"KEEP BUSTIN'."

Star Trek (2009)

tn_startrekNever thought they’d be able to pull a trick like this, but somehow they made STAR TREK cool. I’m not even sure if I can say cool again. I guess when the first couple movies came out it passed as cool. Anyway, this is some top grade movie magic here because it takes this pop culture phenomenon that has for generations been the #1 cliche nerd obsession and makes it into something that we, as a society, can share peacefully and enjoy together.

Going on opening night of course I saw it in a sold out crowd that must’ve contained some hardcore Trekkos (that’s what they prefer to be called – the word “Trekkies” was made up for the classic documentary and to true Trekkos is considered ten times worse than the n-word) but I never even felt a twinge of that nerdophobic uncomfortableness I felt when I went to see SERENITY. Midnight show in Imax might’ve been a different story, I don’t know, but my point is this thing is reaching far outside of the nerd audience. They said we weren’t ready for a black president, and they were wrong. They never said we weren’t ready for a cool STAR TREK, because nobody was even gonna argue that one.

Some Trekkos may feel sad to see their favorite band going top 40, but as a guy who never gave two shits out of a rat’s ass about STAR TREK it was fun to be let into the treehouse for a minute. I mean I got nothing against the Star Trek shows or movies, I can see some of the things that are good about them, but they never meant anything to me. I should revisit WRATH OF KHAN to see what everybody’s raving about, but I don’t know – somebody just reminded me Kirstie Alley was in it. I guess I do still listen to that one Prince album she’s on. Maybe I’ll give it a shot.

mp_startrekSo anyway.  STAR TREK. Director/producer J.J. Abrams (M:I3, FELICITY) has ingeniously made a stale series poppin’ fresh by doing a sequel, prequel and reboot all at the same time. If you haven’t heard, this recasts the original series characters (Kirk, Spock, Bones [not the Snoop Dogg character]), Scottish guy, other guy, Uhura, Chewbacca) as young spaceprofessionals early in their careers. But it connects this prequel type beginning to a Leonard Nimoy future through time travel – he has to help out because a badass alien Eric Bana has come from the future to get some revenge on a young Spock. So it takes place in a different timeline where some things are the same as before, and some things are very different. Not only does this premise work as defense against the insatiable nerd worship of continuity, it’s also refreshing after so many prequels and reboots of popular characters in recent years. You do get all the “a ha, that’s how it all began” or “so that’s why he started saying that” or whatever but you also get “oh shit, didn’t expect THAT!” For example, Spock making out with Uhura (SPOILER). Would’ve been funnier if Kirk walked in on Spock doing her doggystyle, maybe wearing some kind of space fetish mask. Oh shit, maybe he’s got some kind of bondage gear on his ears? I don’t know. Anyway, still a clever moment despite obvious missed opportunities.

Like M:I3 (but on a more epic scale, obviously) Abrams does a great job of keeping the movie constantly hurtling ahead without feeling like a Stephen Sommers style out of control locomotive. It has a fast-paced, fun tone, not heavy but not dumb, and all built around the characters and their relationships. Kirk (played by a guy named Chris Pine) is the lead and there’s a great story of the circumstances of his birth and how he comes to join the Federation of Star Trek Guys (FOSTG) due to starting and losing a barfight.

Seeing pictures of Pine it’s easy to imagine him being some bland, brooding chunk of meat, but no, he’s more of a Han Solo with a little Jack Burton. He’s a funny, arrogant dude with many sex partners (some green) who likes to fuck with people. He’s “the only genius level repeat offender in Iowa” who fortunately stays true to his rebellious spirit but also happens to be great at what he does. So a combination of talent, coincidence and time travel tinkering make him a hero. Just like all great heroes. Also he rides a motorcycle, like all great heroes and rugged individualists. Spock, I assume, rides a scooter.

Everybody is good in this movie, like the guy who plays Spock. But Chris Pine maybe stands out the most because he’s so cool and where the fuck did this guy come from? Apparently he was one of the Tremor Brothers who I enjoyed in SMOKIN’ ACES. Anyway, I’m guessing he’ll start showing up in everything.

We also follow Spock’s path from child to Star Trek Guy and one brilliant thing I didn’t expect is that they make Kirk and Spock hate each other. Spock is actually pretty unlikable in this movie, you want to punch the fucker, he’s some uptight goodie two shoes tattle tale. But at the same time you sympathize with where he’s coming from and can tell that once he learns to loosen up a little he’ll be okay.

Since I don’t know that much about the STAR TREK I can’t tell if this is a chicken or egg type situation, if this is the way they spin it now or if it’s why STAR TREK has the appeal it does. But at least in this version, Spock is a fuckin nerd. So it either explains or takes advantage of this longtime connection between the human nerd and the Star Trek. Spock gets bullied as a kid, he gets good grades, he’s close with his mom, as a cadet he’s a fuckin narc – writes the tests himself, accuses Kirk of cheating. And he even looks like a nerd with his clothes too tight, bowl haircut and stiff walk.

So a nerd can relate to some of that stuff but they also can see Spock as a nerd hero because when the bullies pick on him he beats them up, and because he gets the hot chick that cool Kirk can’t even get the first name of. In fact, Kirk has to hide under a bed to see her in her underwear. He’s turned into a peeper like the nerds in REVENGE OF THE NERDS. So the tables have turned.

Like IRON MAN it has a sense of humor because its hero has a sense of humor, while the movie itself is taken seriously. You can feel the enormity of this dude going from dude fuckin around in Iowa to commanding a gigantic space ship in its confrontation with a scary fucker named Nero who’s crossed time and waited 25 years to have his revenge. I still don’t think Bana’s gonna ever match his performance in CHOPPER, but this is a good villain. It’s more impressive what he does physically than verbally. I like that he does evil things but actually has a pretty good reason to be pissed off, or so he thinks. When you see it through Old Spock’s perspective later you realize it’s all a silly misunderstanding. Too bad those two didn’t talk it out, although we would never have gotten this alternate timeline where STAR TREK and JAMES BOND movies are both exciting. So Nero is a villain with a bit of tragedy, but Kirk’s callous dismissal of him at the end is still my favorite part.

The STAR TREK universe is much more varied and visually detailed in this version. It doesn’t look like STAR WARS but it has more of that feel because instead of spending 75% of the time in one space ship you see the Enterprise, the badass Romulan ship, some kind of space station, a space academy, Iowa, others. There are a few random background aliens who aren’t the usual lazy ass STAR TREK aliens with the bumpy foreheads, but also aren’t STAR WARS because they seem to be live action actors altered digitally to have stretched faces or big eyes or whatever. Not the best but kind of a cool touch. In other words, not STAR WARS cantina scene good but not PHANTOM MENACE two-headed race announcer bad.

By the way, did you know Winona Ryder was in this? So she’s in an ALIEN movie and now a STAR TREK. I would like to see her meet either Predator or E.T. next. Just the other day I was wondering what happened to poor Winona. She used to be so good and it seems like she still could be, but she doesn’t do many high profile movies anymore. And no, I don’t think she got blacklisted for shoplifting or whatever. They got security on those sets, she’s not gonna sneak off with anything too valuable. And they got insurance to cover those sorts of things. Get this lady back to work, keep her off the streets.

