Star Trek

They needed a way to jettison some of the Trek baggage whilst staying true to the essential mythos.

Time travel is a bit of a cop out admittedly but it did get the job done.
 
Thanks. I get the alternative timeline now. Pretty neat and necessary way to bring a fresh prespective to the franchise. Don't think a carbon copy of the original timeline would have worked.
 
According to Star Trek Online, Romulas and Remus are destroyed in the year (regular year) 2387, since Spock was born in 2230 that makes him 157 in the film.

I also came out of the cinema thirsty for a sequel, or even a television series (which given the background of a lot of the young actors shouldn't be that impossible).
 
Overall it was good.

I was a bit disappointed that Karl Urban didn't give Bone a Southern accent - but I agree he was the closest to the original character.

Quinto was good as Spock - delivering classic Spock phrases as Spock would have - Fascinating, Understood

Pegg as Scotty - too hyper

I wondered at the start of the film when we saw Kirks mother where was his brother? No mention - or so I though until later in the film where car-thief Kirk was driving he saw an older boy at the side of the road and said "hello George" - I presume that was his brother:confused: (In Operation: Annihilate! Shatner played the body of his brother George)
 
I am not an expert on Special Effects-it looked pretty stunning to me, but I do agree that the only part of the film I had a few reservations about was the ending. This after being moved, exhilirated and generally knocked out by a hugely enjoyable 2 hours or so.
 
I assumed the lens flare was down to the fact that there were clear computer panels sticking up a lot on the bridge and therefore many times where you were watching a scene you were actually viewing it (as it were) from behind a clear panel.

Although most of the time I just ignored it and waited for the next action scene :D
 
I never really picked up on this message at all. The conflict between Spock's Vulcan and human sides was given a slightly different spin which I appreciated (apart from the Uhura lust) but did Kirk really learn anything? He was a criminal, then an academy cheater and then somehow gets made captain due to Pike's man-crush. Although I can recognise that this is tried to be shown, the film spenRAB more time on him being chased by big scary monsters and general dickery than showing his personal issues. I would have liked to that side of the film fleshed out more, then it would make him becoming captain far more of an emotionally important moment. As it stanRAB, it just looks like he takes it, rather than earning it.



As soon as he gets the red gunk from Spock, why doesn't he just go immediately and implode the star before it goes supernova? It was established in the comic book (apparently) that this supernova wasn't that close to Romulus to begin with so it wouldn't have any direct effect that star just disappearing. But then again if you go crazy insane with rage maybe you'd just want to blow shit up too.



I don't think he had chance to invent it when he retired because he got stuck in a transporter and ended up in and episode of TNG. Besides, Spock seems to treat it as some ground-breaking invention and I just thought it weird it wasn't something ever mentioned before.



I thought Chris Pine was good too (in the last scene he nailed Shatner perfectly - don't snigger), but it's a shame for most of the film he had to play a complete dickhole of a character. I think the cast was very good actually and did a very good job with the little material each of them could be given (this was Kirk, Spock and Uhura's film mainly).



Maybe I confused it by mentioning Back To The Future. I have a degree in physics so I guess I go into far more detail than anyone ever wants :p. What I tried to say was that in previous episodes they could go back in time and change stuff and you could see the "new" present overriding the "old" present. Like in First Contact when for a few seconRAB they could see the Borg-mo-tronned Earth, or when the Enterprised-C came through the vortex-me-do and suddenly they were fighting the Klingons. No alternate universes, just one timeline that gets fudged up and then rekerfoodled. And yes, sometimes there are times when they "cause history to happen" so to speak (predestination paradoxes). Ever see Time's Arrow? But in this movie it's different and instead we get Spock Prime trapped in "alternate reality".

If the regular trek is Trek Prime, what's the new trek called? Trek 2.0? iTrek? The Trek Reloaded? The Fellowship Of The Trek? Harry Potter and the Trek of Azmokablahmuhah?
 
Spock CLEARLY states that the events would lead to an alternate "destiny" for the crew and just in case anyone still hadn't got it, Uhura actuallly uses the phrase "alternate reality" just to make sure we all know exactly what the point is.

However, I do have to say that I think this film would have worked just as well without this "alternate reality" stuff.

Now, before anyone jumps on me, I absolutely LOVE this movie. I'm not a detractor and I'm not put out, in any way, by the alternate reality idea. I'm also a BIG, BIG, BIG Trek fan and have watched it since TOS was repeated in the 80s. (The only show I hate with a passion is Voyager!)

The thing is, what was great about this film - what made me love it so much - is not the alternate reality stuff. Its nothing to do with Nero, nor the destruction of Vulcan. I'm not phased, at all, by the notion that everyone's fate is now up in the air. Let's face it, no-one ever thought any of the crew would really die in any of the original episodes. That was never what it was about. No-one really fears for James Bond's life in his lastest filmic outing, but it doesn't stop us enjoying the films. It's seeing how our beloved characters manages to find their way out of impossible situations.

And THEY are what I loved about this film. Its the characters. Its all the character moments. You could transplant all the greatest stuff in this movie into a storyline that didn't violate continuity and it would still be amazing. Let's face it, the "Nero" plot is wafer-thin and is NOT what carried this film.

So the thing that makes me sad is that this film could have given us a true origin story for TOS (as its the ONLY Trek series to have never had an origin story in the pilot) and it still could have provided a wonderful thrill-ride for non-Trek fans, simply becuase they would have no idea what was to come anyway.

