If one takes the glowing reviews of J.J. Abram’s Star Trek as a representative sample of the populace, most people love this movie. I am not most people.
That is not to say that I despise this movie, either. It is, however, a deeply flawed film. This movie is like skipping a rock across a lake; it neither sinks totally, but nor does it ever manage to completely fly.
As is stated in the title of this review, there will be spoilers. Probably lots of them. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, it is highly recommended that you stop reading now. Seriously, this is your last chance not to be spoiled. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
First, the good. I really liked the production design. It does a good job of mixing retro-futuristic with the functional and with a Star Trek feel. Even if Engineering did look like a sub-basement (where’s Captain Santa Claus and First Officer Sting?), and the bridge looks like an iPod exploded, it still works and works well. It feels modern, different, yet still very Star Trek.
The special effects were also awesome. Everything fit nicely and combined well, with little obvious CGI detectable. The battles were dynamic and interesting and did an excellent job of making one think that these things were firing weapons of incredible destructive power. Also, seeing the jingoistic ‘hoo-haa, lets go kick some Romulan ass’ redshirt get vaporized by the mining platform made me laugh.
I can happily say that Star Trek wasn’t boring. A chronic problem with the Star Trek franchise, thankfully this movie does not commit the sin of being just damned dull. It hits the ground running and there is always something that keeps viewer interest. Kudos to the film makers for this. Few things are worse than a boring movie.
The actors also did a fantastic job (with one possible exception that I’ll get to later). Of particular note is Bruce Greenwood as Captain (later Admiral) Pike and Simon Pegg as Scotty. These two are particularly awesome in an already awesome cast. I do wish that more was done with Scotty (he only appears in the last third of the movie and even then is mostly comic relief), but what there was of the character was great.
Now we come to the bad. And, unfortunately, what is bad in this movie is the one thing that should’ve been the best: the script. It is the very definition of contrived with huge, glaring plot holes large enough to fly a spaceship through and terrible, asinine dialog. The entire narrative is a god-awful mess, plain and simple.
First up is the main villain, Nero. He’s a Romulan captain of a mining ship who has just seen his homeworld destroyed after Spock tried to save it from its star going nova by using a substance called Red Matter to create a black hole that will… um… suck up the badness, I guess. It works (kinda), but Spock doesn’t get there in time to save Romulus and the artificial black hole transports Nero and Spock into the past (though at different points in space and time). The problem is that Nero is not a character. He (and his crew) are merely walking plot conveniences.
Why does he want to destroy all the worlds in the Federation? Because it’s convenient to the script. Why does he blame Spock for the destruction of his homeworld? Because it’s convenient to the script. Why doesn’t he warn Romulus of the impending disaster that will occur in 129 years? Because it’s convenient to the script. Why doesn’t he just give the Romulans the advanced technology of his mining ship from the future? Because it’s convenient to the script. Why does he wait 25 years with his thumb up his green ass for Spock to arrive? Because it’s convenient to the script. Why does he maroon Old Spock on the ice planet near Vulcan, rather than keep him with him so he can savor Spock’s helplessness? Because it’s convenient to the script. Why doesn’t his crew rebel against the obviously stupid and self-destructive antics of Nero? Because it’s convenient to the script. Why does he blast the holy hell out of all the other Federation ships, but leaves the Enterprise intact? It’s not because he needs Pike for the command codes that will allow him to approach Earth; any of the other Captains would do (they even explicitly say this in the movie!). If he just wanted Young Spock to witness the destruction of Vulcan, he could’ve demanded that Young Spock also come with Pike and blow the hell out of Enterprise after wards. No, he spares the Enterprise because it’s convenient to the script. Nero does some thing and not other things because the script demands it.
Nero’s motivation makes no sense. Okay, I get that he’s grieving and deranged after seeing the destruction of his homeworld, but he decides to take it out on… the only people who tried to help Romulus? Wha…? Why isn’t he pissed off at the Klingons who didn’t even TRY to help (and probably made cruel jokes about the destruction at the Romulan people’s expense)? Or the Cardassians? Or any of the numerous other empires who did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING as Romulus burned? Somehow, the UPF is more deserving of death because they actually tried to save his people? Furthermore, how does destroying Vulcan (and all the other UPF worlds) in the past help him? THIS Federation has no clue why he’s fucking up their worlds, so his revenge is completely wasted. Vulcan and Earth MIGHT be excusable since he blames Spock expressly and Spock has feet in both worlds… but why the rest of the Federation? And if he wanted to do that, why didn’t he just take his Future Tech to Romulus and have a huge technologically superior force just conquer the damn Federation and probably the rest of the Alpha Quadrant as well? He could’ve still gotten revenge on Spock that way, too.
