What Did You Think Of Star Trek? (Spoiler Discussion)
May 8, 2009 by Vic HoltremanNeed a place to talk about the Star Trek movie, including spoilers? Come on in…
Regular Screen Rant reader “790″ suggested I set up a discussion post for the Star Trek movie, where people can feel free to talk about all aspects of the film without having to worry about spoiling it for others. I had meant to set one of these up for Wolverine but just never got around to it.
Considering how popular I think Star Trek will be (moreso than Wolvie), I thought it might be a good idea to get this set up ASAP. 
So discuss the film below to your heart’s content!
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Yes, there was a brief scene showing him cuffed (hands were out of frame, but the position was correct). There was a voiceover about him being recently escaped from a Klingon prison or having been in a Klingon prison for 20 years. He was in a ragged burlap looking shirt and he was being pushed around by a Klingon (maybe two). The Klingon looked just like the movie and TNG era Klingon in the standard armor looking attire.
Actually, I am wrong. I did a Google search for “nero with klingon prison” and it looks like he is fighting off two guards who have masks on. The masks have a ridged forehead. Never call me to be an eyewitness in a trial lol.
The question of why Nero waited around for 25 years instead of returning to Romulus bothered me a bit, too. But after thinking about it, there are many plausible reasons.
1) He was caught somehow (during a refueling raid, or down on a planet somewhere on an expedition) and didn’t escape until just before Spock’s ship came through the black hole (as has already been mentioned above)
2) The second reason (and more plausible in my opinion) is that Nero didn’t return to Romulus because he didn’t want to take the chance of trying to convince the Romulans the truth of his story. Romulans are supposed to be a violent race, constantly scrambling for power. A Romulan – a mere mining ship captain, mind you – shows up with a ship that will destroy dozens of the finest Romulan battleships.
Such a ship would be perceived as an immediate threat to the Romulan empire. It would also be viewed immediately as a prize for the taking – every Romulan commander would be lusting after it.
Nero knew this. And maybe because he was Romulan, he would feel compelled to bow to the greater authority of the Romulan empire because he was, by his admission, a mere miner. And once his ship was taken away, he would not be able able to have his revenge.
Seriously, what are the chances that the Romulans would believe Nero’s story? Their desire to possess his ship and technology would override their logic, and besides, a 100+ years was far off in the future anyway.
So rather than take the chance of losing his ship to the Romulan military and thus lose his opportunity for revenge, Nero decided the safer course was to wait it out. From a psychological perspective, I think this is reasonable.
It’s like the only decent episode of “Enterprise,” the one that takes place in a mirror universe – after Archer recover the Constellation class starship that popped into the universe from the future, his admiral decides to claim the advanced ship for himself, causing Archer to kill him to maintain control of the ship. Nero realize the only way he would be able to convince Romulus to listen to him is if he took control by force, which would mean killing his fellow Romulus, and he wasn’t willing to take the chance. He was crazy and obsessed, but a patriot to his race….
found this on google:
“No. Klingons do not feature in the film, as Abrams reportedly believes them to be over-used and cliché. They do, in a way, figure into the backstory of the film’s villain, who is mentioned to have spent time in a Klingon prison. In the theatrical trailer, Nero is seen attempting to escape from two Klingon prison guards wearing helmets, but this scene was cut from the final film.”
(i bet that’s where he lost part of his ear…)
I never even noticed the lens flare.
I enjoyed the movie very much, but bear in mind I wasn’t much of a Star Trek enthusiast to begin with so I’m not sure that I would have much constructive criticism to give in the first place. But I thought it was a very fun flick, with plenty of good things going for it – an epic story, a terrific cast of actors, and some impressive cinematography.
The only thing that really bothered me was the shaky, rapid-shooting action directing. I loved how they did the Sulu and Kirk scene but besides that…
I’d give the movie 4/5 as well, and it deserves its own series of sequels. Even though I’ve heard that Abrams and company apparently hated the Star Trek franchise (any truth to that btw?), the movie’s still doing a good job of renewing interest in the original series.
@ eyrieowl, I liked your comments. Made me think.