My one complaint about STAR TREK is that same tiresome complaint I gotta make every other movie these days: motherfuckers forgot how to use cameras. You don’t go to a STAR TREK movie for the action scenes, so I’m not gonna cry about it, but still. Never thought even STAR TREK would be plagued by the shakycams. There’s a funny car chase at the beginning that made me dizzy, I was gonna let that one go, but the blurred out bar fight was worse than anything in TAKEN. The movie’s got a nice realistic look so a little chaos can work, I get why you would want that in the skydiving scene. But you still gotta get better coverage during, say, a sword fight, because I can’t get excited if I don’t know who the fuck that guy is or what exactly he’s doing. This can be blamed on Abrams’ TV background I guess, but I thought he had a better balance in MI:3 and besides, I saw a second unit director in the credits. If you don’t know how to do it hire somebody who does. Only then will you live long and proper.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 10th, 2009 at 2:25 am and is filed under Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

99 Responses to “Star Trek (2009)”

  1. Yeah, I really liked the movie, but didn’t love it. I think my biggest complains were that the guy who played Kirk (who was one of the Tremor Brothers in ‘Smokin’ Aces’, by the way!) lacks the charme of Shatner’s Kirk, the MacGuffin-feel of the villain and the unbelievable overuse of lens flares! I hope this won’t catch on, because it can ruin a movie as much as shaky cam (It didn’t ruin this movie, but so didn’t the shaky cam.).
    Talking about shaky cam, I think here it was one of the more acceptable uses of it. I still think it might be the most useless camera technique ever, but here it wasn’t Bourne level, where you couldn’t seriously recognize anything. In fact I think it was the most watchable shaky cam I’ve seen in years! (Although I didn’t see it in IMAX, which might make it look totally different.) I only hated it during the dialogue between Pike and Kirk.
    But yes, I enjoyed it. (I out myself as Trekkie/er/o/um/man/opalypticus, btw.) Especially how Abrams managed to make a movie that deals with genocid, but is still fun doesn’t try to shove 9/11 up our throats again.

    Have a nice day!

  2. Great review Vern. I thought it was awesome, and I’m a Star Trek fan(though not a Trekko, since I don’t buy merchandise, dress up as characters or speak Klingon).
    I thought it was cool how despite being more fun and action-packed, they still managed to put in some of the old series’ social commentary by having the first captain you see be middle-eastern and have a fairly heroic death, hvae Spock deal with racism from his full-vulcan peers(also arguably from McCoy(“Pointy-Eared Bastard!” “Green Blooded Hobgoblin!” “Are you out of your Vulcan Mind?!”), and have a villain who’s basically a terrorist, but without being heavy handed in any of them.
    Nero could have been develloped more (they cut a sequence where he breaks out of Klingon Prison, and loses part of an ear in the process),but he did have a couple of good lines, like the “That was another life” one and his rather amusing “Hi, Christopher” when he opens communications with the Enterprise for the first time.
    Another opportunity they missed in my opinion was when Spock turns down a position on Vulcan and walks away, they could have played the start of the Beastie Boys song over that and cut to the joyriding scene. Because what Spock did was in Vulcan terms as rebellious as what young Kirk did.

  3. I can’t believe this was written be the same guys that did Transformers. Although I think the did some episodes of Alias and that was a cool show. Maybe it’s like chocolate (Orci and Kurtzman). If you give chocolate to humans (J.J. Abrams), it’s a delicious treat, but if you give it to a dog (Michael Bay) it’s deadly poison.

    Chris Pine is by far my favorite part of this movie that would still be great without him. If you still want to go with the chocolate analogy he would probably be peanut butter.

  4. Very funny and awesomely written review, but this movie just didn’t do it for me. I thought it was too jokey and corny and pretty dumb overall (that red matter stuff was downright silly). But I feel I am in the minority on this one.

    So will the sequel be Star Trek II? or are they gonna go back to just adding a subtitle, like Star Trek: Mastication?

  5. I enjoyed TREK too, and this coming from a TREK “nerd” fan you so like to needle, Vern.

    I have two problems though with new TREK.

    (1) That bullshit of the father sacrificing himself as his son is born. I’m sorry, but like that domestic subplot in 300, TREK didn’t need it and if somehow time travel was to wipe certain elements out, nobody would miss that angle, especially the narrative won’t miss it.

    I mean why can’t we have movies where the Hero is the hero and does what he/she does because its the RIGHT THING TO DO, not because their lover or kid or buddy is held hostage or trapped or whatever the fuck? Vern, you’ll hate when I say this, but this is a DIE HARD 2 moment.

    (2) Didn’t anyone else felt that whole angle of getting Spock to knock himself out of being Captain feel like a creative copout? Everything else in the reboot to explain why the crew got together sooner I thought worked fine, but….why does Leonard INVASION AMERICA Nimoy tell his younger self to not be a captain? Look Spock, you’re smart. You have an independent mind, don’t blindly follow the advice of someone who in the old timeline was used to being Kirk’s sidekick. Don’t be anyone’s pointy ear bitch, you’re better than that.

    Other than that, I liked TREK. Shit Bruce Greenwood (a favorite of mine since THIRTEEN DAYS) even gets a small badass moment while strapped to a table (never saw Bruce Willis pull that off) and holy shit they actually casted a Russian for Chekov.

    BTW Vern, when are you gonna review MOONTRAP? You know, that creature feature about killer zombie robots on the Moon that Bruce Campbell and Walter Koenig have to destroy? We don’t take shit from machines!

  6. Chris – Early word is that Abrams wants to remake a TOS episode like “Space Seed” or “The City on the Edge of Forever.”

    If he went into the trouble of wiping the continuity out with a sponge, free to do whatever the fuck he wants now, why bother remaking/redoing old stories? Doesn’t that kinda defeat the purpose?

    Why would he want to? Oh wait, KAHN. Right, what am I kidding? Thats what the nerds will demand.

  7. STU – is that Nero jailbreak sequence something they shot, or did they cut it from the script before shooting? I can see why they might’ve thought it was unnecessary to the plot, but I’d like to see it.

  8. If they do bring back Khan, they should get Javier Bardim. He’d be badass.

  9. VERN: the jailbreak sequence was shot, and you can even see Nero fighting some of the guards in one of the trailer, so it’s definely something that’ll be on the DVD
    http://trekmovie.com/2009/04/26/jj-abrams-talks-deleted-scenes-find-out-what-didnt-make-final-cut-of-star-trek/

  10. One Guy From Andromeda

    May 10th, 2009 at 5:17 pm

    I saw it tonite and was really surprised that i didn’t hate it. Of course there are issues: Spock is too emotional, why does the engineering room of the enterprise look like an oil refinery (pretty lazy setdesign in an otherwise well designed movie), how come Kirk gets marooned on exactly the same planet and even near the spot where old Spock lives in a cave and so on – BUT NEVERMIND THAT.
    I didn’t really think of any of this during the movie. It never gets boring, it has a great mix of emotional scenes and good ole fun and the actors are _terrific_. Pine especially stands out in my view – his Kirk is really the old Kirk and what everyone loves about that guy – the cocky attitude, always ready to crack a smile and make a joke – perfect. A real old school movie hero.
    The first movie since The Darjeeling Limited and the first Hollywood blockbuster since i don’t know when (maybe since The Matrix) that i didn’t want to end when the last scene started. Way to go Abrams!

