http://www.aintitcool.com/node/40965 - Interview with Kurtzman and Orci.

Anybody going tonight? I'm going tomorrow. Yes, inspite of all my rage, I'm still just a rat going to see it. I want it to be good. I really, really do.

I'm seeing it tomorrow, as well.

Then we shall post our thoughts tomorrow, then. I'm seeing it in the afternoon.

Here's a nice little piece from Time Magazine about the ten best moments of Star Trek. For once, I agree with all (most -- one remains to be seen) of them.

Let me guess, Ipsy has never seen Wrath of Khan?

I hear he's seen at least 2/3rds of it on television. He'd catch a bit here, a bit there. He got the gist of it.

SPOILERS BELOW













I enjoyed it quite a bit. Really good film. Not perfect, and a couple parts require you to either forget something they just said or really suspend disbelief. But it was a lot of fun and my whole family liked it, so as far as appealing to a broader audience, I think it accomplishes that goal.

Nero’s presence and actions in his past creating an alternate timeline made perfect sense, and that, along with the destruction of Vulcan, was a REALLY bold and risky move by Abrams and the writers. But it allows them the chance to play around in the Trek universe and show the Enterprise’s early adventures without *technically* changing anything in the original timeline, so the obnoxious purists who can’t deal with the reboot idea can at least take some comfort in that.

I actually thought Karl Urban as Bones gave perhaps the best performance and really channeled the spirit of the original character. His first meeting with Kirk was one of the best parts of the film. Quinto did a commendable job as Spock and Pegg was hilarious in the short time he was on the screen.

And of course Nimoy was terrific as always. He really was the glue that held the plot and continuity together.

Everyone had their moment and the comedic bits were pretty good, too.

Pine managed to stay JUST short of becoming the hero you want to hate instead of root for, although I don’t know if I can say I really wanted to root for him by the end as much as I wanted the whole crew to triumph together.

The scene with the Enterprise being built on the ground still irritates me. Doesn’t make any logical sense but I guess it gave the writers the opportunity to have their “main character looking longingly at his hopes and dreams” scene.

I felt a little bad for Nero and thought it was a bit mean when Kirk turned all of the Enterprise’s phasers and photon torpedoes against the Narada AS it was being consumed by the singularity. Was that really necessary, Kirk? lol

More thoughts later...







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Thursty... shut up.



I'm going to write a piece about this... but I need to organize my thoughts. Here's an abstract, though: this was a fun, exciting, summer sci-fi popcorn flick. It is not Star Trek. It was not my friend. It looked like my friend, if the light hit it just right. It even sounded like my friend at times, but in the end, it was a poor copy.

That said, I did enjoy it. I don't know how that works, but I did.

Master Ulic wrote:SPOILERS BELOW

I felt a little bad for Nero and thought it was a bit mean when Kirk turned all of the Enterprise’s phasers and photon torpedoes against the Narada AS it was being consumed by the singularity. Was that really necessary, Kirk? lol

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SPOILERS





If Nero had somehow managed not to be ripped through in such a way as to become a single-file chain of de-compounded atoms, and had, instead, managed to re-emerge in another time line, Kirk's/Spock's/the Enterprise's problem would have become someone else's problem somewhere and somewhen else. No? (Admittedly, I'm no physicist--astro, quantum, or otherwise.)

I suppose you could say the altered time line/reality was responsible for the NCC-1701 being built on the ground. Why not? It's no cheaper an out than any of the other canon divergences. Still, as you say, it makes no real sense, since gravity would compromise the building, and since the ship, itself, is not built to do the sort of grounded, runway takeoff it would need to get skyborne. What Pike says about their jump from the dock being a maiden voyage is misleading, too, since its trip from Earth into outer space would have been its maiden voyage (unless it had been lifted, as an entire unit, into space; this seems unlikely). It might make some sense to build some parts of it on Earth, but not the whole thing.

They don't do that comic book movie thing I hate too many times in this one. (They do it at least once, with Bones saying, "I may throw up on you," first, and then Kirk. They don't do it five times, like they do in ReBatman.)

