I absolutely agree with your criticisms. Still not enough to affect my love for the film though. Its weaknesses fed into its strengths as a no-nonsense fun action movie.
Watchmen and Adventureland are my #4 and #1 films of the year, with Coraline as #2 and Star Trek as #3.

Milo, I apologize for feeling emotions during Star Trek. Clearly, I insulted your Vulcan heritage.

I will be sure to also chastize my wife for her lack of control.

I'm doing a mass edit on this topic to remove all unnecessary spoiler tags. BTW, I do not consider what happens in the FIRST SCENE to be a spoiler. And certainly parallels between Kirk's mom and someone in real life don't qualify. There are some legit spoilers in this thread, but use some consideration when tagging spoilers...

Wow, another forum where a guy can't ask a critical question about someone's reaction to a movie for fear of stoking some heavy-handed moderator's indignation.

You're not even maintaining logical consistency in your own post. Orci and Kurtzman aren't to blame because their stuff gets re-written and ad-libbed, yet they get credit for writing movies that you liked. I think someone mentioned having your cake and eating it too, earlier in this thread...

I'm outta here.

Wow, he really was a Vulcan. Good riddance.

Anyways, I have heard nothing but valid critiques so far. I really think it comes down to what was expected: are you a new to Trek or are you a long time fan? It was a competent movie at very least

I'm not a moderator and your reply pissed me off...the opening scene of this movie was very emotional. I don't have a wife or even any pregnant relatives but I got choked up. If you didn't get an emotional response from that scene then honestly I feel sorry for you. It seems to me like you are just trying to get people riled up...between insulting someone for feeling emotional about a scene in a movie that YOU didn't feel emotional over and then going on to insult ever facet of the movie...we get it you thought the movie was mindless entertainment but you could have just said that and avoided the whole insulting and arguing with people part. There are more tactful ways to do things. But apparently tact and emotion are two things you lack.

Ditto

M.I.K.e had an earlier point about a plot hole I wanted to correct

I'm sure I'm the last one here to see this movie, so thanks to everyone for the spoiler warnings. It was a fun action movie, great cast, but a stupid time travel plot. Too many plot "holes" for my taste (pun intended). I can see why a lot of people liked it, but I can't believe that this movie will bring in a lot of repeat business like the Dark Knight did last summer. This weekend's box office will help to answer that question.

Just saw it, perhaps the positive reviews allowed for me to get disappointed but I really did not like it. It didnt bother me that they were different protrayals (except for McCoy, who was spot on) as much as that the movie wipes out all ST canon going forward, just have serious issues with that as moderate fan of everything in the past. My second problem, moreso then plotting and acting issues was that the ethical element was gone, there was no deep issue at work here, it was just a mindless action flick.

And no I was not torn up emotionally over the opening scene, ive seen variations of it so much in the films that it didnt tug at my emotions.

Looks like I'm wrong again. This weekend's decline for Star Trek at the box office, compared to last week, was only 43%, which is actually pretty good. Most genre movies decline even more from week 1 to week 2. I thought the main plot was really silly, full of plot holes and deus ex machinas. But obviously the movie-going public does not agree.

Don't get me wrong: I'm glad to see the movie do well. Maybe we can get some better quality writing for the sequel.

I think many of the complaints don't quite apply as much as their holders believe. Given the status of the movie as a re-boot, a new-franchise kick-starter (and whatever other labels may apply), it had some rather tight restraints, which the production team would need to stick to.

Moreover, add the nature of Star Trek and all the baggage that goes with it, a fine line needed to be walked in order to make the movie a success, financially and otherwise. I think JB's (I hope he doesn't mind the shorthand) review is spot on with regards to the most exciting part of the movie is essentially the end, because only then are the characters ready to face new adventures.

I saw it on Saturday.

I discovered the original series in the late 1970s and have seen every episode several times. I was at 2 Star Trek
conventions. I have an autographed picture of Walter Koenig. I have several pictures (stills), posters etc, including
a black-light KIRK poster. I read all the books by James Blish (adaptation of TOS) and Alan Dean Foster (adaptation of
the animated series, of which I saw only a few episodes). I have all the photonovels. I detest fan fiction, especially KS
stories (if you don't know, don't ask). I subscribed to TREK magazine. This was all 30 years ago.