  11. Chris Pine was fantastic! Of course having already been familiar with his work in Princess Diaries 2: A Royal Engagement, it didn’t come as a complete surprise, but he was acting alongside Julie Andrews so perhaps he was just overshadowed.

    And word about Winona Ryder, Vern! She needs to be in more movies.

  12. Vern, please do give “Wrath a Kahn” a watch, not because I think it’s a masterpiece or anything (although it is good), I would just like to see you review it. Kahn has these worm things that he puts into people’s ears to control their brain! I thought that was just about the coolest thing I’d ever seen when I saw it on TV visiting my uncle in Saudi Arabia when I was 9! Anyway good review, but obviously the marketing emphisising the supposed de-nerdification of “Star Trek” hasn’t worked as well on us limeys, or at least limeys in the early twenties who know me, as none of my friends went to see it.

  13. I mean want not went sorry.

  14. One Guy From Andromeda: the coincidence isn’t that much of a coincidence really. Nero wanted Old Spock to see what would happen so put him on the nearest inhabitable planet to Vulcan. The Enterprise was still near Vulcan when Kirk gets thrown off, so his escape pod would be sent to the same nearest inhabitable planet to Vulcan too.

  15. But why would he put Spock on a random planet when he could keep him on the ship and see his reaction to his planet being destroyed? And what are the odds they’d bump into each other in a small cave on a huge fucking planet? And that Scotty would also be there?

    It was an entertaining film fighting against a terrible script.

  16. Sorry stu, that was meant to be a reply to you but I accidently put your name in the name field – thought i was on AICN for a minute and putting your name in the message title.

  17. Stu – Good point on the rebel concept.

    As for coincidences……..mate, every DIE HARD movie, John McClane just happens to be in town when terrorists strike. Always. Not excusing or defending TREK, but coincidences are why we go to the movies.

    One Guy From Andromeda – Yeah what is up with that boring enginee room design? I guess an idea is that the ship wasn’t ready yet (i.e. walls/art direction) when it launched, but I dont know.

    Oh and Vern, you should review the TREK movies sometime. Since you’re not a nerd, it would be interesting to get your read on them.

  18. The engine room was actually a brewery interior, they got lazy it seems.

    And no one is saying coincidences aren’t used lots in films, but there is a limit to how convincing they can be, otherwise you could pass any bullshit couldn’t you? The Die Hard comparison doesn’t work with the issue others have raised because, if McClane hadn’t been there at that time, there would be no film, we just accept that or we can’t have a plot. But Kirk bumping into Spock in a random cave didn’t need to be done like that, did it? Is that really the best they can come up with?

  19. You saying the DIE HARD scriptwriters couldnt have found a way for McClane not to be there at the same exact location when shit hits the fan?

    Hell, what about DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE when Jackson is driving and finds Willis just when the latter is fired out of that water tunnel.

  20. Nice review, Vern, as ever. I completely agree that we need to see more of Winona (although this movie might not have been the place for it. Distracting cameo roles much, JJ?).

    I must say I went in expecting to like the movie but came out a little disappointed that I didn’t love it. It’s a fun little sci-fi ride, but I guess I ultimately found it to be too predictable and gimmicky to really feel like a classic. I mean, the movie gets most of its momentum by re-introducing us to new versions of characters who were already created and developed. Its fun at first, but like listening to Juaquin Pheonix sing Johnny Cash songs, ultimately it seems kind of pointless when classic versions already exist from their original creators. I mean, the cast is fine (although I found young Spock to be kind of grating and lacking old Spock’s deadpan charm) but I think I’d like it better if they were their own characters, rather than new takes on ones which already exist.

    Which is not to say that I’m a Star Trek nut who can’t stomach any change. In fact, it’s been years since I’ve watched Star Trek at all. I just find that a lot of the movie’s joy comes from doling out character moments from characters who are already established… a kind of “how is this going to be different this time around” curiosity. It’s fun but I can’t say I’d really like to see the whole series done again with new actors just a little differently.

    Add to that the script which is heavy on cliche (watch this movie a time or two more and tell me you can’t hear some “transformers”-style lazy writing), too full of conflict to really deliver on a single one (the final confrontation with Nero lasts what, 10 minutes? Maybe 20 lazer blasts?) and filled with silly science and coincidences (why not just go back in time and tell Spock to start working on his goofy black hole machine a few days earlier?) and you’ve got a fun and pretty vehicle with a nice cast. Which is great. But probably not worth the love its getting right now (its outpacing “Dark Knight” on Rottontomatoes). It’s a shiny new toy that works well enough, but underneath all that its kind of light on ideas and substance. Which is a shame, because I have to say that its mix of cerebral sci-fi/philosophical ideas and winning characters is what really set “Star Trek” apart from the other imitators. If it takes making “Star Trek” into a sleek mid-level action vehicle to turn the masses on to it, I think I’d consider it a loss, rather than a gain.

    So yeah, I liked the movie. Hell, it works better than most of the big summer movies, and its a blast to watch. I just feel like it cheats a bit to get there, and as a result isn’t quite as rewarding as even some of the cheesier old Trek flicks.

  21. “Abrams…is the perfect purveyor of fictions to a generation so easily and instinctively jaded that what it craves, above all, is a storyteller who—with or without artistic personality, and regardless of any urge to provoke our thoughts or trouble our easy dreams—will never jade.”

    “Here, in other words, is a long-range backstory—a device that, in the Hollywood of recent times, has grown from an option to a fetish…Shakespeare could have kicked off with a flashback in which the infant Hamlet is seen wailing with indecision as to which of Gertrude’s breasts he should latch onto, but would it really have helped us to grasp the dithering prince?”

    http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/cinema/2009/05/18/090518crci_cinema_lane

  22. BTW, I second the idea with Trek movie reviews by Vern! You don’t have to do it now, but it would be nice to read an opinion from someone who has no connection with the characters or the series at all, but also is able to write a fair and honest review of it.

  23. Yes to Vern reviewing Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan!

    I’m a Trekk0 of the old school all the way up until the theme song for the last iteration, Enterprise. That killed the tv show for me. The last movie made it easy to let go of the love for that geek/nerd part of my life. Along comes this new Trek, and I got to say, I like it. I even approve of the brewery/engine room. Would Scotty work in any other environment?
    @fatrabbit: Anthony Lane seems to hate movies, anymore. David Denby ain’t much better. Both are weak sauce compared to Vern, Walter Chaw, and Alex Jackson.

