I just got back from seeing the new Star Trek movie (or Star Trek XI, for those keeping track). I thought it was terrific – and so did the rest of the audience, who actually applauded at the end. The film did a good job of drawing in newcomers while also throwing in references to gratify the established fanbase (as well as a reference to one of Shatner’s Priceline commercials!). And I got the thrill I imagine I was supposed to get at seeing yellow-shirt Kirk finally showing up in the last scene.
Still, needless to say, I wouldn’t be a good trek’ar if I didn’t have a few gripes. SPOILERS FOLLOW:
- Nero’s motivation is not very well explained; why, exactly, does he blame Spock for what happened to Romulus? (Yes, I’ve read the prequel comic with Nero’s backstory, but a) you shouldn’t have to read the comic to understand the movie; b) frankly, even in the comic it’s not all that well explained; and c) in any case it’s not clear that the comic is even consistent with the film, given that in the film Old Spock certainly makes it sound as though he’d never met Nero before the latter went on his revenge rampage.)
For that matter, it’s not clear why, once Nero realised he was in the past, he didn’t just go to Romulus and give them the information about the threat so that they could avert it in time to save the planet. Just destroying a bunch of Federation worlds isn’t going to save Romulus in the future. Psst! Preventing a letting-die works a little differently from preventing a killing!
(On the other hand, there’s one supposed puzzle that I’ve seen raised on the internet that I don’t think is a genuine puzzle, namely, why Nero waits twenty years before taking revenge. I thought the answer to that question was fairly clear: both the target of his revenge (Spock) and the means of his revenge (red matter) are on Spock’s ship, so he has to wait for the ship to arrive.) 
While the casting was good and the character introductions were fun (and Greenwood as Captain Pike was fantastic; I wish we could see more of him), neither Kirk nor Spock had the gravitas of their predecessors. Now for this movie that’s fine, since they’re just starting out here; but it remains to be seen whether they’ll manage to pull off growing into those roles. (No actor has ever done any Vulcan as well as Nimoy did Spock on the original series.) - The bullying of Kid Spock is handled more believably (i.e., less un-Vulcanly) than in the animated Trek episode “Yesteryear,” but it still seems un-Vulcan.
- The Spock/Uhura relationship doesn’t seem to result in any obvious way from Nero’s interference; yet it seems quite inconsistent with the characterisation of the original Spock.
- Old Spock’s telling Young Spock to forget logic and follow his heart was triggering for painful memories of Star Trek: Enterprise.
- Nothing about the Romulans seemed especially Romulan to me. Admittedly the Romulans have been portrayed in quite a variety of different ways over the years; but this version didn’t especially hook up with any of them.
The film’s greatest strength is also the basis for my biggest gripe. Rebooting the timeline is a clever idea – it gives them the freedom to do more stories with the original crew without being constrained by the canonical course of events. But the down side of this is that established characters and events have now been retconned out of existence – including such classic episodes as “Amok Time,” “Journey to Babel,” and “Balance of Terror” (the latter now invalidated because, thanks to Nero’s attack on the Kelvin, Romulan physiognomy, and thus the connection between Vulcans and Romulans, has become generally known). And that runs the risk of making those earlier stories, and the struggles and sacrifices they involved, seem a bit meaningless.
Still, the Trek franchise had gotten bogged down and needed some kind of rescuing, and Abrams has done it. I’m a great believer in Gordon Dickson’s advice: When in a situation that seems to have no solution, so that you find yourself going around and around in a circular search of ways already tried and found useless, then it is time to use dynamite – to throw out everything and start from scratch. The new Star Trek film definitely brings some much needed dynamite.
Still, there are some respects in which the new movie follows its predecessors all too closely. Consider:
- Star Trek movies that involve racing to ward off a threat to Earth: I, IV, XI.
- Star Trek movies that involve attempts to fix or alter the timeline: IV, VIII, XI.
- Star Trek movies that involve fighting against Klingons, Romulans, or both: III, V, VI, VII, X, XI.
- Star Trek movies that involve actually “seeking out new life and new civilisations”: at most, only the wretched V and the mediocre IX.
Here’s hoping the sequels that this movie will undoubtedly make possible will go back to exploring space – and ideas – again.
P.S. – Did anyone else notice that one of Kid Spock’s computer quizzes was about “non-rivalry and non-excludability”? Evidently they still believe in public goods problems in the 23rd century.
