singularity power cores can have odd temporal side effects (TNG episode "Timescape"). I figured that the joint Vulcan/Romulan plan to save Romulus involved using their entire supply of whatever they used to create these artificial singularities, hence the huge supply of "Red Matter", and they'd never used it in such quantity, creating a singularity with more temporal side effects.

What is Red Matter, we don't know, but being honest, there is a lot about condensed matter physics and singularities that we don't know in the 21st century, so I'll accept that it's some form of exotic condensed matter that when subjected to extreme heat and radiation (like say, a planetary core, or an exploding starship) can implode to form a singularity.

 

[Mallus]

Why did they need the drill when they had the insides of a lava lamp red matter? Simple. Because the filmmakers wanted the cool space-diving sequence onto the drill platform!

I go easy on stuff like this. Because, when you think about it, most (all?) SF action scenes are illogical. Take space battles. Any depiction of space combat where the combatants are in the same frame is automatically "unrealistic". Wouldn't the engagement distances would be huge? Would the most sensible weaponry be lots of tiny, unmanned drones capable of bone-crushing acceleration (FYI, I think Peter F. Hamilton gets this right in his Night's Dawn trilogy), or simple things, like clouds of fast-moving sand dumped in a ship's path? Shouldn't lasers/masers/phasers be invisible in space?

SF action is supposed to look cool. That's the guiding principle.

 

[Pbartender]

Why did they need the drill when they had the insides of a lava lamp red matter? Simple. Because the filmmakers wanted the cool space-diving sequence onto the drill platform!

I go easy on stuff like this. Because, when you think about it, most (all?) SF action scenes are illogical. Take space battles. Any depiction of space combat where the combatants are in the same frame is automatically "unrealistic". Wouldn't the engagement distances would be huge? Would the most sensible weaponry be lots of tiny, unmanned drones capable of bone-crushing acceleration (FYI, I think Peter F. Hamilton gets this right in his Night's Dawn trilogy), or simple things, like clouds of fast-moving sand dumped in a ship's path? Shouldn't lasers/masers/phasers be invisible in space?

SF action is supposed to look cool. That's the guiding principle.

"You must spread some Experience Points around before giving it to Mallus again."

It's the difference between SCIENCE fiction and science FICTION.

 

[Nikosandros]

I disliked the movie. Bad direction and acting, a silly plot, and a very poor screenplay. I spent the last part of the movie constantly looking at my watch, since I was getting really bored.

There are Star Trek movies much worse than this one, but that's not much of a compliment...

 

[Mark]

I disliked the movie. Bad direction and acting, a silly plot, and a very poor screenplay. I spent the last part of the movie constantly looking at my watch, since I was getting really bored.

There are Star Trek movies much worse than this one, but that's not much of a compliment...

You might have gone into the wrong theatre. Did you notice that you never see Hannah and Miley together?

 

[Fast Learner]

Has anyone had a chance to see it twice or more? How does it hold up to a second viewing?

I saw it last night for the second time (after having seen it on opening weekend) and it was a real hoot again. This time I got to check out details I wasn't able to see the first time, and got to enjoy some of the large screen and sound system stuff that I won't get on DVD. Definitely worth a second shot, imo.

 

[Arnwyn]

I'll give them credit that they at least didn't go with the slingshot-around-the-sun method used in previous Trek movies.

Suck is still suck. Time travel sucks no matter how you do it.

Slingshot-around-the-sun is just as fine as anything else... it's time travel - you're doomed to suckiness from the start.

 

[LightPhoenix]

While not strictly necessary, they could have made it a pure origin story/flashback, the alternate timeline lets them work without the "Smallville problem" of doing a lengthy prequel series (such as future movies, a TV series ect.) with a predetermined outcome.

They can refer to backstory events that are still canonical (like Star Trek: Enterprise, or Cochrane breaking the light barrier ect.) because they still happened, ... (snipped for length)

Here's the thing - they can do all of that without time travel and still reboot the series. Just put in references to the stuff (ie, Admiral Archer, Pike, etc).

 

[Ahnehnois]

Has anyone had a chance to see it twice or more? How does it hold up to a second viewing?

The plot holes and pseudoscientific nonsense stand out more. It goes by so fast that the first time you just accept things, but the second time I was constantly scratching my head and going "how'd that happen?".

Conversely, it was fun to hunt for in-jokes and references. I still haven't caught the tribble.

 

[roguerouge]

I know it's early, but if anyone sees it more than once please let us know how it stands up to multiple viewings.

Spoilers ahoy...



It stands up well, actually. The opening two scenes, in particular, retained their impact for me. The Scotty intro seems more forced this time around and the Kirk-horn-dog low comedy is amusing but not delightful now.

Two things occurred to me: The enemy ship is the antagonist, not the villain, which is a good thing. The fact that the crew had no training, that they were miners, proved to be the crucial balancing factor and was used well dramatically. Once two trained people beamed in, they made mincemeat of the crew in a phaser battle. (The SFX of which was awesome, with missed shots thudding against walls). It made sense that they were missing moving targets. And the captain gets surprised by tactical considerations, falling for the ramming speed maneuver, letting himself get lured away from earth, and allowing emotion to rule him. The future technology of their ship was their huge advantage, but it was also their only one.