Patrick EDIT: Spoiler tags...use them.

I assume you're talking about Zedferret's post. He didn't say anything that will hurt your enjoyment of the old movies and episodes and JB talked about the time travel in his review. His post remains untagged.

Totally in line with Mr. B here -- my top 4:

1. Khan!!!!!!
2. Nuclear Wessels
3. Borg? Sounds Swedish.
4. Transformer Trek

Though I haven't seen Shakespeare Trek in a while, and I have a feeling it's probably a better film than the new one. Mr. B, your observation of the Enterprise lacking character is brilliant -- I hadn't thought of that, but now I see how lacking the film was in this department. And as far as the character portrayals are concerned, I also loved Urban's McCoy, but I think that's because he did an impression while both Pine and Quinto were probably forbidden to do any sort of copycatting. Can you imagine if Pine talked like Shatner? It would've been like an SNL sketch.

Sjwoo,

I think we can all acknowledge they really screwed up on the timing of the timeline, and that that part of the story is nonsensical.

Other than that, and the good point Philaspencer makes, it was a very enjoyable 2 hours + for any old Trek fan.

I have no problem with folks discussing the time travel; that's well-known to anyone who has heard anything about the movie. But I thought the last paragraph of Zedferret's post crossed the line.

Take a look at the HD Trailer 3 around the 0:33 mark. I believe there isn't much difference to what I saw in cinema, and that image definitely lacks depth from my point of view, but that's just me being pedantic...



That might be true for action scenes, but even in the scene where Pike is talking to Kirk in the bar the close-ups are never steady. That just gives the impression of an amateur camera operator.



It's quite obivously a matter of taste, and for my taste it was totally overdone.

slksc is correct - Zedferret's post does contain a massive spoiler:





I agree: There were too many shaky camera movements and lens flares, although I kind of liked the latter effect to an aextent and the shaky cam was just within tolerable limits. After MI:III, Cloverfield and Star Trek, I think it can be safely assumed that J.J. Abrams is a flashy director who likes to call attention to himself (or rather his direction). Then again, he must have a good hand with actors or the performances wouldn't have been that good.

Of course, there are numerous plot holes. While watching Star Trek, I happily ignored them because I enjoyed the film so much. The plotholes are nothing, a sci-fi aficionade couldn't handle.

Sjwoo, my understanding, as related by Spock, was that:



I saw the movie with my wife (both of us are casual fans) this weekend, and we both liked it a lot. Great casting, fun story. Weak villain, but, really, let's list all the awesome Trek movie villains:

1. Khan
2. Um...

The opening scene, btw:

Interesting resposes to my Luke-crashing-on Dagobah comments... thanks! However, they all point out that it's so easy for the movies themselves to credibly explain things if they want to, sigh.

Liked the movie, and James' review.



Patrick EDIT: Once again, I repeat spoiler tags! Just typing SPOILER does not cut it unless the spoiling text is at least 10 lines below SPOILER.

I'm a lapsed Star Trek fan - I gave up watching in disappointment during the Voyager years and Enterprise failed to reinterest me. But I've always had hopes that once it was out of the hands of the culprits behind Voyager, something good might come of it again. So I had high hopes for this movie, but I'm left feeling disappointed. I don't follow the Star Trek fan base, but I'm actually surprised to hear they're so approving, because what's left of the Star Trek fan in me is what's made me disappointed with the new movie. If I had minimal background in Star Trek, I'd probably have liked this a whole lot more.

Regarding spoilers, I had some trouble with the tag initially because it doesn't work the same way everything else does. you have to type:

[spoiler] with an = after spoiler, like and then after.

When Tyler Perry makes his appearance, I briefly wondered why the film isn't called TYLER PERRY'S STAR TREK.

This latest incarnation of STAR TREK falls short of greatness, but it is solid entertainment. It's better than most, but it's not on par with STAR TREK: WRATH OF KHAN and STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT. I am by no means a Trekkie, but over time I've grown familiar enough with the franchise (primarily through the films) to appreciate the backstories. The casting of the major players makes sense, and for the most part they all do excellent jobs taking over the reigns. The lone exception is Karl Urban. Instead of reinterpreting Dr. McCoy, Urban seems to be doing an imitation of DeForest Kelley that would be more at home in a "Saturday Night Live" skit.

Perhaps those with more knowledge about the Trek Universe can light a candle here:

As far as the cinematography goes, I was quite satisfied. There is a fine line between artistic movement and epilepsy and Star Trek walked that tightrope quite gracefully.

I wasn't aware of that. I always just press the spoiler button above the text field instead of typing it directly. No chance of messing it up then.

Saw it yesterday, give it *** of *****.

Two * for the director, one * for the actors. No stars for the writing (see below) or the music (Jerry Goldsmith, this ain't).

I have yet to be impressed with the writing of the Kurtzman/Orci team. When I heard that this story incorporated time travel, I just rolled my eyes. Really, we're doing that again? If I asked a grade schooler to come up with some way to pass the baton from old cast to new cast, time travel is probably the first thing that he'd suggest. Real creative there, guys. Time travel is such a cheap, cheesy plot device, one that pretty much always turns the integrity of a non-comedic movie into Swiss cheese, both for the absurdities and contradictions that it introduces into the plot, and for the easy outs it lends the writers, thereby making for a less suspenseful and less compelling narrative.