What was the Priceline reference? An alien named Nofee?
My favorite parts of the movie were the characters of McCoy and (especially) Pike. I was certain they were going to kill the latter off, so hooray for them not doing that.
The Uhura/Spock thing just confused me for most of the movie. I’m willing to give it a chance, but you need to give some justification. As it was, I was wondering why Uhura thought intimate kisses were what Vulcans needed most when grieving.
What was the Priceline reference?
When Kirk calls his opponent in the bar “Cupcake”; I took that to be a reference to this ad.
My favorite parts of the movie were the characters of McCoy and (especially) Pike. I was certain they were going to kill the latter off, so hooray for them not doing that.
Yeah, I too was unhappily expecting Pike to be killed. Instead he ends up in a wheelchair — which I presume is a reference to his wheelchair in “Menagerie,” though his prognosis is obviously a bit better here.
I was quite fond of Scotty’s introduction.
I almost laughed out loud when I saw Pike in the wheelchair, in a combination of getting the reference and being glad he wasn’t dead, but part of my brain realized that that might be inappropriate.
I was wondering why Uhura thought intimate kisses were what Vulcans needed most when grieving
Especially when Vulcans’ interest in sexual matters tends to be, y’know, seasonal.
I suspect it was during one of those seasonal episodes that they got together and Uhura is merely waiting patiently for the next season.
Abrams has Uhura order a slusho in the bar; which is a staple of the Abra-verse.
A friend and I were speculating whether ‘red matter’ could be an upgraded version of the ‘rabbit’s foot/anti-god’ dooms day plot device used in Abrams’ Mission Impossible:III.
I enjoyed the the Spock/Uhura relationship. It gave Spock some cache, a kinda, “I am a child of two worlds charting my own path.”
Maybe it can give Spock permission to find or explore a more dialectical/golden mean position that can be found between Vulcan Utilitarianism and Human emotional sensitivity or insight.
After reading the novel Spock’s World I understand the Vulcan’s desperate pursuit of religious logic, out of fear of a violent cultural implosion. Yet I find the Vulcan practices of child rearing bordering on cruelty.
I enjoyed watching Spock’s mom supporting and nurturing him to be himself, a unique expression of the best of both worlds.
-J
Maybe red matter is red kryptonite!
Star Trek Red Matter is Rambaldi Red Matter from Alias. Which, I feel, would strengthen a case for Red Matter being the Rabbits Foot.
The writers discuss in podcast –> http://tinyurl.com/q3w6y4
-J
Here’s my gripe with an otherwise A+ movie: At the end Nero is about to get sucked into the black hole and the Enterprise offers him assistance, which is admirable. But when he refuses their help, Kirk orders the crew to fire phasers. Where did that come from!? Just because he doesn’t want your help, it doesn’t follow from this that he wants you to shoot at him!
By the way you might enjoy this TNG cartoon I made with my brother in high school.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfjRoUmgEtg
My big gripe was the scene with young Kirk racing his stepdad’s antique car through the Iowa cornfields. I was surprised to see that the Nokia corporation is still going strong in the 23rd century (and that product placement is still a favorite source of advertising revenue in 2009), that Kirk likes rockin’ out to the Beastie Boys (what kid doesn’t dig two-hundred-year-old popular music?), and that Iowa– a state I’m admittedly not that familiar with– is littered with gaping ravines.
Iowa is most flat with some rolling hills near certain rivers. In other words, if lumpy pancakes do not have ravines, then neither does Iowa.
I thoroughly enjoyed the film… but I did find the time-line dabling annoying. I have a sentimental attachement to TOS, TNG and some spin-offs; I kept thinking “either they are going to have to work to restore the original timeline, in which case I don’t need to get to attached to these characters; or they are going to have to replace the original timeline, in which case I lose the characters I am attached to.
On your grips:
For that matter, it’s not clear why, once Nero realised he was in the past, he didn’t just go to Romulus and give them the information about the threat so that they could avert it in time to save the planet. Just destroying a bunch of Federation worlds isn’t going to save Romulus in the future.
I presumed that this was because Nero had well over a century before he needed to worry about saving Romulus. He had the red matter needed–now he just needed to get his revenge.
The bullying of Kid Spock is handled more believably (i.e., less un-Vulcanly) than in the animated Trek episode “Yesteryear,” but it still seems un-Vulcan.