Anyway, my point is - whilst I've got no problems with going down an alternate reality route (nor would I be too bothered if they said they actually altered the existing timeline - because I can accept its all a made-up universe) - I feel kinda sad, as a fan, that they missed the opportunity to tell a REAL origin story. Especially when doing so wouldn't have damaged what made this film great, nor would it have alienated new viewers - purely on the basis that ONLY die-hard fans would know what was coming anyway.

So yeah, I think they took the cheap and easy route going with the alternate timeline and I think they could have done it better if they'd tried. But, as I've said before, I still think this was an amazing film and its the first time, in a very, very long time that I've been excited about a film enough to go and see it more than once at the cinema.

So I'm not cricicising in a bad way. I do LOVE this film. I just feel that the "alternate reality" wasn't a necessity, as they'd have us believe.

The next film does need a stronger plot to drive it, though. There's only so much the nostalgia of seeing the old crew remade can generate.
 
Have to admit, I was a little confused by that. The Kelvin was firing the good old trusty beam phasers and then the Enterprise was firing them in little bolts. Seemed a little strange the style changed part way through the film.

I also wasn't too keen on the shots and sound effects from the hand phasers. I liked the pistols themselves, with that cool rotating barrel, but they seemed so piss weak when they actually fired! Compare them to the ST6 phasers. Now THAT is what a phaser should look/sound like. Real power behind those guns.
 
I dunno late8, when I saw it at 6pm on Friday the cinema (284 seats) probably had about a hundred people. That's not bad for that time of day. Mostly it was couples, maybe a few blokes on their own and a dad with his son, so I think it's appealing to new audiences not old fans.

Every review I've seen or heard has been very positive (except Tom Paulin on BBC Two) - five stars all round - and the marketing has been subtle but effective. Maybe the distributors have decided that it's good enough to stand on its own merits instead of being flogged to death.
 
YOU ARE NOT ALONE!

I finally saw the film tonight and I thought that it was a completely hopeless mishmash of ideas drawn from a variety of sources in sci-fi. In no small way, it reminded me of the Lost in Space film.

There were various points when I began to expect Hayden Christensen to pop up, pull out his lightsaber and utter a toe-curlingly awful line. Appointing Kirk captain straight from Starfleet Academy is a plot device that might even shame George Lucas.

The concept of a "used" tomorrow is hardly new in sci-fi, but it is new in Star Trek. I don't think that it fits. The resources available to the Federation in Star Trek are such that everything is shiny and new...even when it's old. It's a bright tomorrow, an optimistic future. This does not mean that you cannot have darkness and conflict...they managed it in Deep Space Nine, which has a million times more depth than this film will ever aspire to.

I really don't want everything that happened in the Trek that I have known to be written off or set into an alternate timeline. If you want to start again, just do that. Pick a new crew, pick a new timeframe and go for it.

Another poster who suggested that Leonard Nimoy owned the scenes that he appeared in was completely correct. Zachary Quinto donned the wig, plucked his eyebrows and put on the ears, but he was playing Sylar.

What was going on with banishing Kirk from the ship? That made no sense at all. It was inhuman. It was invulcan!

Something needed to be done to Star Trek, but this was not it. Short-term, the masses might enjoy it, but long-term there is no substance upon which to build. Trek might rightly be criticised on many occasions for being slow or pompous, but this is another perfect example of everything that is wrong with the modern blockbuster.

Cameras that move, close shots that deny the viewer a chance to gawp at the scale of what they are watching and the effort that has been taken to ensure that the details all hang together. These have been features of many recent blockbusters. These are the traps that were, largely, avoided by Batman Begins and Casino Royale, but they were traps that were fallen into to an extent by Quantum of Solace and spectacularly by The Dark Knight. Will film historians be debating the brilliance of these films in 40 years, or will they still be talking about 2001: A Space Odyssey?

There is nothing wrong with action, but there has to be meaning there, or what's the point? The Dark Knight in particular rushed its action from one plot hole to another in a valiant effort to cover its inadequacies...it still failed. Whilst the reviews were generally rave, I agreed with Mark Kermode...it was nothing special. A disappointing sequel to Batman Begins, which had more substance, better cinematography and a much more coherent plot and characters.

Casino Royale was a roaring success and deserved every rave review it received because it avoided every trap that the previous Bond film, the awful Die Another Day, had fallen into. The pace was slower than many modern films, but would anyone suggest that it is not one of the best movies of recent years? Quantum of Solace crams in more action at a faster pace without taking steps to develop a complex plot properly. Its cinematography of the extreme close-up is painful in comparison to the time taken to ensure wide angle shots set the scene in Casino.

Star Trek was always thought of as concentrating too hard on meaning and taking everything too seriously at the expense of tension and action, but this wasn't the answer. Somehow the attempt to reboot skipped Casino Royale or Batman Begins and landed slap bang in the middle of the worst excesses of The Dark Knight.

Justin Lee Collins just tried to bring back Star Trek, I now hope that someone else follows suit.
 
I'm afraid you miss my point entirely. I don't care if they bend or just forget about science for the sake of a good story. I don't care if they ignore all the previous episodes for the sake of a good story. I said as much in a previous post. The problem was I just did not think it had a good story, and that has nothing to do with whether it's a Star Trek film or not. What got me talking about the science was Robert so-called Orci and his insane ramblings about quantum physics. If the guy has the nerve to explain his story using quantum physics then he better spend more than five minutes browsing the children's sector of Wikipedia to do his research. My first post called the movie "entertaining" if you care to look back at it, and it was entertaining, but by the standard set by previous Star Trek instalments the science was two bricks shy of... two bricks.

P.S. Going by your username I guess you might have noticed that the Enterprise sounded like a podracer now and phasers sound like blasters. No surprise to see Ben Burtt's name in the credits.
 
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