Writers have become so comfortable with the use of time travel as a major means of plot progression that the gravity of it isn't even reflected in the reactions of the characters any more. It's about as shocking as seeing bare breasts in public. "Are you from the future?" Scotty casually asks Nimoy Spock. "Do you realize that your nipples are showing?" Orci and Kurtzman (those are their names, right?) are comic book-level writers; I don't think that they're anything special even as writers of summer blockbusters. They certainly aren't at the level of anyone who wrote for the original series, TNG, or most of the movies.

But then, this movie isn't meant to be Star Trek in the classic, Roddenberry sense. It's not meant to explore and examine the human condition via scientific analogues and alien cultures and a distinct dynamic of communication and friendship between its three main characters. No, this movie has been conceived, engineered, and realized to be a good Star Wars movie, which it certainly is. <MINOR SPOILERS> It's got the Luke Skywalker farm boy who wants more out of life, it's got a cantina fight, it's got the sage advisor urging the farm boy to leave the simple life for some grand, off-planet destiny, it's got planetary destruction </MINOR SPOILERS> ... these Kurtzman and Orci characters epitomize the derivative imaginations of their generation. The old stuff, the original series, was written by people who had been cops or served in World War II. They knew a little something about life, real life. The two clowns who penned this movie are just boys, and it shows.

Berardinelli's point about the Enterprise being missing as a character is dead-on, by the way. That fairly long, passionate sequence in which Kirk gets his first tour of the exterior of the upgraded Enterprise in the 1979 Trek movie, well, this new movie is the antithesis of that. As such, we get a good look at the Enterprise for all of about ten seconds, maybe fifteen, and that's it; from then on, we have to make of it what we can while it's warping about and buffeted by laser beams, explosions, and debris. No admiration and adulation of man's future by showcasing technology, here; that's a means of celebrating humanity that's out of place in a Star Wars movie. Better to leave it to chummy and nostalgic dialogue and sappy monologues.

Again, though, for what it was intended to be, it works very well. If everyone involved in the making of this thing wants to George Lucas it up, more power to 'em. Roddenberry is long gone and, like Shatner said some years ago, Star Trek -- the real deal Star Trek -- left with him. Better for everyone involved with it now to do what they do best with it (i.e. rollicking, overblown, Star Wars-style science fantasy camp) rather than try to live up to the standards set by the original series or even Next Generation (which wasn't as good as its predecessor in a literary sense, and whose main characters didn't hold a candle to their forerunners, but which was still really good, and certainly worthy of its name). I sat back and enjoyed the movie for what it was, and I had a good time.

I would definitely recommend it for Star Wars fans, and any Trek fans who can take my attitude that it's fine for Abrams et al. to use the Star Trek name to make a fun sci-fi flick that almost completely lacks the essence of Roddenberry's vision. Abrams is a talented director, who made a good Star Wars movie out of a weak story and a comatose IP. I'm down for the next installment.

When reviews started rolling in for the new Star Trek, I thought my worries had been confirmed: that J.J. Abrams had sold the franchise out and made a brainless action movie under the Star Trek banner. That the characters Kirk, Spock, and Bones, who have a long-standing reputation for exploration, intelligence, and optimism would be sullied in the service of physical conflict with no deeper purpose. Most of the pre-release hype, while positive, centered around the spectacle of the battles, rather than the solidity of the story.

It's not that I don't want Star Trek to be accessible. It's only that I don't want it to sacrifice what distinguishes it from its competition. As a Trekker, I'm too inexperienced for that kind of snootiness. It's just that the current generation of moviegoers thinks of the Matrix as an intelligent science-fictional allegory, so it's imperative that the filmmakers resist the undoubtedly incredible temptation to sell Star Trek out in keeping with modern blockbusters.

This is the part of the review where I say either "My worries have been confirmed" or "I needn't have worried." I'll say neither.

I will say that, for what it's worth, this is a very good motion picture. It avoids embarrassing the memory of the original series. It builds a bridge between the old and the new. It repackages the series for a much wider audience. It respects the personalities of its core cast without imitating them. In short, it accomplishes all that it needs to, and does a damn commendable job of it.

Perhaps it's a little short on the thoughtfulness and the social commentary that marks the best of Star Trek (there is a laundry list of episodes from the original series alone that stands up to the cream of the science fiction crop), but it's not completely absent of those qualities. There is strong thematic content to go with the stunning visuals, including the old Trek mainstays of logic vs. emotion and shedding primitive limitations.

It's easy to see the cast growing into the characters we know they must become. Chris Pine's Kirk isn't the Kirk of the original series, but he's close enough that he might be someday. The old Kirk carefully disciplined his cockier side. This is Kirk before the discipline. Zachary Quinto has a quality of underdeveloped camaraderie with those around him, which is right for this stage of the story. Karl Urban bears little resemblance to DeForest Kelly, but he captures the qualities that are more important than physical characteristics. And the presence of Leonard Nimoy in a key sequence ties in with the old series while resisting gimmickry.

The film isn't perfect. It would have been nice if it had been invested with a little more of the human condition (a bit of a misnomer for a franchise that is cross-cultural on an interstellar level). There are also a few of the mindless action moments that would have overtaken a lesser picture. There's a bit towards the end when the Enterprise avoids something that would, by any stretch of logic, have easily destroyed it--and it does so using some nonsensical bullshit thingy, which adds insult to injury. But those moments are few and far in between.