I have said many times before that I'm not a fan of rift-causing, multiple-reality-creating time travel fiction. I think it's lazy, since it allows you to do whatever the Hell you want. It was essential to them being able to make the movie they wanted to make, though, I suppose, so it's fine. (Whatever! I don't even care!) I do like the meeting of the two Spocks. It gave Nimoy the chance to crack something close to a joke. What I didn't like about the dialog of the scene was that Kurtzman and Orci made a show of using both "infer" and "imply," just to prove to us they knew the difference between the two words. (It didn't show as glaringly as it could have, since Nimoy is adept at handling all kinds of dialog, but if it had been encountered on the page, my editor's brain would have screamed at it. Using "infer" and "imply" so close together is akin to using "ambiguous" and "ambivalent" in the same sentence, or "affect" and "effect." It often reads like the writer has something to prove about her/his ability to use the English language.) I also thought a lot of the Vulcan dialog was unfortunate, since it sounded leaden in the mouths of some of the Vulcan actors. (Most notably the kids, but also Quinto.) Quinto was better than I was expecting (considering my constant frustration with his Heroes performance), but he's just not the actor Nimoy is; there is no authority in his voice. His posture is stiff and awkward, and he thrusts his head forward when he walks.

Some easter eggs were more forced than others. Letting us know how Bones gets his nickname was too much. Dammit, Kurtzman and Orci, he's a doctor! There's your explanation right there. ("Sawbones" is a pretty common nickname for a doctor.)

Pine is not Shatner, but he has charisma. He's a decent Kirk.

I enjoyed it. Saw it in IMAX.





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SPOOOOOOOOOCK!!!!!

I saw it last night. I really liked it. As for it not being Trek, I disagree, but as I admitted before, I'm not much of a Trekker.

Some spoilers...


















There wasn't really anything that I took issue with that they changed from the original history. Actually the only things that I really noticed as being different are the destruction of Vulcan and old Spock being in the past when the Enterprise was originally launched. Oh, and I don't remember Spock and Uhura ever hooking up, but I didn't watch many of the OS, and the episodes I did were when I was pretty young.

I really liked all the characters portrayals. Even Quinto, who I fully planned to watch for 2 hours going, "Why is Sylar on the Enterprise, and when is he going to kill someone?" Sulu was good, and I loved Scotty and Chekov. Pine did a respectable job as Kirk. There was some decent chemistry between him and Quinto that could develop into the friendship that Nimoy's Spock talks about. I didn't know who Urban was, (I just IMDB'd him, he's done a lot of things I liked), but I think he was pretty spot on as Bones. He too had a good rapport with Pine. I do agree with Thursty that the explaination of his nickname seemed a bit forced.

The action was awesome, but I did find myself wishing that there weren't so many quick-cuts, (that seems to be an Abrams trait). The fight on the drill was cool, and I loved Sulu's sword.

Since when do Federation starships carry 50 shuttles? Didn't the old B, D, and E versions carry 2 or 3 at most? And wasn't the E's 3rd shuttle that "captain's" shuttle??

My biggest complaint is that there should have been more of Rachel Nichols' Gaila!! Mmmmm....


















I'm sure I'll have more thoughts once everyone else posts more. I'm interested to hear what Ipsy's thoughts are, (and why its not Trek).

The shuttle thing has always been writers' prerogative. Voyager went through shuttles like underwear. The Enterprise-D had a lot, too. But, there was never a rule.

As for this Enterprise, given what we saw of the shuttle bay and engineering later on, I swear to god the whole lower hull is just shuttle bay and engineering. Geesh.

Teek, I find that your comments anger me. Not because you said them, of course, but because that seems to be the whole point of this movie. The whole thing plays out like two people talking about Star Trek who haven't seen any of it for years... it's close, but they get some things wrong because they don't remember or never saw it.

Sorry, Teek, I'm not singling you out, just using use as the spokesperson for the casual fan. This movie was wholly targeted at people like that and the occasional "bone" was thrown to more educated fans, but the bone wasn't thrown by an educated fan, so it was just off... and felt awkward. I don't know how to articulate it better than that... this is the third version of this paragraph.

