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

Finally saw it.

The thread has died but I'd be interested in comments. Sometimes there's so much missed when watching a movie.

Realizing that mood can affect experience and that I'm not feeling particularly well and that I went alone....

Power Rangers vs Phantom Menace with Jar Jar Binks as the Engineer.

I thought the alternate time line story was brilliant and sets up real potential but the movie poorly directed and inconsistently acted.

Favorite epic scene: When the Enterprise comes out of warp, guns blazing. Loved it! Followed closely by the opening viewing of the Enterprise.

Favorite personal moment: Uhura-Spock AFTER Vulcan blew. Next best, Spock-Kirk and the final ensemble scene on the bridge.

Biggest Fails:

Too short development of the Spock-Ma relationship, too much Spock-Pa. The plot needed Ma to get him off the Bridge. Maybe on second see, I'll change my opinion.

I'm probably the only one that thought there was too much original Spock (and forget about the forced introduction) I would definitely nix the Spock-Spock meeting as it was written. Older Spock, giving his "wisdom" totally took self determination out of mini-Spock's play book.

Nero and the mining ship I thought a great concept and they looked the part. The director however didn't make them sound or act menacing; soft voices and even the gravel voiced attempt by Nero came off phony. More importantly and unforgivable, he didn't do a good job of describing Nero's pain. What might have worked for me, an opening scene on the mining ship as Romula is in danger (by a nova that's going to destroy a GALAXY???) and Nero is racing to save their families, BOOM!, followed by the time-portal with a good reason as to why Nero attacked the Federation Ship. As we saw later, it has only been seconds before that when Romula blew. Nero had no time or reason to work out a plan of vengeance, to understand where he was, nor to attack the first ship he saw.


Stupid scenes: Too numerous to mention. Poor battle choreography, almost anything "military" including the hearing, came off wrong to me. Up close switching camera shots between characters sharing emotional moments, a big no-no. Up close fighting scenes just tell me that the director doesn't know how to film a fight. A Phantom menace pod race scene...gak.


The ensemble I really enjoyed and except for Uhura, I think all the characters got fair play and even improved upon. Spock - Kirk was perfect as was Pike and the first captain. The bridge officers were shown to be "Legion" level characters, better than others is how they ended up on Enterprise. Unlike others here though, I saw absolutely nothing wrong with Uhura's mini-skirt. Seemed totally what it would really really be like if this were real. It might have actually been a bit long.


Most surprising character: Sulu. This one I thought they'd totally mess up but they gave much more than I expected. This character is a leader.

Uhura popped her bubble gum, didn't she? I'm pretty sure she did in a couple scenes. Until the scene with Spock after Vulcan blew, I didn't think the movie was doing a good job with this character. Then when the character showed promise, they didn't give her anything else to do.

Scotty? Enough said. (BTW: Engine Room, got to agree with the dissenters. On a mining ship sure. On a battle ship, poorly designed. Free flowing pipes, glass (for no apparent reason) tubes, no way. Too fragile. Too convoluted. Never seen a massive power plant (as a former engineer) designed that way.


If Kirk had let out one more little girl scream I'd have thrown my $5 popcorn at the screen and that tenor screech when he gets excited really doesn't scream "command."

Checkov and Bones, a little over the top, but for Bones it worked.


Same for father Kirk. That whole opening scene, which should have been one of the most emotional, fell flat. From the acting to the camera angles... The ship is falling apart, people blown to bits, Pop is about to sacrifice, HEY LET'S HIKE UP HER KNEES PUT A BRIGHT LIGHT ON HER AND SPIT THE KID OUT!!! God I started giggling...

Vulcan is being attacked. Good time for some comic relief.

Vulcan has "minutes" to live, let's have some quality time between Uhura and Spock before beaming him into the middle of nowhere. Technically, Uhura is the reason Spock's Ma dies. Save those seconds and it's all one happy family.

Well, that was a long posting. Will a second viewing give a more favorable opinion?

Well, it's Star Trek, not Dostoevsky. Just enjoy the spaceyness of it all. Maybe the negative points will just rankle more on a second viewing.

I thought Uhuru was better than the original - more vocal, more skills, more sass - and the open relationship with Spock was refreshing. On a military ship, maybe not the place for hugs and kisses, and she actually left her post at one critical point to accompany Spock. Sweetness triumphs, I guess. I hadn't thought of her delaying him and ultimately causing Amanda's death, but it's a point. I wonder why they couldn't transport him right to the Chamber where the Vulcan elders were, instead of having him climb up a hill for dramatic effort and waste precious minutes.

The glass tubes in engineering were probably not glass, but some super technically advanced plastic, resistant to engineers getting trapped inside and hammering their way out.

I'd agree that Nero and his gang weren't as menacing as they might have been, more like thugs.

I do recall, FC, an explanation being offered that beaming from the Chamber wasn't possible though I can't remember exactly what it was. If it were shielded from that purposely, it would make sense to avoid kidnapping of high-ranking officials by enemy powers.

