Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION The Anywhere Machine New Star Trek! (spoilers possible in subsequent posts)

There is a four issue IDW comic countdown miniseries for the movie. I'm just looking through the summary. It's set years after the final Next Gen movie. Looks like Nero's back story is more complicated. It expands on Spock-Prime's flashback sequence filling in all those little details for the Trek heads.


There's lot's of talk that this movie doesn't have the socially progressive messages of the original. I'll just respond via the role of Uhura since the topic of women is up on this thread.

Women in the Original Series were in jobs that the 60s society percieved at 'women's work'. Nurse, Switchboard operator, secretary etc. Those were thought of as jobs too menial for men.

But look at the reinterpretation of the Communications officer's job in this movie and the Enterprise series. Its one of the most important jobs on the whole ship, on par with the science or engineering stations (traditional man jobs). Shades of the Bell Canada Pay Equity Case. It isn't that the work that women are steered toward/prefer is less important, we have just believed it to be and valued it as such.

And I don't necessarily think that the social messages in Star Trek have to be in your face, Pike fired an experienced but less competent man and replaced him with an exceptionally qualified woman. He didn't need to make a ham-fisted soliloquy about pay equity and affirmative action, like the Trek characters have done since Rodenberry.

I quote:
"I am white on my left side and black on my right, that guy is white on his right and black on his left. Can I make my ridiculous racist rants a more obvious critique to the analogous attitudes in my NBC audience. I should call my planet Birminhan in the Al'bama system. I am Wa'llAss Guvner "

Okay I exaggerate but only a tiny bit, the Onion is correct about what Star Trek had become a bunch of Old Liberal Men debating implementation of social policy.

I totally, TOTALLY agree. This Pike is awesome! More, more, more!

Regarding a couple of the points Doublechinner makes:

- Perhaps I chose my words wrong when I referred to the "post-ironic winking" of the young cast members (though I stand by my statement that it's in the movie's tone.) What I was trying to get across is that, IMO, actors under a certain age tend to have a lack of...I don't know, GRAVITAS? Whatever it is, I think Greenwood, Cross, and Nimoy have it in spades while Urban is the only young'un who even comes close.

- This Uhura IS capable, and certainly the importance of her job should not be underestimated, but neither the script nor the actress really made her awesome to me the way she came across to Doub.

Oh, and as for Winona Ryder, I'm sorry, but I found that makeup REALLY distracting, and it also PISSES ME OFF that she took away the role from any number of talented actresses who ARE age-appropriate for the character.

Very good point, Kent. And IMO Rachel Nichols would have made a GREAT Janice Rand, instead of playing a piece of comic-relief cheesecake (though at least she's full-figured, not scary-skinny like the actress playing Uhura.) Then again, perhaps her character could be developed further in subsequent films (as demeaning as the role is in this movie, it's certainly getting her noticed, so maybe it's a blessing in disguise.) Here's hoping the movie does well enough to warrant sequels.

After reading the posts by doublechinner, Kent, and Tamper, I've come to agree that Uhura has a lot more to do in this film than I gave her credit for in my previous post. I don't recall the series or other films establishing Uhura as an expert in alien languages; that was a good touch in this film and was put to good use.

Her back story with Spock also adds so much to both characters.

On Christopher Pike: Technically, he appeared twice before, in "The Cage" and "The Menagerie" (Parts 1 and 2). Even though the latter incorporated footage from the former, it's worth noting that the older, injured Pike was played by a different actor, Sean Kenney, instead of Jeffrey Hunter.

On Nurse Christine: It may be anal-retentive of me, but I feel it necessary to correct Kent's spelling of her last name. It's Chapel.

Hey Stealth! I totally agree with you on the "age-appropriate" actresses! There were scenes with a younger Amanda shot, but not in the film. But, if Ben Cross could be a young Sarek, why not an actress in her 50s being made up to look younger? On the other hand, something about Ryder just GOT me (I've always...um...liked her). There was so much open affection in her brief scene with Spock, something that Jane Wyatt also excelled at, so I liked her scenes, latex and all. I also agree on Pike. I think Bruce Greenwood comes dangerously close to stealing the movie. Good thing he was hostage off-camera for a long time. But, on your gravitas point, I think the fact that the characters are young, inexperienced, a little callow and quite fallible is a plus. As Whoopi Goldberg said on Larry King (I saw the clip online, I do NOT watch Larry King!), it's good to see a young Kirk get his ass kicked a lot. We now have a chance to see the crew earn that gravitas, just as the original series did in its first few episodes as the characters, cast and writing staff gelled into place. I'm excited by that youth, and the imperfection that comes with it. I love the original cast, but Trek's commercial viability didn't occur until they were already quite old. There's nothing wrong with being old, and the best franchise movies made it a feature, not a bug. But, I always regretted that Star Trek ate its young in the 1980s, just as DC has been doing for awhile, using the literal "next generation" as cannon fodder, rather than nurturing new characters to organically take over from the old. That probably wouldn't have been commercially viable, anyway. So, if we have to start the franchise over, best to start with the youngest cast possible so that there are a maximum of years available to use them, and if you have a young cast, you have to make the youth and inexperience a feature, not a bug, as well. I hope the Powers that Be are paying attention to how well-received Pike is, and continue to use him as a mentor and a leader and champion for Kirk and Spock.

