Star Trek Review
May 6, 2009 by Vic HoltremanWill you like the new Star Trek movie even if you’re not a geek?
Short version: While hard core Trekkies may have some problems with it, this long time classic Star Trek fan found this reboot fun, fresh & exciting.
Screen Rant reviews Star Trek
Where to start? (This is going to be a long one, folks. If you want to skip the preamble and get right to the review itself click here.)
Some people are Star Wars fanatics, others go nuts over Transformers or X-Men. While I’m a huge Iron Man fan, Star Trek is my true love going back well over 30 years. My favorite of all the shows? The Original Series (aka TOS). You may look at it now and think it looks cheesy (however I highly recommend you check out the digitally remastered version with brand new visual effects on DVD or Blu-ray), but remember the original Star Trek is over 40 years old.
At the time the other big Sci-Fi TV show was the cheese-fest called Lost in Space – so keep that in mind as a comparison. 
I have Star Trek prop replicas on my bookshelves (some pretty damned nice ones) along with a copy of the original Star Fleet Technical Manual by Franz Joseph and a set of blueprints of the original U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701 (which shows the location of a bowling alley on the ship!). I’ve memorized every episode of the original series – I can tell you which one each one is within seconds of any of them starting. And I’ve seen every movie.
Yes, I’m into Trek “canon” – tracking all the little details that tie the whole Star Trek universe together, however I’m also aware (though some fans seem to be in denial about this) that over the course of hundreds of episodes across five different series, Star Trek itself has violated its own canon many times.
Why am I telling you all this? So you have some context for my review of J.J. Abrams’, Roberto Orci’s and Alex Kurtzman’s reboot of the Star Trek universe. However this is not a review just for “Trekkies,” and that’s appropriate because neither is this film just for that group of die hard fans (among which I include myself).
Also, I did read the four part prequel comic that tells the story which leads to the events that take place in the film. If you have a chance I recommend you find it and pick it up at your local comic book store as it really fleshes out the “villain” in the film, Nero.
Some fans may disagree, but this franchise was in desperate need of a reboot, re-imagination, fresh “take” or whatever you’d like to call it. Star Trek, as a brand, was whithering on the vine and was in danger of being put on the shelf for who knows how long – until Paramount might decide enough time had gone by to give it another go. This was due to a number of factors, among which included the subsequent series being taken in directions by Rick Berman (and to some exent, Brannon Braga) that the fans did not agree with. Essentially it was a case of “the fans don’t know what’s good for them – we’ll tell them what they want.”
From this we gained the ignoble death of Captain Kirk in a transition movie with a stupidly weak plot device, Star Trek: Voyager, the Lost in Space of Trek, progressively crappier movies and finally Enterprise: At least an attempt at something fresh in Trek, which unfortunately went off in some half-assed direction – and Manny Coto’s efforts to bring the show back to what it should have been in season 4 were too little, too late.
So… when it was announced that the new film would go back to before the original series crew had met I was both excited at the prospect and terrified of how it might turn out. I mean we’re talking about recasting iconic roles. Bill Shatner? Leonard Nimoy? DeForest Kelly and James Doohan?
Sacrilege!
But I tried to be cautiously optimistic over the course of very early news, pre-production and through the production. I listed this film as my most anticipated of the year…
And I was NOT disappointed.
So finally – the review…
Click here to continue reading our Star Trek review…
Our Rating:
4 out of 5
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Fury, you’re almost on fire!
@ All:
Just wanna say to all my fellow Americans out there, wherever you all are: HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!!!
As a person who actually lives in a city called ‘Independence’, this day has a certain special significance and meaning to me, and besides – we made it another year! Hahahaha, gotta love that!
233 years ago, this country formed its own government, rebelled against the most powerful Empire on Earth, and prevailed, somehow, miraculously.
233 years later, we have a relationship with ‘our mother country’ which we rebelled against that borders, for most of us, on nothing less than kinship.
Which is even more miraculous, when you think about it.
God bless all of you, and God Bless America!
As well as all our kindred nations & peoples, though ‘enemies in war, in peace, Friends’…
~Johnny-O
No guesses?
“No, no particular person, just people in general.”
~Doc
@ Steve:
I know, I think Fury’s almost got it; I’ve been checking all weekend and nobody’s here, I think everybody’s taken the Fourth of July holiday off – don’t know what Katherine’s excuse is, hahaha! Maybe the Fourth is an Aussie holiday, too?