  24. Spoilers ahead.

    I will finally bite the bullet and give my review for the new J.J. Abrams ‘Star Trek’ movie. Let me start by giving it 7 out of 10 stars, or 3 out of 5 stars or 1 ½ thumbs up. It wasn’t the best movie I have seen in awhile. It’s better that “Wolverine” for sure. I thought “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” was better – and I have been a Trek fan since I was born.

    The movie was slick. It was spectacular. It was funny. It was action-packed. It was also almost – not really – true to the original series television show and all-encompassing Star Trek lore – to a point.

    The film is far from perfect. I have not seen very many poor reviews. This is far from a poor review. I am just pointing out what bothered me. And it was a lot to be honest.

    I was majorly disappointed with the gross changes to the timeline and ‘canon’ universe. The changes are, of course, blamed on the age-old “alternate universe /time travel/new timeline” excuse. It’s a copout. It changes everything. Trek is notorious for altering the timeline, even with the Prime Directive.

    Ambassador Old Spock violated the Prime Directive more horrendously than Captain Janeway did on “Voyager” by giving Scotty the calculations for a transwarp transporter. What will that knowledge do to the Trek universe? No more starships because you can just beam everywhere? Bah!

    Old Spock also, from what I gathered, gave young Spock the advice/permission to be emotional. Does this mean Spock will embrace his human-side in upcoming films and be all angry and poignant and cry-baby and non-Vulcan? Wasn’t that done in “The Next Generation” with the android Data reference his emotion chip? Will we at least see some nasty Uhura-on-Spock lover action in the future? What was that all about? Spock, with a click of his PADD, can change crew assignments based solely on his “getting some?” Stupid.

    The entire planet Vulcan is now gone and the Vulcan’s are endangered species. Spock’s mother is dead.

    This new origin story pretty much wipes out all of the television shows/movies that happened in the past. Now it’s ‘anything goes.’ It’s a copout. This movie erases ALL of the past in my opinion. How can Spock die in Star Trek II and have his katra, the immortal, living spirit of a Vulcan, returned to his body in Star Trek III, on Vulcan, if the planet is destroyed? If Spock were an endangered, cry-baby Vulcan, would he have even sacrificed his life in Star Trek II? Shouldn’t Ambassador/Old Spock have been erased from existence and not be in this version of history? I can go on and on. A PARADOX! Doc Brown would freak.

    The movie was slick. It was spectacular. It was funny. It was action-packed. It’s a new, different Star Trek universe now and I am not sure I like it. I hope they correct this heinousness in the next movie. I doubt it though.

  25. I don’t think it erases anything. All that shit already happened. Now it loops back to the beginning for another run through, but this time things will happen differently.

    And yes, I believe I read in Entertainment Weekly that part 2 will have hardcore Vulcan sex. Vincent Gallo will be playing Spock.

  26. alright, you’ve convinced me. i’ll check it out.

  27. Off-topic, and no offense to Russ, but why must reviewers insist on that cliche variation line of “It wasn’t the best movie, but”?

    OK if its not the best movie, then why say that? I mean what is wrong with a generally good movie? Of course not movie can be a masterpiece, but what is wrong with good/pretty good? If anything, I think such a defense inadvertedly gives off the vibe that the movie has a good chance of being ass.

    STAR TREK was good, maybe even pretty good. No not great or special as some nerds are making it out to be, but so what? Shit after INSURRECTION, VOYAGER, NEMESIS, and friggin ENTERPRISE, Its just very nice to give a shit about TREK again.

  28. If Vincent Gallo will be playing Spock, I guess that means they’ll recast Uhura with Chloe Sevigny.

  29. It’s not as if this new movie suddenly erases everything that came before it. It’s just a way of making it all seem new again. The old movies and TV shows will still be there.

    And I don’t know if anybody brought it up but it’s Trekkers they prefer not Trekkos.

  30. Don’t say Trekk**s that’s even worse than Trekkies, they’re gonna have my url shut down if I go using words like that. But I agree, it doesn’t erase everything that came before.

    By the way, I liked the scene with little Kirk driving the car, but I got a feeling in a year or two that will be the scene people cite as proof that the movie is bad, like they do with the fridge or the monkeys in Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls.

  31. One Guy From Andromeda

    May 14th, 2009 at 9:15 am

    The little Kirk scene was not as bad as i thought it would be from the trailers – the car going over the cliff looked pretty spectacular and at least he’s listening to the Beastie Boys and not Hannah Montana or something. What made me angry was the Nokia product placement, a really stupid touch.

  32. I agree that the fact that old Spock still exists means that the “old” universe continues to exist unfettered. So I guess its not time travel as much as some alternate universe at a different time. Where THEIR future will be different.

    By the same token, though, am I the only one who just doesn’t find that much appealing in watching an alternate version of the same events, with the same characters played by younger actors? It feels to me like watching a great tribute band of look-alikes. Fun, and the songs are still great, but come on, you can’t go home again. No matter how great Kiss 2.0 or whatever is, you’re never going to be able to recapture that same magic that made it a classic in the first place.

    A lot of the fun of “Star Trek” is re-introducing us to characters we already know in the alternate, Abrams-Trek universe. But it can never completely become its own thing, and at the same time it will never be the old thing either. It’s a great cast, but I think it’ll be hard-pressed to live up to its potential when it’s always going to be tied to the original version of all these characters and events. The big “what’s next” is going to be: do we follow this cast through a new version of history? If the “new” history is very much like the old history, what’s the point or watching it again? But if the “new” history is vastly different, then why do we want to follow the same characters through it?

    But then again, maybe they’ll think of something to give it a better balance of its own identity. It could be fun playing in a more colorful, bigger-budget version of Star Trek; I just hope they have a vision for why they would want to do it. The movie didnt convince me they did, but its good enough Ill wait it out and see.

  33. Clitus I'm Bored

    May 16th, 2009 at 7:40 am

    Too bad that to get a Star Trek film to sell they had to remove the last remaining bits of actual science fiction. They have gone and made it a space fantasy… lil’ people in teddy-bear suits to follow?

    On the plus side… they finally gave Uhura something to do! Too bad Nichelle Nichols never got this much script attention. Eric Bana rules, but his character was mere sound and fury. This could have easily been a “giant time-traveling mining robot run amok” story and little would have been lost.

    The new engineering set is crap! Looks like the boiler room of the universes’ most gigantic high school. Didn’t even look like it was in a space ship! Abrams should have visited a submarine to see how you fit complex machinery into a confined space. Ah well, I think the next one will be better, c+

  34. I quite enjoyed STAR TREK but all the stuff to do with Eric Bana left me a little confused, and reading about cut-scenes in Klingon prisons only makes it more so.