Speaking of the disaster that caused all these problems in the first place, how the hell would Spock’s plan save Romulus anyway? We are told that the SUN WAS GOING NOVA. Even if the Black Plot Hole managed to stop that, Romulus would still be orbiting a dead star and would die anyway.
As an aside, I didn’t have any real problems with the Red Matter itself. The substance is pretty typical Star Trekian Magitek Particle of the Week, so that is easily forgivable within the context of the universe. I do think that the writers missed an opportunity here by not having the black hole generated by the same technology the Romulans use to power their warp drives. This would’ve prevented the use of a poor (if Trek-standard) plot device, thrown another continuity bone to the fanboys to squeal delightedly over, and explained another glaring plot hole in that how Nero was able to know when and where Old Spock would reappear in the past (being Romulan, his engineer should know how these things work and could give a proper estimate). It should be noted that neither Spock nor Nero actually reappear in the past around Romulus due to both the conspicuous lack of Romulans and the fact that Old Man Kirk’s ship is right there when Nero’s ship appears (being a Federation ship, he wouldn’t be anywhere near Romulus).
Another problem with the whole disaster in the first place is that there was no evacuation of Romulus. Why the fuck wasn’t even a partial evacuation done? There was enough time for Starfleet to identify the problem, Spock to get approval from the UFP senate for a diplomatic mission to Romulus, go there, negotiate with the Romulan Senate, get the Senate to approve aid from the UFP, have Spock travel back to Starfleet, refit their ‘fastest ship’ with the magic Red Matter, then fly back to Romulus. And no one, not the Romulan government, not Starfleet, no one thought to try and get as many people off the planet as possible just in case this last ditch effort failed? Even if Spock was already on Romulus directing the Reunification Movement, he still would’ve needed to contact the UFP senate, arrange for the ship to be refit, and then go and get it (we are shown that Ambassador Spock is there during the refit). That’s a huge chunk of time that could be used to evacuate.
I couldn’t understand why Earth itself was completely defenseless, even lacking shuttles or fighters that could at least have tried to blast the mining platform. They pay lip-service to this in the movie: the reason Nero wanted Pike was because he knew command codes to basically make Earth open for attack. Of course, it’s really poor planning on Starfleet’s point that there isn’t a manual override, but… you have the entirety of Starfleet Academy gawking at it instead of jumping into a shuttle or hell, even whipping out a phaser and taking potshots at it.
Another problem with the script is the use of contrivances to fuel lame jokes. One example is when Kirk meets Doctor McCoy for the first time. McCoy is joining Starfleet because he has no where to go due to the fact that his ex-wife just divorced him and taken everything “except his bones”. Um, okay, but… why had Bones’ ex-wife taken everything? This is the Enlightened Crystal Palace Socialist Utopian Future! There is no want or hunger or need! How could she take his property if he has none? And even if he does have some that she acquired, why would it matter? Big Brother UFP is there to provide all the resources you could ever want or need. Of course we know the reason: so that his nickname would come up and we’d get a joke about the origin.
Speaking of property, the Product Placement in the movie annoyed me. This is the Enlightened Crystal Palace Socialist Utopian Future. You know, the one without money. Why are there corporations if there is no profit motive? What purpose do they serve? They don’t belong in a narrative like this, but are there because the respective companies ponied up the dough. It’s very jarring to the narrative.
But back to contrivances for the sake of lame humor. At one point, Kirk is marooned on an ice world in the same system as Vulcan (which has just been destroyed by Nero using a mining device to dig into the core of the planet and then the Red Matter to make a black hole at the center) and meets Old Spock who has also been marooned there. There is a Starfleet monitoring base nearby that they travel to and meet Scotty. So… why doesn’t this Starfleet monitoring outpost IN THE SAME SYSTEM AS VULCAN not notice the planet’s destruction? The planet was VISIBLE FROM THE SURFACE, but somehow the monitoring outpost missed this? They didn’t notice the sudden change in gravitation as a FUCKING BLACK HOLE replaced the planet? They didn’t pick up on the desperate distress call that was sent by the Vulcan High Command? Or notice when all communications suddenly were cut off by Jet-Engine-Drill-And-Scrambler-Device? Of course we know the reason for this: it’s the setup for the lame comic relief moment of Scotty thinking Kirk and Old Spock are his replacements.
