Overall, I liked it quite a bit. Examining the plot more than glancingly makes my brain want to eject, so I avoid that; when the friends I saw it with started musing on some of the wider plot seams, I decided the best possible response ws “It’s Spock! Shut up!”
Nellie
562
Saw it tonight. was hoping rebooting the series would spell the end of 19 pages of people arguing that episode 4, minute 6 of the ToS clearly established that Spock had in-growing toenails and the like.
Not enough of a fan of the series, films, books or 1190 pages of “goofs” on IMDB to care too much about a lot of the nit picks, it looked great to me, the wipe was much needed and what I really enjoyed was how they captured the look and feel of the original. Granted mini skirts aren’t a desperately practical uniform choice, but I can live with it.
The plot was bit weak, the villain a bit “meh” and didn’t make a huge amount of sense, but it’s an action film, as long as the rest of it is fun who really cares. We loved it.
Saw it yesterday and thought it was decent enough. I know very little about the franchise, but I did pick up some of the in-jokes: Kirk’s method for passing the Kobayashi Maru exam; the green space babe; “SPOCK!!!”.
The Scotty/Spock Prime/Kirk thing bugged me too. I can believe Spock being marooned somewhere close enough to Vulcan for him to run into Kirk, but Scotty coincidentally being assigned to the exact same planet?
However, I did really like the fact that Nero was riding around in a mining ship – it explained why he had the mother of all drills, instead of “hur hur, wouldn’t it be cool if his ship had a planet-busting drill…”
Found Spock a far more interesting character than Kirk – Spock was defined by the conflict between the two halves of his heritage, while Kirk never seemed to grow past being a swaggering bravo.
I saw this again last night when I discovered that Up was only playing in “Digital 3D” (I have virtually no vision in my left eye, so 3D movies don’t really work). Enjoyed it just as much as the first time but damn, the lens flare is still WAY over the top. There are times when it seems to be there for no reason at all, like it has no actual source, just hey, here’s some more lens flare!
And the car scene in Iowa is still just as unnecessary the second time.
The rest remained very enjoyable.
I attribute this to nothing more than fate, seeing as how it’s a new timeline/universe. They’ve already shown in TOS that there is an alternate “evil” uiniverse of relative opposites, I’m willing to say that this is an example of a similar universe being just next door instead of a total opposite.
However, I did really like the fact that Nero was riding around in a mining ship – it explained why he had the mother of all drills, instead of “hur hur, wouldn’t it be cool if his ship had a planet-busting drill…”
I liked this too. The one and only thing about Nero and his crew that bugged me was his second in command that always looked like he was horrified/or at least sorta bothered by some of the orders he had been given. It looked as though at a point in the future he would see the evil he has commited for what it was and at some point refuse an order or lend a helping hand to Kirk at a critical moment, but I think it might have just been me getting mixed signals from the acting method of that particular actor.
Found Spock a far more interesting character than Kirk – Spock was defined by the conflict between the two halves of his heritage, while Kirk never seemed to grow past being a swaggering bravo.
I can see where you’re going with this, but I look back at the original Spock/Kirk combo and it seemed to me that it took much, much longer for Kirk to ever get past the swaggering bavado attitude.
I completely missed that. Was that the “I’ve… got… your gun” guy? To be honest, Nero and his crew all looked the same to me – angry, bald, tattooed bruisers. (Not that dissimilar from Cupcake, come to think of it.) And that reminds me – another thing that bothered me with the movie was the Romulans all seemingly being graduates of the James Bond School of Movie Villainy. I can forgive marooning Spock the Elder and sparing the Enterprise because Spock the Younger was aboard, but after Nero yelled, “SPOCK!!!” and took off, why didn’t the guy with the rifle just freaking shoot Kirk instead of toying with him?
I can see where you’re going with this, but I look back at the original Spock/Kirk combo and it seemed to me that it took much, much longer for Kirk to ever get past the swaggering bavado attitude.
Hmm. Some of my favourite characters in fiction are swaggering alpha males – see: Daniel Craig’s James Bond; Jaime Lannister – so I suppose you could say that my complaint with Kirk is more about the execution of the concept. IMHO, Kirk started off two-dimensional, didn’t show much more development beyond that, and whether through writing or acting, lacked the intangible “spark” that could have allowed him to succeed even as a 2D character.
bago
568
I have newfound respect for Captain Pike. I had an insect lodged in my ear canal for two hours today. It sucks, FYI.
Quitch
569
Only just seen it and it didn’t work for me. The casting was superb and until they meet Nero it’s a fantastic, fun-filled ride. Then the weak-ass story, the science which makes no sense, and the incredibly boring baddie, sank the film for me. I just couldn’t stop getting annoyed at some of the rubbish it was spouting and no amount of jokes were enough to overcome this.
Warp speed can’t escape a black hole but an explosion can?
I felt the same as you, but waited about eight months and watched it again and came back with a much better impression. It was much easier to gloss over the crappy parts and mega-coincidences during the second viewing and just enjoy the spectacle.
Agreed. I re-watched it a month or so ago, and enjoyed it a lot more.
Although take the engine room out of the brewery for god’s sake.
How else are they going to get product placement outside of a bar?
Zylon
573
Ummm… the way that they did?
The bar scene was rather short.
Granted the use of plants as parts of the ships made it look and feel more real but all those pipes look awkward. It was quite odd to see the Communications area placed in front of huge brewery vats.
Zylon
575
No, I was obliquely referring to the Nokia product placement at the beginning of the movie.
I hate that too. It is FAR too low-tech for the Star Trek universe.
Later on, when they’re shining colored lights onto the tanks to make them look more “futuristic”, it looked like a shot from one of the Schumacher Batman films.
Huh. Funny to see how so many people who saw it first in the theater are liking it better on rewatch now on cable/DVD. I felt the exact same way and enjoyed it much more without the overthinking I got into the first time.
I still haven’t rewatched it fully on home video. Gotta get around to that… But my memory of the theatrical experience was that it was a hell of a lot more fun than Trek’s been in years. Between Nemesis, Insurrection, Voyager, and Enterprise, I was more than ready to declare the series dead, if not buried. This was a breath of fresh air, especially when Karl Urban was on screen.
Joel
580
I loved the brewery engineering room. I’m a sucker for analogs between in-the-water navies and starfaring fleets. It was the only good thing about the Wing Commander movies.