How ya been, Doc? Eat any BBQ? Knowing you, you were working. Probably volunteered to do a double shift so somebody else could have the weekend off, am I right?
~Johnny
You’re right that I was working – but I don’t volunteer to work doubles… I’m a doctor, not a masochist.
@ Doc:
Hahahaha! I thought being masochistic was a PREREQUISITE for becoming an MD, lol!
~Johnny
Just got home and caught “The Tholian Web” (remastered) on TV. What a gem! Shatner’s large absence from the episode really allowed them to highlight the ancillary characters, and it was interesting to see the parallels between them and the new actors portraying them. It’s not too much projection to see a stronger Uhura in this episode, although I don’t think we’ll see Zoë Saldana weeping to “Gond with the Wind”-esque music in any of the upcoming movies. However, her poignant “I must get to Mister Spock!” does dovetail nicely into the relationship depicted in the new movie. I’m quite psyched about the sequel and the current movie isn’t even out of the theaters yet!
Cheers,
~Doc
@ Doc:
Down, boy!
Yeah, I thought the ‘Tholian Wb’ rocked too, on many, many different levels – not just for the friction – and the bonding – between Spock & McCoy (I’m sure the Captain would just say, ‘Forget it, Bones’…”), and the mutual fondness Spock & Uhura had for each other, but also concerning the much more arcane nature of ideas that were then (and, I suppose, still are, really) among the totally theoretical, such as alternative dimensions, ‘weakened space’ (in this case, the region of Tholia), and the nature of the high-temperatue, silicone-based intelligent life forms, the Tholians themselves.
How could such bizarre creatures (of course, so were the Horta from ‘Devil in the dark’ & the Excalabian from ‘The Savage Curtain’) exist? Why were their ships no bigger than mere shuttlecraft (perhaps, since they were already in their neighborhood, they didn’t need anything long-range to travel muli-dimensionally)? Further, what kind of an energy field can be extruded like a spider’s web?
And what of the consequences? We know, for example, from later episodes of ENT that the Connie-class Enterprise’s sister, the Defiant, wound up in the hands of the sinister people of the ‘mirror universe’, and was useful in Hoshe Sato’s coup against the Terran Empire, but this did not seem to affect the techno-evolution of Starfleet by the time of the TOS episode ‘Mirror, Mirror’; how does the ST universe square this? If the ENT-era Terran Empire got their hands on it a hundred years earlier, why wasn’t the ISS Enterprise of ‘Mirror, Mirror’ far more advanced?
Once again, like alt-time line scenarios, this sort of thing gives me a headache…Ughh!
You know, Steve, I wish they’d come up with a new plot line for the sequel: In my plan, they should come on back to our own time, right now, just like in ST-IV/TVH, but this time they should do whatever they have to do to stop the ‘coming WWIII’ – for the sake of 600 million dead, I’d gladly trade the whole ST universe for an unknown future among the stars without the help of the Vulcans or anyone else, for as long as it takes, any day of the week!
I guess I rambled a bit, sorry…
~Johnny
I see this thread continues to be a veritable fire hose of Trekkage. I wish I had the time to play your little quote game, but then I wouldn’t be able to tear myself away from the computer.
We seem to be pretty much unanimous that the brewery has got to go, but we love the new cast. We also love that new time line smell, it gives us the hope that we will be freed of all that cannonical baggage and can once again explore strange new worlds.
There is however one big piece of baggage that we have just picked up, the proverbial elephant in the room, a McGuffin that could be the driving force for a story arc that would span the next two or three movies. So many comments from so many experts and yet no one has mentioned it yet.
I would first like to thank our gracious host for allowing us to post here without a limit on thread length or word count. I hope you are all settled in because this is going to be a long one.
Vulcan was not Alderaan, you can’t just destroy it and blithely sail away. There were people we cared about that lived there. The thought of little Savikaam innocently studying her algebra in Vulcan Pre-School when the ground opens up should be emotionally compromising to even the most hard-hearted SOB.
There are certain implications to Vulcan’s demise that have yet to be considered. Since I have about as much chance of getting to a Paramount pitch session as I do of getting the noggin of a Divorce Lawyer or Telephone Sanitizer delivered to the Klingon home world, I’m going to pitch it to you all.
Let me set the scene;
The Vulcan survivors have been temporarily re-settled to Earth pending the location of a suitable world for them to colonize. The Humans are at first very welcoming of the 10,000 new arrivals “We’ve got plenty of room, stay as long as you need to.” Earth’s educational institutions and research facilities are particularly happy to have them.