I've probably said this before, but 'Nero and his gang' weren't really bad guys, just Romulan peasants left homeless.

Their Romulan sub group wasn't even part of the Romulan upperclass/rulers.
I remember them from the last Next Generation movie. They were like, slaves on a secondary planet or something:
very unpleasant and thuggish but not really good monster evil types.

And I loved Scotty. I just wasn't enthusiastic about his little friend who looked way to Dr. Who world, to me, and so not needed.

On a mining ship that large, there had to be all levels of society we didn't see. Was Nero one of the command or someone that took command (a more exciting thought to me), we'll never know?

Actually how you described them, slaves who lost what little they already had, uneducated, untrusting... losing all of what little they did have, home, family...

That's pretty good sympathetic type monster material. That's something Kahn had but these average-joe Romulans might be more identifiable t the audience.

Speaking of monsters:

Correct my interpretation, long movie and I was tired, but did the Enterprise after giving the mining ship an opportunity to stand down, just obliterate what was a helpless ship? My take as I watched was that the Romulans had nothing left.

Yes, good sypathetic monsters.

Just not SMART ones.

I mean, why did they wait 20 years and plan to destroy ALL of the Federation planets (never considering that they might loose to some one at some time) BEFORE saving Romulus home world by taking out that star before it went nova?

Did they think of the time anomaly that saving Romulus might cause?
I doubt it but maybe they thought they'd disappear all of a sudden but I don't remember anyone saying as much.

And yes, I too cringed when the 'nova taking out the Galaxy' was mentioned, and by Spock, for goodness sake!
sigh
But it happens all of the time in scifi.


To answer your question as best I can, the Romulans still had their bad attitude, if nothing else.

They'd just destroyed the Klingon fleet (was that a factor, do you think?), a large part of the cadets (on the other Federation ships at Vulcan), and all of Vulcan.
Not to mention Kirk's father and Spock's mother.

I was glad.
And Kirk was always willing to take out the bad guys, (Spock less so, but it was his mom.)

(I DO seem to remember the miners shooting though.)

I believe the answer to that is that they didn't have the ability to do it until Spock showed up with the red ball of black hole liquid.

But there are still tons of plot holes or stuff that just didn't make sense (like the Enterprise hanging around to blast the enemy when they were all falling into a black hole. You'd think the priority would've been to *FLY AWAY*. They almost got sucked in cuz they were wasting their time)

About Amanda ~ we saw Spock fight as a boy for his mother's good name.
We saw her speak with him and him take her hand.
We saw him turn down the Vulcan Academy when his 'human' background (a slur on his mother, after all) was mentioned.
He ran to save her, and maybe dad, when there was only minutes left.
He was helping her physically out of the building and he watched her die.

I wish there'd been more of her but there was probably enough to establish how much he loved her.

And this seems to be a MUCH younger Spock, even more then the 10 years mentioned.
Like Chekov (younger/older) and Scotty, this version of Spock seems even younger than his years with Pike would account for in the other universe, I rhink.

This Spock doesn't seem very stoic, really.
Even less so than the one smiling in 'Menagerie'.
I mean, duh!, he's KISSING Uhura!
lol

You're right!
I should have asked why they didn't save Romulas BEFORE they tried to destroy the Federation.
sorry

I think the Enterprise stuck around to offer the Romulans rescue. The Romulans refused and were firing up weapons as their response or something. That's when the Enterprise blew them away before the Romulans could damage them. That's how I remember it, anyway.

Here you go for you guys still looking at this thread...the time lines

http://media3.startrekonline.com.s3.amazonaws.com/img/misc/Chart-01.jpg

Remember, the Narada was able to travel safely through a black hole and emerge at a different point in space time. It had done it already. Therefore, just letting it fall into the black hole might have left Nero and company the opportunity to cause more damage some other place/time (even if they no longer had use of the Red Matter, they could still cause much mayhem), so the Narada had to be damaged enough so that it couldn't survive another trip through a black hole. Feel better?

Yeah.
Thanks, sweetie!

Thanks!

But does that mean that Adniral Archer is somewhere around 150 years old?
Or do we have another Archer who loves beagles?

I really had the feeling the movie was refering to Jonathan.
Wrong?

I get the feeling that the time rupture happened at a specific time and event, but the ripple effects go BACK in time, affecting other events prior to the break, as well as events moving forward in time.

My theory is that the whole Federation timeline experiences these distortions and even condensing of events.
For example, Spock is born later, perhaps, as well as Scotty.
Chekov is born earlier, as is Pike and probably Sarek, who looks much older at this time in Spock's life than previously.

I don't know the total offical timeline, but it seems that Archer and the formation of the Federation, might now be closer to Kirk's timeline: possibly just his father's 30 or so, years back.

The Kirk Enterprise is still #3 isn't it?
I can't imagine 100+ years between commisions, or even half that time considering the progress in technology we're looking at even now.