Since then, I haven't seen more than a handful of episodes from some (not all) of the various series. I don't know if
any of the newer series would appeal to me (though I do like Picard). I still like most of the original-series episodes,
especially the running gags and witty dialogue.

When I first heard about the new movie, I thought that there was NO WAY it could possibly work. I was surprised when
reviews from fans and non-fans alike found it uniformly good.

It's a good movie, better than all of the films (I have seen all with the original cast) except maybe the second one. Being
a sequel/prequel/reboot, it is difficult to compare with episodes of TOS, but it is certainly good even in comparison.

I don't see the problem with changing the timeline/tossing out the canon. As Uhura says, an alternate reality was created.
That's common enough in science fiction, and in the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, both timelines
can be equally valid.

I never understood the idea of a reboot in the comic-book world (I am not a comic reader). One should either continue
or come up with something completely new. Ditto with animation.

With live actors, one could just change actors like James Bond (before Craig) and ignore it, or one could introduce
some plot device which explains the changes and reboots. I don't think it makes that much difference---the original
actors are no longer available, many dead, so the big decision is whether to continue with those characters or not.
Whether or not there is an explanation (but it has to be better than the one they tried for Jock in Dallas) or even a
reboot concept is secondary (though a reboot allows a catch-all explanation for everything).

If one continues with the characters, the new actors have to follow in their footsteps. I think the actors in the new
film do that very well, especially McCoy and Spock. The others were all good as well, though Chekov was perhaps a bit
to comical. I think Scotty has a lot to offer in the future.

I'm curious about Uhura's enhanced role. Hopefully that won't detract too much from the original spirit.

Since I'm not familiar with Star Trek at all, I judged the movie as I did any other. I liked it. I thought it was a very good action movie, and I came out of the theater wishing there were more movies like it.

As a senior citizen I would expect a certain amount of generational disagreement if nothing else between myself and James Berardinelli regarding the quality of a movie, but over the past four years (when I first discovered this website) I have found myself in agreement with at least 95% of his reviews. I have become so confident in his judgment that I am startled when I reach the opposite viewpoint, as is the case with this film. In my opinion the story line was shallow and predictable while everything else was forced and overblown. For example, I understand the need to establish the young Kirk’s personality as brash, but this performance/direction was so far over the top as to be a constant source of distraction and annoyance for me. I can’t help but wonder if the apparent success of this film is due in part to the Trek association, and not on its own merit.

In many ways the success of this movie comes from the fact that they've managed to seperate it from the Star Trek of old.

An interesting comment. Please elaborate. From my perspective every effort was made to bundle it to the “Star Trek of old.”

It's a reboot, they wanted to re-invent Star Trek for a new audience. The primary aim was, I think, to cash in on the Star Trek name but to ensure a new, younger audience were attracted to the movie and the new franchise generally.

I finally got to see it myself Sunday, and I loved it. Enjoyed just about everything in it, the acting was good. Loved Pine as Kirk, Quinto as Spock and Karl Urban as Dr.McCoy was spot on. Nimoy as Old Spock was in fine form. Pegg as Scotty was fun too.

I read the prequel comic book so I knew why Nero was the way he was, so him getting shorted in the character development department wasn't that big of a negative for me.

Loved all the little nods to various things in Trek history, like Kirk eating an Apple while he was beating the Kobayashi Maru Test, Uhura's roomate at the Academy being an Orion Girl, Bones "I'm a doctor...!" and his various Vulcan insults, Checkov's accent and Sulu's fencing prowess.

I like that they went with "Alternate Timeline" due to Nero changing history, so while this is a reboot, it doesn't erase all the Trek series and movies that came before. Alternate Timelines is nothing new to Trek anyway, I remember the TNG episode "Parallels" where Worf found himself traveling from one Alternate Universe to another.

The action, the humor, it was all done well. I'm looking foward to the sequel.

?
It was explicitly marketed as "not your grandpa's Star Trek."

If you mean it is more closely tied to the original series than to any of the sequel series, then yes--it uses the same characters and there is stuff put in there for fans of the original.