It is at one of those educational institutions that the first “incident” takes place.
During a late night study session a Vulcan math tutor suddenly flies into a berserk rage and beats a strapping young fraternity jock into a coma and then proceeds to overpower and rape his cute cheerleader girlfriend, but not before the girl pushes the panic button on her ring phone and summons campus security.
The tutor is quickly stunned and apprehended by robo-cops on sky-cyles. Once in custody he is completely calm and collected, claiming no recollection of the assault. The story soon becomes a global media sensation and the police are baffled.
The Vulcans request that the suspect be remanded to their custody “Only we can give him the help he needs.” Their request is refused, and after several weeks in custody the tutor again starts becoming violent and irrational. Earth’s doctors are at a loss to explain it.
At the request of the Vulcans, he is placed in cryogenic supension. Then another random attack occurrs, then another. A climate of distrust begins to settle in between Earthers and their new neighbors. The investigators can only find one common thread between these incidents, that the Vulcans in custody have all spent extensive time off world, and have not been back to their homeworld for almost seven years.
No Human on Earth knows what’s going on, but WE do, don’t we?
Scene: a conference room in a tall building with the San Francisco skyline seen through the window. There are Three Starfleet Admirals and two civilians in suits, one is an Andorian. The door opens and in walks Ambassador Spock. Two burly Redshirts are visible behind him, they remain outside.
Admiral Pike: I’m glad you could come, Spock.
Spock: It is good to see you again, Chris. If it had been anybody but you asking, I would not be here. I still have to ask, why did you send for me?
Pike: We’ll get to that later, first some introductions are in order.
Spock: There is no need for that, I know everyone in this room, If not personally, by reputation. Admiral Nogura, Chief of Starfleet Operations (Nogura nods) Lawrence Marvic, Naval Archetect and Warp Propulsion Specialist (Human in suit nods) Leemic Vydor, Weapons Research Specialist (Andorian Nods) and of course, Admiral Ridgeway, Director of Starfleet Intelligence. (the last name is said with icy contempt) I can deduce merely from the personages assembled what you intend to ask of me, and you already know what my answer will be, so I ask you again, why am I here?
Pike: I know what your answer would be under normal circumstances, but things are far from normal right now.
Spock: If you are referring to the recent attacks, I am unable to give an explanation, you would do better to contact Counselor T’Pol in Paris, she is the highest ranking Vulcan left alive, and only she is authorized to divulge that information.
Ridgeway: So you HAVE been hiding something from us, I KNEW it!
Spock: (frowning at Ridgeway) I assume that you are the one responsible for my two shadows (nods toward Redshirts outside)
Ridgeway: I’ve got a lot more men than that assigned to your detail. By now the whole quadrant knows your story, you’re far too important to have some enemy agent or lone nutcase take you out, or even worse bundle you up and ship you off to the Klingon home world.
Pike: I know you don’t like Admiral Ridgeway, but he’s come up with a very “fascinating” theory, and I think you need to hear him out. Do it for me, Old Friend.
Spock: Stanley Ridgeway runs a den of spies, saboteurs, and assasins with no regard for planetary sovreignty or the rule of law.
Ridgeway: My operatives have saved more lives, and the Federation more grief than you will ever know.
That isn’t my department though, I’m an analyst. I connect the dots, fill in the blanks, and solve the puzzles.
One thing that has always puzzled me about your people. You are stronger than we are, you are smarter than we are, you have had warp drive since the time of our Jesus. Why don’t you have colonies and worlds from one side of the galaxy to the other?
Look at us Humans, just over a century with warp and already there are 60 billion of us spread out over a hundred worlds. Why the disparity?
(Ridgeway’s communicator beeps)
Ridgeway here
Voice in communicator, heavy New York accent: Stan, it’s me, Sal, the pies are ready on the pad, but I’m not gettin’ a lock, does your building have it’s shields up?
Ridgeway: Yeah, standard VIP protocol, you won’t believe who’s in here with me.
Sal: Judging from the special topping you ordered I have a pretty good guess.
Ridgeway:Heh, youre gonna put me out of a job, Sal. (Punches keyboard on table) Try it now.
(Transporter hums and two pizza cartons materialize over table, then drop and land with a slight bounce.)
