Not to mention the TNG ep (or film? They run together in my mind, since to me, the TNG movies felt like double-length TV episodes.) where they hit some sort of nexus, sharing space with many, many (hundreds?) of other Enterprises, some with Riker captaining, etc.

- Teo

That's the All Good Things Finale, a great episode.

Few things I didn't like in this movie:
1- Old Spok meeting young Kirk and young Spok is the most I hate about this movie! It adds absolutely nothing to the movie but confusion. These people think science fiction is to explore any silly idea like time travel. I wished that part - parallel crab universe - was ignored completely to let the movie takes its natural course of real story an drelationship development rather than bringing Spok from the futur eto tell Kirk "by the way, I am your best friend, don't hate me!"
They just wanted to include any one from the original team into this new movie.
2- The story was all about Kirk, how h ewas born, how he was raised, how many women he chases, and little bit about Spok! The rest of the team were accessories with accent and catch phrases! No real relationship building, no real dialogue, no real people.
3- As James correctly noted, no emphases was put to the spaceship Enterprise itself, jst a shy scene in the garage!
4- Can someone please explain to me how Captain Nero lost the battle he carefully planned for 25 years?!

I disagree. As silly as I think quibbling over continuity is, it's something that many fans do find important. The filmmakers put a lot of potential questions to rest not only by confirming that the new universe exists in a parallel timeline to the old, but also by giving us the (probable) point of divergence. The presence of the old Spock (Spock Prime, in the appropriate geek parlance) is a relatively tidy way of demonstrating this, as well as throwing a bone to fans of the classic series.

I thought this was problematic, but there's a lot of stuff they kind of had to gloss over in this movie due to time constraints. Hopefully the Enterprise will have more time to grow in importance in the inevitable sequels.

This is the third installment of Start Trek movie that features time travel as the core element of the plot (Voyage Home, First Contact and this one), and couple of old episodes from the original show.

The thing is, they didn't allow the relationship between Kirk and Spock to evolve naturaly as it should be, instead they brought "Prime Spock" from the future to mess up the plot and tell the departed Kirk: Hey, I am going to be your best friend, so stick with me!

Thank you, James, for consistently observant and well-informed reviews. I especially loved your Confessions of a Lapsed Trekkie ReelThoughts.

After reading many of the comments, one common theme I notice is the fans' remorse about ST's breadth overshadowing depth. Breadth was the mandate. This movie not only had to spin out a new Star Trek premise, plus give the obligatory nods to the original franchise, but had to also introduce every character and the locations to a whole new generation of uninitated viewers. Breadth was the mission, and the makers of the film succeeded at covering that huge target. Depth is the mission for future movies.

That said, I found a few things unoriginal. Personally, the movie struck me as strikingly similar to Wrath of Khan, and maybe that's a deliberate ploy by the writers and director to subliminally charm the old schoolers. Wrath of Khan is to Trekkies what the Empire Strikes Back is to the Star Wars fans--the crowd's favorite. Both ST and WoK contain: crazed bad guy out of another time seeks vengeance, puts crawly creatures in people's heads, kills a Star Fleet captain early on, and it's up to James T. Kirk and the Enterprise to stop him in a tactical space battle, heavy focus on the Kirk-Spock friendship. In both movies, Spock (in both cases Nimoy) gets sacrificed in one way or another, and recites the tag line "Space, the Final Frontier...."

My other minor peev was young Tiberius K driving his step dad's pride and joy off the cliff (nearly killing himself unnecessarily to do it). Of all character development inventions to endear us to Kirk, that wasn't it for me. The original series kept making forays back into the 20th Century a wee bit too often for this writer's tastes. Sure, it builds some identity with non sci-fi lovers forced to sit through a movie by their geek friends, but the bold thing would be to write something substantive. Truthfully, if Kirk's stepdad was a self-absorbed prick obsessed with the 20th Century and its machines, young Jimmy wouldn't have been blasting his stepdad's music as his victory song over the car. The scene was 100% written for the undiscriminating, uninitiated audience members, not for the integrity of the story. The "lacking depth" complaints I addressed above would have been fewer if something equally exciting and telling were written, but more on the existential and technology-based side--anything that adds weight to the reinvisioned Star Trek universe. Thelma and Louise wasn't it.