BTW, on Uhura, I agree that her character and the actress's performance is more "ordinary" than Nichelle Nichols's was. But Nichols, like so many of her generation, was a remarkable woman doing groundbreaking work at a remarkable time in history. My goodness, no less a person than Martin Luther King (Trek fan!) told Nichelle she couldn't quit the show because her presense was too important to both black and white viewers. Nichelle has that "queen/goddess" thing that so many of her contemporaries had, something I'm convinced they HAD to have to get anywhere in showbusiness at the time--if you were black, you had to be more proper, more regal, more imposing, more eminent than their white colleagues. Call it the Sydney Poitier syndrome, if you will (and, it was a BIG improvement on the previous black archetypes in movies and TV!). Thankfully, Zoe Saldana doesn't have to DO that -- she can just be a smart, self-assured cadet who is also a woman of color.

I do wish they might have been more daring (a la BSG) in making a key character female. Heck, Chris Pike could have been Christine. And Chekov! Wouldn't he be cool as a girl? They could have been a pair of twins. In the "prime" reality, the girl Chekov died. In the new reality, Pavel died, and his twin sister carried on his memory by joining Starfleet! Of course, how would the fans have reacted...

I took my mom to see this last night. (An aside: How cool is that? My mother wanted to see Star Trek on Mother's Day?) We both are long-time Trek fans and we both loved it.

It's a minor point, but I'm glad they've finally found a way to make Uhura's first name, Nyota, canonical. It's been her name in books, comics and in fanon for decades, but it was never used on film or TV till now.

Just a thought: How does the change in Trek continuity affect the other series? One would guess that Enterprise "happened" as it was earlier, but what about TNG, DS9 and Voyager? Is there a ripple effect on the Trek Universe or does the timeline "right" itself in time for Picard, Sisko and the rest?

Or am I overthinking it as usual?

Should be a separate unpredictable continuity as Spock-Prime said. The destruction of that planet was done to prove the point that things can't be the same in the new timeline. He was speaking on behalf of the writers to the old fans. The original timeline isn't affected as Spock disappeared years after the events seen in the last TV series.

I'm interested in seeing if this reboot spawns more stuff. After a couple sequels, will we see comics, novels, or TV etc. based on this new continuity? Will fandom then go into its geeky uber debate over which version of Kirk is real? Will old trek diehards and new trek fans excommunicate each other from their separate conventions? (The final straw will be when the Star Trek:Ultra New Generation Alpha reboots Data as a female snake robot.)

Sad to think that the craptacular "Enterprise" is the only Trek series not automatically affected by the new timeline!

I was thinking the same thing, Rocky.

I was also thinking about the changes wrought by this film to the original series. In the film, Chekov is 17; in the second season of the TV series, he's 22. This means that the entire original crew is assembled approximately five years before it happened in the original timeline (the "prime timeline"?). Who knows how many adventures they will have or how many lives they will save given a five-year head start?

It was never actually stated in the original series, but I always understood it that Kirk assembled his crew gradually over a period of time, perhaps even a couple of years after assuming command of the Enterprise. His best friend and probable first officer was originally Gary Mitchell, as per "Where No Man Has Gone Before"; the Enterprise also had a different chief medical officer and communications officer in that episode. Sulu was present but as an astrophysicist, not helmsman (a position he apparently took over after Mitchell's death). There were also numerous changes in equipment and uniforms between "WNMHGB" and the start of the series.

All of these changes reflected (or at least implied) organic growth for the characters and the series. It would take time for Kirk to find the right officers and to develop the relationships he had with them. His friendship with Spock, for example, didn't seem to begin until after Mitchell's death and was only implied in the final scene of "WNMHGB" (though one could make a case that Kirk and Spock were already friendly, since they were shown playing 3D chess at the beginning of the episode).

The movie, instead, thrusts all of these characters together at the onset. (I won't belabor the changes in costume and technology, which--though necessary for a modern film--make no sense in terms of a revised timeline.) It also makes Kirk captain of the Enterprise some years before he became captain in the prime timeline and deprives him of the experiences he built up by serving as a junior officer on other ships. Experiences significantly affect who we become, yet we're asked to believe that Kirk and company emerged whole cloth out of nothing--as if the universe "destined" them to be together. Frankly, I find that a little too convenient.

Of course, it also thrusts the characters into an entirely new direction--which was the point, all along.

This movie is set in 2258. The series set in 2265, but originally the Enterprise was in service long before 2258 so everything past 2233 (the moment of Kirk's birth in fact) is in flux.