Ridgeway: There are over a thousand pizza shops here in Frisco, but I have mine beamed in from a little place in Brooklyn. It costs four times as much but there is just no substitute. Something in the air, something in the water, nobody knows. People out West have been trying for centuries to replicate it. (takes a deep breath, savoring the aroma)
(Spock swallows, salivating involuntarily)
These pies are extra special, those are VULCAN mushrooms you smell there, Sal used to have them flown in special by high warp courier. They can’t be grown anywhere else.
What ELSE can’t grow anywhere but Vulcan? What ELSE did you do underground?
Pike: Remember the Talosians Spock, what they said to me before I left “No other species has shown your adaptability.” I never understood that then, but I do now.
Give us any class M world and we can make a home of it. We have no telepathy, almost every race is stronger, tougher and longer lived than us. We have no apparent strengths, but that is decieving. It seems that our true physical strength is that we lack any fatal weakness.
Ridgeway: I don’t blame you for keeping it a secret from us, If I had an inherent vulnerability, I wouldn’t want anybody to know either, not even a trusted friend, because friends don’t always stay that way forever.
Spock: I can not confirm nor deny your theorizations Go to the Council and ask T’Pol.
Ridgeway: It would be a waste of time, she won’t tell me anything I don’t already know (smiles wryly) on the other hand, she might need me to help relive her, um…symptoms (Spock flinches)
What I would want from T’Pol won’t save your kind, only you can do that, with the knowledge you possess.
Spock: you have enough Vulcans to place one on every Starfleet vessel, they will know what to find in a suitable world.
Pike: I had to go to the wall with the brass just to get Enterprise released for exploration duty. After our losses at the battle of Vulcan they want to curtail exploration and draw the fleet back for homeworld defense, at least until we can bring our forces back to full strength.
Nogura: We lost a lot of ships and a lot of people that day, It will take nearly a decade to recover completely, unless we can come up with some kind of force multiplyer. You would be of great help in that regard.
Ridgeway: I still say sending our flagship out to the Frontier is a BS public relations stunt and a damn waste of material. If there was a world out there conducive to the Vulcan life cycle the Vulcans themselves would have found it centuries ago.
But they did, didn’t they Ambassador Spock, ROMULUS! With what you know we could slip past their defenses and take out their C and C quick and clean, with a minimum loss of life on both sides. You would have a new home and we would get a major threat off our backs. It would save the Romulans too because you could head off that super nova without having to negotiate a hostile border.
Spock: It never ceases to amaze me that traveling back in time a mere century would place me among humans with sensibilities as unevolved as yours.
Ridgeway: Evolution ain’t about sensibilty Mr Ambassador, it’s about SURVIVAL! Or doesn’t that compute in your genius brain.
Spock: You would have me use my knowledge to enable you to launch an unprovoked sneak attack. That not only goes against everything I believe in, but also all that the Federation stands for.
Ridgeway: Unprovoked? They destroyed your world!
I would gladly give my life to uphold our Federation’s laws, ideals, and directives..if it were just me. But when your ship, your crew, your world or your race is on the line, those laws are just ink on paper. You’ve been out there, you know how it is.
That kid from Iowa, Kirk, HE understands. Why do you think we gave him the Big “E” instead of some pissant escort or scoutship? Gratitude? anybody can have beginner’s luck. We gave him that plum command because he has POTENTIAL.
We’ve been watching that boy for a long time, he was a friend of yours, wasnt he? (Spock nods)
But you didn’t just call him Friend, you called him something else, didn’t you?…….CAPTAIN! You need to consider all your options because you haven’t got many, and you need to think about what Jim Kirk would do. Now why don’t you sit down and join us for pizza.
Spock: I cannot break bread with you, You are a power-hungry warmonger and I detest you, Admiral Ridgeway, However your arguments are not without logic and I shall give them due consideration.
Ridgeway: Yeah, you think it over, take all the time you need, just remember that in OUR time it takes us twenty years to lay up a new class of ships, ten years to develop and field a new weapon system. How much time have your people got? How long before we have to freeze and box the whole lot of you? who will find your new homeworld then? When you’re nothing but a Spock-sickle.
(Spock turns to leave, but stops next to Lawrence Marvick, leans over him and whispers in his ear.)”Leave the Medusan alone, she isn’t worth it.” (Marvick has a confused look on his face)
Spock: Good day, gentlemen (walks out the door and down the hall, we can see a tear running down his face.)
Vydor: Well, that could have gone better.
Ridgeway: He needs time to chew on it, wait ’till more of his people start flipping out, he’ll come around. (picks up piece of pizza topped with iradescent green mushrooms)
Slice, anyone?