Yeah, but remember–this movie took pains to underscore the fact that Vulcans are, by nature, REALLY emotional–of course kids aren’t going to have that down pat.
Nothing about the Romulans seemed especially Romulan to me. Admittedly the Romulans have been portrayed in quite a variety of different ways over the years; but this version didn’t especially hook up with any of them.
Two things: (1) The Romulans we’ve seen before have all been pretty much military officers and politicians. These Romulans are your salt of the earth working class folks. (2) These Romulans have also had their planet destroyed and have been waiting around for 25 years for their revenge–that’s bound to cause some cultural changes.
I presumed that this was because Nero had well over a century before he needed to worry about saving Romulus. He had the red matter needed–now he just needed to get his revenge.
Okay, but given the danger of getting defeated by the Federation before he can get the info to Romulus, he’s taking a bit of a risk with the future of his planet. (Ooh! An over-confident villain! That’s a new idea ….)
Yeah, I’m not saying it was LOGICAL, but I imagine that’s the thinking going on with him. Remember, this is a guy who doesn’t appear to be particularly emotionally stable.
Random, disconnected thoughts:
Before I trash the rest, I loved the Kirk Kobayashi Maru test scene. Another 90 minutes of comedy would have been fine with me. Also laughed hard at the “What happened to that dog?” “I’ll tell you when it rematerializes” Scotty line.
Complete rip-off of Star Blech 2. Red Matter == Genesis Device, Khan revenge plot == Nero revenge plot, Khan uses mind control parasites, so does Nero, Spock pays a heavy price in both flicks, bad guy undone by his own unwillingness to give up the quest for revenge etc. On the other hand, Nemesis was also a rip-off of Star Blech 2. Shinzon revenge plot == Khan revenge plot, freaky radiation == Genesis device, Spock killed, Data killed, on and on. Often imitated, never duplicated.
This is another of the Michael Bay-type gilded movie. Camera constantly moving, quick-cutting to distract the audience, extremely fast pace, no long conversations or even sentences. There’s nothing below the surface with movies like this. Nothing but plot holes, incidents lacking explanation, non sequiturs, subplots that went nowhere, etc. It’s depressing how influential Bay has become.
The Spock/Uhura thing was actually offensive. Vulcans use hand-touching as intimate gestures, not kissing, as humans do.
They sure did a lot to get Kirk over for the audience didn’t they? Calling him a “genius” and all. I didn’t see any evidence of genius. He just acted like an adrenaline-charged male lead — a hard-on, if you will — in a brainless summer action movie.
The only thing the new actors did for me was inspire me to appreciate the originals, especially Shatner, Nimoy and Kelley. Those three were superb. You can’t just drop three cretins into those roles and get the same fireworks. Not to kick him when he’s down, but Karl Urban also completely failed to live up to Tommy Lee Jones in the Woodrow F. Call part (Comanche Moon).
Does anybody remember the “temporal prime directive” and that agency from the future that was supposed to “restore the timeline” in case it became damaged by too much destructive time travel? It was in the Voyager series. Why, uh… why didn’t Captain Braxton come in at the end and fix the friggin’ timeline?
I miss Rick Berman’s Star Blech. At least that one was about ideas, even if they were bad ideas. Did I just write that I miss Rick Berman’s Star Blech? I can’t believe I wrote that.
I wonder if all of you people who say you really enjoyed the picture, will still think so after a few months, or a few years to let it settle.
Idea for the next movie: Star Blech vs. Transformers. This time the incomparable Michael Bay directs, with a $300 million budget. Plot: Kirk battles massive transforming robots from beyond the moon, while Bones fixes Shia Laboeuf’s hand. Subplot: Spock adopts Cybertron as new Vulcan home planet, depressed to find not enough robots to keep him company. If it doesn’t work, in a few years Chris Nolan will reboot the series yet again, this time with less technology and a brooding Christian Bale in the lead.
I generally agree with all your comments. I enjoyed the fact that the movie answered some long-standing geek questions about Star Trek that were never answered as part of canon (Uhura’s first name, Bones’ divorce) and made a lot of nods to the original. Even STTMP gets a hat tip, with the Kolinahr ritual and the now-obligatory “let’s take a look at space dock and the Enterprise scene,” fortunately handled much more deftly than in STTMP.