I guess they didn’t really think the majority of the audience would be that well-educated to realize the fallacy of these plot points (I sure didn’t know much about the effects of a supernova)… Hollywood tends to dumb down their movies most of the time and they do get away with it a lot of times.
I think Andrew had a really good idea with the whole movie being set in Star Fleet academy. It would have given time for character development and had room for some nice action scenes.
No one seems to have mentioned this, but I doubt it was a coincidence that Kirk was eating an apple during the Kobayashi Maru scene, and he was eating an apple when he explained how he cheated on the test in Star Trek 2. I kinda thought that was a nice touch. However, in Star Trek 2 Spock says “As I recall you took the test yourself a number of times and your final solution was, shall we say unique” when referring to kirks attempts at the Kobayashi Maru test. Yet in this movie he only has 1 attempt at the test! You could argue alternative time line again but that just seems like a cop out for bad scripting to me.
Wait a minute! I thought Uhura was singing to Charley Evans, not Spock. “Charlie’s our new darling, new darling, new darling…”. Please don’t have me sing that.
@ Dave,
neat point about the apple!!!! btw- in dialogue w/ mcCoy, kirk says that he’s going to take the kobayashi maru test AGAIN. (Mccoy proceeds to tell them what a waste that would be..) Even uhura’s reaction implies that “we’ve been through this before…” type tone. (she was so not into it, hat’s off to the actress , btw)
@Dave
If I remember correctly, in the movie, this was Kirk’s third attempt to beat the Kobiashi Maru.
John “Kahless”Taylor ,
Uhura sings to Charlie at the end of the scene.
but up to that point, She is singing to and about Spock.
If you listen to Kirk and McCoy’s conversation right before the test McCOY was trying to talk Kirk out of taking the test again so he had already taken I think two times.
The more I think about it the Red Matter is leaving everyone with a big question mark. Big plot hole there.
I noticed the mistake about the supernova when Spock said it and it just shows how smart Trek fans are that many of them caught it.
What about Scotty’s mascot Jar-Jar Binks wanna be? Anyone else think that was just silly?
@Gary
Oh, yeah, she did, but I remember it being a type of joking around type singing. Anyway, thanks.
@Sin, actually it makes more sense that the size and strength of the black hole is proportional to the amount of energy put into the red matter rather than the amount of red matter. Because that would explain the drilling to the center of the planet and the black hole formed because of the supernova. Also, the red matter itself seems fairly dorment when left alone which makes me come to the conclusion that it more makes use of energy provided to it than making the black hole by itself.
So in that end scene, the only energy put into the red matter would be the kinetic energy from the crash, the heat from the explosions from the missiles and from the impact, all put together is far less energy than what’s available in the core of a planet or in a supernova.
@Jen J
Yeah, I meant Rick Berman. Chris Berman is the ESPN guy.lol
I kinda lump ‘enterprise’, ‘nemesis’, and ‘insurrection’ together as the cumulative end of Trek even though I felt ‘enterprise’ started out decent.
you guys been busy or what? there has been all kind of updates on movies over the past week but we’ve heard nothing from SR. terminator updates and videos, McG talking about the different endings, the SNL video of Nimoy and the guys. What is up? Maybe whoever controls the Twitter account should stop worrying about telling people he’s going to the gym to work on his arms and maybe work on the site.
@joe
We’ve stopped posting Terminator videos for the most part to not give anything more away from the film. I also read that one of the conversations McG had was actually a spoiler ending for the movie, so no, we didn’t cover that.
SNL and theonion.com videos, funny – sure. News? Not so much (although I thought about posting those up, time just got away from me).
You may not know this but we’re probably one of the only movie sites of our size that is run part time – everyone on staff is part time, including me. And since last Monday we’ve managed to write up 53 items including movie reviews, editorials, new posters, trailers and news. Including in that 53 items were
- 3 Terminator stories
- 4 Wolverine/X-Men/Spinoff stories
- 3 Inglourius Basterds items
- 2 Iron Man posts
- 3 Star Trek posts
- 3 Green Lantern posts
- 2 District 9 posts (a movie most people haven’t heard of)
Plus Conan, Sherlock Holmes, Thor, Predators, Transformers 2, G.I. Joe and more.