-Fade out-
The best Star Trek Episodes have always involved moral conflict and hard decisions, and we’ve got a real doozy here, don’t we?
I would give Paramount the rights to this in exchange for the chance to read for the role of the hard-line Federation hawk Ridgeway, because nobody could do it better than me (after all I just created him)
So there you have it, my very first Trek fan fiction scene, hope you all liked it.
An interesting idea, BE. You’d need to get in front of Abrams and Co. though, as they’re already writing the sequel. Furthermore, Paramount owns everything Star Trek related by default; fans are allowed to create “fan fiction” but Paramount could take it and use it without paying a penny as they hold the copyright. I’ll be curious to see what happens when CBS and Paramount stop cooperating, which isn’t too far off.
One thing worth noting – Saavik is half-Romulan. There’s no guarantee that she was on Vulcan at the point of its destruction. Valeris is a different matter, but she could be one of the 10,000 – they picked a big enough number that anyone they truly want to be saved can be claimed as a refugee.
An interesting postulation, regardless. Personally, I’m looking for a Khan figure in the next movie. Kirk needs a personal villian of equal brilliance and cunning.
Until someone gets the quote, I’ll ask a different question: what kind of movie would others like to see? To enlighten the discussion, don’t worry about the need to “appeal to the masses” for viability.
Cheers,
~Doc
@Doc
I don’t think anyone fully answered your quote, so I’ll give it a shot. Mr. Atoz to Kirk in “All Our Yesterdays”?
Good enough to steal? That’s quite a compliment.
Just trying to move up the Trek addict food chain from customer to dealer. As always, the first fix is free.
Nothing in that premise that would keep it from being in the third sequel rather than the second. Of course then I would be facing the fabled Odd Movie Curse, but somebody has to brave the storm.
—-cheers
@BE
I liked it. Very well written.
Not something I’d think they’d do though.
Don’t think they’ll go with the ugly, miliaristic side of humanity thing. And what would Kirk and company do – stop Starfleet?
I think they want to keep the Federation as good guys so at least awhile.
@ Brighteyes:
Nah, BE, you don’t have to worry, the curse was broken because the last movie, ‘Nemesis’ was a flop, and it was a nice even ten. Everybody’s head is vigorously nodding now, right?
Pon Farr. Hmmm, that is a good idea, excellent plot device. Just one problem: Didn’t Ambassador Spock say, at the end of the first reboot movie, that he had already located a suitable world for a new Vulcan colony?
Even if he did, no matter, there could always be a new twist, some unbeknowst hidden danger that would make Earth the only suitable alternate, at least for the short term. Let’s face it, 10,000 vegetarians would be no burden at all – except for Pon Farr.
I don’t know about now, the CBS/Paramount evil alliance (hahaha!) being what it is, but IMHO you probably can’t count on getting any credit for your plotline – or getting paid. The best a civilian can hope for, unless you know somebody (Hollywood is an incestuous place, even today) is to one day see your plot onscreen, and just take the satisfaction. I hope I’m wrong, maybe the fanfiction apparatus is more highly evolved concerning Star Trek, who knows? It’s worth a try, and if you ask me, originality sells.
But if you don’t have a track record, an agent, or some kind if connection with Abram’s inner circle, it will be tough. And yes, the Doc is right, it definitely IS good enough to steal.
Not so sure I agree with you, though, that YOU should be the one to play Admiral Ridgeway (great name for a war-mongering heavy, BTW); of course, I have not yet met you, BE, but I prefer to think of you being a nice guy, and Ridgeway sounds like a BORN a**hole, not one who got that way thru’ learned behavior. So if you ask me, the one to play Stan (Stanley? Stanislaw?) Ridgeway should be the man who was the antagonist admiral to Kelsey Grammer’s Captain Sam Dodge in the comedy ‘Down Periscope’ – Ridgeway could only be played by the great actor Bruce Dern.
“Gotche now, Popeye!”
Can’t you just see him? Making Spock scowl? Head of Starfleet Intelligence, indeed! I like it.
Whaddya think? It may be all acedemic, but new ideas have to come from somewhere, and this idea is a good one! I should not be surprised, from the man who put Scotty with Bateson in the ASDB to design the Sovereign class, and on a guess! Submit your precis, outline, whatever, see what happens, it surtely can’t hurt to send them a script, right?
I hope I’m wrong about how tough it would be, BE! Good luck.