    Wanting to blow up all the Federation planets because they were slow to reach his homeworld… Is this a little like someone’s house burning down because the fire-brigade were five minutes late, then going out of their way to destroy every fire-station IN THE WORLD? Maybe he was just pissed-off and irrational, but getting a whole crew of like minded Romulans to go along with it seems a bit of a stretch – were they all in prison and that’s where they got the fancy tatts? You get the fancy mind-meld flashback and Spock explaining things with an echo effect, but it didn’t really explain things better than: This Guy has it in for Me and All of Us and here’s some Alternative Universe Explanation for the Nerds… And come to think of it, what kind of mining ship has all that weaponry, anyhow? Were they miners or mercenaries? Or were they in a Klingon prison when all this shit went down? But then how did they manage to meet Spock in his wee ship when all the supernova stuff happened?

    I might try and track down a script, but if anyone can shed light on this I’d be grateful. One thing everyone seems to like about this TREK movie is how fast-paced it is, but it might have been nice if they’d slowed it up for just a moment and showed us some Bana background, or a Klingon prison UNDISPUTED boxing scene at the very least.

  35. I’m watching the making of on the DVD and it shows them filming the action scenes and JJ Abrams is literally smacking the sides of the camera as it films people flipping and fighting and being chased by monsters. Hilarious.

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  37. It wasn’t Star Trek the way we remember it (and I’ve been a fan all my life!) but it’s the best Star Trek we’ve seen in quite a while and I’m willing to see where they go with this. I think, though, that the Uhura/Spock relationship demeans both characters. Uhura’s presented as a competent officer–probably the most competent on the ship, after Spock–who’s worked hard to get where she is, and yet *still* has to sleep her way to the top. I’d think by the 23rd century women wouldn’t have to deal with that. And Spock wouldn’t compromise his dignity or his integrity that way. But that was about the biggest flaw that I saw. Other old-school fans got upset about the redesign of nearly everything, but that’s minor: you don’t rebuild the Old Globe Theatre every time you put on a production of Hamlet, do you?

    As for the engine room: that was a Budweiser brewery (there was also a Budweiser ad placement in the bar scene at the beginning–probably part of the consideration that led to the brewery being used as the engineering set). Meaning that this particular iteration of the Enterprise’s engineering spaces is probably the only one in the Star Trek universe that’s OSHA-compliant!

  38. The revelation that the engine room is actually a brewery goes a long way toward explaining Scotty’s shocking weight gain.

  39. “Uhura’s presented as a competent officer–probably the most competent on the ship, after Spock–who’s worked hard to get where she is, and yet *still* has to sleep her way to the top. I’d think by the 23rd century women wouldn’t have to deal with that. And Spock wouldn’t compromise his dignity or his integrity that way.”
    That’s a funny way of looking at it. To me, Uhura did deserve to get to where she was, and her involvement with Spock was incidental. Because of their relationship, he initially overcompensates by assigning her to somewhere else “to avoid the appearance of favouritism”, and when she points out the high praise he’s given her, he puts her back where she belongs. But then again, Uhura is considerably more competent in Abrams’ Trek than the old. In the original, she couldn’t speak Klingon (needed a dictionary in STAR TREK VI), and the interpretation was mostly handled by the universal translators. But Abrams’ Trek beefed up what was required of her and her competence in it, despite her role on the show usually amounting to not much more than that of a switchboard operator.

  40. So I rewatched this over Thanksgiving and I noticed something about the ending. I’m pretty sure Spock and Kirk destroyed the galaxy.

    Hear me out. So if one drop of the Red McGuffin was enough to cause a black hole, then it stands to reason that a ball of the stuff that was six feet in diameter, containing thousands if not millions of drops, would be enough to cause what is known as a supermassive black hole. The problem with this is that it is postulated that there is just one supermassive black hole per galaxy, and its gravitational force is so strong that it forms the nucleus around which all of the stars in that galaxy revolve. So the introduction of a second supermassive black hole would cause catastrophic changes to the gravitational structure of the entire galaxy. In fact, once the gravitational flux eventually stabilized in a couple billion years or so, we’d probably end up with two separate galaxies made out of all the matter contained in the original galaxy. If it was big enough, it might even leach off of the neighboring galaxies. Needless to say, all of this celestial movement would pull every planet out of its orbit, causing catastrophic environmental changes that would end pretty much all life in the entire galaxy.

    So by blowing up Nero’s ship, Kirk destroyed us all. He won’t be seeking out new life and new civilizations, because he killed them all.

    Also, there’s no way a silly little nuclear explosion is going to get the Enterprise away from the pull of a supermassive black hole. Light can’t even escape, so its just going to suck the explosion right in there along with the ship.

    Also, I’m pretty sure by the time travel logic employed here that Spock got Kirk’s dad killed. Great way to start a friendship.

    So even though I think all this ridiculousness makes the movie far more entertaining than it had any right to be, I guess maybe I get what Asimov is always complaining about. Sorry about that fight we had, bud, you were right all along.

    You gotta admit that green chick was smokin’ hot, though. That should get the movie at least a half-star right there.

  41. “I’m pretty sure Spock and Kirk destroyed the galaxy.”

    Mr. M – Well come on, Abrams and the producers/writers of COWBOYS & ALIENS had to do something original after ripping off Papa Lucas. Give them a break.

    (SARCASM, in case you don’t detect it.)

  42. So an “announcement trailer” for the teaser came out today, and the japanese version shows more:
    http://youtu.be/BrHlQUXFzfw
    Cumberbatch looks great as the villain, though he comes off more like a Sith than a Star Trek bad guy, doesn’t he? Pleased to see some clearly alien planets in it too, and that it won’t be all earth-set.

  43. “Pleased to see some clearly alien planets in it too, and that it won’t be all earth-set.”

    yeah, same here

  44. Kirks fucking with the simulation was referenced in WRATH OF KHAN. Nice touch,filmmakers!

  45. So I’ve seen INTO DARKNESS. It was just in 2D, though I hear the 3D is actually good, despite being post-conversion. Enjoyed it a lot, but not without several issues. It’s an exciting and lively movie, not quite as dark as trailers would make you think. Kirk and Spock’s interactions are very engaging and entertaining again, the other crew members acquit themselves pretty well (though some more so than others, especially in comparison to the previous film), there’s a bunch of things for fans both old and new, and Benedict Cumberbatch is an awesome villain. Really creepy and dangerous. The film doesn’t feel as big as the first one though. This isn’t really fair to say, as the first one covers decades, time travel, the destruction of a whole planet, rewriting history etc, but its plot is rather simplified. There are things that SHOULD be bigger deals in the movie, but are only explored briefly and in the case of what Harrison’s deal is, done in a very flat exposition only way that could have really benefited with full on flashbacks to what’s being talked about. The ending is also sorta clever…but sorta not too, and it’s undermined a bit by some obviousness. Carol Marcus is also…really hard to justify the presence of. She doesn’t add much to proceedings other than someone for Kirk to have a bit of sexual tension with. I was also confused about what Kirk’s arc was meant to be. It seems to change from one thing to another then one final thing that didn’t need to be explored at all, in my view. There’s other things, but I can’t really cover them without going in to spoiler territory.

  46. Stu – thanks mate.

  47. Not very interested in watching a sequel to a movie I never cared about or finished watching.Also I can´t stand the new Captain Kirk. What a douchebag.