Anyway, this is just something I'm playing with at off moments, which I have more of now that schools out for the summer.

I'm sure glad to have the chance to talk Star Trek with you all. It may tie me over until we have Legion to talk about again (a guy can hope).

On the Vulcan shelter/beaming thingie, FC, your suspicion is correct. It was unintelligible in the movie, but young Spock calls the chamber the "Katric Ark." The novelization explains that it is the heavily shielded resting place of Surak's katra (no surprise). It was a little unclear even in the book what the Vulcan elders were doing there (other than hiding!), but I get the impression they were downloading the katra into their own minds in case they couldn't evacuate the ark itself. Certainly there's precedent for that from prior movies and TV shows. In fact, one of the few really good last season "Enterprise" stories was about the re-discovery of Surak's katra.

I will mention again that if you enjoyed the movie but want to know more about what happened, the novelization is a good resource, and the audiobook read by Zach Quinto is a real treat. I listen to parts of it going to sleep at night (I know, "GEEK!" uber-geek), which is something I used to do as a kid -- I would tape record the audio of the original series and fall asleep to it (again, "GEEK!"). Zach does a fantastic job with many of the character voices, including Chekov, Scotty, McCoy and Uhura. If you don't want to buy it, see if your local library has a copy. It's quite enjoyable.

I will probably go for that audiobook. It seemed like overkill after watching the movie twice, but if you get extra information and it's entertaining, it sounds like a good deal. And it is in our library...

Maybe the federation found out the secrets to long life like they did in the legion book in SLSH 230 LOL or he could be his son and just carried the tradition of loving begals...though i don't think it would have been mentioned if it wasn't the Archer from Enterprise.

Wonder if Archer and T'Pol got together at the end.

Jonathan carried Surak's katra for awhile.
Maybe that's why he's lived so long.

'. . . got together at the end.'
The end of what?


I seem to remember them being with each other in at least one alternate reality, anyway.

Question: with 7 years and three movies hindsight, did the Trek reboot accomplish what it set out to or not?

I've notice there are few if any posts about the Trekboot 2 and Trekboot 3 movies. I do recall participating in a brief discussion about the Trekboot, and about its third movie, "Beyond," (which, BTW, has yet to make back its production and promotional budgets) in the second-most-recent Kill This Thread thread.

And even though I had a lot of problems with Trekboot Movie 1 at the time, which I posted about near the beginning of this thread, I'm seriously considering borrowing a copy of the DVD from the library and seeing if I like it any better the second time around.

However...

I still have yet to see Beyond, and while I've heard that it's the most "true" to classic Trek, I'm still not in a rush to see it. The first two reboot Trek movies have yet to really answer my question of "why" they need to exist.

I saw Star Trek (2009) for the first time on an airplane actually. It was an international flight so the flight had movies for the passengers. The new Trek movie was there so I put it on and fell asleep from boredom in about an hour. I rarely fall asleep on flights so that should tell you something about how little the film registered with me.

In hindsight, it's not a BAD movie, but just a very generic one. For the most part, very little of the plot requires the story to take place in the Trek universe and most of the Trek trappings feel more like window dressing than authentic world building. The angle of Kirk's daddy issues feels like a bad retread of Top Gun and Spock quite literally is the Ice Man to Kirk's Maverick when you think about it. Nero is a lame villain whose backstory and lack of motivation are screaming for some kind of proper development.

Into Darkness, on the other hand, is just straight up bad. Putting aside the fact that it is a tired re-tread of the Wrath of Khan, the plot completely fall apart in the second act once Khan reveals who he is. The first act actually had a pretty solid setup to explore Kirk and Spock learning the value of friendship vs. the importance of loyalty to your duties, but these ideas are never developed past the opening scenes. That would have been a great opportunity for some actual depth in the new Trek films, but leave it Orci and Kurtzman to drop the ball there. The cribbed ending and Spock's "KKKHAAAANNNN!!" moment are enough to merit barf bags being handed out in theaters, but the fact that Kirk is resurrected in the same movie completely undermines the point that he died in the film in the first place. Come on guys, those are screenwriting 101 mistakes!

I'll probably watch Beyond at some point, but so far, I consider the Trek reboot an abject creative failure.

Altogether nicely put, Kappa. Thanks, especially, for giving me more reasons to avoid "Into Darkness" by mentioning the moments that are less infamous than the "big plot twist," but even cheesier! The people responsible should be ashamed of themselves.

"Beyond" is IMO okay. At its best, it's borderline half-decent. But it's still not a patch on the best of the Preboot Trek movies.

Interestingly, one time I was participating in a...shall we say...animated discussion about Trekbook Movie 1 in an internet chatroom. I was very much the naysayer, especially where Nero was concerned. One of the other participants then claimed that a ton of scenes which would have better fleshed out Nero ended up on the cutting room floor. I seriously doubt that it would have made a difference if some or all of those scenes had been left in, but it would seem to at least partly confirm my suspicions that Abrams was far from fully confident at the helm of that movie.