~Johnny
@ Fury2701:
With all possible respect, Fury, I think I have to disagree that a Starfleet Intelligence chief would be so un-Starfllet-like in his military adventurism:
Remember, in ST/VI, the meeting in the President’s office (within sight of the Eiffel Tower, in Paris) about ‘Operation Retrieve’?
The Efrosian President of the Federation Security Council (Kurtwood Smith) was willing to listen to Colonel West (judging by his rank, no doubt a commanding officer in the Federation Marines, or ‘MACOs’), whose plan had the full backing of the Starfleet Chief of Operations (‘CSO’?), identified throughout the movie only as ‘Bill’, overall a rather sympathetic, likeable character (Leon Russom).
Despite this, and probably as a result of the President’s resusal of Operation Retrieve, Col West turned out to be a really bad guy – along with fellow conspirators Lt Valeris, Admiral Cartright, and others – when he attempted to assassinate Azetbur Gorkon, the slain Klingon Chancellor’s daughter, at the Khitomer Conference.
Such a scenario is quite possible, and believable, in light of the events of ST/VI, IMHO.
Especially if the chief bad guy is played by Bruce Dern, hahahaha!
@ BE:
I got it: STANSFIELD. Admiral Stansfield Ridgeway, Chief of Starfleet Intelligence. Whaddya think? Perfect name for an overambitious, consciousless supreme a**hole of the universe!
~Johnny
Bright Eyes, excellent scenario – an inspired direction to take human/Vulcan relations in. I can’t imagine a better setup for throwing a spanner into new chronological works than introducing the Pon Farr to the Federation on Earth. Loved the “Spock-cicle” and Lawrence Marvick reference as well.
Much as I’d like to see Bruce Dern (or Brad Dourif, for that matter)in a Trek movie, didn’t Stan Ridgway used to be in the band Wall Of Voodoo? Sorry, couldn’t resist that!
Ridgeway is indeed a magnificent bastard, the kind of role that George C Scott, Jack Nicholson, or Robert Duvall would have really sunk their teeth into back in the day.
I have been told that I resemble a young Robert Duvall. I’m not such a bad guy myself, but I would gladly play one for the chance to act opposite Nimoy, so I guess that I’m a little like Ridgeway in that regard, whatever it takes.
Although Starfleet officers are generally a moral and upstanding bunch, there have always been a few pricks in the mix, and more often than not they have borne the rank of Admiral.
I just thought that a script with characters would tell the story better than a simple matter-of-fact explanation of the scenario. I have no idea how Spock was able to find a suitable Vulcan colony world while being marooned on an ice cube.
Maybe he was just trying to get the Vulcans off of Earth before the blood fever began to set in, so they would only be a danger to each other and not humanity. Don’t forget that the Genesis Planet looked perfectly hospitable at the end of “Wrath of Khan”
So here we are, there were only two known planets with a biosphere conducive to the Vulcan reproductive cycle, and now we’re down to just one, and THAT one is threatened by an impending supernova.
A quickie in the turbolift with Uhura or swatting Kirk around the bridge like a cat toy may provide some temporary relief, but a Vulcan must fight and/or fornicate while breathing VULCAN air to force the Pon Farr into remission for another seven years.
Quite the problem for our green-blooded friends, wouldn’t you say? It certainly gives us an impetus and a sense of urgency to find a solution, and gives us a lot of moral dilemmas along the way.
This is what good Trek is all about.
Another memorable Starfleet swine in a slightly less memorable movie was Anthony Zerbe as Admiral Dougherty in Insurrection, so there’s definitely a precedent for high-ranking wrong-’uns.
@ Big Dentist:
I agree with you, Brad Dourif would make a great Admiral Ridgeway, although I wonder if he doesn’t ‘do creepy’ just a little TOO well? Hahaha, I dunno, I have a hard tome seeing him as admiral, or is it just me? Psych-eval, anyone?
As for the name Ridgeway (esp Stan Ridgeway), I can’t speak for anybody else on this side of the Atlantic, but I believe you may have to explain that as much as what a ‘spanner’ is – I know, but we call it a monkey wrench, and the only person with an American accent I ever heard use the term in a movie was not even a human from Earth, but a dashing young Correllian smuggler named Han Solo – “Chewie, you wanna get me the hydro spanner(pipe wrench, get it? Hahaha), please?” (‘The Empire Strikes Back’).
When I hear the name Ridgeway, I think if the general who took over (successfully) for Gen MacArthur after President Truman was forced to fire him when he wanted to blow off the UN and use nukes all the way from Pyongyang up into the Chinese interior, from Peking (now Beijing) to Shanghai. Ridgewasy was, as far as I know, a good soldier.