This is really lazy scriptwriting.
Another problem is the dialog. Dialog ranges from okay to Ed Wood Jr. levels of tin-eared garbage. Of particular awfulness is one scene were Vulcan delinquents are bullying Spock.
Child Spock: “I presume you have a new supply of names to taunt me with today?”
Lead Vulcan Bully: “Affirmative.”
Ugh. You can’t have thugs also be intellectuals. It just doesn’t work. It’s like having Joe Don Baker be a likable cop. It just can’t be done.
There are also numerous things with the movie that are really just nitpicks or personal irritants. One such thing, for me, is the direction of the action scenes. The other parts were fine, but as soon as an action scene started, it felt like the director was swapped with Michael Bay. Or a 13 year old who had his Ritalin replaced with sugar pills. Which is pretty much the same thing, really. SHAKY CAM IS SHAKY! And vomit inducing. Some people like this type of direction and, really, you should expect it since Abrams also produced Cloverfield, a movie which was entirely Shaky Cam. But I still can’t stand that type of camera work.
I also thought it was incongruous that a mining ship would be so heavily armed. Okay, it’s from 129 years in the future and has superior technology, but Nero’s ship is a friggin’ battle station, not a mining ship! And the interior is continuously flooded with sluice water. It’s like the Romulan designer said to himself, “Hmm… which would be more important in a mining ship that is never expected to see combat ever, 120 banks of photon torpedoes or a sump-pump to keep water away from the sensitive mining equipment? Hmmm… PHOTON TORPEDOES!” Others have said that this design philosophy is entirely consistent with Romulan paranoia, but I personally just found it odd. Sure, throw a few weapons onto the thing just in case, but arm it to the teeth? What?
Finally, we come to James T. Kirk. I’m not sure if it’s the fault of the writers, the director, the actor, or some combination thereof, but I did not like Kirk. Why? Because he’s an asshole. To be sure, Kirk (especially Young Kirk) is going to be a bit of a self-absorbed jerk, but they just go too far in that direction here. He’s not just smarmy and self-confident to the point of arrogance, he’s such a completely detestable sleazy bastard on every level that he’s absolutely unlikable.
Despite these glaring flaws, there is really only one question one must answer about a movie: is it entertaining? The answer for Star Trek is… sometimes. Sometimes everything absolutely does click and it’s very much entertaining. Other times, it is just so jaw-droppingly bad that one will feel like strangling the script team. Overall, though, I say see it. There is enough points where it is airborne to make seeing it worth it, but don’t expect to be continuously entertained.
I agree with half of what was said here.
Reverend Mike´s last post: on scrubs
I agree with the half that he liked about the movie, but disagreed with the rest. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
I agree with you completely, but as a summer stupid movie it worked. As a good scifi movie it fails miserably. As a good star trek movie it falls behind most of the even numbered movie. All the considences listed make the story very see through.
Vulcan was blown up to provide an (oh no he didn’t) moment but made no sense for Nero to perform. Romulas has many many colonies and would have evacuated its citizens to any of these. In cannon star trek, other races have had to do this before.
But as you said, any decent romulan would have at least sent a small scouting ship to romulus to warn them of the impeding disaster. They also would have given them the technology they needed to gain the upperhand against the federation. This movie shoudl have been about the romulans starting a war with the federation. Instead this movie was like a star wars lite. I’m so surprised no one has made that comparison.
You’re trying way too hard not to like the film.
@michael
Instead this movie was like a star wars lite. I’m so surprised no one has made that comparison.
You mean like here?
http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1910892
The comparison has been made a few times. Not to say I agree that it’s necessarily a bad thing, though.
Graham´s last post: 32 hours of D&D gaming party!
Also, currently working through the main article, but I have a question.
Since when was a contrived plot with asinine dialog NOT a hallmark of Trek and Trek movies?
Seriously, have you seen the shows? They solved most problems with technobabble, fought windsocks, and traveled through time to rescue whales!
Graham´s last post: 32 hours of D&D gaming party!
