• Star Trek (2009) Part 2 May 14 - 5:11 pm

• Star Trek (2009) Part 3 May 26 - 4:50 pm

• Star Trek (2009) Part 4 June 09 - 7:23 pm

• Star Trek (2009) Part 5 April 28 - 5:47 pm

(Having seen Star Trek less than two hours ago here goes. I've written this so as not to deliberately give any spoilers. However, as always be warned that they may be minor spoilers in places.)

If you are a die hard Trek fan who squeals in anguish if the class of a ship isn't given correctly you'll want to miss this film. Seriously, if you are that much of a Trek fan you'll be calling for the entire production staff to be burnt at the stake for heresy against the great bird of the Galaxy while you look for a pitchfork to wave in the air.
Then again, if you are that much of a Trek fan you've probably been stockpiling the wood since July last year in preparation of this day.

Others who consider themselves fans, or at least well informed about Trek, will probably not be forced to such lengths. However if you have seen a fair number of the films and shows, or watch a fair amount of movies you will (like me) most likely come out with the somewhat apathetic feeling that you've seen all this before.

The basic premise of the film is that a Romulan - Nemo (No relation to the fish, even if the lighting sometimes makes him appear as if he lives in water) - is somewhat ticked off when his planet was destroyed 114 or so years in the future. Fuelled with a desire for revenge he comes back in time to wipe out the Federation one planet at a time with a device that can create black holes inside a planet.
(Presumably never having considered other options such as giving the planet a good 100 years warning as to what was about to happen, or telling them how to stop it from happening).
As always in Trek the newly built USS Enterprise, and of course Kirk and Spock, end up as the only ones who can stop him from destroying Earth.

The cast does a good job above the board, making the 'old' characters their own and if not interesting then at least they manage to play people you feel you could get to like. Nero, like many villains, exists purely as someone the good guys have to stop. As such the character could be felt to be somewhat underused - but then this is often the case and far from unique to Trek.
The focus here is clearly on Kirk and Spock from the start, but you never really get the feeling that any of the characters was tacked on for the sake of having them in the film. Everyone in the film gets at least two moments to shine in some way, something that is quite impressive when you consider that several of the characters clearly were tacked on because we would expect to see them - yet we never really get this impression while watching. Likewise there are plenty of moments where the various incarnations of Trek - and the Original series in particular - are referenced in a way that is mildly pleasing to fans, but not remotely annoying to none-fans or in too obvious a way.

The special effects are, it goes without saying, great. But then again considering the amount of money spent on the film this is hardy a major revelation. The sets are of good quality - again, to be expected - but also seem strangely too 'industrial' or frankly too large for Trek. The engineering set for the Enterprise seems physically larger than the ship is, and far too primitive when compared to the Series 'Enterprise' which is meant to be set some 100 years before events here.

Unfortunately the plot and direction leave something to be desired.

Plot wise this is very much a case of been there, seen it, bough the DVD. The idea of the bad guys having some super weapon that can destroy planets appears in the first, second, fourth, seventh, ninth and tenth films. The plot point of Earth being threatened crops up almost as often as does the idea of the opponents ship being too powerful for the Enterprise to fight head to head. (And this is just from the films, if you happen to have caught a fair number of any Star Trek TV shows some or all of these points will turn up at least once a series). Worse is that, just as in almost every sci-fi film made, the evil aliens opt to aim their weapon at North America, specifically a famous landmark.
(Clearly evil aliens have some issues with the land of the free, maybe they don't like Oprah Winfrey.)
What really makes all this worse is that not only have we seen all of this countless times before, but this was the basic plot from Star Trek Nemesis - the last film in the series - even down to the bad guys being Romulan. All we were missing was a clone of James Kirk to make the comparison complete.
The tag line for the film might well read 'To Boldly go where Star Trek has often gone before'

The direction is a strange mixture of unusual and out of place. Two points in the direction stand out as unusual.
First is the flypast of some of the ships. Usually such flybys and reveals are done with the ship moving from left to right. Here they are done vertically, with the ship moving from bottom to top and sometimes with the camera moving around to give the impression that in space there is no up or down. This works well for the opening scenes, but when done for the third time I was hit by the interesting mixture of motion sickness and vertigo at the same moment.
More effectively there are moments during the film when the sound is cut - leaving nothing or only the sound of breathing in the middle of an action scene. This works very well, and isn't over used.

Other parts of the direction and or script sit uneasily in the film. Some of the 'comedy' moments make you think that Kirk should change his red shirt for a red nose, and another seems to have been inspired by Willy Wonka and the Chocolate factory.

The biggest problem with the direction was the pace and tension. Simply put there wasn't any. We never really get any feeling of a ticking clock, or that somehow the bad guys were going to win. Even the space battles were lacking in tension or anything close to excitement. The worse parts are in the first twenty to thirty minutes, which had me looking at my watch too see how long I'd been sitting there as it seemed to be going so slowly - a bad sign for a film, and even worse when your film starts with a special effects extravaganza of a battle. After this things do pick up somewhat, but the tension and pacing remain far too low even towards the end of the film.


Don't get me wrong here, this is far from a bad film. But by the same token this isn't a great film. Calling this the best Trek film in recent years would be correct, but given the abysmal standard of the films in the last ten years this isn't saying much.

The best I can say is that I didn't regret seeing the film, but nor was I interested or impressed enough to want to see it again even on DVD. Then again, I am a fan who has seen just about all of the Star Trek films and shows and I suspect that this is why I was almost apathetic about this film. None-trek fans may, and probably will, have a higher opinion of the film than I did and find it more fun. I still doubt that it will set anyones world alight but if you are looking for a film that will pass the time and which you will not regret seeing afterwards you could do a lot worse.

Marks; 3.5 (for fans)/4 (None fans) out of 5.

Thanks for the review, Cyber. That's about what I expect out of the movie. I still plan to see it Saturday, though.

"Live long and prosper."

Hi everyone. I'm fairly new to the boards, and I'm going to try my best to keep up. I just got home from seeing the movie, and while I may not be as good with words as Cyber, I'd like to offer my own opinion.

While you do make some valid points, I would like to say, as a Star Trek fan, that I loved the movie. Yes, the ship isn't what we're used to. Maybe the plot is a little (ok, a lot) overused, but I think it delivered what Star Trek needs right now. As you mentioned, the actors did a great job making the characters their own. I felt that Zachary Quinto did an excellent job as Spock, although I had expected as much since I first heard of his casting. I am a Heroes fan, I and I was, should I say "fascinated" by what the man who played Sylar was going to do with the part. I felt the interplay between Kirk and Spock was well done, and I enjoyed seeing the foundation of their friendship. I thought that Chris Pine did a great job playing Kirk. Because of the circumstances in the plot, he was able to truly make the character his own. While it was strange at first not hearing Shatner's exaggerated speaking style, by the end of the movie, I really felt like this was Kirk I was watching, and not just some wannabe. I was not entirely impressed with Bana's portrayal of Nero, but in his defense, I wasn't all that impressed with Nero. He obviously gave me a reason to hate him (obvious if you've seen the film, but I won't give anything away), but he didn't really seem as interesting as Khan, Chang, or to some extent even Soren. I think everyone on the crew did a great job, although I would have liked to see Simon Pegg in less of a comic relief role. That being said, I did enjoy several of his lines, especially the scene with the transporter towards the end. As an engineer myself, it would have been nice to see him in more of that role, instead of Checkov. There were moments that the comedy aspects were a little cheesy, but my theater was nearly full, and most of the jokes got quite a few laughs. There were a lot of inside jokes that long time fans will appreaciate, but at the same time can still be humorous for the non-(and hopefully soon to be) fans.

As far as the special effects go, I really enjoyed the odd camera angles for the exterior shots. Maybe I just don't suffer from vertigo like you do, but it seem to counter the common nit of every ship appearing on the same plane. The opening scene was already mentioned, but I was impressed by the first time the Enterprise encounters Nero's ship. The shots of the ship moving through the debris field looked amazing. I am torn on the topic of the look of the ship. The exterior of the ship doesn't bother me. In fact, the more I look at it, the more I like it. However, I am conflicted on the interiors. The primary hull looks great, in my opinion. I love the corridors, and I thought the bridge was well done. It really isn't as distracting as originally thought. Also, we get to find out why the "viewscreen" appears to be so large. The engineering hull is a different matter. Like Cyber said, parts of the ship were very industrial, and really seemed out of place in a Star Trek film, especially since Enterprise showed a much different view of engineering. There were way too many pipes, not to mention one rather large water pipe in particular.