Using the names of real-life decent people for fictonal bad guys is an old trick, like the President of Earth in the excellent series ‘Babylon 5′, being named President Clarke (same spelling as Arthur C Clarke, surely an excellent historical personage), altho’, in all fairness, that has not always been the case -
Like the ST villian KHAN!
~Johnny
@ Big D:
Right you are, mate!
~Johnny
@Kahless – nope. But you’re close, too!
@BE:
It can’t be the air. I’m certain they have copious levels of detail on the composition of Vulcan’s atmosphere, so that could easily be replicated with simple chemistry. The problem we have with Pon Farr is that Star Trek III screwed up the back history. Spock used the analogy of the salmon in “Amok Time” as the need to return “to that one stream” but Saavik clearly helped him on Genesis and he wasn’t on Vulcan. Actually, I find it doubtful that he and T’Pring were both born in the wedding/combat area, so the presumption on which I’d operate is that Vulcans instinct it to return home to mate, but that they simply *must* mate every seven years. I don’t beleive that Pon Farr preculdes mating “in between” as it were, just that they must do so every seven years.
From a physiological standpoint, Pon Farr is a rather riduculous notion. The seven year piece is fine and well supported, but no biological system can comprehend a galactic scale on a subliminal level. It’s a somewhat proven fact that some people can sense direction based on “attuning” with magnetic fields. I recall reading about how they become very disoriented during an MRI. Anyway, this subset of the human population knows where they are, but not with GPS accuracy. Vulcans have superior intellectual capacity, and “super-human” strength, but for a Vulcan colony to succeed, one must presuppose that they are not bound to Vulcan for Pon Farr.
However, your comment about “Vulcan mushrooms” is proably spot on. Trace elements common in the Vulcan environment would need to be substituted in an artificial manner. But, realistically, 10,000 Vulcans could have an entire city to themselves in Arizona and most people wouldn’t notice. I do like the idea, but it’d need to be refined, slightly.
And @ Johnny,
Paramount/CBS do not accept unsolicited scripts of any kind. If BE presented his script to them using different names and situations and they made a Star Trek movie based on it, he could sue. For that reason, anything you submit is returned unopened. Contracted writers are allowed to submit, but you must be a member of the Writer’s Guild of America *AND* invited to present, usually via an agent.
None of this precludes us from enjoing a good discussion about it on this board, however.
Cheers, all.
~Doc
I just think that Abrams and Co. will not want to do the “humans as the enemy” thing this early in the reboot.
It has been done to some extent in the past and is not really new ground.
However, I think BE’s idea is sound. Let’s just all colloborate and write some fan fiction.
I’ll write the Orion Slave girl planet part -
Fade In:
A dark and seedy bar location. Alien music is played. Neon lights blaze unreadable words. All manner of species populate the bar. Think Mos Eisly Cantina scene but darker and with a “gentlemen’s club” feel.
In walk our three heroes; Kirk, Spock and McCoy.
McCoy looks mildly (but only mildly) disgusted. Spock seems oddly curious. Kirk is completely in his element.
McCoy to Kirk: “You always take me to the best places Jim.”
Kirk in response: “Your welcome.” McCoy shoots him an unwelcome glance.
Spock: “I find it facinating that your “repretable” source would choose this location to meet us in.”
Kirk: “It’s called a cover Spock. She’s Orion. This is what they . . . do.”
It’s at this point the camera pans to a stage-like area where we see multiple Orion women engaged in . . .
Now we all can use our imaginations for what comes next.
Please forgive any misspelling I might have let slip through.
Who’s up next?
Steve, not to question your knowledge of things biological for one second, but you’re talking about an alien species with telepathic abilities, so its collective perception of physical space might be different from ours. Mind you, I do remember saying in a post a while back that your idea about Spock sensing the destruction of Vulcan was a bit too much like Obi-Wan and Alderaan, so what do I know…
In answer to your question about what kind of sequel we’d all like to see, I’ve been thinking about that ever since I saw the movie, and I have to say Bright Eyes’s scenario is the best starting point I’ve heard yet by a long way.
It just occurred to me, BE: would the Pike in this timeline necessarily have encountered the Talosians at all? Great point about our true strength being our lack of fatal weaknesses compared with other ostensibly superior species though. How about Ed Harris as Ridgeway?