  48. I loved INTO DARKNESS until the last act, where they pulled some seriously emberassing fanfiction shit. It didn’t ruin the whole movie for me, but it really lost me at that point.

  49. CJ – Can you confirm or deny something somebody told me yesterday about the movie?

    SPOILER SPOILER SPOILERZ!

    Did Kirk really die and get revived from the dead by Khan’s magic blood?

    SPOILER SPOILER SPOILERZ!

  50. Sorry, but I really try to not give away spoilers in public (at least until more people have seen it and we can have a real discussion about it), but I wanna say that the “fanfiction shit” that pissed me off wasn’t about the blood of any character who may or may not be Khan.

  51. Interesting. Can’t wait for that discussion.

  52. But two things about INTO DARKNESS: Less lensflare (only in scenes on the bridge and even then a lot less than last time) and no shaky handheld shots. They bought a tripod and a steadycam.

  53. It’s weird, because I really enjoyed the first one (it’s silly and colorful and charming enough to revisit more often than most popcorn pictures of its ilk) but the new one just looks so fucking dreary that I kinda don’t even want to bother. Oh boy, a terrorist blows shit up. This is totally what we need STAR TREK for. No other franchise can deliver high-concept speculative fiction thrills like that.

  54. Don’t worry, this is NOT a dark & brooding 9/11 hunt-for-space-Bin-Laden movie. It isn’t darker than other “dark” trek movies (Like part 6 or 8) and is still a lot of fun. And to be honest, at the end the title doesn’t even make really sense at all. I guess it was a marketing decision.

  55. Okay, good to hear. That’s some remarkably shitty marketing then. It’s bad enough that it made a fan of the first one not want to see the sequel he’d been looking forward to for years, but it’s not even representative of the movie itself? That’s like the opposite of a bait-and-switch.

  56. CJ – so this is like IM3 as another bait and switch mis-marketing trick?

    This and IM3, why are Hollywood afraid to sell their humor? I mean seeing ads for IM3, you would’ve guessed it was a remake of THE DARK KNIGHT instead of the superhero LETHAL WEAPON. Just odd. Any thoughts gang?

    Some of the nerd websites have been tweeting back and forth about ST2 not tracking that great for OW ($85 million last I checked) and I dunno, maybe they’re getting bit in the ass for not selling the humor? IM3 got away because you know, sequel to last year’s biggest movie. This is the first TREK picture in 4 years. That might be a factor they’re overlooking.

  57. I don’t know. I can imagine that audiences are really getting sick of 9/11 as plot device in fantasy/scifi movies and who can blame them. That said, INTO DARKNESS is tonally really closer to part 6 (THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY, the one where the federation tries to make peace with Klingons, until Kirk & McCoy are blamed for assassinating the Klingon Chancellor and get thrown into a space gulag.) than BATTLESTAR GALACTICA or THE DARK KNIGHT. It’s not dark dark, just Star Trek dark.

  58. Also I hope that Vern reviews it on opening weekend or at least very soon. I would love to discuss the movie in full.

  59. “It’s not dark dark, just Star Trek dark.”
    Yeah, Scotty’s expanded role is one instance of the humour that could have been emphasised more. Spock and Uhura’s relationship troubles are played for laughs, Chekov gets put in a situation he’s uncomfortable with and Sulu gets to prove Bones wrong about something.

    I also suspect that Disney execs will look at the opening scene and consider Abrams for another Indy movie.

  60. I just know that after TDK and the movies it clearly influenced (SKYFALL, AVENGERS, etc.), I could live happily without yet another blockbuster having a super mastermind villain plan to get captured so he could escape again.

    SPOILER SPOILER SPOILERZ

    Does this movie do that shit?

    SPOILER SPOILER SPOILERZ

    Also, CBS Sunday Morning apparently spoiled this movie.

  61. Okay this is the only bigger spoiler I’m gonna give and only because it’s not really a huge plot twist:
    S
    P
    O
    I
    L
    E
    R
    (Obviously.)

    Cumberbatch isn’t really worried about getting caught (and as you know from the trailer he gets caught at one point), but it’s not because he has some super masterplan where he needs to be inside of a prison cell. It’s more a “You got me now, but I’m sure I will come up with a good idea or opportunity to escape and do my thing later” situation.

  62. CJ – alright thanks mate.

    Speaking of spoilers, CBS Sunday Morning spoiled the movie this morning apparently.

  63. Also, trying to not get spoiled for the DOCTOR WHO season finale next week. Futile perhaps, but I’ll try.

  64. RRA – Yeah i saw it last night and it’s pretty accurate to say there’s some misleading “dark” marketing a la Iron Man 3. It’s not really any darker than the first one (which despite it’s reputation as sunny and optimistic, featured two exploding planets and the entire genocide of the Vulcan race), and I’ll honestly say (trying not to get into spoilers) – that I really enjoyed the first 2/3 of it. But then that last 1/3 kicks in and the whole thing just falls off the rails. There’s “twists” that only have resonance if you’ve seen one of the previous movies (we all know which one by now) and if you have seen the previous movie, then what they do here just comes across as lame mimicry. I really can’t see why anyone (besides Orci/Kurtzman or Lindelof) would look at the last act of this movie and think it’s clever. I’ll discuss more spoilers if Vern ever reviews it.

    On the bright side, the acting is great just like last time, there’s some fairly good emotional stuff like last time, and the trademark Orci/Kurtzman/Lindelof plot holes aren’t as glaring. Oh, there’s plenty of them, and there’s tons of stuff that makes no sense, but I think it holds up while you’re watching it better than the last one (or Prometheus or Transformers 2, etc…)

  65. neal – I saw this today, I think I’ll be kinder to that 3rd act. I do agree there was certainly a point where I thought OK movie is over, but then it kept going and it sorta wore down on me.

    I do agree in one regard its better than the last film, in that the convoluted plotting isn’t so painfully obvious to the narrative’s detriment. Oh the convoluted storytelling is there, just only apparent (for me at least) in retrospect.

    Well actually there was one that I thought WHAT THE FUCK? Like did I misunderstand or miss something because

    SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER!

    I thought they were still in that general area outside of Klingon space, then next frame they’re instead crashing (or trying not to crash) on Earth? Eh what?

    SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER!

    Otherwise, this is a reverse for me with the first film. Rewatched TREK ’09 recently, still have my same problems (and commendations) with it, but gave it an upstick in my golden popcorn buckets grade (as Vern once dismissed my rating numbers) because as spectacle it was still pretty damn good. For the most part when it works. 4 out of 5. The sequel, my automatic gut grade was 4 out of 5 too but more and more that big fuzzy warm feeling from the movie is fading away and I saw this shit just 4 hours ago. So I guess 3 and half hot chicks with tails out of 5 at the moment. You and I disagree totally on IRON MAN 3, but my fondness for that one hasn’t faded. (Which it might whenever I rewatch it.) Oh we’ll get into other things when Vern reviews STAR TREK 2 remake.