While the plot was a little contrived, there were a few twists I was not expecting, and events that left me thinking "I can't believe they were that bold to go there." At the same time, I think those actions really incited emotions. Overall, I really enjoyed the movie. I went with several other Trek fans, and they all seemed to enjoy it as well. As a Trek movie, I think it is taking the franchise in a bold new direction, which is exactly what I think it needs. Because of the failures of the last couple of movies, and the disappointing ratings for Enterprise, the franchise needs a reboot. Even if we are seeing history unfold differently for this crew, this movie gives everyone a chance to see a new history unfold. New fans won't be hindered by not knowing the continuity, and starting a new continuity allows future writers a chance to really spread their wings and do something new. I won't be the first to admit that time travel is overdone, but at least it gave us a chance to see the original crew back in action again, even if they are new actors. Despite the changes that other "fans" are going to protest, I think Star Trek has opened up a new final frontier for the Enterprise to explore, and I am looking forward to exploring it with her.

Today's issue of AM New York gave it three and a half out of four stars, and Peter David said Long story short–I thought it was great. His "Fairly spoiler-free" blog post about it is here.

I checked out Rotten Tomatoes, and the aggregated critics' reviews give it an impressive 94% Fresh Rating!

Need I say more?

One thing though: Can we get some consistent titling of this boards?

Why is the Pre-Release Discussion its own subtopic, but the post-release discussion another? Aren't both typically placed under the same category for good organization?

Why does one use the familiar Hindu-Arabic numerals numerals, and the other use Roman numerals?

For that matter, the movie isn't called "Star Trek 11" or "Star Trek XI" or "Star Trek: The Early Years". It's simply called Star Trek. If it is desired to differentiate it from other movies, then I would suggest "Star Trek (2009)". That's what I do on the Movie boards to differentiate movies with identical titles.

Gotta agree with Luigi on the message board title. The film is Star Trek, no subtitles or numerics.

"Live long and prosper."

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Luigi Novi: I checked out Rotten Tomatoes, and the aggregated critics' reviews give it an impressive 94% Fresh Rating!

Need I say more? :-)

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Luigi Novi: Why is the Pre-Release Discussion its own subtopic, but the post-release discussion another? Aren't both typically placed under the same category for good organization?

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Just got back from seeing it and I'm pretty impressed. It may be nothing deep or profound, but it is a fun film, and probably the type of film that is needed to reboot this franchise. And I certainly think that the decision to move it back to summer was a good one. With the scale and the effects it's designed for this season and fits better than it would last winter. Well worth the wait.

And, yeah, continuity purists are going to be rather irked by a lot of changes in the film. It's even lampshaded a couple of times by the characters. But if they can look past that, it can be a good time.

The actors do a fine job embodying these iconic characters, but the star of the show is clearly Pine. He dominates the film from the beginning and brings in the elements one would expect from Kirk, that arrogant swagger, the aggressive charm on every attractive woman that crosses his path, the easy handling of any obstacle he faces, and that determination to succeed. It works. Quinto also does a fine job as young Spock, balancing the still roiling emotions underneath. Urban's McCoy is pretty well done, though I thought he was a bit over-the-top from time to time. Then I remembered De Kelley was over-the-top sometimes as well ("My God, man!"}. Yelchin gives us the Russian accent overload, which is actually pretty fun, Pegg brings a comic energy to Scotty that can make him a little hard to take seriously, and Saldana gets to shine in a more expanded role than Uhura usually gets. Ben Cross also really impressed me as Sarek, and I hope that if a sequel gets made, he returns.

In any case, I found it enjoyable and will probably be seeing it a couple of more times. I'll look for nits next time.

Nit and Notes:
When Nero was telling Pike about his plans to wipe out the Federation to make life easier for Romulus (even though doing so wouldn't prevent that MacGuffin Nova from occurring) I couldn't help but wonder what the Romulans would do to combat all of the dangers the Federation helped keep down over the years. I'm thinking Borg and Dominion especially. Then I realized that both of those may have only happened the way they did because of the Federation. The Borg always seemed most interested in the Federation anyway and the Dominion hadn't even encountered the Feds until the latter discovered the wormhole. So maybe the Romulans would have only had to worry about the Klingons.

The crew coming together did seem a bit convenient. Especially Pike making someone who wasn't even supposed to be on the ship his acting first officer.

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Cyber: The basic premise of the film is that a Romulan - Nemo (No relation to the fish, even if the lighting sometimes makes him appear as if he lives in water)

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Cyber: Nero, like many villains, exists purely as someone the good guys have to stop. As such the character could be felt to be somewhat underused - but then this is often the case and far from unique to Trek.

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Cyber: Worse is that, just as in almost every sci-fi film made, the evil aliens opt to aim their weapon at North America, specifically a famous landmark.

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Cyber: What really makes all this worse is that not only have we seen all of this countless times before, but this was the basic plot from Star Trek Nemesis - the last film in the series - even down to the bad guys being Romulan. All we were missing was a clone of James Kirk to make the comparison complete.
The tag line for the film might well read 'To Boldly go where Star Trek has often gone before'

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Cyber: More effectively there are moments during the film when the sound is cut - leaving nothing or only the sound of breathing in the middle of an action scene. This works very well, and isn't over used.

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Brokenaero: but he didn't really seem as interesting as Khan, Chang, or to some extent even Soren

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I'd agree with the above points that this is 'fun' (at least up to a point) and more importantly what Trek needed to do to pull in new fans. However as I also said I think that this isn't as good a film as many would like us to think it is. It does manage to show considerable promise for the future thought, and given the quality of the acting overall I really wouldn't feel wary of this incarnation of the original crew being given a second outing.
In many ways this could be seen in the same light as the first season of The Next Generation - that is that it is setting the groundwork for the future and hasn't quite found its footing yet. (TV shows usually don't really find their footing until the end of the second or start of the third series. Films are harder to pin down in this regard, since there are not that many long running film franchises. However films that are made with a serious eye to having at least two sequels from the start tend in recent years to have better second films - think Spiderman 2 or X-men 2. Trek seems to follow this patten as well - Wrath of Khan was probably the best of the films with the original cast, and First Contact was the best with the Next Generation crew. Both being the second films with those cast/crew.)

For the record I didn't go in with the intention of tearing the film apart, in fact I'd have been quite happy to have gone in and written a far more positive review than I seem to have done. Nor did I go in with the intention of giving it a good review. I've managed to avoid watching any of the trailers for a long period - its been at least six months or so since I last saw any films and I don't have a TV to watch.

Some Additional points to add to what I said before;

When you somehow manage to get the bad guys name wrong you know that either he has a very strange name, or he's failing to make much of an impact. Yes, the bad guy was Nero...yet for some unexplained reason I keep calling him Nemo. This is not down to the actor who in fact does a very good job with what he was given. It can be very easy for actors playing the bad guys in films to overplay the part and ham it up - Willem Dafoe springs to mind here. Although he seems to get roles based off this. The problem seems to be with the script, which just doesn't allow us to really get to know Nero at all. Then again this is hardly new for Trek, or for films in general, and since the focus was on Kirk and Spock it was only to be expected.
Clearly if people can't recall the bad guys name he's not making much of an impression - and I think that the Nemo name comes from some of the lighting, which as I said sometimes gives him (and some of his crew) the appearance of having damp grey skin like a shark.

This lack of impression seems to apply to the whole film. Namely that for me it didn't really make one. While not ideal this could also be a good thing, in that while I didn't leave with a great positive impression I also didn't leave with any negative impressions.

Good points in regards the script are the lack of technobabble - some 18 years down the line someone seems to have realised quite how annoying this is. Plus the lack of any overt 'message' shoved into the film and pushed down our throats.

Ok, on to those Nits I can recall and in no particular order. The following WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS;

Nero's ship is identified as a mining ship. First does the design of this ship appear A; Even remotely Romulan or B; Suited in any way to storing large amounts of bulk cargo?
Second what is a mining ship doing with that much fire power? Even disregarding the 'advanced' nature of the weapons Nero's ship appears to be capable of firing more torpedo's in a single volley that the (presumably contemporary) USS Enterprise E can.

The firepower of Nemo's ship is inconsistent throughout the film. The first volley more or less cripples the USS Kelvin even with her shields up (in fact someone can be heard asking if the shields are even up). A couple of minutes later the already damaged Kelvin is able to survive being the only target of Nero's ship for a good five minutes or more - long enough for George Kirk to evacuate the ship, his wife to give birth, them to name their son and for the Kelvin to ram Nero's ship.
Later in the film Nero destroys 7 starships - all of which appear to be far larger and more powerful than the Kelvin - in some five minutes (The time it took the Enterprise to catch up with the fleet).