But I have new geek quibbles. I wish someone had mentioned the Xindi weapon and the attack on Florida a few decades before the events of the movie; I would think another big energy spear from orbit fired at the US would have brought back some unpleasant memories. Probably what happened is that “Enterprise” has been written out of existence.
Now it’s time for new geek quibbles, though. How come Spock lived in the ice cave and not at the outpost next door? And how come Kirk conveniently landed right there? And how can a frozen ecosystem support highly mobile and very large predators? How come the inside of the Enterprise seems so much bigger than the exterior? And why is half of the ship the Anheuser-Busch brewery in Van Nuys? I’m perplexed as to why Uhura’s workstation is adjacent to a lagering tank. Why did Scotty have to have a cute alien sidekick, who is less annoying than Jar-Jar Binks but perhaps on a level with the Ewoks?
Having said that, I’m overall pretty happy with the movie. I can buy the fact that the wunderkind cadets saved the day, given that the original crew were supposed to have been the best of the best of Starfleet, and we saw them actually being their best.
I rather liked the references to Kirk doing the Green alien and Uhura wearing the same ear piece as the original Star Trek.
Bah, hell of a good movie. I’ll go see any sequels.
She even had the same uneven paint job. Sexxay.
Re: Brian,
I thought that the plot was a straight rip-off of the Xindi attack on Earth and that’s why they didn’t mention it. But, from reading Roderick’s post and the comments, it seems to me they ripped a lot off. But in their defense: there have over six-hundred episodes of Star Treks and it is a bit difficult to avoid ripping something off. This lesson was taught to me by the “Simpsons Did It” episode of South Park.
I was irritated by Uhura also. However, Spock just let her do it. It’s not like he initiated it.
I could see Uhura thinking that she was helping but really but, but Spoke being so bewildered that he just let her.
I thought of the Zindi too actually.
I thought of Captain Braxton too.
Overall, I thought it was a good movie. However, I do get tired of writers thinking they have to “Reboot” to write new good stories.
There’s plenty of stories that could be told following up on the end of Deep Space 9 for instance. I’d like to see what happens when Bengiman Sisko comes back.
Tracy
I do get tired of writers thinking they have to “Reboot” to write new good stories.
There’s plenty of stories that could be told following up on the end of Deep Space 9 for instance.
Yeah, I’m not saying this was the only way to jolt the franchise out of its ST: Enterprise-and-Nemesis-induced slump — just that it was one way.
I enjoyed it. It was a good movie, but was it a good Star Trek movie? I’m not sure. That’s not a no – I’m really not sure.
Similarly, Chris Pine did a good job. I don’t know if he was true to Kirk, but I was never a huge Kirk fan anyway.
I think there are two possible explanations for the timeline. One is that the Treks we all know have been erased. You can see why this would piss people off. The other is that this is an alternate, parallel timeline, and the original timeline still exists. This could actually be seen as a sign of respect to Trek fans. I believe the creators have said it’s the latter, but maybe someone can confirm.
Back to the movie. Again, I’m worried about Star Trek losing its…Trekkiness. Kirk lands on some planet, gets chased by some creature, and runs into Spock by chance? A little too much like Star Wars for me with its fate, destiny, etc. The creators have cited Star Wars as an influence. Star Wars is great, but leave that kind of stuff to other movies. I put Star Trek on a different, perhaps higher, level than your usual film franchise. Why would anyone want it to lose its uniqueness?
What happened to earth’s defenses at the end of the movie? Was there any other than the enterprise? It seems like there would be something. I was expecting a big battle there.
I figured the next one or two movies will be about the crew’s quest to restore the “proper” timeline or some such. I know, it’s their reality now, so they shouldn’t necessarily feel a need to restore the timeline to what it “should” be, the way Guinan senses the incorrectness of the timeline the Enterprise D gets pulled into in “Yesterday’s Enterprise.” But it seems like the right thing to do, for the fans and for the canon. And it seems like what the elder Spock told young Kirk (about Kirk’s relationship with his father) combined with young Spock’s devasation at the near-annihilation of his species would make them feel like they were in the wrong alternate reality.
On an unrelated note, Roderick: Did you read Roger Ebert’s review of the movie? I always respect his opinion. He was lukewarm about it because it doesn’t really present the characters with any tough moral dilemmas or make the viewer think all that hard or grapple with any moral/ethical issues. I have to agree.