Is this the mysterious and long-awaited return of Darth Cthulhu to Critical Hits?!?! Josh (Darth Cthulhu), if you’re reading this, get in contact with me!
I think it’s safe to say there were some evacuations, on Romulus as well as on Vulcan. You don’t need it all to be spelled out for you, do you?
Apparently the script writing for this movie was interrupted by the writer’s strike. (IIRC, JJ and both his writers were involved with Lost, so were on strike right in the middle of preproduction for this film.) Not that it excuses these plot holes or anything, just that if they had spent those 6 months (or whatever) iterating over the script, it likely would have been much better.
As things stand, the fact that I noticed some of these issues but still enjoyed the film immensely says a lot. I went there looking for a good Star Trek movie, and what I got was better than anything I anticipated as possible.
I chalked a lot of the inconsistencies with Nero and his crew up to Romulans being romantic, emotional, crazy bastards. That said, it did bother me that the story was told as if the sun had quickly gone supernova with little warning which I found unbelievable especially in the Star Trek universe. None of it ruined the movie for me, but I have to agree there were quite a few undeniable science and plot fails in the movie.
United Federation of Planets. UFP. UFP. UFP.
Not UPF.
(On the other hand, it’s nice to know I’m not the only one that had problems with the film.)
90% of the “plot holes” you are mentioning are actually not plot holes at all.
Consider reading the Star Trek Countdown prequel comics. If you have some irrational fear of comics, then by all means read the plot synopsis:
http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Countdown,_Number_One
If you read the comics you will learn why Nero is so pissed at Spock and the Federation. You will learn that the “supernova” was not Romulus’ star but a nearby event. (And yes, Supernova get that large. There was a supernova that is suspected to be 13 galaxy-widths across.) You will learn what the Federation’s role was in the destruction of Romulus and why Nero is super pissed at everyone. Basically, the answers are available to you. If you choose to ignore them, that’s fine. If you don’t like the movie, that’s fine. Just say “I didn’t like this film. The writing style was not for me.”
But besides that, you also show an amazing lack of knowledge about basic physics and black holes. Did you know that if you took the entire mass of the Earth and compressed it down to a radius of about 8mm it would be a black hole? BUT, being a black hole doesn’t give it some sort of magical ability to SUCK IN THE ENTIRE SOLAR SYSTEM. It still has the exact same mass as it did before, and gravitational attraction is based on the mass of 2 objects and their distance apart. Now, without getting into a speculative discussion about the properties of red matter, it is not only plausible BUT HIGHLY PROBABLE that a nearby class M planet which had previously never been sucked into Vulcan previously would still be JUST FINE despite Vulcan’s implosion.
Since somewhere around 95% of people that watched the movie didn’t need to read the comics and were okay with the script, you must be one of those individuals that just CANNOT IMAGINE that the writers actually had all this figured out. So, I am sure that even when provided with explanations for your “plot holes” you will still hate the movie.
That’s totally fine though. We don’t have to like the same things.
Easy there, Finster. I’m sure like many who had problems with it he didn’t expect to have to read a comic book tie-in to have it click (and I’ve talked to plenty who feel the same as DarthCthulhu about the plot). Surely you must agree that the movie would be better served standing on its own, no?
I also think the point about black holes and Vulcan is off the mark. I don’t see where he says that other planets would be sucked into Vulcan, he’s pointing out that Scotty really should have known something was going on (especially since there have already been a number of Starfleet vessels that warped into the system) instead of being completely ignorant of Vulcan being destroyed.
I agree that we don’t have to all like the same things. My earlier review was much more positive, and I’ve now seen it twice and gotten caught up both times. But I do think there’s always room for contrasting opinions such as this one, and assuming that he’s going to hate it no matter what or is looking for things to hate is unfair.
I agree with the weakness of the villains, but it didn’t bother me overmuch.
As for some of your other quibbles with the depiction of the setting, I think you’re reaching a bit.
The product placement was annoying, but not precluded by the possibility of a future utopia – first, the nokia placement at least was in an antique, second, even in a post-scarcity economy, research would still be conducted in specialized institutions. As for the beer placement, in a replicator/food-slot society, the intellectual property behind the resequencing patterns could still be highly proprietary, 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. Consequently, food brands make economic sense.