Humans still seem to have a long way to go before becoming the 'enlightened' humans of the Next Generation Era. When a drunk Kirk is trying to chat up Uhura her four male companions try to deal with the situation by punching him in the face - even though Kirk isn't being overtly hostile to them or threatening to them or Uhura.

I may have miss-heard, but in the bar Pike claims that George Kirk saved some 800 people by his sacrifice. If true this means that a significantly smaller ship than the Enterprise had twice the crew complement as the larger ship had in TOS - and almost five times the crew the ship had in 'The Cage'. I guess they really did pack them in tight on those old ships....

By the same token, if Pikes figure was correct then how did all the crew get off the Kelvin? We see 7 or 8 shuttles from the Kelvin - which means that each shuttle would have had to be carrying some 100 people in it. There is no way that many people could fit in those shuttles.

The Kelvin apparently lacks escape pods - the order to abandon the ship only mentions shuttles.

This nit occurs with both the Kelvin and the Enterprise - the Shuttlebay appears to be WAY to large for the ship. In the Kelvin the shuttlebay appears to extend half way along the secondary hull, in the Enterprise it seems to run almost the entire length of the secondary hull. On the same topic when the Enterprise later ejects her warp core the pods come flying out from what should be the top of the bay.

After the first attack on the Kelvin we are told that the weapons are off-line. Minutes later the ship is able to fire off all her weapons without trouble, and continues to fire them right up until she rams Nero's ship.

Scotty says that he will eject the warp core in the singular. All the subsequent footage shows the Enterprise ejecting at least six pods/cores from the ship.

So Starfleet has at least 8 ships stationed on Earth...but no crews for them. In order to get all the ships in service to deal with a situation they have to empty the Academy. I guess the age old question as to why the Enterprise is almost always the only ship in range of Earth when danger calls has been answered. Its not that Starfleet doesn't have any ships near Earth, its that all their crews are off on Risa.

No one seems distressed that at least one entire year of academy cadets (and one assumes friends of the crew) have been wiped out.

If I were a woman and realised that my roommate had a guy in the room I'd at least grab a towel to cover myself, not stand there in my underware while pushing him out of the door.

The Enterprise appears to damage her port nacelle when avoiding the remains of the fleet. I don't, however, recall seeing any subsequent damage to the ship there.

Either Spock was being very emotional when he ordered Kirk thrown off the ship (which as Kirk notes in the film is probably illegal on several levels) or they haven't bothered to build a brig yet. Then again, given the apparent size of the shuttle bay, engineering and crew they might not have been able to find room for one.

After disabling the drill Kirk and Sulu are free-falling through the atmosphere and the transporter operator claims that she can't lock onto them because they are moving. Later they manage to beam Spock onto the ship even though he was on a fast moving ship at the time - speed of freefall is roughly 160 mph, Spocks ship must have been going quite a lot faster than that.
(Plus the old NX01 never required the crew to stand still while being transported - the first time the transporter was used was on Archer, who was running at the time).

Once again the transporter can beam someone who was sitting down onto the pad standing up.

Spock is consistently identified as 'Commander Spock'. While his rank in the first season of TOS was lieutenant-commander this in itself is not a nit since Lt-Commanders are often called Commander. However he is also identified as 'Commander' during Kirks 'trial'. This is incorrect - in any formal setting the full rank of any witnesses should be used.

Why did Spock feel the need to carry that much red matter on his ship? We see a huge red ball of the stuff - only a drop of which was needed to create a black hole. A Small flask of the stuff should have been more than enough - and probably far safer.

So, the crew of a mining ship have enough scientific knowledge to A; instantly realise that the black hole will take them back in time. And B; Calculate exactly where and when Spocks ship will appear.
Sure.

Who designs a spacecraft where the command deck sits halfway up an open mile deep shaft with platforms around the edges and no railings? (Apart from the Romulans, Shona and Xindi). Of course we could also ask who designs ships with vast open areas anyway - any small hull breach and a large section of the ship will loose atmosphere.

Twice in this film people stand around watching in shock while Kirk is pummelled - and in the second case while Spock is trying to kill Kirk. What? No one thought to step forward and try and stop either event? Is there some regulation about not interceding when senior officers are trying to kill someone on the bridge?

There is absolutely no way in hell that Kirk should or could have ended up as a Captain by the end of the film.
First, all military organisations require personal to have served set periods of time in lower ranks before being eligible for promotion. In times of war these rules may be bent somewhat, allowing promotion to a rank before someone has done the time in a lower rank if they have performed above and beyond the call of duty or shown expectational performance in the field - assuming that a vacancy is open. However, Kirk is a cadet here and regardless of what he managed to do there is no way in hell he should have jumped five ranks to end up as Captain.
Second is that there are other officers in the fleet who have and will be waiting for commands of their own - and who have been risking their lives each and every day in Starfleet service. The second they heard that some snot nosed kid has just been jumped up to Captain of Starfleets flagship half of them would resign outright and all of them would be calling for the person who signed this order to be brought up on charges and dismissed from the service.
(This law applies to military forces to avoid abuses of authority by senior officers and dates back to the 1700's and the Royal Navy. There were serious problems at the time with midshipmen being promoted to commands within a matter of weeks or months when they clearly were not experienced enough to fill those duties. Kirks actions may warrant a promotion to Lieutenant junior grade - or full lieutenant with a little bending of the rules. But Captain? Not a chance).

Evidently the scriptwriters failed Kindergarten science;
Planets consist of a solid core, surrounded by superheated liquid rock under considerable pressure and covered with a thin solid crust of rock. While you could burn through the crust the result would be that the pressured mantle would well up - basically you'd create a volcano. What you could not do is then drill through the mantle - its a liquid, it will move to fill any 'hole' and not leave a nice path down to the planets core.
Regardless of if black-holes would allow time travel, the gravity field anywhere near the event horizon would rip any ship apart long before it passed through - nor could a ship survive stick halfway in a black hole.
Again, I may have misheard but Spock seems to claim that a supernova threatened the galaxy. Board rules prohibit me from using the word I'd like to at this statement. But simply put not unless the laws of physics had been altered in a rather major way. Supernova explosions happen all the time without destroying the galaxy, or even nearby stars.

How can an advanced star-fairing race fail to notice that their star is going to go Nova?

Why did the Romulan's not evacuate the planet when they realised what was going to happen? Why stay put and place all your hopes in a wild plan that may or may not work? If they had enough time to get Spock's ship, come up with the plan and put everything together they had enough time to evacuate most of the population - which would have been the smart option regardless of if Spocks plan was going to work or not. There was no indication that Spock's plan prevented any attempts to evacuate the planet.

Why was Spock the only one who could save Romulus? Don't they have any scientists of their own?

Observations; The uniform Admiral Pike wears at the end of the film is clearly modelled off the Admiral's uniform Kirk wore in The Motion Picture - white and grey.

The team member who gets fried during the mission to disable the platform is the one wearing the red outfit. Clearly red-shirt syndrome at work.

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When a drunk Kirk is trying to chat up Uhura her four male companions try to deal with the situation by punching him in the face - even though Kirk isn't being overtly hostile to them or threatening to them or Uhura.

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Well, this movie most certainly takes place in an alternate timeline, especially since that was specifically stated in the movie. Don't let that discourage anybody though, it was quite entertaining.

I don't have a whole lot critiques to provide, but I do have a few: Aside from the Mirror Univerise, is this the first time we've seen a Romulan, or Vulcan, with a beard? One of the guys on the drill platform looked nothing like a Romulan. Checkov's accent was absolutely terrible. Is it really that difficult to get an actual Russian to play the part? Uhura and Spock!? No freakin way! Not in any universe that should be seen on screen. What was Uhura doing in Iowa anyway? Kirk and her can't be from the same area and that can't be the only place SF picks up new recruits.

Cyber: Nero's ship is identified as a mining ship. First does the design of this ship appear A; Even remotely Romulan [...]? Second what is a mining ship doing with that much fire power?
You beat me to it Everything about that ship and her crew was very off in regards to its role. Also, I thought the definition of a 'drill' was a physical thing and not a beam of energy for many reasons. You have some good nits in your second post Cyber, and I agree with you and Josh about the starship interior's appearance being too industrial.

As far as casting, I have no complaints, except for Checkov. Sylar, I mean Zach Quinto was espicially good and whomever was playing Uhura, (what was her character's first name?), is hot!