    Not trying to be a downer. It’s still pretty good popcorn entertainment with 1 or 2 outstanding sequences. Worth seeing.

    (Unless it gets nominated for Best Picture, Vern aint reviewing GREAT GATSBY is he? That shit outgrossed IM3 yesterday. That’s fucking impressive. They deserve a cookie.)

  66. Watching this for the first time since a laptop screening via hajji disc 4 years ago, I realize now Jar Jar LensFlareBrams’s STAR TREK is really a good movie. Upgrade from 2.5 stars up to 3.25 stars out of 4.

    I agree with the angry Trekk0s in wishing that it had more of the intellectual-philosophical spirit of the older versions and less of the traditional crash-boom-haha-heroics! dynamic of today’s standard explodetaculars, but, for adventure-action-space-shit cinema, it’s damn good stuff. If nothing else, the camera work, sets, & f/x are great.

    And the green chick. Hotness.

    I should have been more enthusiastic about this film on the first viewing, but I let the meh monster get to me, possibly b/c my life at the time was more exciting than movies about space shit.
    Anyway, as usual, Mr. Majestyk & Vern were right all along, and now I’m looking forward to the new one. Hopefully INTO DARKNESS has more chewbaccas in it.

    A couple nitpicks, notes, & questions:

    -Does Spok really have to be the one to rescue San Francisco (?) from Chopper’s giant drill thingy?
    All it took was a couple well-aimed shots from his little ship’s blaster cannon whatever to bring it down, and it seems like the people on the ground would have the equipment & arsenal to shoot it themselves. They might even have their own NORAD type apparatus, or a NASA type space probe that would have seen it coming, like how even in these pre-Captain’s Star Log dating system days we knew about that one comet that just came within ≈17,100 miles of Earth.
    “There’s a big fucking thing coming into our atmosphere, about to destroy a city.”
    “Roger, scramble the Air Force and go shoot it.”
    ^See^? No need for Spok to be the hero there. But maybe I’m wrong.

    -The best, weirdest part of the film is also the clunkiest, weakest part of the film – the Leonard Nimoy exposition montage.
    Abrams & crew try real hard to make this sequence literary & cinematic, using faded echoes in the sound editing to give a sense of warped time and the uniquely fugue-like sensations & reactions between Chopper & his Vulcan enemy
    (though they’d at least be frenemies if only they sat down & talked and explained each other’s actions – I mean, c’mon, you gonna exile a guy to an ice planet & blow up entire planets based on half-knowing why you encountered each other in the first place? Not cool.)
    but it still comes across as forced & murky.
    But on the positive side, it’s an awesome callback to the themes & the literal timeline[s] of the previous STAR TREKs (see Vern’s review’s 4th paragraph above), especially III: THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK and IV:THE ONE WITH THE WHALES
    (which I always loved, and which Abrams & his writers borrow heavily from – remember how Scotty taught the 1986 Americans the chemical compound recipe for transparent aluminum? Now in the 2009 movie, set before the 1986 movie, Scotty is the one being taught futuristic science equations, equations which he will immediately perfect & use in the climax of the film, just like THE VOYAGE HOME.)

    -I love how the movie doesn’t bring too much attention to the [kinda hilarious] STAR TREK trope that the 3rd guy, the no-name guy who accompanies Kirk and a recurring cast member, is always bound to die when they beam to a new planet. (In this case, the parachute sequence) I think Family Guy made a good joke about this phenomenon once, akin to the sadly terminal job of being a henchman in 007 movies, as ridiculed in the AUSTIN POWERSes.

  67. Mouth – I think alot of the storytelling problems in ST09 can be traced back to the fact that Abrams was determined to shoehorn in Nimoy into the movie, and honestly it didn’t him at all.

    BTW did anyone see that new car ad with Nimoy and Quinto? Funny stuff.

  68. CrustaceanHate

    May 16th, 2013 at 5:14 pm

    I’m still trying to sort out my thoughts on INTO DARKNESS. The TREK references really grated on me, because it just underlined the fact that these movies are the total opposite of STAR TREK in every way. There’s definitely something desperate and frantic about the way it’s paced, like a real estate agent rushing you through a house so you don’t notice the rising damp and cracks in the ceiling. The explosion-exposition-explosion-exposition-explosion structure got pretty predictable and headache-inducing after a while and it’s about twenty minutes too long. Action is staged okay, but could be better.

    *SPOILERS* Is it just me, or is it weird that we are supposed to cheering when they catch the bad guy AFTER he has killed millions of people? *SPOILERS*

  69. Mouth – yeah, stuff like that about how come not one person on Earth was equipped to shoot a drill on a cable took me out of ST09 too much for me to fully enjoy it, but it just BARELY squeaks by on goodwill and emotions and acting.

    Vern – do you see/moderate every comment that shows up? If so I’ve been trying not to type any spoilers at all in my posts when you haven’t seen a movie yet, even bookended by SPOILER caps. I hope we haven’t been ruining movies for you this whole time.

    Crustacean – despite my HUGE problems with the movie in general, I thought the fast pace really worked to its benefit – it’s never boring and is probably the most entertaining movie I’ve seen in a while, definitely moreso (to me ) than Iron Man 3, which had big draggy parts.

    Oh yeah, I really can’t wait to see what Asimovlives thinks of the shit they try to pull in the third act. His head’s going to explode.

  70. Neal – I usually look at the comments but if I realize you’re writing about something I’m gonna see and haven’t yet (like STAR TREK 2: PRACTICE FOR THE MORE IMPORTANT STAR MOVIE THAT HE WILL DO NEXT BECAUSE HONESTLY WHO CARES ABOUT STAR TREK NOT ANYBODY) then I won’t read it.

  71. Chopper Sullivan

    May 17th, 2013 at 4:31 am

    I know I’m late to the party on this point but what the fuck is with the lens flare thing? There are shots in this new one where people are just talking and there are blue streaks above and below their head and I don’t get it.

    I would’ve liked it too if SPOILER I could actually see the crappy villain dude smoking a bunch of Klingons with his laser cannon and laser gatling gun instead of just piecing together that he probably did that shit. Abrams better not try that shit next time. Make fun of the prequels all you want, but at least there are some kickass coherent actions scenes.

    It’s pretty good though. I was waiting for them to really go INTO DARKNESS but I guess that just means Klingon territory. And I think the trailer for FAST AND FURIOUS 6 was better overall.

  72. You know when TREK’09 came out, I thought we would get a spin-off show set within that universe because hey Star Trek is natural for TV and hey Abrams is also a TV producer. But it didn’t happen.

    And now we might know why. Apparently a real screwy division between Paramount and CBS on who says yes and no to what fucked over those plans Abrams had. (Also he thought he deserved a much larger profit-participation %, which is understandable.)