So why don’t you maybe cut us a little slack, eh? And BTW, I’ll “tweet” whatever the hell I like.
Vic
vic i was just kidding around busting balls. no harm done.
everyone has been busy with Star Trek anyway so we’re good.
when i type i don’t like to sugar coat either.
Ken J, I get what you’re saying about the amount of energy (not the amount of red matter) being key to the strength and size of the singularity; you’ve explained this more than you need to … Unfortunately people aren’t reading all of the comments before posting. I understand. This page has a boat load of comments … It just kind of irks me.
@Dave
I already mentioned that in a May 10th post above:
“Kobayashi Maru:
Anyone else notice the confident, apple-munching Kirk-with-a-plan parallels closely with the beginning of this scene in Wrath of Khan?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7w18yZdeRl4&fmt=18 (no sound, only the score—but you get my point)
Pine recreates Kirk’s swagger perfectly. Love it!”
@ Ken J
Gotcha. Just seemed like since there was more it would have done the same black hole damage, but I understand what you are saying.
@ Asa T
Sometimes people come here while at work and only get to briefly skim the articles. There is no pre requisite to read all comments before posting on them, and also the same question can be asked if some still doesn’t understand how it was explained the first time.
@joe
Well I couldn’t tell from your comment. A smiley goes a long way in describing tone, bud.
Vic
I’m trying NOT to write a 20,000 word essay on this movie. I saw the first showing of ST many years ago, and watched it religiously for many years afterwards. But I’m not going to whine about this movie not being “faithful,” etc. But I do have some comments, both positive and negative.
This was a rip-roaring good popcorn-and-coke action movie. Lots of CGI and big explosions. You almost expect to see a close-up of Bruce Willis screaming “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!”
While I didn’t expect it to be a rehash of the old ST, I did expect it to at least retain the “spirit” of Star Trek – the ambience, the Federation discipline, the underlying sense of awe at what’s “out there.” They could have rewritten the characters and redesigned the space ship, etc. and kept that alive.
But they didn’t. Not even close. I think they strayed a little too far, and tried to score brownie points by calling it “Star Trek” and giving familiar names to some of the characters. Indeed, that’s really the only similarity it had to the original.
Heck, they could have called it “Plan 9 From Outer Space” and it still would have been a rip-roaring smash. Calling it “Star Trek” mainly served the purpose of selling a lot of extra tickets. Translate: more $$$. Hollywood whores.
Instead, we saw a bunch of horny, hyper, bug-eyed KIDS, not even old enough to shave, in charge of a… gasp… STARSHIP.
I mean… just IMAGINE one of these whiny Spring Break Punks being Chief Pilot of a space shuttle, or commanding a nuclear aircraft carrier. Seriously. Well, that’s what they’re trying to sell you.
But noooo, “old people” don’t fit into the marketing scheme. So we have Captain Peach-fuzz Giggle-teehee commanding a starship, and of course the requisite racial balance and political correctness, and of course the mandatory acreage of exposed female flesh.
This movie was formula, formula, formula, and people swallowed it in buckets, and of course, layering on a “Star Trek” skin, however thin, was a sure way to bring in a gazillion dollars, no matter how good or bad it was.
But still… Well done? Yes. Entertaining? Absolutely. It’s on my “buy the Blu-Ray just to have it” list. Good movie, fun to watch. Good CGI. Sexy chicks. Man, lookit them legs.
But please don’t call it “Star Trek.” I’m not that stupid.
Ron
@ Vic
Sorry Vic I’m buying the comic to understand the movie. I don’t even want a summary of the comic to understand the movie. See I did that already with the Matrix movies. I bought the video game and I bought the animated movie and I still hated the movies. Making your audience buy other crap to enjoy your movie is not only poor story telling it’s also poor marketing. The average movie doesn’t care about supplement comic. I collect comics and I know/care about the comic. :\
I loved Star Trek. For all you mad saying it erase 30 years of continuity? Well they shouldn’t have killed Capt Kirk either. They sold out Kirk to bring in Picard to the movies. The new time line will hopefully change that mistake and Kirk will survive the future. Hopefully Picard dies instead. The movie was outstanding. Get over it. They did all characters well. Movie is 5/5 for me.