Had I placed it, I would've lost the bet that any mention of Enterprise would be avoided, but I'm pleased it wasn't. Personally, I liked Enterprise much more than Voyager. Is that why Scotty had such a terrible post, because of Archer's dog? A talented engineer shouldn't be in such a place. Aside from hoping Vulcan would be restored and Spock returned by some temperal occurance, and it's ok they didn't I suppose, I am interested in where the franchise will be going, assuming it goes anywhere. I also like the trailers before the movie: Terminator, G.I. Joe, and Transformers; a promising summer at the theater.

is this the first time we've seen a Romulan, or Vulcan, with a beard

Depends. In Year of Hell(VOY), we saw Tuvok shaving (with a straight razor).

what was her character's first name?

Nyota.

The actress is Zoe Saldana.

Forgive me if I repeat what others have said, but I want to post some observations before being affected by others' reviews.

I went to the IMAX showing last night with my father, who introduced me to Trek as a young teenager when it was in reruns on WMAR in Baltimore at 11:30 on Sunday nights. Dad positively raved the entire time, enjoying the story, the actors' portrayals and the special effects. He was not as bothered by the changes as I was.

First, what I loved: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto and Karl Urban were absolutely dead-on as Kirk, Spock and McCoy. They were, without a doubt, the best part of this movie. The other actors were admirable, but I really think the characters were a bit off of the people we'd come to know and love. Perhaps that just takes time.

Also, the look and feel of this Enterprise was stunning. I really wasn't bothered by the differences that much and can live with it.

Honestly, I'm not the type of storyteller to get bugged over the design nits - I can rationalize them away nine ways from Sunday. But I'm still not sure about the fundamental changes Jack Abrahms and Co. made to the Trek universe.

The fact they explained this within the movie as Nero's time travel forking the universe at the point where he emerged from the rift I think is probably the most honest approach to time travel stories I've seen in all of Trekdom. And the fact they didn't hit the Big Red Temporal Reset button at the end was surprising. There were ample opportunities to turn the story, to undo the destruction of Romulus and Vulcan and the death of Spock's mother, but they didn't. To leave the long-time fans of the series with their mouths hanging open at What. They. Did. is bold.

And therein lies the real heart of why this might be a good movie: Abrahms and the writers were willing to take a very bold, nearly dangerous, risk with a legendary piece of science fiction. This was a bigger risk than Paramount took with Deep Space Nine, perhaps the biggest risk that's been taken with Trek since the series began. They were willing to alienate a large chunk of the existing audience for the sake of telling a story.

They changed everything. From a fan standpoint, that really bothers me...that they would kill Amanda Grayson, destroy Vulcan, have Spock in a love affair just bugs the living daylights out of me. That Captain Pike never goes to Talos IV, that Jim Kirk never serves on the ships he served on in the TV series, that all this is supposedly explained because Nero appeared 25 years before and destroyed the U.S.S. Kelvin doesn't bother me...much.

From a storyteller standpoint, it's incredibly liberating not being beholden to 43 years of canon, and it's a powerful device to destroy one of the long-time cores of that story universe. The destruction of Vulcan and the deaths of all but perhaps 10,000 Vulcans is Trek's 9/11, if you'll pardon the comparison. When the World Trade Centers were attacked and collapsed, it changed Americans' view of the world dramatically...and the same can be said for Trek fans' view of the series in light of the destruction of Vulcan and the willingness to kill off well-established characters.

They've done what Ron Moore and David Eick did with Battlestar Galactica but with an alternate universe instead of "this has all happened before and it will all happen again". And like with the BSG mini-series, I'm not sure I like what they did here. But also like BSG, I'm going to give them a chance to win me over.

Oh, nits:

The Enterprise has a WINDSHEILD?!? OK, a heads-up display overlay is nice, but still, a couple centimeters of glass or transparent aluminum between the command crew and hard vacuum is hardly a good design idea. Not when a large HD viewscreen would suffice. And when you're traveling at even a small percentage of the speed of light, you're still traveling too fast to see anything through the window.

When Captain Robau went to the hangar deck to take a shuttle over to Nero's ship, we see the turbolift descend from up high to the deck, the captain gets in the shuttle, and then it departs from the upper secondary hull of the Kelvin. So how'd the turbolift descend if the shuttle bay is at the "top" of the ship?

And Cybermortis, when I have more time, I'll retcon most of your nits for you, if that'll make you feel any better...! :-)

It’s about time.

Trek is very good, but not great. To use another pun, it’s exceptional:
Good characters – except some seem to be a bit lax considering their situation.
Good effects – except I wonder if I would have noticed the lens flare as much if I hadn’t read about it in advance.
Good ship design, despite comparisons to an Apple store – except I didn’t care for the doors.
Good story – except it was contrived.
Good music – no exceptions. From dramatic tones, to Beastly Boys, to silence, to the traditional Trek score, I think all the music was well done.

I find it difficult to nitpick a story involving time-travel. But I’ll do my best

The Kelvin should be just a little more advanced than what was seen on the Enterprise tv show. But to me it seemed more like a ship from TNG. (I did like being able to know the vital stats of the captain while he was away. There have been episodes when a character was assumed dead only to have been captured.) I suppose a possible anti-nit to the Kelvin design is that events from the Enterprise series changed time. Although Enterprise IS considered part of the Prime reality; as witnessed by TNG’s Riker holodeck interaction with that crew.

From now on, I’ll just refer to the Prime reality as Prime Time.

HELP: I read that Randy Pausch (author, Last Lecture) had a cameo on the Kelvin. But I didn’t find him. Anyone else?

I had a nit in mind based on seeing trailers before the movie, & other posters mentioned it: If Nero had a time-space ship, why not simply go rescue his family, or indeed warn the entire planet, before the nova? (I’ve only read a part of the Countdown back story.) Turns out the time travel was an accident. That makes more sense, but it’s the first of the few contrivances.

The stardate format was different. The Kelvin captain gave the date 22-33-04 which is now Kirk’s birthday. The Chronology does read that Kirk was born in 2233, on March 22 (Shatner’s b-day). To be fair, we don’t know when the TOS stardate format became standard.

Some trailers showed a baby Vulcan I assume was Spock, but he didn’t appear in the movie.

Missed opportunity: I would have liked to seen T’Pol as one of the elders. Also, I didn’t notice if Earth had any scars from the Xindi attack. I remember Scotty talking about trying to transport a dog, but I didn't catch that it was Archer's dog. That helps prove that Prime Time and Alternate share the same past before Nero.

I’m confused, as others, as to why some of the Starfleet guys were in Riverside. I gather there is a bar which cadets frequent. And the shipyards are there – but don’t know if they replaced San Fran shipyards. Is Riverside the location of basic training before going off to the Academy at San Fran?
Was the ship that was being built at the yard in fact the Enterprise ? I didn’t notice any markings.

By the way – I always liked Pike. His lines from the The Cage that began “You bet I’m tired” are classic. It really showed his humanity in just one scene.

Missed opportunity: As much as I liked seeing the green Orion babe, Uhura’s roommate should have been Carol Marcus. I read she was cut during the draft process.

I wonder what happened in the Prime Time after Kirk cheated the no-win scenario. How did he get out of disciplinary action and get awarded the commendation for original thinking?

I was confused by Spock’s comment to Uhura regarding favoritism, until about 5 minutes after the movie ended. Ooohhh, NOW I get it! They were a couple BEFORE being on the ship. Sometimes I’m a bit slow on the uptake. Same thing when she consoled him with kisses. During the scene I was thinking maybe she was very expressive with her condolences. NOW I get it. I wonder if Nurse Chapel is jealous. I did hear Chapel's name and I think I saw her from behind. The possible friction b/w Chapel & Uhrua is another missed opportunity.
Also, Spock Prime was engaged to T’Pring at the age of 7. Don’t know why the change to Earth history would change Spock’s history until he got to Earth.

All of Starfleet didn’t know what was happening to Vulcan until they got there. I realize communications were out, but there should be long-range sensors unless the drill caused THAT much interference.
Speaking of communications, I had another nit in mind based on trailers. When Kirk, Bones, and Uhura were running up to the bridge, I was thinking why not simply push a button on an intercom? A communications officer should know this! But the way it happened in the movie made sense.

Why would there be a second space storm before Nero attacked Vulcan? Was it created by Spock’s ship entering the time-line?

I didn’t hear some of Nero’s quotes from the trailers. I missed “the wait is over” and “day of reckoning”.

