You seem to be overlooking the obvious: since it was presumably Kirk’s stepdad’s car he’s swiping, it is also presumably Kirk’s stepdad’s MP3 player (or whatever) in the car. I.e., it’s his stepdad who’s into Corvettes and Beastie Boys, not Kirk. For Kirk, it’s not about what music he’s listening to or what kind of car he’s driving; it’s about messing with - and then trashing - his stepdad’s stuff.
That says more about the low bar ST has set for time-travel stories than anything else.
I did not know about that, but it makes as much sense as anything as far as in-jokes go.
I liked the movie a lot. One thing I didn’t like, though, was the lack of space battles. The battle between the Enterprise and the Reliant in ST2 is one of the key things that makes it the best Trek ever. While there were some space battles in this movie, they were too brief, or just plain lame. Much of the space action occurred when Spock was flying Spock Prime’s ship, or even when Kirk wasn’t even on the Enterprise!
Otherwise, though, great movie. I have a man-crush on Zachary Quinto.
And lay off on the car. It was clearly symbolic of driving TOS off a cliff.
Finally saw this last night, and for the most part really enjoyed. Some of the plot holes/contrivances annoyed me, but not enough to break the whole experience. One of my bigger gripes (which is going to seem really asinine to a lot of people I’m sure) is that they left the bridge in the same stupid, highly exposed position as always. Put that shit in the center of the ship you idiots!
Not really, no. In First Contact (produced around 5 years after Roddenberry’s death) Picard tells Lily all about the federation utopia, and mankind working to better itself and so on. Also, while the federation may have used latinum to trade with other cultures, there’s never an indication that it’s used internally as currency.
Edit: found the exact quote:
Lily: “No money? You mean you don’t get paid?”
Picard: “The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We wish to better ourselves and the rest of humanity.”
Alright I had to dig this up for everyone, as this is probably the greatest Shatner moment ever. Even better than the time he almost killed my girlfriend when she was a kid (true story).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfDHIqmUUMs
What I’m about to say meanders dangerously into nerdy fanfic territory, but I would have really liked to have seen a more satisying resolution to Kirk’s hearing regarding the Kobayashi Maru incident.
I mean, they just sort of forget the whole thing because uh…Bones gives Kirk a fake illness etc. and it’s all good because Kirk does well as Captain since he makes Spock lose his shit and was next in command because Pike said so. Yeah, hrm.
I mean, I get the idea that it’s supposed to be ironic that Kirk and Spock begin their friendship in the altered timeline as essentially sworn enemies. I could also buy Kirk’s rapid promotion to Captain and having it stick because wartime is great for promotion in the military thanks to pure attrition, and mere competency in battle is worthy of recognition (if history is any judge) much less acts of heroism or valor. It would just be a lot more plausible if Kirk was already in place as first officer. Sure, that’s not as dramatic and it’s tougher to write in Leonard Nimoy’s part (make no mistake, that entire subplot was to make room for Nimoy), but you know, plausible.
Thing is, Kirk really did win the Kobayashi Maru. Firstly, he took the test twice before. Odds are he scored very well in both instances (being that the metric of interest in the test is ability to control fear; I mean please, this is James T. Kirk), in fact he probably scored better the first time and slightly worse the second because he was merely frustrated with the test and probably took radical departures from Star Fleet regs to try to “game” the scenario in his favor.
Regardless, he could have overturned Spock’s accusation of cheating using the following arguments:
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He clearly cheated in a manner that would guarantee he would be caught. Essentially any form of cheating would be subject to immediate suspicion of course, however Kirk chose to be as blatant as possible. I mean the bridge screens flickered and the Klingon ships’ shields just, you know, fell. Obviously, that is because Kirk wanted to get caught and wanted to be brought before the Academy council.
