Star Trek film

[JonLP24]

I'm talking the one directed by JJ Abrams (if there was another one made).

I'm curious as to what people thought of the film, specifically Star Trek fans.

The reason why is, I hate or never got into Star Trek shows but I actually enjoyed the film. I was expecting to hate it but I actually really liked the film. Just wondering if fans of the show liked the film.

[HopeHoops]

1. I thought the new film was awesome. It had way more action than any of the Kirk/Picard films.

The story line was also compelling and engaging. It was a nice touch to include Nimoy and his original father from the older movies (forget the actor's name). I also like that the Enterprise has a shitload of phasers instead of just two wimpy ones up front.

By the way, I just watched it the other night (again).

[JonLP24]

2. I thought so too

about the storyline that it was compelling and engaging. I really liked the special effects too.

[HopeHoops]

3. "I know that dog. How is he?" "I'll let you know when he shows up."

There were some REALLY great lines in that movie!!!

[sarge43]

44. There was

"Is the parking brake still on?" :spray:

/on edit/

"The wife took the whole planet in the divorce."

[HopeHoops]

48. Yeah, those were both good. And, "I looked up your record while you were drooling on the floor."

Great movie.

[sarge43]

50. The whole in joke about Lt Olsen and his red jump suit.

Ah Jimmy, not a good idea for him to carry the charges, especially after he runs his mouth about kicking Romulan ass. (Some of the engineering grunts have boosted his foot locker already. "He's dead meat.")

[Gidney N Cloyd]

4. The Scottie and McCoy characters were worth the price of admission.

[ceile]

8. seconded

The actor that played McCoy was fantastic. And Simon Pegg, well he could just stand there totally silent and be hilarious.

[sarge43]

17. Karl Urban nailed it.

The minute I heard him "Hey, it's Bones!"

[NewJeffCT]

21. Yes, he was perfect for that role

Now, I keep picturing him as Bones whenever I watch him play Eomer in the LotR movies.

[sarge43]

24. Even looked something like DeForest Kelley.

He's on record as life long Trekker. Must have thrilled him no end to swan around in the uniform playing one of the icons.

[proteus_lives]

34. Urban is way underrated.

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

5. This sez it all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSJF6UiGfa0

[kentauros]

6. I thought this was a superior film to the Abrams fiasco:

Star Wreck (http://www.starwreck.com)

[Orsino]

7. Best Trek movie yet

The villain can't match Khan, but it's like a Trek movie with nearly all the suck left out. Exciting, well-acted, and beautiful to look at.

The old film franchise has always been marred by stodgy acting and dialogue apparently written by committee or focus group. This new Trek had almost none of that.

[Deep13]

9. I liked it, but was a little put off by the (spoilers) ...

...destruction of Vulcan. It basically erases everything everyone knew about the Star Trek universe. While the writers have the perogative to do that, it was these established fictional norms that made it Star Trek in the first place. Mess with it too much and it becomes a completely different franchise, but with familiar names.

[InvisibleTouch]

18. I loved it, but I agree...

...it seems an odd Star Trek universe without the planet Vulcan.

Of course there could always be some time-travel magic in future films that might bring it back!

[NewJeffCT]

19. I was also put off by that (more spoilers)

somebody on DU later posted that the next two movies will be about correcting the timeline & saving Vulcan.

[MilesColtrane]

32. When Vulcan comes back will Spock stop flying into rages and stop...

making out with Uhura?

Someone defended that character's very un-Vulcanlike behavior in the Abrams movie saying that Spock only did those things because he was all broken up about his home planet.

Abram's Spock is just a repressed greenish human with funny ears.

[DainBramaged]

10. Have it on disc, watch it at least ONCE a month, awsome movie

And no sequel till 2012, bummer.

[MilesColtrane]

11. It's crap.

Shiny, action-filled, big budget crap, but crap nonetheless.

[Orsino]

29. Hmm.

Would you say that AbramsTrek improves over the original in any way at all?

[MilesColtrane]

31. I give the special effects a thumbs up.

They should be great with a budget almost 3X the other ST movies.

The actors are generally OK, but they've got little to work with.

[pokerfan]

12. Needed more lens flares

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAaX8Aq6smQ

[El Supremo]

13. Gag!

[Fire Walk With Me]

35. -chortle-

:D

[CBGLuthier]

14. This version is about the only thing in the entire canon

That does not feel like it was written by and for fourteen year old boys.

[Archae]

15. From a guy who's been a Trekkie since day one...

(Namely me...)

I hated it.
They destroyed the storyline to start a new one, too much of that fucking "shakeycam," like someone else said, too much lens flare.

[NewJeffCT]

22. See my post above on that

destroying the timeline, I mean.

[sarge43]

16. I enjoyed it and I've seen them all.

Some Trekkers had issues with the new time line. I think it gives the series wiggle room. Especially liked the casting.