Once again the Enterprise crew are the only ones who can do anything. Are there no other heroes in the galaxy? I was confused about where the rest of Starfleet was and what they were doing. I know it has mentioned that they were busy, but surely a warning from Spock would get them back to Earth (instead of him trying to get to them). Also, I guess there’s no planetary defense for either Vulcan or Earth. A shuttle with phasers would have helped. At least there was another planet besides Earth that was a target.

Spock leaves Kirk on a snow planet with a Starfleet outpost. Another poster already made the point: Doesn’t the Enterprise have a brig? I realize Kirk didn’t belong on the ship at first, but now he’s First Officer. And the planet happens to be the same planet Spock Prime is on. And Kirk happens to run into the same cave Spock P is in. And Spock P was seemed to be just waiting around instead of going to the outpost to try to warn Starfleet and Vulcan. CONTRIVANCE!

While on the snow planet, Kirk gives the date 22-58-42. Nero did say he waited 25 years. 2233 + 25 = 2258. I assume the average Academy cadet enters when he is 17 or 18, similar to college. Four years later he’d graduate at the age of 21. So Kirk got in late but got out in 3 years at the age of 25.
Also, if I recall correctly Chekov said he was 17. That would put his birth at 2241 which contradicts the Chronology year of 2245 (based on counting 22 years back from the episode Who Mourns for Adonais).

Despite contrivances, I’m pleased over all. I’ll watch anything Trek: TOS, movies, TNG, DS9, VOY, and even Enterprise . I didn’t think a prequel should be done. But when it is done, one should be bold about it. That’s what the Ent series should have made clear: Admit you’re altering time from day one! And I am glad that Ent now isn’t the final word on Trek. (I wrote more about how a story should have the possibility of death way back on the Pre-Release Discussion Board Part 3, Feb 23, 2007.)

I don’t know if the writers intended this meaning, but here’s what I got out of it: If someone is destined to be great, then he will be great even if his history is messed up. It’s fate versus choice. You can better yourself regardless of your past & the actions of others. Unless you happen to be a full-blood Vulcan, then all bets are off.

A point to consider for sequels: Despite the time change, there should still be threats that are on the way. Nomad, doomsday machine, V’Ger, the whale probe, and the Borg to name a few.
Also, I wonder if El-Aurians realize there is an altered reality. Now that might be interesting: Someone who remembers two versions of history, and tries to find the love that he had in the Prime Time.

Question to Paramount: I was thinking of buying the TOS remastered DVDs (or maybe splurge on a Blu-Ray). But now that I should “forget everything you know”, why should I bother?

Trek is dead. Long live Trek!

Apologies to everyone on the title screwup. Start Trek XI was one of the working titles and I forgot they had decided to drop the XI for the actual release. Now corrected.

I've moved the Pre-Release discussions to the Moderator's 2 Sheds and included a link to them in the announcement message at the top.

Question to Paramount: I was thinking of buying the TOS remastered DVDs (or maybe splurge on a Blu-Ray). But now that I should “forget everything you know”, why should I bother?

The remastered versions of TOS are now available on (standard) DVD - and depending on where you look are very cheap. (As in only slightly more expensive than the standard DVD box sets of any of the other shows). No need to fork out vast sums of money on the blue ray versions unless you really feel like it.
(Asda in the UK - now owned by Wal-mart for those of you in the USA - were selling the remastered sets of TOS for £25. This would be roughly $40 with my erratic maths skills).

A point to consider for sequels: Despite the time change, there should still be threats that are on the way. Nomad, doomsday machine, V’Ger, the whale probe, and the Borg to name a few.

V'ger shouldn't make an appearance for another 15 years or so (Kirk in Prime time was 32 when commanding the Enterprise - here he is Captain at 24 or some 8 years earlier. There followed five years of the original mission, plus (roughly) two years for the Enterprise to be refitted between the end of the five year mission and TMP - a total of fifteen years give or take a few months).

The Whale probe shouldn't turn up for at least another 20 years - there is an assumption that the Enterprise undertook a second five year mission after TMP under Kirks command. (Interestingly, and if intentional much to the credit of the writers, this would make the Enterprise - a new ship here - 20 years old by the time of Search for Spock. This is in keeping with the age of the ship as stated in that film by Admiral Cartwright).
The Borg shouldn't make an appearance for another 100+ years - They only seem to have become seriously interested in the Federation after running into the Enterprise D, and certainly I seem to recall Q noting that the Borg wouldn't have touched Federation Space for quite some time had he not moved events forward. Clearly a lot of the galaxy or Federation threats seen will happen long after this crew is dead.

Rumination; I wonder if elder Spock will/would see fit to give the Federation advanced warning about the future events? Clearly the rules about tampering with time don't apply here - since history has already been changed. He would, you would think, be in a prime position to given them a heads up on some of the major threats ahead of time - maybe warning them about the Borg, Dominion, Cardassians, Klingons ect. Logically enough of a warning could save a considerable number of lives.

Once again the Enterprise crew are the only ones who can do anything. Are there no other heroes in the galaxy? I was confused about where the rest of Starfleet was and what they were doing. I know it has mentioned that they were busy, but surely a warning from Spock would get them back to Earth (instead of him trying to get to them). Also, I guess there’s no planetary defense for either Vulcan or Earth. A shuttle with phasers would have helped. At least there was another planet besides Earth that was a target.

I seem to recall a note being made that the Federation was, at the time of the film, at war with the Klingons - which was why the bulk of the fleet was elsewhere.

As to planetary defences, well this has been a constant nit throughout Trek - not only that it frequently doesn't seem to exist but that when it does it seems to be less powerful than your average starship. (Which in itself is a nit, you'd think that if you can build powerful Starships you could easily build defensive platforms whith enough firepower to do serious damage to any attacking ship - maybe more to the point the Xindi attack on Earth 100 years before should have taught the Federation that a strong defensive network in your home systems might be a good idea).
Here things can at least be explained by the presence of eight starships in Earths orbit. Plus there is mention of some sort of defensive system from Nero - this was what he was interrogating Pike about after all.

I wonder what happened in the Prime Time after Kirk cheated the no-win scenario. How did he get out of disciplinary action and get awarded the commendation for original thinking?

'Prime' Kirk probably argued something along the lines that all is fair in love and war. Or in simple English that in the real world a Starship Captain can and should use all resources at his or her disposal to complete a mission - even if some might consider this 'cheating'.
We were told, btw, that Kirks 'solution' to the no-win scenario earned him a commendation for original thinking in Wrath of Khan.


Nit; The Enterprise (and the Fleet) is said to be some 6 hours from Vulcan at warp four. Even assuming that this is TOS warp scale where the warp factor is the speed of light cubed this only works out as 12 times lightspeed. While frankly I can't be bothered to work out the maths here, this seems to me to imply that Vulcan is not so much right next door to earth, as it is so close as to be living in the garden shed. Somehow this seems highly unlikely since at 12 times the speed of light our nearest star would still be some four months travel time away.

Nice nits, but I have a few comments.

“After disabling the drill Kirk and Sulu are free-falling through the atmosphere and the transporter operator claims that she can't lock onto them because they are moving. Later they manage to beam Spock onto the ship even though he was on a fast moving ship at the time…” – Cyber

I think the main difference was that Scotty was there for the second case. The movie did a decent job of mentioning his proficiency with a transporter. I did like his excitement over that last beam up (“Three targets from two locks on one pad. I’ve never done that before.”)

“There is absolutely no way in hell that Kirk should or could have ended up as a Captain by the end of the film.” - Cyber

With the beating the fleet took, and the large number of cadets killed in action, I’m not surprised that he was made a higher ranked officer, though Captain is a bit of a stretch.

“The team member who gets fried during the mission to disable the platform is the one wearing the red outfit. Clearly red-shirt syndrome at work.” – Cyber

No one in my group expected him to make it, nor did anyone else familiar with TOS probably. Actually, I find it kinda amusing that they continued that tradition in this film.

“Nero's ship is identified as a mining ship. First does the design of this ship appear A; Even remotely Romulan [...]? Second what is a mining ship doing with that much fire power?” –Cyber

I noticed that too. It didn’t really seem to fit into any kind of design lineage we’ve been seen so far (then again, neither did the Enterprise interiors). As for the weapons, I found it interesting that they seemed to fire something much closer to rockets, which could in fact be destroyed by phaser fire from the Enterprise and Kelvin. Photon torpedoes were never shot ‘down’ like that. The Enterprise torpedoes looked like we would have expected, so I’m wondering if those rockets were something that they would have used for mining, though I have no idea what they would need rockets for. For that matter, why would they need a laser drill that big? What are they mining?