As for the divorce, the fact that a man has no house to lose doesn’t mean he has nothing to lose in a divorce. Children, friends, social circles, not to mention the above-referenced intellectual property… Being left with only one’s bones after a divorce is just as possible in a post-scarcity society as it is today.
I couldn’t agree with you more if I said it myself. I found it was a great movie as long as I didn’t think about it. Once higher brain functioning set in, I found this movie distasteful.
You pointed out some plot holes I missed, too, and now I find the movie even sillier than before.
@TheGame
To be fair, Scotty was probably blind stinking drunk.
Graham´s last post: 32 hours of D&D gaming party!
Huh. I liked it when I saw it, but you’re right, there were some pretty silly parts.
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.
“the script. It is the very definition of contrived with huge, glaring plot holes large enough to fly a spaceship through and terrible, asinine dialog.”
Pretty common for a summer blockbuster. I do think you reached a bit on many of them… especially the dialog which I thought was pretty good.
“The problem is that Nero is not a character. He (and his crew) are merely walking plot conveniences.”
I agree that Nero was a weak villain. However, I think the purpose of the movie was to present a new alternate timeline or “reboot” for the franchise and to have an interesting crew – which it did very well, in my opinion. The movie was already over two hours and you have to re-introduce an entire crew of people… I’m okay that they skimped on the villain in exchange for explaining how this alternate reality takes place.
“Why… blahblahblah? Because it’s convenient to the script.”
This can be nitpicked to death in just about every movie with special effects… especially fan favorites like Star Wars and even Dune. I’m surprised you didn’t include, “Why do they all have shaved heads, menacing tattoos and sweat pouring from their brows?”
“Nero’s motivation makes no sense.”
*shrug* Made sense to me. While watching the movie, I didn’t question it for one second. If I sat in bitterness afterwards and thought about it, yea, I guess its a bit of a letdown… but I still enjoyed it 🙂 And if I watched it again, I’d enjoy it again.
“He could’ve still gotten revenge on Spock that way, too.”
An eye for an eye… one destroyed planet deserves another. I hardly think giving the Romuluns an advanced mining ship would satisfy his hunger for revenge. If that happened, you’d be complaining about that too and how horrible it makes for a movie… and he should have blown up their homeworld or something.
“Speaking of the disaster that caused all these problems in the first place, how the hell would Spock’s plan save Romulus anyway? We are told that the SUN WAS GOING NOVA. Even if the Black Plot Hole managed to stop that, Romulus would still be orbiting a dead star and would die anyway.”
Astronomy100. No one said “the Sun”, they said, “a star”. Maybe it is a binary system… maybe it is a star not even in the same system, but a nearby one. Who knows, but again, who cares?
If you are going to nitpick on the science, then you failed to mention how objects and things approaching a blackhole seem to “slow down” to outside observers until they reach the event horizon where they actually seem to stop in time to outside observers who see the final image for all eternity at the event horizon.
“Another problem with the whole disaster in the first place is that there was no evacuation of Romulus. Why the fuck wasn’t even a partial evacuation done?”
How do you know this? I’m sure an evacuation was done. I don’t think every single Romulun is now dead because they all stayed on the homeworld. They didn’t come out and say an evacuation took place, but they didn’t say one didn’t either. The point is that the planet was blown up and lots of people died.
“I couldn’t understand why Earth itself was completely defenseless, even lacking shuttles or fighters that could at least have tried to blast the mining platform.”
I don’t remember all the details, but communication WAS an issue in the film that was touched upon. i.e. When all the ships were coming out of warp, they were being destroyed and no one knew about it. Why? Because something to do with the mining was blocking communications. This is why they couldn’t beam, why they couldn’t communicate with Starfleet, etc. The plan was to “meet up” somewhere to regroup, but Kirk went against this plan and formulated his own plan which was to go after Nero directly. I forget the details, but again, not everyone was “in the know”. Again, I didn’t question it for a second while watching it.
“This is the Enlightened Crystal Palace Socialist Utopian Future! There is no want or hunger or need! How could she take his property if he has none?”
Dude, you are just really reaching there… to the point of comical.
“At one point, Kirk is marooned on an ice world in the same system as Vulcan (which has just been destroyed by Nero using a mining device to dig into the core of the planet and then the Red Matter to make a black hole at the center) and meets Old Spock who has also been marooned there”
Now THIS, I totally agree with. This seemed way too forced to me. I mean, this is less than lottery chance in hell odds. This was very forced and contrived and it is one of the rare moments in the movie where I turned to my friend and said, “yeah right… are you serious?”