Also, by "things that are wrong" I don't mean that the phasers are blue instead of red, or Enterprise doesn't have 29384029384 shuttles, or even Uhura and Spock never fuck or Vulcan doesn't blow up. I mean fundamental things like: Starfleet is NOT a peacekeeping armada. It's primary purpose is exploration! Also, humans do NOT treat each other the way they did in this film (Kirk's step dad cussing him out and the VIOLENT bar-fight later). Also, I don't think Vulcans say the kinds of the things the Vulcan kids said to kidSpock.

Also, one fanboy nitpick I do have is the stardate. It sounded kosher at first, when the Kelvin's captain tells Nero what the date is... but later it bugged me that the Jellyfish ship told SylarSpock that it was built on "Stardate 2387." No, it was built in the YEAR 2387, which is stardate 64XXX.something. It's in the damn tie-in comic.

Basically, K&O missed the mark. Maybe not by as much as I thought they would, but they missed it by enough to be EXTREMELY noticeable.

TKEMotown wrote:Since when do Federation starships carry 50 shuttles? Didn't the old B, D, and E versions carry 2 or 3 at most? And wasn't the E's 3rd shuttle that "captain's" shuttle??

I found my answer, its because the new Enterprise is friggin' HUGE!!

And as for your comments Ipsy, no offense taken.

I think I understand. It would be akin to a "re-boot" of Star Wars and I would probably have the same problems with that which you do with this. So I guess I feel fortunate that they haven't done that to Star Wars, (yet), and that by not knowing all the details of the Trek universe, I enjoyed the movie more than I would have if I knew the smallest details.

I *almost* want to go read up/watch a bunch of the old stuff just to see what all they got wrong, but I doubt I will. Time is probably the biggest factor in why I won't.

Its odd to me that you had such a problem when a buddy of mine, (who is a big Trek fan, he went Friday afternoon by himself rather than wait a couple days until I could go with him), loved it. Maybe he's not as big a fan as I thought?

TKEMotown wrote:

TKEMotown wrote:Since when do Federation starships carry 50 shuttles? Didn't the old B, D, and E versions carry 2 or 3 at most? And wasn't the E's 3rd shuttle that "captain's" shuttle??

I found my answer, its because the new Enterprise is friggin' HUGE!!

Okay....


FUCK. THAT.

TKEMotown wrote:And as for your comments Ipsy, no offense taken.

I think I understand. It would be akin to a "re-boot" of Star Wars and I would probably have the same problems with that which you do with this. So I guess I feel fortunate that they haven't done that to Star Wars, (yet), and that by not knowing all the details of the Trek universe, I enjoyed the movie more than I would have if I knew the smallest details.

I *almost* want to go read up/watch a bunch of the old stuff just to see what all they got wrong, but I doubt I will. Time is probably the biggest factor in why I won't.

Its odd to me that you had such a problem when a buddy of mine, (who is a big Trek fan, he went Friday afternoon by himself rather than wait a couple days until I could go with him), loved it. Maybe he's not as big a fan as I thought?

Well, I'm a bit different. I think a lot of fans are still caught up on the ships and the ray guns and aliens and explosions and shit. I love that stuff, too, but it's got to have a soul to tie it all together. Star Trek, at it's best, has never been just the fluff. It also deals with social issues, makes you feel, and maybe even think about something in a way you never did before. Most importantly, most of the adventures in the 700+ hours of this stuff, even in Enterprise were born out of some sort of exploration. That was completely non-existant here. Plus, that concept was completely abandoned when Pike told Kirk that the Federation was a "peacekeeping armada."

That's the core reason why I didn't like this as a Star Trek movie. Try as I might, I can't keep the little fanboy inside of me quiet, either, so the fact that the phasers and torpedoes were different... and that we didn't get to see any more than an ass-shot of another ship other than the Kelvin and the Enterprise... and that they treated subspace like hyperspace... those things all irked me, too. But, I'm willing to look past those if they had kept the fundamentals of what made Star Trek good. They didn't.