“And the shipyards are there – but don’t know if they replaced San Fran shipyards. Is Riverside the location of basic training before going off to the Academy at San Fran?
Was the ship that was being built at the yard in fact the Enterprise ? I didn’t notice any markings.” – Chris

I was curious about this. I could see no reasoning why Nero’s time traveling would change this. Building ships on the planet’s surface goes against everything we know about ship building, and this shouldn’t have been changed by the Kelvin’s destruction. It doesn’t really bother me, but I guess this is just part of the reimaging.

“Why would there be a second space storm before Nero attacked Vulcan? Was it created by Spock’s ship entering the time-line?” – Chris

I can’t remember where in the film it occurred, but I’m pretty sure it had to have come before the attack on Vulcan. Nero is waiting for Spock P when he comes out of the black hole. That is where he got the Red Matter so that he could go on his rampage.

“Also, I guess there’s no planetary defense for either Vulcan or Earth.” - Chris

As a counter to this point, I think the whole point of keeping Pike around was so that he could give Nero the codes to the planetary defenses. Vulcan, however, was left all alone.

NANJAO: I found it interesting that Nero’s name was Nero (though I’m curious if that was his real name, or just what he was calling himself). Remember, the real Nero watched while Rome burned, just as this Nero watch Romulus destroyed.

I have mixed feelings on the bridge having a big window, but I did think it was a nice touch being able to see the top of the saucer from the bridge. Kudos on correcting a problem seen in ready rooms in other timeline. However, I thought it was odd that the bridge was moved. If the bridge is down a couple of decks (at least Deck 2 or 3), what is in the rounded area on top of the ship? We know it’s not the bridge because we get a nice look at the bridge location during one of the SFX shots. Somebody mentioned that it would be nearly impossible to see anything through that window travelling at warp. Interestingly enough, all of the shots of the Enterprise at warp that I can remember showed a lot of distortion around the ship, making a pretty cool effect closer to hyperspace from Star Wars, and made it impossible to see anything through the windows.

I had some problems with the Kobayashi Maru scene. We all know Kirk was cheating, but he didn’t have to make it so obvious. He could have played it out more like it’s supposed to be done, with a little more seriousness. He could have eaten his apple after the exam.

A few more things I thought about today.

Between WWIII and climate change, Iowa seems to change a lot in 250 years. In my five years there, I never saw anywhere that looked like there.

If I heard correctly, Riverside, the future birthplace of Captain Kirk, gets a mention by Pike as the place Kirk embarks to enter Starfleet.

Also, I think I had a 47 sighting. It looks like there's a sign at Riverside with the number on it.

I'm surprised any Starfleet officer, Spock in particular, would just maroon Kirk on Delta Vega. I was thinking Scotty might mention something about it when Kirk and Spock Prime arrived, but he is apparently unaware of the crashed pod.

And was Deep Roy's character one of the aliens from the chase sequence in Nemesis? Sure looked like it.

"The Borg shouldn't make an appearance for another 100+ years"

Do you mean 100 + 2258 or from TNG time? Q was just the first one to speed up the meeting. Events were also altered by the Borg found during an Ent episode, after the events of First Contact. They sent a signal to Delta Quad which would take about 200 years from Ent time.

Time paradox gives me a headache. If someone goes from the future, say 24th C, to the past, 21st C, and changes things, but then someone else goes from the future to the past, 23rd C, to change things so that the first person doesn't exist, did the 21st C get changed?

Kirk beats the Kobayashi Maru no-win scenario, and Pike ends up in a wheelchair. Somethings don't change.

BTW, the return of the apple was a nice touch.

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Cyber: So Starfleet has at least 8 ships stationed on Earth...but no crews for them. In order to get all the ships in service to deal with a situation they have to empty the Academy. I guess the age old question as to why the Enterprise is almost always the only ship in range of Earth when danger calls has been answered. Its not that Starfleet doesn't have any ships near Earth, its that all their crews are off on Risa.

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Cyber: So, the crew of a mining ship have enough scientific knowledge to A; instantly realise that the black hole will take them back in time. And B; Calculate exactly where and when Spocks ship will appear.
Sure.

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Cyber: Planets consist of a solid core, surrounded by superheated liquid rock under considerable pressure and covered with a thin solid crust of rock. While you could burn through the crust the result would be that the pressured mantle would well up - basically you'd create a volcano. What you could not do is then drill through the mantle - its a liquid, it will move to fill any 'hole' and not leave a nice path down to the planets core.

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Cyber: Again, I may have misheard but Spock seems to claim that a supernova threatened the galaxy. Board rules prohibit me from using the word I'd like to at this statement. But simply put not unless the laws of physics had been altered in a rather major way. Supernova explosions happen all the time without destroying the galaxy, or even nearby stars.

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Cyber: Why was Spock the only one who could save Romulus? Don't they have any scientists of their own?

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Cyber: The team member who gets fried during the mission to disable the platform is the one wearing the red outfit. Clearly red-shirt syndrome at work.

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inblackestnight: Is it really that difficult to get an actual Russian to play the part?

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inblackestnight: Is that why Scotty had such a terrible post, because of Archer's dog?

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Kyle: When Captain Robau went to the hangar deck to take a shuttle over to Nero's ship, we see the turbolift descend from up high to the deck, the captain gets in the shuttle, and then it departs from the upper secondary hull of the Kelvin. So how'd the turbolift descend if the shuttle bay is at the "top" of the ship?

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Terik: Some trailers showed a baby Vulcan I assume was Spock, but he didn’t appear in the movie.

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Terik: Was the ship that was being built at the yard in fact the Enterprise ? I didn’t notice any markings.

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Terik: Spock leaves Kirk on a snow planet with a Starfleet outpost. Another poster already made the point: Doesn’t the Enterprise have a brig? I realize Kirk didn’t belong on the ship at first, but now he’s First Officer. And the planet happens to be the same planet Spock Prime is on. And Kirk happens to run into the same cave Spock P is in. And Spock P was seemed to be just waiting around instead of going to the outpost to try to warn Starfleet and Vulcan. CONTRIVANCE!

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Terik: Nit; The Enterprise (and the Fleet) is said to be some 6 hours from Vulcan at warp four. Even assuming that this is TOS warp scale where the warp factor is the speed of light cubed this only works out as 12 times lightspeed. While frankly I can't be bothered to work out the maths here, this seems to me to imply that Vulcan is not so much right next door to earth, as it is so close as to be living in the garden shed. Somehow this seems highly unlikely since at 12 times the speed of light our nearest star would still be some four months travel time away.

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Terik:
Time paradox gives me a headache. If someone goes from the future, say 24th C, to the past, 21st C, and changes things, but then someone else goes from the future to the past, 23rd C, to change things so that the first person doesn't exist, did the 21st C get changed?

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I think of time travel from the Back to the Future perspective. If someone travels to the past and changes something, then you create an alternate timeline, which is what happens here. If you go to the future from that alternate timeline, then you are just going to the future from that timeline. From your scenario, the 23rd Century traveler would be coming from the altered timeline. By that point, the damage would already have been done. In Back to the Future Part II, if someone from say, alternate 1998 hit Biff with their car, he may not live to see 2015, but that won't change the alternate timeline. Young Biff would have still have gotten the sports almanac and the alternate timeline would still exist.

Josh, I didn't write the nit about warp factor cubed. That was offered by Cyber. I'm not that good at math.

What should have happened at the end:

Spock crashes the time-ship into Nero's ship...original time-line restored...like "Year of Hell" (VOY)

The only logical thing to do in the next movie is restore the original time-line.

Review....Good...not great...better than "Nemesis"

Great Line:

"I have been, and ever shall be your friend"

Old Spock on Delta Vega

This goes all the way back to STII.

Karl Urban was superb as McCoy.

Great scene: Uhura (Zoe Saldana) in her underwear.

I just got home from seeing it. Great movie, beautifully designed and photographed, well-cast, well-acted, etc.

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Terik: Josh, I didn't write the nit about warp factor cubed. That was offered by Cyber. I'm not that good at math.

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John A. Lang: Great scene: Uhura (Zoe Saldana) in her underwear.

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Luigi Novi: I just got home from seeing it. Great movie, beautifully designed and photographed, well-cast, well-acted, etc.

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Oh, yeah..The Orion Girl...GIGGITY GIGGITY!

Well, this movie offers three theories as to the changes that Nero caused.

Theory No. 1: The Trek universe we have known for the past 43 years is now gone, wiped out, it never happened.

I don’t think many fans would be too thrilled with that one, me included. Who is Abrams to come in tell us that something we have seen for most of our lives is no longer valid. Also, the Trek novels will probably continue to be written about this universe.


