I just hope that people who love Star Trek can retake the franchise and bring it back to watch Gene imagined. Not just a film that rips of star wars.

In terms of the timeline. There is only one true timeline in Star Trek. It has been manipulated on many occassiuons, but always corrected, in accordance with with the temporal accords etc. Some ‘fans’ are confusing the mirror universe which is different. If we accept this new film as canon it DOES wipe out everything we know. Why do that? Why destroy things that are loved by many for no reason?

For example see these examples from
http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Alternate_timeline

In 2344, the USS Enterprise-C responded to a distress call from a Klingon outpost on Narendra III, which was under attack by Romulan forces. In the “real” timeline the Enterprise saved the outpost and strengthened relations between the Federation and the Klingons. However, during the battle with the Romulans a Temporal rift opened and the Enterprise, badly damaged and disoriented, traveled to 2366, in the presence of its successor, the USS Enterprise-D. Because the Enterprise-C was not there to save the outpost it was destroyed and the Klingons declared war on the Federation. For the next 22 years, the two powers engaged in a bitter war that cost 40 billion lives and left the Federation on the brink of defeat. In this timeline, Tasha Yar was still alive and serving as tactical officer aboard the Enterprise-D in 2366.

Guinan began to feel the change in time as “not right”. She advised Captain Picard of the changes and eventually convinced him to send the Enterprise-C back through the rift. Yar discovered through Guinan that she died in the other timeline and felt that she could help aboard the Enterprise-C rather than where she felt she didn’t belong. The Klingons attacked the two ships as the Enterprise-C flew toward the rift, while the Enterprise-D defended her. The Enterprise-D was likely destroyed by the Klingons, but the Enterprise-C made it through the rift and restored the timeline, erasing the war from history. (TNG: “Yesterday’s Enterprise”)

However, during the battle with the Romulans, the Enterprise-C was forced to surrender and prisoners, including the alternate Yar, were taken. Yar had a child with a Romulan and was later executed. The child, Sela, became a commander in the Romulan military and encountered the Enterprise-D several times. (TNG: “The Mind’s Eye”, “Redemption”, “Redemption II”, “Unification I”, “Unification II”)

In Enterprise we see something happen that is similar to that of Vulcan.

The effect of a Delphic Expanse anomaly leaves Archer unable to form any new long-term memories. Twelve years later, he wakes up one morning and is stunned to learn the outcome of the Human-Xindi conflict, including the loss of Earth, and the near-annihilation of the Human race. Jonathan Archer wakes in his quarters in the midst of battle. He rushes to the bridge only to see Earth destroyed by the Xindi superweapon. The story restores the timeline.

Together Trek fans can have the Best of both Worlds – a new trek for new fans and keep the faith we all those fans that kept the dream alive – the timeline can be restored.

Live Long and Prosper
Anthony O’Leary
anthonyoleary@bigpond.com

Then he was promoted from first week cadet to CAPTAIN OF THE FLAGSHIP OF STARFLEET.

He’d actually been in Starfleet for three years at that point. There’s a time jump between meeting Bones and the next scene.

While I don’t really disagree with you for anything of the rest, I thought it was pretty clear that Uhura got to the Enterprise on her own merits, and was in fact almost NOT placed on the ship due to her relationship with Spock.

Graham´s last post: Oh my, he’s at it again!

Well as an origin story, it was pretty weak too. Kirk really didn’t show any noticeable leadership skills. He followed a hunch and turned out to be correct. Then he was promoted from first week cadet to CAPTAIN OF THE FLAGSHIP OF STARFLEET. I thought that was really stupid and left a bad taste in my mouth. The way the crew fell together was really sloppy and incredulous. Scotty had no reason to be there. Sulu was a replacement. Uhura slept her way onto the ship. Spock was insane.

And really Spock-Prime pushing the two characters together because in HIS reality they were best buds… Just creepy.

It’s called protecting your claim. But then miners are kinda crazy to begin with.

Why would the Romulans bother to evacuate at all, when their awesome new buddies The Federation are going to save them? I mean, they’ve shown they have a good plan (which would have worked), they’ve been honest and earest so far, and they’ve even got the highly regarded Ambassador Spock on the case.

Except it didn’t work out to plan. And as a result, Nero’s entire home planet is destroyed, including his wife. On top of that, he’s a Romulan. So he doesn’t start thinking about what a terrible tragedy this is, he starts seeing malicious intent in the failure. It was all on purpose. That devious Vulcan Spock never intended to execute the plan in time. It was all a devious plot all along by the Federation, getting the Romulans to trust them, then BAM! Hit them when their guard was down.