“This is really lazy scriptwriting.”
Totally agree with this statement with regards to the ice planet and monitoring system stuff.
“Ugh. You can’t have thugs also be intellectuals. It just doesn’t work. It’s like having Joe Don Baker be a likable cop. It just can’t be done.”
I think you totally missed the point. To me, it seemed like the kids picking on him was part of his ongoing “test” since he was partially human. Which path would he chose? To allow emotional responses or not? The kids were all older and I saw them as part of the process of Spock’s testing.
“There are also numerous things with the movie that are really just nitpicks or personal irritants. One such thing, for me, is the direction of the action scenes. The other parts were fine, but as soon as an action scene started, it felt like the director was swapped with Michael Bay. Or a 13 year old who had his Ritalin replaced with sugar pills. Which is pretty much the same thing, really. SHAKY CAM IS SHAKY!”
Count me in as one of the guys that loves the shaky cam. It’s awesome. Every time I’ve seen a movie that uses it, I’ve liked it: Bourne, Cloverfield, Star Trek, etc. *shrug* Unto each their own.
“I also thought it was incongruous that a mining ship would be so heavily armed. Okay, it’s from 129 years in the future and has superior technology, but Nero’s ship is a friggin’ battle station, not a mining ship!”
Again, you are reaching. Only THREE technologies about the ship were mentioned and/or used and all of them are mining-related. Those were NOT normal torpedos… they were some sort of scattering explosive devices. I presumed they were used for blowing up/clearing asteroid fields, small moons, etc. There was the drill itself which made perfect sense and they had shields which ALL ships have.
If you don’t like the movie… just say that, but you obviously tried not to like it with statements like this.
“Finally, we come to James T. Kirk. I’m not sure if it’s the fault of the writers, the director, the actor, or some combination thereof, but I did not like Kirk.”
I 100% disagree. I think the “new Kirk” is perfect and fits well. He is a rebel. He doesn’t always follow Starfleet protocol. He sleeps around. He is cocky.. he doesn’t listen to Spock’s statistics, he is lucky, etc. If you take the “old Kirk” and remove 30-40 years from his life when he is in his early 20s, I’ll bet he is EXACTLY like the Kirk in the movie.
I hate to burst your bubble, man… but with your opening statement, you already answered the question as to why the movie was made the way it was:
“I can happily say that Star Trek wasn’t boring. A chronic problem with the Star Trek franchise, thankfully this movie does not commit the sin of being just damned dull. It hits the ground running and there is always something that keeps viewer interest. Kudos to the film makers for this. Few things are worse than a boring movie.”
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. This is an action film. It has GREAT characters. They successfully rebooted the franchise and used a timespace thingy to explain it and they did an awesome job, imo.
@Tonester:
Everything you said is pretty much what I was thinking.
I do want to make one statement about the “OMG KIRK AND FUTURE SPOCK ON THE SAME PLANET! IMPOSSIBLE!”
This planet is obviously very close to Vulcan. Close enough, that it was the first place Spock dropped off Kirk before LEAVING Vulcan to head back to the fleet. Why is it such a stretch to think that the FIRST PLACE Nero would think of dropping off Future Spock before leaving for Earth would be the same planet?
Seriously, I’m all for people having their own opinions, but every single article I’ve seen bashing Trek (this one, comicbookmovie.com, wired.com) is a poorly written, irrational bitchfest that ignores what they want to ignore simply because they’ve decided the cool thing is to hate Star Trek. I’ve seen the same behavior with many other popular franchises. Gotta hate just to hate, apparently.
Finster´s last post: Defeating the DiggBar…
Some good points, some forced points, a number of “You remember this is a Trek movie, right?” points… but there are three things I do want to address.
1) the evacuation of Romulus
Nothing is said about it, and nobody in the movie actually witnessed what happened after the star went nova. Perhaps everyone survived. We don’t know, because nobody in the movie knew either.
2) the Utopian Society comments
That’s more a TNG thing, really. TOS never really did anything for that. But also, perhaps it isn’t utopian any more. Perhaps whoever was supposed to cause it to be utopia was supposed to happen after Kirk was born. Remember that everything since that day happened differently than it otherwise would have.