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090506/REVIEWS/905069997
I very much doubt that they’ll try to restore the original timeline; the makers have said that the whole point of the reboot was to free them from adherence to the canon timeline.
Re Ebert, yes, I generally agree. (But Ebert has misremembered the movie — he seems to think Old Spock contacted Young Spock and told him to go fight Nero. He also wasn’t paying attention when they explained why they had to parachute onto the drill, namely that the drill was jamming the transporter, which they accordingly couldn’t use until the drill was deactivated. His puzzlement as to why Uhura in the past is wearing the uniform of Uhura in the past is itself puzzling. And he thinks the Grand Canyon is a relatively tiny canyon in Iowa.)
I absolutely loved the movie as a whole, *especially* Spock and Uhura. (Caveat: Prior to this I was never much liked the original series or the crew, at best seeing it as a blemish on the “pure”/”original” Star Trek of Next Gen.)
That said, I totally agree with you on the whole “exploring” bit. It really annoyed me that Starfleet was only portrayed in terms of it’s capacity as a military (“peacekeeping armada”? yuk!) as opposed to, you know, the diplomatic, scientific and general exploratory stuff that is supposed to be its mainstay.
Kirk the rebellious asshole eating an apple during the Kobiashi Maru is cool and can make for some great shoot-em-up television… but I just can’t see him undertaking any, you know STAR TREKish exploration. Can you see this sort of Trek ever openly embracing the degree of utopianism that had Picard kindly explaining the soft, enlightened, post-scarcity socialist future to the twenty-first century savage in First Contact.
Yadda, yadda, yadda, we all know that State Socialism doesn’t work. But that utopian portrayal IS critical to the entire setting. There is no fucking Nokia in the future because there are no fucking corporations in Star Trek. That’s the whole point. That’s the uniqueness to the setting.
Well, Star Trek has always been internally inconsistent on economic issues. On this reel, see inconsistency as to whether gold is valuable or worthless starting at 0:47, and inconsistency as to whether money exists in the Federation or not starting at 5:16.
I really enjoyed the movies and I’m excited to see where things go from here. So what follows are quibbles.
william:
Well, while TOS is supposed to have a lot of Roddenberry-utopia in it, Kirk’s era has never been nearly as “post-scarcity” as TNG. In TOS they don’t have any holodecks and they don’t have any replicators. The Enterprise is often busy schlepping basic food and supplies from one terraform colony to the next. Etc. There are episodes that revolve around a Szaszian “rehabilitation” planet (!) and a fugitive human war criminal who’d massacred dysgenic colonists during a food crisis. Their universe is necessarily more rough around the edges than Picard’s is, as a matter of the technological setting and so also the characters who dwell in it.
But the movie does definitely have lots of touches that make 23rd century Earth strangely darker than it is in the original-flavor TOS. (I mean, Nokia, yeah, but also, Robocops on hoverbikes? Wow.)
As for exploring as against military adventurism, I think this is probably a basic limitation of how script writers think about writing for movies as opposed to TV. The TV writers exploited the weekly one-hour format to write in new planets and new races without thinking that any given week had to be a blockbuster event; just about every Star Trek movie, on the other hand, has been focused on “Let’s all have a big fight!” and I’m pretty sure it’s because they (wrongly) think you can’t make a movie about discovering awesome things without getting involved in a big fight against an established menace.
To be fair, in addition to V (ugh) and IX (bleh), there is also I, which involves trying to Save The Earth from an alien menace, but it is about encountering a radically new form of life and having to learn to communicate with it. (So’s IV, actually, but in a way that makes us all stupider for having seen it.)
The movie treats the Vulcan way of life much less appallingly than Enterprise (Spock does take some opportunities to be Fascinated); but I’m also really wishing that somebody involved with Star Trek were still capable of writing a Vulcan plot that wasn’t immediately engaged with trying to get the poor Vulcan out of his Logic at the first opportunity.
And I thought the kissy-face with Uhura was the wrong thing to do — partly because, as above, it was part of the scriptwriters not giving Spock any narrative space to practice the way of Logic in a sympathetic way; and partly also because it just shreds the plot of The Naked Time, Amok Time, etc., (yeah, different timeline, I know, but still) and offers little or nothing in return by way of revealing or developing Spock or Uhura. (A tragic, Nurse Chapel-style unrequitable love for Spock? Sure, great. Makeouts on the transporter pad? Not so much.)