For all he knew, as Nero was being pulled into the black hole, The Federation could already be starting its second wave of attacks, picking off all other Romulan colonys now that their central command & control, and a huge portion of their people and infrustructure have been destroyed!

Based on that (albiet faulty) summation, Nero’s desire to wipe out The Federation is the only rational course of action open to him. Even if anyone from current-time Romulus believed him, ‘the plot’ from The Federation is hatched over 150 years in the future: good luck making sure people watch out for it. Plus, with a change of timeline, maybe that cunning Federation will just come up with some other means of getting them.

Gotta kill those conniving humans etc. while he has the upper hand!

It needed a change so why not use the “Guardian of Forever” and make a subtle time change and get on with a “Star Trek” story.

There was no need for Nero.

Ron

Why destroy the Federation and not conquer it? Because he can, because he’s insane, because he plain felt like it. Not a huge issue IMO.

Why blame the Federation and not the Klingons, or anyone else who didn’t stop the supernova? It seems to me that it’s like this. Thanks to Future Spock’s diplomacy as ambassador, the Federation and the Romulan Empire had grown into an actual working relationship by Nero’s time. Enough so that when the Federation said “we’ll stop that supernova for you”, Romulus trusted them to take care of it. The Federation let them down, and I think it’s reasonable enough that Nero would blame the Federation and Spock specifically for Romulus’ destruction.

About the possibility of an evacuation of Romulus, is this actually important? Whether or not there was an evacuation doesn’t seem to matter to me. If there wasn’t, there wasn’t, and Nero’s motivation stands. If there was, whatever. He’s still mad that lots of people died and his homeworld is gone. Either way his motivation stands.

As for why Scotty didn’t seem to know about Vulcan–I mean, the planet was blown up, what, a few hours before Kirk and Old Spock got there? He just didn’t see it happen. And he probably would not have been informed through official channels, 1) because communications were cut off by the drilling/destruction, and 2) he’s there to be punished and put out of the way, so probably nobody would bother.

One hole that did strike me was the huge coincidence that Kirk just happened to run into the exact cave that Old Spock was hiding in, out of all the caves on the surface of that entire planet. But, whatever. That’s not impossible. Furthermore, I figured they were both trying to head for the outpost where Scotty was, so they would have been in the same vicinity anyway.

But to address the fact that you didn’t like Kirk being an asshole–I agree, he wasn’t too likable at first. In my opinion, neither was Spock. But unlike you I thought that that was a very good thing, because they both softened up by the last act of the movie and became the friends we all know and love. I don’t know about you, but to me that’s just good old-fashioned character development, and it was a joy to see unfold. That’s why I loved the movie, because of the characters. This was the story of the crew of the Enterprise, and the movie struck all the right emotional chords with me. Maybe it didn’t have all the logic it could have, but hey, I’m no Vulcan. It thrilled, it moved, it inspired; that’s good enough for me.

My two cents.

I was also disappointed by Nimoy’s portrayal of Spock. He lacked the serious, stern demeanor I’ve come to identify with his character, and came off as goofy. It was like Nimoy wasn’t even trying. I totally agree with Dave the Brave’s point about Spock Prime’s knowledge. And why would he put up the pretense of not telling Kirk about his future, but reveal Scotty’s theory without batting an eye?

For those who found Bones’ classic line out of place, I think you need to go back and see the context. Bones was telling Spock that he didn’t understand the technobabble because he was a doctor, not a physicist. It totally fit.

I certainly had high expectations from all the raving reviews, and found myself a little let down. I agree that it borrowed a little too much from Star Wars. Still, it was a fun summer action flick. I just hope the next film does more than give a few half-hearted nods to its legacy.

Kameron´s last post: Skills and feats of d00M

@Dave the Brave: Maybe I missed it, but was there anything that indicated old Spock knew Nero’s plan before he did it? He knew Nero hated him and wanted him to die, but I don’t think he knew Nero would destroy Vulcan.

Nicholas´s last post: Two Problem Player Scenarios and How to Survive Them

I love all the comments where people say, “YOU’RE TRYING TO HATE THE MOVIE, SHUT UP” but you prefaced everything by saying you didn’t hate it, you just thought it was mediocre. I’m with you. I don’t hate it, in fact, I had a good time watching it, and liked all the same things you liked. I also had all the same problems as you. We are as one, Vulcan mind meld style.

I think that Nero could have been much closer to a Magneto style villain with minimum additional effort put into the script and film. I love how he looked and acted, but I really wanted more there! I also think it’s funny that of the films you mention, X-Men is the only one that matches Star Trek in that there is a group rather than a single main character.