Theory No. 2: The Trek universe we have known is still chugging along as always, but rather what we see here is an alternate time stream, caused by Nero. We have seen these time streams before in Trek, but in the past, they were always erased when time was fixed. This time, that didn’t happen. So now we have two time streams, both real, but totally independent of one another. The original time stream, where Vulcan was not destroyed and Amanda lived to a ripe old age, and this new one, where Vulcan was destroyed and Amanda died (they killed Winona Ryder, those dirty rotten #*$@^#). No doubt all subsequent movies will be set in this new time stream (assuming this movie makes money), while the Trek novels will still be set in the original time stream.

This theory works part of the way. However, there is a problem, the technology. The Enterprise, the bridge, transporter, engineering, etc, look NOTHING like they did in Classic Trek. An alternate time stream can’t explain that away so easily.


Theory No. 3: The TNG episode Parallels shows us that there is an infinite number of universes co-existed alongside each other. Some slightly different, while others are majorly different (such as the Mirror Universe). It is possible that the black hole not only sent Ambassador Spock and Nero back in time, but also shifted them to one of these parallel universes. A universe where the technology was different in Kirk’s time that it was in the universe we know. As I said above, all subsequent movies will take place in this universe.

I think that Theory 3 is probably the correct one, it would also explain away a couple of other questions I had.

The planet that Spock strands Kirk on, Delta Vega. That was the name of the planer that Kirk wanted to maroon Gary Mitchell on in Where No Man Has Gone Before. However, that planet was located way out on the boondocks, near the galactic barrier. Now it’s in the same system as Vulcan (it would have to be, because Ambassador Spock could see Vulcan being destroyed. So either there are two Delta Vegas, or that is the designation of the planet in this universe (was anyone reminded of Hoth, from The Empire Strikes Back, I kept waiting for Kirk to run into Luke and Han on Tauntauns).

The girl that Kirk was fooling around with was an Orion! However, Orion was never part of the Federation, as far as the 24th Century. So what was an Orion doing in Starfleet. Either this girl is a renegade, or perhaps, in this universe, Orion did join the Federation.

Still, regardless, it is interesting to see what happened in this universe as apposed to the one we know. Such as...

-Kirk and Co. taking out the Enterprise about ten years prior to there counterparts in the original universe. The events with Nero fast tracked their careers here. No doubt their adventures will be somewhat different than the Kirk and Co. we know. Clearly Amok Time and Journey To Babel will not happen, well Babel might, but Amanda won’t be there. The movies Wrath Of Khan, The Search For Spock and Voyage Home will be affected. Namely, there won’t be a Vulcan for Kirk and Co. to seek refuge on. It’s possible that Spock’s fal tor pan will still happen, because there are Vulcan survivors out there.

-The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine will probably be the same as they are in the original universe, since Vulcan played little to no role in either show (although the events of Gambit probably won’t happen). As for Voyager, Tuvok may or may not be there. His parents were Starfleet officers, so they could have been off-planet when Nero attacked. As to whether the Tuvok of this reality got married and had children, your guess is as good as mine.

Enterprise probably was the same in both universes, although perhaps the technology might ahve been different, but I am guessing here.

I guess Ambassador Spock is stuck in this reality now, he seems to be headed out to help build a new Vulcan colony. I wonder, couldn’t the Guardian Of Forever send him back to his proper universe? Still, it was nice to see Leonard Nimoy back again.

Could there possibly be crossover stories between the two universes? Hmmmm...

All in all, liked this movie. I can live with there being more than one Trek universe.

I won't see the movie until Sunday, but I will say I'm not going to hold the marketing against it -- there were some promos for Next Gen that made me cringe too.

Anyone else wonder why Nero didn't have anyone guarding Spock's ship, even after he knew there were intruders onboard his ship?

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Cyber: By the same token, if Pikes figure was correct then how did all the crew get off the Kelvin? We see 7 or 8 shuttles from the Kelvin - which means that each shuttle would have had to be carrying some 100 people in it. There is no way that many people could fit in those shuttles.

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Tim McCree: (was anyone reminded of Hoth, from The Empire Strikes Back, I kept waiting for Kirk to run into Luke and Han on Tauntauns)

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Tim McCree: The girl that Kirk was fooling around with was an Orion! However, Orion was never part of the Federation, as far as the 24th Century. So what was an Orion doing in Starfleet. Either this girl is a renegade, or perhaps, in this universe, Orion did join the Federation.

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"It reminded me of the dog-creatures the Klingons used to control the prisoners." - Josh

Thanks, Josh. I knew that thing looked familiar from somewhere, but I couldn't really place it.

Terik: Why would there be a second space storm before Nero attacked Vulcan? Was it created by Spock’s ship entering the time-line?
I wondered that too. That "storm in space" only occured with the singularities so it shouldn't have been near Vulcan. Speaking of those storms, why did Spock keep calling it a black hole? It's accurate enough I suppose but very un-Vulcan like.

Tim: was anyone reminded of Hoth, from The Empire Strikes Back
I did, and I think I even said that during the movie Speaking of that place, how did that big red alien evolve that way on a white and frozen world? Also, why did it start chasing Kirk after it killed that much bigger prey?

Broken Aero: We all know Kirk was cheating, but he didn’t have to make it so obvious.
Definitly! Between his demeanor and the algorithum he picked there couldn't have been any doubt in the instructors minds that he cheated.

Wouldn't somebody, SF et al, go and check out what happened to the USS Kelvin? That ridiculously designed mining ship just hung around for 25 years waiting for Spock to show up unnoticed?

Once Vulcan was destroyed shouldn't Spock's ship have disappeared? I suppose it could've been made on the newer planet but then shouldn't the annoucement young Spock asked for changed?

I think TPTB were trying to tease us with that final singularity making us think, me anyway, that maybe if the Enterprise went in perhaps they could restore the timeline. One can hope.

Well, this movie offers three theories as to the changes that Nero caused.

Spock the younger specifically states that Nero created an alternate reality - history was the same up until Nero turned up, at which point it diverged.

This is backed up both by Abrams - who in interviews stated that the question as to if this was the same universe as TOS was answered in the film - and also by DS9 and Enterprise, both showed that the Mirror universe co-exists alongside the 'Prime' Trek universe.

The girl that Kirk was fooling around with was an Orion! However, Orion was never part of the Federation, as far as the 24th Century. So what was an Orion doing in Starfleet. Either this girl is a renegade, or perhaps, in this universe, Orion did join the Federation.

You don't have to be from a world that is part of the Federation to join StarFleet. Worf is Klingon - and therefore doesn't come from the Federation - yet serves in Starfleet. Tasha Yar likewise didn't come from a Federation world yet was in Starfleet. Nog had no problems joining the Fleet, even if Ferenginar wasn't part of the Federation - he just needed a senior officer to sponser his admission. It was also noted in TNG episode 'The chase' that the Enterprise D had a considerable number of crewmembers on board who came from worlds that were not part of the Federation.
(By the same token today you don't have to be American to serve in the US Armed forces).

Regarding the design of Nero's ship: I think the Countdown backstory states that he upgraded it (pimp my ride). He went to a secret Romulan base and made improvements including Borg technology. Don't know how much time actually passed between the destruction of Romulus and then Spock & Nero going back.

Regarding time theories: I always preferred the alternate universe. When anyone writes "go back in time" you should read "go to another reality/dimension". Take Trials & Tribble-ations for example. The DS9 crew went from their Prime Time into the past and made a few minor changes to TOS. Kirk asked O'Brian, not another crew member, who threw the first punch. When DS9 returned to the future they, in fact, were in a different reality -- very close to the one they left, but different. Their alternates also went back in time and were replaced by the crew from Prime Time.

The only shows that don't fit this theory are when we see things change in Prime Time when history is changed. For example when the Enterprise disappeared while the away team was with the Guardian of Forever. Or when the Enterprise-E saw a Borgified Earth.

Terik: I think the Countdown backstory states that he upgraded it
Pardon my ignorance but what Countdown backstory? If it's a novel I don't think it matters because they're not considered canon, are they? In the movie it seemed Spock was only few hours late then using the red matter when he got there. Why upgrade a mining vessil, especially with Borg technology?

ScottN: Depends. In Year of Hell(VOY), we saw Tuvok shaving (with a straight razor).
Yeah, but did he need a shave? I wouldn't count some stubble as a beard. The person I was reffering to had a full beard and was quite broad, not a typical Romulan/Vulcan.

I thought it was interesting how the hand phasers in the movie operated. The whole barrel rotated horizontally with the blue emitter stun and the red kill.

