Star Trek 2009

[Mike Renzulli]

Hey Everyone,

I realize many of you maybe Star Trek fans. I am too. I saw the animated series when I was a kid, watched all of the Next Gen shows, the first 2 or 3 seasons of Deep Space Nine and Voyager and all of the movies.

However, I wanted to get your feedback and rant (somewhat) about the new Star Trek film. Back in August I went to go see it and I thought the movie was awful.

While the key element of hope for the future remained and Karl Urban did a great job as McCoy, overall the movie itself degenerated into (pardon my French, ladies) a cluster $#&!.

WARNING!!! SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

For example, after Captain Pike surrenders himself to Nero, he appoints Spock as Captain and Kirk as first officer. It is all down hill from there. After this, the movie degenerates into a discombobulated miasma of people trying to rule by consensus.

Admittedly, the command crew are young and inexperienced, but being Star Fleet trainees one would think that the crew would have a better semblence of discipline since they are in a military organization.

I was also disappointed with the destruction of Vulcan and the low quality of some of the sets as seen in the Enterprise's engine room. Even Spock's kicking Kirk out of the Enterprise by ejecting him in an escape pod was idiotic. Why not just throw Kirk in the brig?

It seemed to be a movie bent more on mindless action rather having a clear, consistent hierarchy of events like in the T.V. shows and previous films, save Star Trek V. The new Star Trek film is more like Star Wars meets Moby Dick and Pirates of the Carribean.

I suppose the most refreshing scene in the new film was when Spock walked away from the Vulcan Science Academy and instead Star Fleet after being indirectly told by the Academy's heads heads that he was accepted despite his being half human.

Also, I like the fact that it did not take up left-wing causes like as was seen in Star Trek IV's save the whales theme.

What was the last straw was when Spock the elder tells Spock the younger that he arranged their friendship as an act of faith and then states Spock the younger should do what he feels is right with regards to his life.

I don't think key statements like this are good things to state in a franchise whose main basis is science and reality.

I realize many of you may think I am nit picking. But for someone who is a fan and watched so many of the shows and movies while knowing why Gene Roddenberry created his show, I do not think The Great Bird of the Galaxy would like this new version of his universe.

Edited October 3, 2009 by Mike Renzulli

[Steve Gagne]

Mike -

I too grew up with Star Trek, starting with the original series in the 60's. I found the approach in the new movie interesting; I'm sorry if you find the current treatment is disappointing.

The director announced ahead of time that he had no affinity for the Star Trek story arcs nor their more cerebral aspects; he asked for and received permission to depart in his story development from the "future history" shared by all the Roddenbury/Barrett series.

> > > SPOILER ALERT < < <

That being said, there was a motif borrowed from all the earlier series. In most of them, there was an episode/scene in each where there was some violation of the "time line" by some characters in the current scene. There is a similar event in this movie, with this difference: in the old series or movies, whenever the this "change" occurred, it was always undone in a later scene, restoring the time line to what it was "supposed" to be. In this movie, however, the change is allowed to stand, invalidating everything that is considered part of the Star Trek universe, and creating an entirely new franchise.

Now they get to write all new series & make a whole bunch of new movies, which have about as much to do with the Star Trek we know, as the current CW program Smallville has to do with the original Superman.

[PatriotResistance]

The new Star Trek was an action movie, nothing else. Notice how it never stopped to catch it's breath.

Don't feel too bad, though. You do realize that Roddenberry's future was based totally on communist ideals and altruism. I've always found it hilarious how the Star Trek Federation patrols the galaxy extolling the virtues of no money and peace. Yet every single episode had them firing phasers and bargaining for what they needed. The Ferengi was their obvious attempt to demonize capitalism and the profit motive, but the end product was so laughable and unrealistic that they are one of my favorite Trek species!

Vulcan being destroyed is a terrible story arc, IMO. I think they got the idea from the Xindi storyline from Enterprise, but yeah, bad idea.

What was good about Star Trek is that every episode took on social issues (that would make for awesome debates here), and that was totally lacking in the movie. For example, one Voyager episode took place on a planet that rationed health care according to the skills and contributions the patient would be able to make to society.

The new Star Trek movie was just character introduction and setting up the new universe/timeline, while engaging young people who may not be familiar with the ST universe. So I'll give them one more chance to inject some humanity into the story. If the next movie is just another action flick with yet another stupid, contrived fist-fight in the end I'll be done with them.