More...


Teek, point your DVR to WGN at 1am Eastern, weekdays, and Sci-Fi on monday evenings (7-11 E). That's where you can find some TNG action. Even the BAD episodes of that show had more soul than this movie.

Ipsilon wrote:

TKEMotown wrote:

TKEMotown wrote:Since when do Federation starships carry 50 shuttles? Didn't the old B, D, and E versions carry 2 or 3 at most? And wasn't the E's 3rd shuttle that "captain's" shuttle??

I found my answer, its because the new Enterprise is friggin' HUGE!!

Okay....


FUCK. THAT.

By the way, in case anyone is keeping score, Abram's Enterprise is almost EIGHTY meters longer than the Enterprise-D. Dumb.

I was irked by the bullying Vulcan kids scene. If it works, it works only because they are kids. There aren't that many Vulcan kids in classic Trek, so maybe one could argue that their character refinement has to be earned, and that they are essentially brainwashed into being even-tempered logical beings.

I still don't buy it, though. The biggest part of Vulcanness, as I understand it, is evolutionary. One could point to the Romulans, with whom they share common ancestry, as disproof of this, but that would be somewhat akin to pointing toward humans as proof that chimps could and should be staying consistently bipedal.

Again, the extra aggressiveness of the cadets, the notion of the Federation being a "peacekeeping armada," and the size of the ship could be explained away by the butterfly effect caused by the destroying of the Kelvin. Since I am not a fan of butterfly effect Sci-Fi, though, I am disinclined to be too supportive of the changes.

Concerning being respectful of Star Trek's history, I don't think anyone involved with the movie gave a shit's undigested corn kernel about honoring anything post-TNG (by which I mean any series released after, and not anything after it in Trek chronology).

The fact that the Vulcan kids were bullying isn't so out-of-character. It was what they said that was. Calling Spock's mother a whore... that's the part that got me. Aside from that, I thought the scene was handled well... they sounded like Vulcans (except for the whore comment). As to emotions, remember: Vulcans have emotions... they just learned how to control them a long time ago... but each new Vulcan has to learn that just as his father or mother did.

I understand that, and I did say that I thought their being younger is why it can be argued they sort of get away with it. I guess I just in my own mind I just expected they would have a better mastery of their emotions at that age. Though, I guess, Vulcans do live a lot longer than humans, so maybe that age for them is not comparable to that age for humans.

The words they put in the kids' mouths weren't delivered very naturally. Same goes for Quinto. Ben Cross and Nimoy don't have any trouble delivering the same sorts of dialog, naturally, because they're fuckin' pros. (One thing, though, is they gave the kids even more five-cent words than they did the adult Vulcans. My take on it is that S&O, hacks that they are, tried too hard to make the kids sound smart by giving them "extra smart"words to say [more so than the adults, even], and cumbersomely syntaxed, exaggeratedly formal sentences. You could always argue that the adult Vulcans have less bulky dialog because they have learned to economize language and not try to be so flashy. I suppose. Seems a pretty weak argument to me.)

I think it's funny that you're talking about economizing language.



Agreed, though.

The way I write when I write what I write on message boards differs from the way I write when I write what I don't write on message boards.

I got dizzy reading that.

Ipsilon wrote:Teek, point your DVR to WGN at 1am Eastern, weekdays, and Sci-Fi on monday evenings (7-11 E). That's where you can find some TNG action. Even the BAD episodes of that show had more soul than this movie.

No need, I saw a lot of TNG. I'd say probably 75% of the episodes in fact. What I have not seen a lot of is the original show.

I agree that there was more "soul" in TNG than NewTrek, but that by itself doesn't make NewTrek bad. I think I had some of the same reactions to the new movie that you did, (too much action, not enough "soul", etc.), but because I don't love the old stuff like you do, I was able to enjoy the new movie for what it was, a reboot.

I'm not trying to diminish your critique, just pointing out why we may have had similar, yet different experiences with the movie.[/i]