This really isn't a nit, but did anyone else find it odd that Spock crouched down on the transporter pad before beaming down to Vulcan? There seemed no reason to take that precaution. If nothing else, I would have expected him to take a stance that would better brace himself in the event of earthquakes, but not a crouch. That just seemed strange to me.

Since we keep bringing up that Orion, IIRC, did she have brown hair? Most Orions I can remember had black hair. I suppose that isn't necessarily a nit either. We just may not have seen any brown hair Orions before, but they could still exist.

ScottN: Depends. In Year of Hell(VOY), we saw Tuvok shaving (with a straight razor).
Yeah, but did he need a shave? I wouldn't count some stubble as a beard. The person I was reffering to had a full beard and was quite broad, not a typical Romulan/Vulcan.

Yes, Vulcan's need to shave. Even leaving out the Vulcan's from the Mirror universe - who almost all had facial hair - The Vulcan who offers Spock a place in the Vulcan science institute had a beard. (The actor's name escapes me - I *think* he is Morgan Sheppard. Whatever his name he's something of a stable in sci-fi, having appeared in Trek at least twice before - he was in an episode of Voyager as well as playing the Governor of Rura Pentane in ST VI. He's also been on Babylon 5 twice and his last big film was Transformers where he played Sam's grandfather.)

Since we keep bringing up that Orion, IIRC, did she have brown hair? Most Orions I can remember had black hair. I suppose that isn't necessarily a nit either. We just may not have seen any brown hair Orions before, but they could still exist.

Her hair was red/copper - I suspect it is the actresses real hair colour. I noted this since I mistook her for another actress at first due to her hair.
And no, its not a nit any more than showing a Vulcan with Blonde hair would be - we haven't really seen enough of the population to be able to know what hair colours exist. And in the case of the Orion's I think we've only seen about 4 throughout trek - at least two of whom were in someone's fantasy.

Cybermortis: Scotty says that he will eject the warp core in the singular. All the subsequent footage shows the Enterprise ejecting at least six pods/cores from the ship.
I don't know if this applies here, but in both Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise and Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual, it is stated that the warp core ejection would, under most circumstances, also involve ejection of the antimatter pods.

Cybermortis: Nit; The Enterprise (and the Fleet) is said to be some 6 hours from Vulcan at warp four.....This seems to me to imply that Vulcan is not so much right next door to earth, as it is so close as to be living in the garden shed. Somehow this seems highly unlikely...."
Amen! And it doesn't agree with Scotty's statement in ST1 that the Big E could have Spock "back on Vulcan in four [4] days"--and that was the movie-era 1701, which had been refitted and upgraded since the TOS era.

Most of you seem to agree that my second theory, the one of the altered time line, is the correct one. However, that doesn't explain the technology and the ship. The bridge, transporter, engineering, look nothing like they did in the TOS era. If Enterprise, which had a much smaller budget, could build as excellent recreation of a TOS ship (In A Mirror Darkly), then why couldn't this movie do it? It would have made it seem much more familiar and helped me adjust to the fact that this is the TOS crew I am seeing here.

So I guess from the Trek Prime vantage, Ambassador Spock just vanished into thin air, perhaps they think he died in the nova.

Speaking of which, that was just stupid. The idea that this nova just seemed to come out of the blue and the Romulans were caught unaware. Stars take CENTURIES to die, there is no way the Roms could not have seen this nova coming and taken precautions, like evacuting the populations of Romulas and Remus. Furthermore, this nova clearly happeneed in the TNG era, yet there was never any mention of the Romulan star being unstable previous to this movie. They should have explained it away as maybe a new Romulan weapons test going awry (maybe they were working on the same kind of weapon that Soren was in Generations).

Okay, Nero arrives in the 23rd Century and just sits around for 25 years waiting for Spock Prime to show up? Why didn't he swing by Romulas and say: "Hey guys, our sun is going to go nova in about 100 years. Let's evacuate!"

Nero and his crew seem to have lost the forehead feature that the TNG era Romulans have.

There was no mention of Gary Mitchell. It's possible in this new timeline and/or universe, because of these events, Kirk and Mitchell never met. If that is the case, did Kirk ever meet Carol Marcus (assuming she is the blond lab technician that Mitchell sent Kirk's way). If this is the case, then David Marcus will not exist in this reality. Of course, it's possible that Carol still build the Genesis device (if not, this would mean no device for Khan to steal and both The Search For Spock and Voyage Home would be invalidated in this reality).

The Orion girl must have to take medication to suppress her pharamones. Or else she would have every man at the Academy bending to her will.

Orion girl: Hey, Joe.

Cadet Joe: Uhhhh, hi!

Orion girl: You wouldn't mind taking the Quantum Mechanics test for me, would you? (slinks closer)

Cadet Joe: Uhhhhh, duh, no, I wouldn't mind.

The speed problem is even worse than that - the TOS era Enterprise had a top cruising speed of warp 6, the refitted Enterprise is meant to be even faster than that (Some sources give a cruising speed of warp 10 - this being the older scale not the TNG warp scale - but this has never been stated on screen). So assuming that the warp scale in TOS and movie era is standardised it would appear that the Enterprise here can get to Vulcan sixteen times faster than its refitted counterpart...was Scotty intending to take the scenic route in TMP?

Observation; Clearly the warp scale here is different to that used on Enterprise. The scale on Enterprise seems to have been a simple Warp number is equal to the speed of light - warp 2 being twice light-speed. Since the NX Enterprise could happy cruise at warp 4, and this was the speed the 'new' ship tore off at some 100 years later we can only conclude that either the Federation hasn't advanced warp technology in some 100 years, or the warp scale has changed.

Say, just saw the movie, Star Trek: Close Encounters of a Nero kind.(my title)

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Kirk aint no Kirk, the one we know, nor is Uhura,
nor Cheeekov, or Sulu, but the powers that be did
acknowledge Majel B!, the new Dr. Leonard Bones looked kinda lost, like he forgot why he's there.

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and yes, the movie will impact Star trek 3 and 4

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and yes, there are two Delta Vegas (one near Vulcan.
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And I wish this was a stand-alone
movie,not impacting Tos or tng or even the movies.

any how that's my 22 cents here.

Saw it, liked it, want to see more.
An imaginative twist to give the franchise a "rebirth" (as promoted by TV ads). Since the premise of the movie is "the current time line has been altered", the movie makers can take Captain Kirk and his crew anywhere they want without regard to past episodes. Brilliant!

Cybermortis: Scotty says that he will eject the warp core in the singular. All the subsequent footage shows the Enterprise ejecting at least six pods/cores from the ship.
I don't know if this applies here, but in both Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise and Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual, it is stated that the warp core ejection would, under most circumstances, also involve ejection of the antimatter pods.

Scotts guide to the Enterprise hasn't been considered Cannon since TNG started - if not from before that. (As a side note some of the diagrams of ships that flash up on the computer displays in TMP come from that book). The NGTM likewise is no longer cannon.
Regardless what we have seen on screen doesn't tally with the assumption that the anti-matter pods get ejected with the core. Cores have been ejected on screen on both Voyager and Insurrection without any of the pods going with the core. (Although given the time between TNG era and this film it is possible that things could have changed). If it was dumping the anti-matter that kicked the ship free then why not just eject that - rather than the entire core which you'd rather assume is an expensive object to replace. Plus getting rid of the core then means a long wait while someone finds you a new one so the ship can get back home in the crews lifetime.

However, that doesn't explain the technology and the ship. The bridge, transporter, engineering, look nothing like they did in the TOS era. If Enterprise, which had a much smaller budget, could build as excellent recreation of a TOS ship (In A Mirror Darkly), then why couldn't this movie do it? It would have made it seem much more familiar and helped me adjust to the fact that this is the TOS crew I am seeing here.

Why should they look the same - or even remotely similar? This is about 8 years before the first season of TOS, and it has already been seen in prior OS films that Starfleet is quite willing and able to make major changes in the interior layout of its ships in shorter time spans than this. (And it should be noted uniforms and equipment such as phasers). If anything using the same bridge set would have been disappointing.
Uniforms, Phasers, Tricorders and the ship herself underwent major changes between TOS and TMP - less than five years (probably around 4) after TOS ended - assuming that the last season of TOS was the third year of Kirks five year mission.
And of course Phil himself has noted how, even on a badly damaged ship, the crew has a tendency to completely redesign the bridge and move turbolifts around between films that take place within months of each other....;)

oh, who or what is Scotty's alien?

As expected, this thread has quickly passed the 100k mark, so it's on to Part 2.

Butch the Mod