What this movie brought that was truly new was a raised "fun" factor in the formula. Old Star Trek had a mostly serious tone, with a few episodes where either humor, action or suspense played a prominent role. The new ST has multiple high-suspense action sequences, and several are humorous (borderline slapstick). Mix suspense, action and comedy together and you have a rollercoaster rarely seen in the Old ST. Examples include (nonspoiling verbiage): the bar brawl, Kirk's hands, Scotty in the pipes, snow monster.

Considering this ST aces the "breadth challenge" while taking some daring new steps (see below) and keeping it fun, I fully agree with James 3-1/2 stars out of 4. Had the story been a wee bit more original, and some of the time expended on fluff devoted to substance, it would be 4. This rating scale, of course, counts the excitement felt by established Star Trek fans. I'm certain that without said familiarity, the movie experience is less. The familiarity is what gave me an emotional boost as I nodded my head to the new McCoy, as well as Zachary Quinto's performance as Spock, although I do wish he used a deeper voice (Spock is a bass, not a tenor).

NEW REALITIES IN THE NEW STAR TREK:

In so many past Trek adventures, any tampering with the past threatens the present. Remember the Borg sending an away team into the past to rewrite their defeats at the hands of the Federation? Same physics as Time Cop and Terminator. Not anymore. The physics of this universe are different--multidimensional time instead of linear. Changing the past doesn't destroy or alter the future. It just creates an alternate timeline. Personally, I like this treatment of time, and I hope that's how the universe actually works, as when I finish my time machine, I'd like to zip back to my past with some choice lottery numbers without voiding my existence. Spock I is quite familiar with Kirk's dad (via Kirk I), but Spock II and Kirk II never knew the guy. Spock I and the bad guy are flung via black hole into the past, altering events, creating timeline II, and spawning a new Enterprise crew and universe that is strikingly similar to the original, but without any possibility of an identical tale.

SPOILER WARNING

For starters, if the new Star Trek franchise continues, Vulcans will be an orphaned race--the "diaspora," if you will. Planet Vulcan was always presented with very shallow depictions in the old Star Trek. Perhaps it was disposable. Perhaps this is to make future Vulcans something expats the world over can relate to. Spock is their golden boy--bicultural, biracial (a species hybrid, really), and a fish living on land. The Vulcan world was painted in this movie in negatives--Spock's rigid upbringing, getting bullied for being different, and the racism exhibited by the Vulcans upon offering Spock admission to the Vulcan academy. And then UNBANG! Vulcan gets unpopped with a drop of voodoo goo. Gotta be careful with that stuff.

(Thread resurrection #whatever)

Saw this not long after its release in 2009. I went to see it with my father who's always been a Trekkie. I've always been more of a casual fan.

I liked Star Trek. I more or less went along with the point that they weren't picking up where the originals left off but rebooting the whole thing and was able to enjoy it as a piece of cinematic entertainment. Not enough to make a best of 2009 list. But good overall.

My father didn't like it. Halfway through he whispered to me "This isn't Star Trek, it's bulls***!". Later when it came to DVD my stepmom watched it. After she saw it, I asked her opinion. Like me, she's a casual Trekker. She enjoyed it too.

It seems that a lot of the people who were most vehemently critical of the film were hardcore Trekkies. To some of them, rebooting ST is the equivalent of going into a very religious persons house and tearing pages out of the Bible.

ST was (to me anyway) one of the better popcorn movies Hollywood has made in the past few years or so. I'm not a huge JJ Abrams fan. But I shudder to think what would've happened if Michael Bay had ended up directing this.

Now as far as ranking the Trek films:

1: The Wrath Of Khan
2: First Contact
3: Voyage Home
4: Undiscovered Country
5: Search For Spock
6: Star Trek 2009
7: Insurrection
8: Generations
9: The Motion Picture (Director's Cut better as previously noted)
10: Nemesis
11: Final Frontier