[Forkboy]

20. Not a hardcore Trek fan, but I've enjoyed the shows over the years when I see them.

I thought the movie was pretty entertaining. I thought Quinto nailed the Spock character (the weakest parts of the movie for me were the Nimoy scenes...I haven't seen acting like that since Hobgoblins....you MST3K fans know what I speak of lol). The other weak part was, I hate to say, Simon Pegg. I love the guy, but I never once took him seriously as Scotty.

Overall the movie was a lot of fun though. It was cool to see a back story for Spock and Kirk.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

23. Pegg went for the more impish side of the Scotty character (and added some manic energy).

Doohan didn't get the chance to do that very often.

[Forkboy]

25. I'm hoping I'll grow into the character in the sequel.

I really like Pegg a lot, and this was the first time I didn't immediately buy into his character. And don't get me wrong, he wasn't so bad that it ruined my enjoyment of the film.

Maybe him playing up that side of the character was what threw me so much. The others we're pretty in line with what you would expect, yet Scotty was really different. I'll have to watch it again with your take on it.

[Orrex]

27. But Pegg simply ran down the list of Scottish Movie Character cliches

Up to and including "banjaxed" and "wee bit dodgy." It was nothing at all like the character of Scotty and everything like every stock Scotsman in American film.



Lame. And I don't care if his wife really is Scottish.

[Orsino]

28. And, lest we forget...

...these are truly alternate versions of the characters, in a timeline divergent from the familiar since Kirk's birth.

It would have suited me to return to that era with an entirely new cast, crew and ship...but this reboot comes with a built-in excuse for every character's being seriously different.

[wickerwoman]

26. I thought it was a mixed bag.

I'm not a full-on Trekkie but I've watched all of TNG and Deep Space Nine a few times.

+ Really great casting, especially Karl Urban, Simon Pegg and Zach Quinto. I could watch Karl Urban do this schtick 24/7.
+ Very energetic. Didn't engage in as much preaching and/or navel-gazing as a lot of other Trek.
+ Nice to see some back story but felt a little bit like marking time between "very special moments"

+/- Didn't mind the "reboot" of the timeline. It depends on where they go with it.

- The villain was boring as hell. I even like Eric Bana but he had nothing to do here. The whole plot felt like an afterthought.
- A few things showed that the writers misunderstood key elements of the universe (i.e. advertising in a world that doesn't have brands and Vulcan bullies)

Anyway, I'll see the next one and hope it has a better developed plot.

[jobycom]

30. Loved it.

It was just enough of the old show to connect them, but more modern screenwriting and directing and effects. Excellent, fun film, like the original series. The older movies and shows had built up such a specialized mythology that they were hard to follow unless you had watched everything that came before.

They could have followed the old fanboy format, but instead they started a new mythology, and gave themselves interesting opportunities to mix the mythologies or have them compete. They gave a new generation the chance to become Trekkies with their own new mythology to grow up worshipping. All wrapped up in a good movie.

Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, Raymond Chandler, even the Bible... Good characters and settings continually reset, because there's some deeper level in which those characters connect to us, and in ways that don't become outdated just because the scripts and props do. People have been trying to find a new Star Trek since the first one was canceled. Look at all the imitators, from Space 1999 to Firefly, all trying to use the same mythology in a more modern setting, all succeeding in some ways but never quite doing it. Abrams finally accomplished it.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

33. Holmes, Bond, etc. That's really a good point.

[sarge43]

36. And of course the Arthur legends

They never had anything to do with the reality of 5th century Britain. They've always been about the time and place of those retelling the story. Because they're so rich in characters and conflict from love vs duty to loyalty vs morality they can be retold over and over and always have an audience.

[jobycom]

38. Oh yeah, there's a character who's been revisioned since the Middle Ages

Forgot about him. They were complaining about the poetic reimaginings of Arthur in the 12th century. :)

[ElboRuum]

37. Not bad...

However, I think Star Trek has totally abused the "time travel" trope.

[Ryano42]

39. Big old series Trekkie (TOS)

I thought it was quite good, good looking though about an inch deep, but still has a fresh outlook and potential. Abrams will probably have a Smoke Monster from LOST in the next one to tie up loose ends. :eyes:

Urban was amazing as McCoy...

I still think The Wrath of Khan is the best Star Trek movie even though it's so over the top and campy...it was a classic adventure.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbEDI7v4wNI The pace, drama and tension of this scene blew me away at the time. I was a kid but is still gets me.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

40. I thought it was shit, but it was so forgettable I don't remember why.

It might have been a lack of story. And tension. And reasons to care. They were so busy developing characters for the noobs, and dropping references for the old school fanboys, that they forgot to tell a story.