In the end I think you’re right though, the movie succeeds because it is ultimately not about Nero. I just think it could have been even better with a developed villain!

Compare Star Trek to other origin movies (and look back through origin focused comic books, graphic novels, and series). The first X-Men – in the way you are looking at things, the plot of X-men the X-Men saving the world from an evil plot by Magneto. But it’s not. It’s the origin story of how the X-Men came together and the rift between Xavier and Magneto. The whole contrived action scene where they stop the evil “plot” at the end is just a device so the audience can see the X-Men work together and kick some ass.

The first Spiderman is not plotted around Spidey vs. Green Goblin. That’s an aside so the audience can see Spidey kick some ass with purpose. The plot of the movie is how Spiderman came to be, the challenges he faced, and how he accepted the responsibility that came with his “gift”.

Iron Man – not a movie about how Iron Man defeats a bigger iron guy, but about how Tony Stark “grew up” and found his place in the world.

Origin stories are not plotted around the afterthought plot devices that service the need of the medium to show the audience something and to close up a story. Obediah is irrelevant except in how he teaches Stark the truth behind power and provides a way to give Iron Man a viable action oriented challenge at the end. Same for Green Goblin, same for Senator Kelly (Magneto is a bit of an exception, since his character is an integral part of that universe), and Nero.

Star Trek is about how James Kirk came to be the Captain of the Enterprise, how he and Spock met and formed their friendship, how the other primary crew members came to be where they needed to be.

As for you saying you “shouldn’t have to” read up on tie-ins and the like. Bad geek! Bad lazy geek! Other geeks invented the internet just for this purpose (and porn). A geek that won’t put in a bit of effort while online for hours a day anyway just isn’t being a very good geek. Much like Spiderman, we have to accept our enormous responsibility. Our families, our wives, children, parents, friends, they are not going to read and know this stuff because many of them are just this side of a luddite. It’s our sacred duty to use the tools others of our kind have provided us to be well informed on “geek issues”. With great power (such as the ability to google), comes great responsibility.

Secondly, I was really hoping for this to launch Trek into a top tier franchise for me, but it didn’t. It was a fun and enjoyable movie that I really liked… but on the same level as the new Bond movies.

Even post childhood-raping Star Trek will just always pale to Star Wars in the cinema.

Geek’s Dream Girl´s last post: The Crew of Star Trek: Hot Geeks, Every One

Let me first say that I never go into a movie hoping to hate it (with certain exceptions for MiSTing; there’s no way, say, Manos: The Hands of Fate is going to be a good movie). I wanted to LOVE this movie. I was cautiously optimistic when I went to go see it. So the accusations that I just wanted something to hate are unfounded.

Secondly, I did not say that I hated this movie. I said I had mixed feelings. Sometimes, it is very, very good and entertaining. Other times, it’s jaw-droppingly bad. It never elevates itself to good movie status, but neither does it sink into the mire of a bad movie.

As The Game has said, I should not have to go to outside materials in order to understand the movie. The movie should be ideally self-contained or at least contained within a series if the former is not possible. This is especially true of this movie, considering it was billed as being an introduction to Star Trek for non-Trekker audiences. If the writers need to wallpaper over the plot holes in the script through a comic book, then they simply have not done their job. The script is sloppy and should’ve been rewritten, plain and simple.

Many people have said that, since the viewer is not specifically shown Romulus being evacuated, said viewer should just assume that there was an evacuation. There are two problems with this: first, it posits an action for which there is absolutely no evidence. True, there isn’t any evidence that there wasn’t a partial evacuation, but this is definitely a case where positive confirmation is required. If I said I had a magical dragon that couldn’t be touched, sensed, or interacted with in any way, yet still insisted it was there, wouldn’t a rational person demand some kind of evidence? So it is with this: we are not given any indication that Romulus is being evacuated. There’s no mention of it, even as a passing comment, or even a visual cue such as ships racing away from the planet as it’s being destroyed. We are not shown NOR told NOR even implied that there has been an evacuation. If I have to make things up completely without evidence to cover up the plot holes, then the script is poor.