Spock is older than Kirk so it is possible that Pike with his science officer were at the Academy as teachers when Kirk was a cadet in the original timeline. Pike's accident occurred on a cadet training cruise and Spock was Captain of a cadet crew in Wrath of Khan. So they were both interested in teaching in the original timeline.

McCoy and Spock make a big deal of the Kobayshi test in Wrath of Khan. Spock also said he never took the test in his death scene (maybe because he designed it). We might infer Kirk's cheating played out in almost the same way originally, earning the ire of Spock. Thus Spock might have been surprised when Kirk kept him at science when he took command of the Enterprise.

Your logic is sound, Tamper, but I'm still troubled by Chekov's age relative to Kirk's. If Chekov was 22 in a year (2267) in which Kirk was 34, then there is a 12-year age difference. But the movie infers only an eight-year age difference.

I agree that the timeline in flux would change many things from Kirk's birth forward. But I have a little trouble accepting that it would "speed up" the births of people he wouldn't meet for 25 years.

The obvious answer is that Chekov lied about his age in the "prime" line, mainly to appeal to all the hot young go-go dancers of space!

So, that would make him 26 instead of 22. Go-go dancers of space must have very strict age requirements for heartthrobs.

what military takes a cadet who is not even supposed to be there go from cadet to first officer to captain with no experience, my oly gripe. Movie was great and the new timeline is verrrrrrrry cool, very intersting.

I see an oversexed 13 year old Russian genius hacking the earth birth date database to get in to the academy as a '17' year old, all just to see those female cadets in their miniskirt uniforms.

Speaking of those, I was watching the the pilot of TNG recently and it reminded me that they had miniskirt unis in the early NextGen episodes too. But only both male and female extras wore them.

Of course, if Chekov is such a genius, why was he an ensign for at least 11 years?

there is obviously a lot more changed than just the time-manip can account for.

The Federation is suddenly very informed on the Romulans, waaaay before "Balance of Terror" gave them their first face-to-face (but I suppose Nero's presence might have caused an earlier face-to-face). The Enterprise is only now just in service, brand-new. Ages, first meetings, uniforms, references to Cardasians... if one really wants to nitpick, I'm sure one can devise an endless list.

I am prepared to set the nitpick details aside and enjoy it on its own terms. If one can put up with six films with the highest-ranking bridge crew imaginable (all should have their own commands at their ranks in those films), one should be able to suspend disbelief at this crew coming together through some sort of de facto destiny.

It's sorta like Clark Kent and journalistic ethics - you just gotta ignore some of the incongruities.

and we know that time manipulation in very bad, look at the star trek Voyager episodes YEAR IN HELL 1 AND 2, no matter what red foreman did he couldnt make it a better future.

But nitpicking is half the fun of Star Trek.

One of the cadets in the miniskirt was an Admiral's daughter? When he tried to impress her by doing his on-the-fly transporter lock on the Admiral's moving dog trick this was big trouble.

This is the untold 11 year Pavel in Siberia gap.

for Trekkies, perhaps. not trekkers.

Maybe we need similar different terms for Legion fandom, too.... hmmm......

Ah, you demean the fine art of nitpicking by inferring that it is the purvue of "Trekkies"!

Seriously, although I love to analyze such things, they in no way detracted from my enjoyment of the movie, which far exceeded my expectations.

I do like to note details in the storytelling as well as discrepancies. For example, Sulu's mistake about not unlatching the docking clamps or some such was apparently borrowed from the novel Enterprise by Vonda N. McIntyre.

This reminds me of a movie I saw once in which an Army major claimed that he had been denied promotion because he was once caught in bed with the general's daughter. When the general walked in, the major simply looked up and saluted.

I wonder if Pavel saluted the admiral.

speaking of which with the new time line i guess Kirk's brother Sam was never born, or as my friend pointed out if Kirk's mother remarried ie whoever his step-father was who chastised him over the car phone when he took the "Vette" for a Joy ride might Sam be if he is born Kirk's half-brother now?
see this new alternate time-line will leave you with a heck of a lot of questions.

Another wrinkle to the brother Sam question: In "Operation: Annihilate," Sam appeared to be significantly older than Jim, so his birth should not have been affected by the revised timeline.

In fairness, though, I don't recall the movie mentioning if George Kirk and his wife had other children.

George was filmed, but the scene was cut. The kid lil' Jim drives by is the young actor who played George in the cut scene(s), but is credited as "Johnny." My guess is that if they want Kirk to have a brother in the future, they can bring him back. And it makes sense (I think) that George would be the OLDER brother, being named after the father. Then the second son is named after the granddads. It's also likely that, as an older kid, George Jr. would NOT have been on the Kelvin. It's a bit muddled, but not the most important element. George would also be a cool character as a half-brother and son of the supposedly evil step-dad, but named after the beloved first husband!