Best Star Trek ever.
@Valis_kr3
Hey, I agree with you – you SHOULDN’T have to read a prequel story to “get” a movie. I’m just saying that if you did it now, it would help explain some things. That’s part of the reason I didn’t rate it higher than I did, even though I knew the background details from having read them. Shouldn’t have been necessary.
Vic
@Dave,
Thansk for the props dude… It’s cool to find a message board like this with people who are really into Star Trek exchanging ideas…
@Joey,
As I remember when Generations came out – Marina Sirtis (Counselor Troy) said in an interview that the TNG Cast wanted their own movie. It was the studio’s idea as it was seen as them passing the baton. She said she thought Generations was lovely when she saw it. Dunno if that was for real or what. But anyways,personally for me – I just prefer they keep things seperate. But it would be cool to see a little allusion here and there like Picard barking at the helm to start defensive pattern Krik-Epsilon-whatever.. And little things here and there of that nature. I didn’t like how Kirk died in Generations either. He was trying to save the ship tho.. Why couldn’t he just stay retired? Well it was befitting to his character. Somehow can’t see him dying of old age…. The way Data died in Nemisis – now that was heroic
@Ken J
Thanks for your response. I’ll buy the red-matter-proportional-to-energy theory. To address something else you said about black holes and time travel–I’ll admit, it’s a stretch sometimes. I will say that “sci-fi rule” seems to generally be that this only works if the item being swallowed is a) a ship and b) smaller than the event horizon of the black hole. Larger items and non-ships are simply destroyed. Also, the black hole isn’t usually portrayed as creating a corresponding black hole in the past. The black hole only exists in the future. However, the severe gravitational disruption of the future black hole creates a space-time rift through which (some) infalling items can escape into another time. So it’s unlikely that it would directly cause problems with past timelines other than via objects which go through it. If I can help you to suspend belief a bit, try to think of it as a wormhole. Not sure your familiarity with the layman’s version, but for anyone who isn’t…generally faster-than-light travel is prohibited by relativistic limits–too much energy required to go even close to the speed of light. This restriction applies to traveling from one set of space time coordinates to another. Which, for “normal” (uniform/regular) space time geometries precludes traveling to far locations in short time frames b/c of the light-speed limit. However, the wormhole is basically a tunnel through the regular geometry. Were you to travel through the wormhole, you would still be traveling under the laws of relativistic physics in that your actual velocity would not be faster than light. However, if the tunnel were shorter than the “normal” distance between the two spots, you would appear to have gone from A to B much faster than relativity would allow. Now, we tend to think in 3 dimension wrt travel, but we live in a universe of (at least) 4 (and almost certainly more) dimensions. There is the time portion of space time, so the sci-fi (albeit bad physics) flight-of-fancy is to take the same concept but use it on the time dimension. So…the stress caused by the warping of space-time via a singularity cause one portion of spacetime to come into contact with another which is in a different time coordinate, creating a “wormhole” from one timeframe to another. FWIW, this “staying below relativistic speeds” is also part of how warp drives work, in that they create a “subspace bubble”, essentially a structure which exists around a portion of space time and which allows that bubble and its contents to move relative to the rest of space time at speeds which appear faster than light to the external reference frame. However, since the object (ship) is stationary within the bubble, relativity’s findings are preserved and the ship, while requiring a *lot* of energy for the warp drive, doesn’t require anything near what would be required to even approach light-speed. (god i’m such a geek…
)
I asked this way back, and perhaps I missed the response. If so, I’ll apologize in advance for asking again.
How, in bloody H–L, did Kirk get promoted from Ensign (I’m not even sure he was that – Cadet maybe?) all the way to Starship Captain of Starfleet’s Flagship? Because the Spock from the future says so? Come on, no way is Starfleet gonna buy that. Further, apparently that wasn’t good enough either. They gave him a medal on top of it all.
Sorry, that doesn’t wash with me.