    In short, apparently a big reason why Abrams signed with Disney was that they’ll give him what he wants.

    http://www.thewrap.com/movies/article/how-web-star-trek-rights-killed-jj-abrams-grand-ambitions-91766

  73. Chopper- Abrams says the lens flares are meant to represent how the future’s so bright it leaks out.

  74. so I saw Star Trek Into Darkness tonight and I had a lot of fun, it’s a very entertaining movie, but I also had a bit of a hard time understanding what exactly was supposed to be happening, I guess it’s because I’m not that much of a Trek expert? SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER what exactly was Buckaroo Banzai’s plan/deal?

    but anyway, holy shit, Alice Eve is so hot

  75. RRA- To be honest to me it seems fair enough for toys based on the old characters to be sold. And I suspect some execs are weary of the potential Franchise burn-out with TREK a la late-90s/early-00s

    As for INTO DARKNESS, I liked it more than the last one (or last three if you like) but found it pretty forgettable

  76. Griff – I think your problem might be that the climax piggybacks the fuck out of THE WRATH OF KHAN, and if you’ve not seen that then the finish then its more empty otherwise. Oh and for therecord, WOK is still king of the Star Trek movies. Nothing confusion with that movie, and it knew when it end after its climax.

    Oh and Robocop’s plan was SPOILER SPOILER SPOILERZ to provoke a war with the Klingons. Why he couldn’t come up with a better plan which would provoke the Klingons into attacking Federation targets instead of the Federation attacking first by a cover-but-not-so-covert mission…well you got me but don’t think too hard in Abrams land or you’re screwed.

    Pacman – I understand the toys, but a new TREK that’s popular and why not bring it back to TV? You know that term striking while its hot? Well they might’ve missed that chance. But hey that’s Paramount and CBS’ problems, not ours.

  77. RRA- I think actually that scene should work BETTER without knowing about WRATH OF KHAN, because it wouldn’t so distracting and taking away from the performances.

    SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER

    Actually, he didn’t have a “plan” per se. He figures a war with the Klingons is inevitable, and he was developing weapons for that, but Harrison pops up to not to only threaten exposure of his un-Federation-like conduct, but also to basically sabotage his efforts in general. His plan was just to kill Harrison.

  78. Stu – I’ve read reviews (like Griff above) who really didn’t get that emotional kick from that scene, who also didn’t see WOK. Just an observation I’m offering. Or maybe its just truely a weaker, derivative version? (But lets be fair, STID as a rip-off of that movie is pretty good. NEMESIS tried to rip off WOK and wow that one sucked so bad, it killed the franchise.)

    But WOK as a movie worked on its goddamn terms. It didn’t to piggybank on anything. Sure based off a TOS episode as a “sequel,” but it works just great without needing to see said episode. Amazing that a 30 year old movie didn’t need convoluted storytelling to you know, tell a story and be exciting, and be wonderful space opera without having to remake STAR WARS nakedly. I was impressed with the tactics each side use against the other, how our heroes have to basically (methaphorically) kick the bad guy in the balls in order to escape. The finale in that galaxy fog (or whatever it was) was splendid. It’s Captain Hornblower in space, a sub movie in space.

    Unlike alot of Trekkies online, I’m not pissed at STID for what it decided to do with some characters in rebooting (nor do I buy into that “this aint real star trek!” whining. So this is not real Trek but snores NEMESIS and INSURRECTION were? Haha No bitches.)

    As a Trekkie, overall I like what this rebooted series has done so far. STID goes into more ideas (per say) than the first one, but I wish they would and dare to be intellectual with hefty topics. (Again WOK, recently rewatching that I was impressed by how it takes a mundane topic like death and remind you that shit aint mundane.) For that matter, in retrospect I’m disapointed they didn’t do anything more with the Spock/Uhura relationship other than to cheaply fuel a scene that needed “drama.” I mean why not explore the difficulties in two creatures of two different species trying to maintain a relationship. I know this is a PG-13 film, but how does sex with a logical-dominated creature work?

    In short, they could do better. But still good.

  79. Any thoughts on the rumors that Jon Chu might direct the next STAR TREK picture?

  80. If there’s dancing I’ll be there.

  81. I’m content revisiting the Chu Zone comme ça.

    Also, what Vern said.

  82. The Undefeated Gaul

    August 6th, 2013 at 1:26 am

    Just a rumor, thank God.

  83. For all the shit the Internet is giving the prospect of Chu directing ST3, and I’ll be honest I didn’t like his G.I. JOE movie, but I do support the idea of Asian/Asian-American directors getting more blockbuster gigs. The Internet unsurprisingly will be more supportive of Rupbert Wyatt directing this.

  84. So long and thanks for the Vulcan Pinch Nerve.

  85. Today was a sad day for nerdom, does it get any more iconic in nerd culture than Mr Spock? Dude was a legend, RIP.

  86. Has anybody seen the new show yet? And if so, how many episodes? (Did Americans really only get one episode on TV and from now on they have to pay for some streaming shit? Here we got the first two episodes on Netflix.)

    I don’t wanna go into too much detail, but apart from some minor complaints, I really liked 95% of those first two episodes and really look forward to the next ones. Yeah, sure the Trekkos seem to hate it, but these days you can show them reruns of the original series and they would hate that too.

  87. Don’t really have much nice to say about it so I’d rather not say anything at all. Suffice it to say I will not become a CBS All Access subscriber.

  88. I’m a big Trek fan. I even have memories of sitting down and watching the premiere of The Next Generation with my family. But there’s no way I’m paying CBS six dollars a month. That’s just going to encourage those bastards to take advantage of nerds like me. I mean, I paid Showtime money for Twin Peaks, but I also got to watch some movies out of that deal. There’s nothing else on CBS that looks even remotely interesting.

  89. The streaming thing seems both like a clever plan to make people sign up (From what I’ve heard, it actually works) and like an awful idea to lose a shit ton of money (I’m sure DISCOVERY will soon be the most pirated show of the year.). Like I said, here we get it on Netflix, so there is this.

  90. I remember when Star Trek premiered on Swedish television in the 70s. That was a big thing. It was also the last time I was impressed by anything fram that universe.

  91. Do you remember if it was called STAR TREK back then on Swedish television or if they translated the title into some corny Swedish?

  92. More like “På vandring mellan stjärnorna” or as such.

  93. The German title was DER STÄR TREKKEN.

    (Just kidding of course, it was RAUMSCHIFF ENTERPRISE [STARSHIP ENTERPRISE])

  94. RAUMSCHIFF ENTERPRISE doesn´t exactly roll off your tongue, but it´s always cool to find out what some shit is called in another language.

  95. SHOOT: I always liked how ALIEN was called THE 8TH PASSENGER in some countries. Also the original/real title of THE KILLER is supposedly BLOODSHED OF TWO HEROES which as simple and elegant as THE KILLER is I may prefer that title for how badass it sounds but more so because it acknowledges Danny Lee’s (SUPER INFRA-MAN, MIGHTY PEKING MAN) character who is just as important to the film (both narrative and success) as Chow Yun Fat (DRAGON BALL EVOLUTION, BULLETPROOF MONK) is.

    CJ: The German title does like a cool band.

  96. Shoot, I think it was called I YTRA RYMDEN, but I’m not sure. It was some years ago…

  97. After some googling; It looks like it was called STAR TREK.

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