Johnny, I had no idea “spanner” wasn’t a universal term, if you’ll pardon the pun (Star Wars notwithstanding)! Brad Dourif came to mind when you mentioned Bruce Dern in terms of a similar “twitchy” quality, but I was thinking of him more in an alien role a la his thoroughly bizarre Piter De Vries in Dune. Wall Of Voodoo were from your very own LA, incidentally! Early `80s stuff – check out “Mexican Radio”.
Fury2701, like it!
Spock was from a very aristocratic and traditional family, hence all the ceremony and ritual combat.
Unbeknownst to Outworlders the Vulcans maintained a network of red light districts, tryst hotels, and fight clubs for the relief of the average workaday Vulcan. Hence Ridgeway’s quote “What ELSE did you do underground?”
Spock may have been born on Vulcan, but he was re-born on Genisis, that is why Savvik was able to “help” him.
Robert Duvall: “I love the smell of photons in the morning…”
Those Vulcans are a bunch of dark horses…
Well, I must admit that I just have a problem with Pon Farr on a galactic scale (and really always have) but I also have a strong suspense of disbelief so I can go with it for a two-hour movie.
The second movie will need to follow the first second movie (gotta love time-loop nouns) because I remember when TWOK opened wondering, “Where the hell is Kirk and who is that woman in the chair?” TUC also had a nice opening with its literal “bang” so props to it, and I find it more than coincidental that Nick Meyer directed them both. What I’d like to see is a movie that opens with some kind of major confrontation (already in progress) between the Enterprise and a Romulan vessel. Pretty much a long version of “Balance of Terror” with a “Run Silent, Run Deep” element to it. I’ll take a go at crafting a draft after I get up tomorrow afternoon. Engineering unquestionably will not be a brewery. And for what it’s worth, “I’m a doctor, not a director.”
~Doc
@ All:
VERY interesting postS!
I especially liked the info about Vulcan dives, interesting that such an incredibly mentally disciplined culture would very wisely choose to have such safety valves – oh, that there was more of that kind of thinking in the US!!!
I wouldn’t mind getting a lapdance from T’Pol! I’ll tell ya that…
Big D, I did not know that about ‘Wall of Voodoo’, though I have heard the single ‘Mexican Radio’! Please forgive me for making such a paternalistic assumption of something being from your culture when it was clearly ours, I just never heard of Wall of Voodoo before (music is not my forte).
I stand by the whole spanner/monkey wrench thing, though, HAHAHAHAHAHA!
Also, I LOVE your idea about Ed Harris as Admiral Ridgeway! He would make a very believable, yet abusively malevolent, Starfleet admiral in charge of SFI. He (Harris) is an excellent man, I consider he and his cute, scrappy wife, Amy Maddigan, one of Hollywood’s most role-model couples, even over Matthew Broderick & Sarah Jessica Parker. As a heavy who is the good guy we love to hate, he’d be perfect, even over Dern. Still say he’d be good too, just the same.
@ Fury – you never did say, what about Stansfield for Ridgeway’s first name?
I think that’s everything; now whose up for a green Orion girl’s lap dance? I got twenty credits that aren’t goin’ anywhere! Hahahaha!
For what it is worth, particularly considering that the man who originally initiated the process (admittedly in another timeline) is Ambassador Spock (Spock Prime), the whole issue of Vulcan/Romulan Reunification could be jump-started 100 or more years ahead of schedule…might be a satisfying conclusion, don’t you think? And who better than Ambassador Spock?
~Johnny
PS, Fury: As far as your spelling, the only thing you messed up was a common mistake, which admittedly drives me nuts, very minor – the confusing of the possesive ‘your’ with the contraction for ‘you are’, or you’re; after that, you only misspelled the derivative of reputation, ‘reputable’, but compared to some of the texting shorthand I’ve seen online, hell, what’s that? Just wanted to be a prick, can’t help it, sorry!
Personally, I like the idea of those three in an Orion jiggle-joint cantina – stuff they could only talk about in the TOS episodes, like in ‘The Cage’, where we first saw Vina as an Orion dancer, or at the end of ‘Devil in the Dark’, after the crew’s ingestion of therigan derivative (McCoy: “Oh, I know the place! I know the place!” Kirk, to Bones & Scotty: “You gentlemen, in your current state? Forget it!”).
L8r!
Just FYI – “Devil in the Dark” was about the Horta. I believe you’re referring to “Wolf in the Fold” where Scotty’s convited of murder. Just a suspicion.
~Doc