Perhaps it was George Kirk who helped usher in the utopian society. Who knows?
Suffice it to say, this isn’t old Trek, and the same assumptions can not apply.
3) Earth was defenseless
Remember the reason they sent the cadets to Vulcan in the first place? I don’t. But it had something to do with the other ships being away, probably fighting the Klingons or something.
In any case, this was addressed in the movie.
.
Oh, and re: Kirk, I’m with Tonester. I also loved that the “Kirk in his chair looking cocky” screenshot that had been floating around in promo material was immediately followed by Spock’s “Get out of the chair.”
.
This movie is like skipping a rock across a lake; it neither sinks totally, but nor does it ever manage to completely fly.
True. But it’s a damned fun way to spend a couple of hours on a sunday.
Graham´s last post: 32 hours of D&D gaming party!
@Finster
The illogic is more to why Nero would “drop off” Spock in the first place, rather than keeping him prisoner or killing him.
Graham´s last post: 32 hours of D&D gaming party!
I read something on http://darthmojo.wordpress.com/2009/05/14/trek-scribes-speak-complaints-addressed/#more-1201
and it explains the 25 years of waiting. Apparently it was cut out of the movie:
After the incident with the USS Kelvin, did Nero and his crew really just hang around the black hole for 25 years, playing Fizbin and waiting for Spock to emerge? Couldn’t they have used that time to, say, help Romulus avert eventual disaster? Turns out a major cut scene explains what happened during that time frame. 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. Eventually the Romulans escaped, reclaimed their ship, blew up 47 Klingon vessels and returned to their mission (some of this is discussed in dialog which remains in the film). The good news is that these scenes were completed and there is hope they may surface on the DVD.
I would have given this review a lot more consideration were it not an emotional and sometimes profane rant.
@Finster:
“a poorly written, irrational bitchfest that ignores what they want to ignore simply because they’ve decided the cool thing is to hate Star Trek. I’ve seen the same behavior with many other popular franchises. Gotta hate just to hate, apparently.”
Typically this kind of argument is reserved for something that the majority is doing, and people simply jump on to be a part of it. It isn’t ‘cool’ to hate this movie, but it is against the majority. As I said before I actually noticed and agree with some of the points brought up in this review, but for me none of them got anywhere close to ruining the movie for me. For example, no one here has argued against the point that Nero is a very under-developed character and it sounds like some of the key scenes involving him were cut from the final film. If you’re the kind of person that really likes developed villains, then I imagine this movie would fall flat for you also.
For me, this post has some very valid points but also many of the comments here have equally valid points. I for one wondered why Nero’s ship had the weapons it had, but just assumed they weren’t all that deadly for a future ship to have. I hadn’t considered they might be useful for a mining vessel until now.
@Graham
I can appreciate wondering why Nero dropped off Spock, but arguments like that usually come down to “Well, the writers SHOULD HAVE done this that and the other thing.”
Seems silly to dislike a character’s action because they didn’t do what you would’ve done, or what you think they should’ve done. ‘sall I’m sayin’.
Finster´s last post: Defeating the DiggBar…
Andy Looney’s similar review:
http://www.wunderland.com/WTS/Andy/Leftovers/StarTrekSucked.html
As expected, this kicked up some controversy.
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.
I thought it was pretty good. Yeah, the plot had giant swiss cheese holes, but I don’t expect summer movies to be written that well. 🙂 Graham put it perfectly. It’s Star Trek. You gotta have your expectations at a certain level. 🙂
Geek’s Dream Girl´s last post: The Crew of Star Trek: Hot Geeks, Every One
I thought the notion that there 10,000 Vulcans left post disaster seemed somewhat insane, but more avid Trek people can tell me if the Alderanians (sorry Vulcans) are really such home bodies.
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.
The problem with your review is that you mistake what is the plot of the movie and spend all your time focusing on it. Nero and his psychotic revenge is not the plot of ST. It is an origin story. The plot of Star Trek is how the various crew members came to be the crew members of the USS Enterprise serving under the command of Captain Kirk. Nero is irrelevant, a device to service the actual plot of the film. Focusing on Nero is like reviewing Quantum of Solace in regards to whether or not the cars used in the chase sequences performed exactly as they would have in real life. Yes, he’s not a very interesting villain. But the story isn’t about the villain in the way, say “Wrath of Khan” was. You don’t want your villain upstaging the characters of the crew, this is their story.