Oh, and I LOVED the opening sequence. I thought it was very well done, moving and engaging.

Bob

Edited October 21, 2009 by PatriotResistance

[emb021]

I am fan of Star Trek, just not a huge fan.

I had many problems with the new Star Trek movie.

I could accept the idea that this is an ‘alternate universe Star Trek’, so long as we can accept that all the other tv shows and movies ’still happened’, in the original universe (were the original Spock came from).

That said, I was bothered by some of the STUPID stuff in it. From another posting I did on the movie:

SPOILERS IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE MOVIE!!!!

* Nero’s motivation. Ok, as I understand it. A star goes supernova. It somehow ‘threatens the galaxy’ (not sure how. I’ll buy it threats several nearby systems, but that should be about it), as well as Romulus. Ambassador Spock promises to save Romulus (why him and not someone else??). He gets a super ship from Vulcan, along with a sh*t load of red matter (whatever the h*ll that is), which only requires a drop to destroy the supernova (if so, why have the whole sh*t load of it on the ship???). Spock fails to save Romulus. Nero blames Spock for failing to save Romulus (not accidently causing its destruction, but failing to stop its destruction). Nero & co along with Spock get pulled back into time. For revenge against Spock for failing to save Romulus, he destroys Vulcan (the only planet who was able to create the ship and means to destroy the supernova and save Romulus, please note). Then to save future Romulus, plans on destroying the Federation (which, note, did NOT cause the supernova or the destruction of Romulus). The threat to future Romulus was the supernova. Which he has NOT prevented!!! The only way to stop said future supernova is the super ship & red matter, which won’t be created because he destroyed Vulcan!!! Which means he has ultimately doomed Romulus.

Does no one logically work things out in movies?????

Other issues.

* unless the whole Enterprise was staffed by cadets expect for Pike & Spock (not clear), why would Pike put a cadet as XO (and potential acting captain???)

* I have a hard time accepting that TOS crew all met and were around the same age. My thinking was that Scotty and Bones would be a little older then Jim. Spock maybe as well. Jim had worked his way up in the ranks and on different ships (based on comments about his past life on TOS) before getting command of the Enterprise, tho he was VERY young for that. Uhuru, Sulu, and Chehov would all be younger then Kirk. Now they seem to be around the same age.

* So Spock is some kind of instructor at Starfleet Academy while Uhuru is a cadet? Uh, doesn’t Starfleet have a no fraternization policy??? I.e., that should be against the regs.

* An Orion woman in Starfleet??? I have a little hard time accepting that. From what we know of them, I frankly have an easier time accepting ferengi & klingons joining Star Fleet (oh, they already did!) then Orion women. Was this done as a joke about Kirk doing it with alien women??? Lame.

* Uh, the Kelvin seems to have only one warp nacelle. I thought it had been established that ships had to have at least 2?? Also, the secondary hull seems to be mainly a shuttle bay full of shuttles. Lots and lots of shuttles. But the interior of the ship looks huge with open spaces. Doesn’t seem reasonable.

* same issues with Enterprise. The engineering area looks like some huge factory, not what we saw in TOS. What, no jeffreies tubes???

* ok, Nero & co are supposed to be future romulans. Where are the forehead ridges? Also, romulans aren’t stronger then humans (this was already established in trek lore), so how could that one guy lift kirk up like that?

* its not clear how much time passed between the defeat of Nero & the awards ceremony at the end. Sooo, how did Pike get promoted to Admiral in that time (and not just a first level admiral from the bars on his shoulders)??? Oh. And Kirk gets promoted from a cadet to the rank of Captain. Uhhh, that’s a jump of about 6 ranks!!!!! That’s a bit hard to believe!!!

[PatriotResistance]

*****PLOT-SPOILERS BELOW*****

Well, the red-matter ship was stolen from Nero so one could assume that he had intended to keep it to save the Romulans later.

A big plot hole I noticed was that no Vulcan ships appeared to be defending Vulcan from Nero. Huh? Wha?

Yeah, the jump in rank from cadet to captain was painful. Why would Pike promote Kirk to first officer mere minutes after demanding he be removed from the bridge? That noone else, including Pike who wrote a dissertation on George Kirk, could put it together that the 'lightning storm in space' spelled trouble was silly. In the movie when Kirk was explaining it, it even looked like Captain Pike had a look on his face to say, "Gee, why didn't I think of that?".