The second problem with this is that it dramatically undercuts Nero’s already dubious motivation. If an evacuation was performed, then why wasn’t his wife saved? Was it only a partial evacuation? If so, then how does he know his wife wasn’t on one of the evacuation transports? Assuming there was an evacuation leads to a sudden ballooning of unanswered questions that are critical if we are to accept Nero as a villain. Nero not knowing about the evacuation gives even bigger problems; how would Romulus be able to keep such a thing secret, even assuming they wanted to? Even if they did, why would HE then assume that there was no evacuation and his wife is dead? After all, if we, the audience, are to assume that an evacuation would be held, why is it unreasonable to think that one of the principle characters does as well? His motivation is reduced from blind rage at the death of a loved-one to being cheesed off that one of the planets in the Romulan Empire (albeit, the capital) is gone. But M-class worlds (even very fertile ones!) are very common in Star Trek, so the loss of Romulus is an economic disaster and pride hit, but no worse than, say, what happened in New Orleans. Troubling, embarrassing, and expensive to be sure, but hardly worth going to the lengths to which Nero goes.

Others have mentioned that this is an action movie and that Star Trek has always had problems with it’s dialog and contrived plots. First, Star Trek is not an action franchise. It has action elements in it, but that is not its reason for being. If they wanted one, they should’ve just made an entirely new franchise. Secondly… so what? Just because there has always been shit in the franchise, I should just accept it? No, I refuse to do that. The minute you do, the very moment you are willing to settle for shit and throw up your hands saying ‘It’s shit, but I’ll take it anyway!’, that’s when you will get nothing but shit. Because shit is much easier and less expensive to make than something of quality, so there is absolutely no reason if the makers can get away with making shit to create anything else. See: Enterprise, the series.

Now for some specific bits and pieces:
“…the nokia placement at least was in an antique, second, even in a post-scarcity economy, research would still be conducted in specialized institutions.”

I am willing to grant this. But that still doesn’t explain why Nokia, a corporation, would still exist. You’d expect it to be something like ‘Earth Institute of Communication Science’ or something. But that’s a bit of a nitpick and I’m willing to concede the point. It doesn’t make it any less annoying, though.

“…the intellectual property behind the resequencing patterns could still be highly proprietary…”

For what reason would intellectual property even exist if there is no scarcity? The whole point of intellectual property is to encourage the publication of scientific, inventive, and artistic endeavors by granting a limited monopoly on those same things. But this monopoly is there to enforce artificial scarcity in something which, under normal circumstances, is not scarce, so it completely defeats the purpose of a post-scarcity economy.

Star Trek economics is one of the weakest and silliest bits of the entire franchise.

“…not to mention the frequent nods to the fact that replicators/food-slots are not quite right when it comes to certain beverages and foods.”

Hmm, this is a good point, actually. There may, indeed, be value in branding. It doesn’t make the product placement any less annoying, but I will concede that it can be made to fit within the confines of the story universe.

“Apparently the script writing for this movie was interrupted by the writer’s strike.”

This is interesting and explains the weak plotting. It doesn’t, as you say, excuse it, however. But it is an explanation.

“You missed the worst clunker though. Bones utters the line “Damn it I’m a doctor not a physicist”, in a situation where no one is asking him to be a physicist. It’s completely out of place, and he spits it out like it’s his only line in the whole movie and he’s waited weeks for the chance to say it.”

This is very much true. I kinda ignored it when it appeared on screen, though… I guess my inner fanboy was just laughing at the reference to really get how strange, klunky, and out-of-place it was. Good call!

Re: Cut Scene: “After being rammed by the Kelvin, Nero’s ship was crippled; a convoy of Klingon Warbirds captured the crew and held them in a prison camp for all those years.”

Mmm, interesting. They really should’ve kept this scene in. I just thought that the mention of the loss of the Klingon fleet was just a way to say, ‘Nero and the Red Dwarf from the future are bad-ass! Look what they did to the Klingons!’ But it definitely would’ve added if the audience was informed of this little point.

“If they took the time to explain half the crap you complained about, it would have been one of those dull and boring Star Trek movies.”

That is why the writers are paid the big bucks in Hollywood. I’m not saying it would be easy, but it’s their damn job to write a good story that isn’t boring. I am not going to settle for a shit sandwich just because making a BLT is harder.

“I don’t remember all the details, but communication WAS an issue in the film that was touched upon. i.e. ”

Communication was an issue, yes, but the mining platform was deployed RIGHT AT SAN-FRANCISCO. It was within naked eyesight of Starfleet Academy. You mean to tell me that there wasn’t a single phaser or shuttlecraft left on the entire campus? None of the teachers, staff, or dignitaries there knew that this alien thing which was scrambling communications might not belong?

The funny thing is if they had the drill deploy almost anywhere else on earth, it would’ve been fine. There’s no reason for anyone besides Starfleet to have weapons capable of taking that thing, nor the training to realize what’s going on and how to respond (and with communications out, no way to tell anyone else). But the movie makers decided to deploy it in the ONE place which does not make sense.