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The Kobayashi Maru test is highly imperfect as a measure for fear; Kirk merely attempted to prove it. Kirk’s counterargument was that there were no unwinnable situations. And why not, that argument is potentially as valid as arguing that there are unwinnable situations. IMO, it makes sense to me that Star Fleet shouldn’t train its cadets to believe in no-win situations, mostly because they should and can be avoided. A Star Fleet captain shouldn’t let himself be led into a trap, into a situation where there are little to no options for escape. He should always be thinking a few moves ahead. The KM test disallows pre-emptive thinking, which is highly artifical and contrived in the context of a Star Fleet mission, which is typically weeks long on average. Kirk was teaching Spock a lesson as much as anyone, it would have been cool if Spock had arrived at that conclusion on his own as well.
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Kirk did actually “win” the test. It’s a test, an artifical scenario, nobody actually dies. It’s the academy’s fault for even letting Kirk re-take the test even once let alone twice. What’s at stake during the exam? Not much, unless a cadet utterly loses it I suppose. By cheating on the exam and guaranteeing a hearing, Kirk put as much as he could on the line for his decisions in the test chamber - his entire academic and future star fleet career. The KM scenario tests a cadet’s ability to handle fear in the face of certain doom. How did he handle it? He smirked while blatantly cheating. Doesn’t get much cooler than that. He anted up more than any other cadet before him or since and handled the test probably better than any other cadet before or since. He didn’t just cheat the test to win it, he cheated the test to point out its logical inconistencies, inaccurate ability to measure what it was intended to measure, and to make it more honest. Only Kirk!
So what I’m saying is, it would have been cool if Spock had realized all that and had suddenly began arguing in Kirk’s favor during the hearing that Spock himself had called. That would have been a proper impetus for Spock to end up assigned to the Enterprise as opposed to farting around at the Academy - to serve with Kirk.
This is why the Kirk taking the KM test is my favorite part of Star Trek lore, it defines his character so perfectly. He would have had to grab Uhura and made out with her on the bridge while the Klingons were blown up for it to be any more archetypal.
I was disappointed that they didn’t go all self-referential and use “Intergalactic” for its line about a pinch on the neck from Mr. Spock.
I think you should direct the next one.
balut
309
One of the best, main themes of this movie is thus: You DO NOT talk shit about Spock’s momma. Ever.
The only thing worse than an uber-star trek nerd who knows obscure easter egg trivia like that, is an uber-star trek nerd who doesn’t think he’s “enough of a star trek nerd”
Too much focus on the kid kirk/car/music as a criticism
…far too little dinging this movie for having a premise that made no fucking sense whatsoever – i.e. that Nero would hang out for 25 years in the same spot waiting for a Spock that he had no idea would ever come (since he went through anomaly first, and Spock could have escaped), and if he came through he could have arrived 2 billion years ago or 125 years in the future.
Equis
312
Why Bill isn’t a screenwriter, I don’t know.
Hugin
313
I don’t understand what you’re saying here, or why you bolded the word Klingon.
balut
314
Bill original wrote Romulan ships in the Kobayashi Maru.
He bolded it as a correction (Bill said Romulan), but I think the first part of the comment was in earnest.
balut
316
Nero didn’t hang out in the same spot for 25 years. He was wandering around, sure, and at some point went into Klingon space and wiped out a 47-ship-strong Klingon fleet. It’s implied his crew calculated the likeliest arrival time of Spock, and his crew tells Nero that they’ve arrived at the coordinates of Spock’s predicted arrival place/time.
They even said something like “according to our calculations, this is when he should appear”, or something similar. From what they showed of Future Spock’s ship, it was being pulled into the black hole when the romulan ship went through. So I see no reason why they couldn’t calculate that if Spock tried to get away from the black hole at full impulse, he would ultimately fail, and this is the most likely time he would jump through, based on the time differential we ourselves experienced.
In other words, it’s not that big a stretch.
Of all the plot holes and contrivances in this film, hand-waving away Nero being able to predict where Spock’s ship would emerge isn’t one of the ones which bugs me.
The only plot hole that really bothers me (I’m the king of rationalization and can explain away most plot holes with some creative thinking) is that Romulus was blown up before the time rift. Which means it happened in canon. Which means there should’ve been no Romulus in TNG or DS9.
Also - did anyone else catch Shatner’s cameo?