[LibertyLover]

41. I liked it very much but had some problems with all the characters

basically being in the same time stream. In the original franchise, Sulu and, especially, Chekov, are supposed to be young officers just starting their careers, certainly younger than Kirk, and would not have been at Star Fleet Academy at the same time as he was. The same is true of McCoy and Scotty. The original series and the authorized books that came out of it, never suggest that either of them and Kirk knew each other during their Academy days, if indeed McCoy, as a medical doctor, would even have gone through the whole Star Fleet Academy training. And Scotty is supposed to be older than Kirk as well. Spock and Kirk are also not known to have been at the Academy at the same time, with Spock having gone through prior to Kirk entering given the disparity in their ages. The original series suggests that their first time being thrown together is on the Enterprise during its first 5 year mission under Kirk. As I say, a good movie and one I like to watch, but the character disconnects are a bit jarring. Great special effects.

[sarge43]

43. Well, first when the Narada came through the black hole, the time line changed.

1. Spock was at the Academy at the same time as Kirk and McCoy, if not an instructor, then adviser status. He designed the Kobayaski Maru test. The real question is why neither Kirk or McCoy knew who he was. The man who thought up that butt buster would be legendary.

2. No problem with Scotty being older than Kirk. I believe it was implied he had his commission already.

3. Chekov said he was seventeen. It's possible even probable in this time line that admission to the Academy wasn't locked into a limited age span. With the radically different life spans within the Federation membership, would be difficult. Plus, Pike called him "Russian whiz kid". He was no doubt a child prodigy, sign up in his mid-teens.

4. Agree about McCoy. Medical types do a quick and dirty introductory course, glorified basic because they can't command outside of the medical field. That was a bit much having him on the bridge for Kirk's K-M test. Been better if he'd been a MD assigned to the Academy.

[Blue_Tires]

42. i went in with guarded and low expectations

I just wanted to be entertained, which I was...I want to see more from this current cast...

[Bassic]

45. Excellent but,

needs more KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!

[hyphenate]

46. There were some good elements in it

As a 10 year old, I watched Trek right from the get-go. So I can rightly say I was a "1st" gen fan.

I had some qualms with it, but it's been a while since I saw it, so I can't tell you why I had reservations, only that I did.

[Dr Morbius]

47. Loved the original series. Enjoyed ST:TNG. Liked about half the movies.

I dug the reboot. It pretty much has most everything a Star Trek fan could want, I thought, excepting of course purists. Kirk is a force, Bones is a wiseacre, and Spock is brilliant. Gotta love the hotness of the new Uhura, Zoe Saldana, and I really liked the new Christopher Pike (he's the one in The Cage). Once again, it isn't logical to reject one's emotions, because a moment's thought will convince one that emotions act independently of reason, and are neither logical nor illogical in and of themselves, but hey, I quibble.

I wonder if they are indeed making a sequel, however. I've heard nothing.

[SwissTony]

49. Someone posted this earlier

Scottish Star Trek (warning Scottish accents)

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Khrpy4V0-U4>

[Alexander]

51. Been a Star Trek fan since the 25th anniversary. I thought the movie was good for what it was.

Basically, it took Star Trek and turned it into a Star Wars-type action movie.

Everything feels more like a Star Wars movie. The science fiction elements have almost been completely dropped in favor of fantasy ideas. It relies more heavily on fast-paced action and special effects. Even the phasers and the warp drive look more like blasters and hyperspace.

Of course, they somewhat butchered the Star Trek universe, partially because they had to in order to make a really exciting action movie, and partially because JJ Abrams wasn't familiar with Star Trek.

Then again, Harve Bennett and Nicholas Meyer weren't familiar with Star Trek when they made the Wrath of Khan, and most people consider that the best of the movies.

The moneyless, utopian Federation has been replaced by one where Budweiser and Nokia are still around (the product placement really annoyed me) and punitive divorce settlements occur.

Spock has turned from someone who is emotionless 98% of the time into someone who is just waiting to get pissed off and beat someone up.

The Kobiyashi Maru turned from an exercise in how to deal with death into a simulation whose purpose is to "experience fear". How they do that when everyone knows it's a simulation is anyone's guess.

Nero is something of a shallow, one-dimensional character whose crew never once questions all the crazy things he's doing. However, the TNG movies have had this problem for years, so it's not like they made any drastic changes.

The Spock/Uhura romance was irritating, but they really needed to give Uhura something to do after she detected the Romulans.

Speaking of which, not only is Uhura a super-genius who can speak Romulan (when she couldn't even get through Klingon in the 6th movie), every other character has also been turned into a super-genius (except Sulu, who can't drive the ship - but that inadvertently saves everyone's life anyway).

Of course, I know why all these changes were made - Star Trek was losing its appeal and they needed to make it interesting to people who never cared about Star Trek before. You can't really do that by creating a complex, character-driven story about the human condition - you do it by making a shallow action movie. And they were clearly very successful in doing that.

[swimboy]

52. Best Star Trek movie since Galaxy Quest!

I really did enjoy the reboot and re-watch it from time to time.

My biggest problem was one single insurmountable coincidence: Of all the caves in all the planets in all the galaxies, you had to walk into mine.