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. 🙂
@Thasmodious: I’m very interested by your point that Nero and everything he does is not the main plot of the movie, but I do have to disagree when you listed X-Men with the other movies in there. The first X-Men movie really wasn’t about the team getting together, the team had already been formed and Prof. X already had the Institute set up and big jet and all of that. The movie starts with Magneto’s childhood, after all, and he is a developed villain as you acknowledge in your comment but you ALSO hand-waved it because Magneto is an established villain to the franchise.
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! 🙂
You forgot about the fact that Spock, with his own hands, programmed in the calculations to slingshot and go back in time to save Earth, but wouldn’t do it for his home planet, despite remembering Scotty’s transwarp transporter calculations.
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 agree with some of the problems, like why wasn’t there an evacuation or why was the mining ship so heavily armed. Nero was just deranged though, they show it in the script. He’s not a rational creature. Even his crew seems to doubt him when he orders fire on Spock’s ship that has all the red matter. Also I didn’t see anything in that movie to indicate that the world was a socialist utopia. Maybe it’s in other Star Trek stuff (never watched much of it) but the movie painted quite an opposite picture.
@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
@Nicholas: Doesn’t matter. Old Spock is from a future where he knew how to slingshot around any given star or even potentially a planetary object to go back in time. If he does it to save the whales (and Earth) why not do it to save Vulcan?
My biggest issue with Nero was that it was a rehash of the villain from Nemesis (Romulan who wants to destroy Earth with a big scary ship). Bad sign when the franchise reboot resorts to recycling bad guys.
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
Just thought I’d point out something people seem to have missed. Some people were asking “why didn’t Nero just take the opportunity to save Romulus”? Well according to Nero himself, he did plan to do that. But he wanted also to take the opportunity to prevent the Federation from bothering Romulus ever again. So his plan was 1) get revenge on Spock, 2) attack the Federation with his future technology, and 3) rescue Romulus.
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 agree with just about evreything you posted. I found those exact problems also. I’ve watched the show, movies etc since 1966. I’m no purist, I understand the need to change BUT do it right, not half way.
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
Just wanted to weigh in on the idea of no evacuation. I took a quick moment to read the synopses of the comics (yes I shouldn’t have had to, but it cleared things up), and it’s obvious that it wasn’t the star by Romulus but one nearby. The Romulans thought they had time to evacuate (at least 2 weeks), but that it was a moot point because the whole thing was going to be stopped anyway. So why should they evacuate when nothing is going to happen? The Federation will save them and life will go on. It’s like the people on the Titanic. They had time to use the lifeboats, but didn’t because they were on the unsinkable ship, so how could it sink. In the end, the flare hit their planet before they could leave, much like the Titanic and it sinking before people realized they could die.
I came to the same conclusion as Joe did.
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!
Maybe it’s because I grew up in an old mining town but miners armed to the teeth with weapons that a probably illegal: totally believable and even still realistic now.
It’s called protecting your claim. But then miners are kinda crazy to begin with.
Well you seem to be forgetting that this ISNT canon star trek. Thats established and hammered home several times over. Who knows what empires would have existed then? This film was clearly intended as a platform to build an entirely new canon around.
@Thasmodious
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.
@odoital –
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!
I love Star Trek – always have and always will HOWEVER – This new film is not Star Trek, or at best it is a non – canon film. I have seen it twice and I am still devastated by it. The events that negated so much of Trek Lore or continuity.
Firstly, anyone who loves the series would know that Gene Roddenberry would not have approved of Vulcan being destroyed. Vulcan is the soul of the Star Trek universe. This new timeline (if it is accepted) negates 40 years of continuity.
The attacks on Rick Berman are a joke. He worked with Gene on the development of the TGN and Gene knew of the plans for Deep Space 9. Let alone hours of fantastic television. Who could forget the emotion of ‘The Visitor’.
He led a team that gave us hours of the best Trek. If in doubt watch again Generations and First Contact.
Secondly, this new film has so many links to Star Wars I am surprised that George Lucas hasn’t sued:
Young Kirk / Anakin in car / pod racer.
Bar scenes – New Hope
Snow attacks – Hoth monster / Kirk monster.
Spock / Yoda links
Battle scenes – Return Jedi. etc
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