@William: Obviously in the future “Nokia” is a genericized noun, like aspirin or elevator 🙂
“Prior to this I was never much liked the original series or the crew, at best seeing it as a blemish on the “pure”/”original” Star Trek of Next Gen”
And here I thought I was the only one who felt that way. It’s probably just because we were raised on that series, and TOS has a much different aesthetic from every series that succeeded it (except for the one that shall not be named).
That said, Kirk was still always my favorite captain on account of his cowboy attitude toward Starfleet command. He’s kind of like a younger and less bitter version of Malcolm Reynolds.
You young whippersnappers … I, of course, was raised on TOS.
Which series is the series which shall not be named?
I always thought there were more quality episodes of V’Ger than all of the others, but the very best episodes were the really good TOS ones (like City on the Edge of Forever, Balance of Terror, Space Seed etc). I never got into DS9 because Avery Brooks is such a terrible actor. Enterprise was lifeless, so I stopped watching it.
DS9 was my favourite — the most consistently high quality, serious stories, good characterisation.
I suspect the one that shall not be named was Enterprise.
I suspect the one that shall not be named was Enterprise.
Thanks a lot, Roderick. I am so not sharing the secret password with you.
I think we can all agree that the best captain out of them all was Captain Ron.
The canyon in Iowa looked like a quarry to me. Lots of right angles in it, if I saw it correctly.
The Grand Canyon is a quarry too. It’s made by aliens. You can look it up.
I still confuse “terrific” with “terrible”….Seriously, what is so “terrific” about this hollywood mix of cliches and nonsense? That, like in other Star Trek there was no exploration of new life forms and new civilizations? That the story was another wretched incoherent timetravel plot? That the whole world of startrek was turned up backwards (spock and uhura, transporters work with ships biillions of kilometers away, and heck, even the way battles are presented – the enterprise firing like II world war airplane- not to mention the absence of the original track)?
Ok, they´ve created a parallel universe were Vulcan was anihilated. And the have created a parallel series, that has little to do with startrek, and looks more like a marvel comic…No thanks, don´t count me in.
Having now seen the movie, I have to agree with some of the issues. Here is my own take.
* Nero’s motivation. Ok, as I understand it. A star goes supernova. It somehow ‘threatens the galaxy’ (not sure how), as well as Romulus. Ambassador Spock promises to save Romulus (why him and not someone else??). He gets a super ship from Vulcan, along with a sh*t load of red matter, which only requires a drop to destroy the supernova (if so, why have the whole sh*t load of it on the ship???). Spock fails to save Romulus. Nero blames Spock for failing to save Romulus (not accidently causing its destruction, but failing to stop its destruction). they get pulled back into time. For revenge against Spock for failing to save Romulus, he destroys Vulcan (the only planet who was able to create the ship and means to destroy the supernova and save Romulus). Then to save future Romulus, plans on destroying the Federation (which, note, did NOT cause the supernova or the destruction of Romulus). The threat to future Romulus was the supernova. Which he has not prevented. The only way to stop said future supernova is the super ship & red matter, which won’t be created because he destroyed Vulcan.
Does no one logically work things out in movies?????
Other issues.
* unless the whole Enterprise was staffed by cadets expect for Pick & Spock (not clear), why would Pike put a cadet as XO (and potential acting captain???)
* I have a hard time accepting that TOS crew all met and were around the same age. My thinking was that Scotty and Bones would be a little older then Jim. Spock maybe as well. Jim had worked his way up in the ranks and on different ships (based on comments about his past life on TOS) before getting command of the Enterprise. Uhuru, Sulu, and Chehov would all be younger then Kirk. Now they seem to be around the same age.
* So Spock is some kind of instructor at Starfleet Academy while Uhuru is a cadet? Uh, doesn’t Starfleet have a no fraternization policy???
* An Orion woman in Starfleet??? I have a little hard time accepting that.
* Uh, the Kelvin seems to have only one warp nacelle. I thought it had been established that ships had to have atleast 2. Also, the secondary hull seems to be mainly a shuttle bay full of shuttles. But the interior of the ship looks huge with open spaces. Doesn’t seem reasonable.
* same issues with Enterprise. The engineering area looks like some huge factory, not what we saw in TOS. What, no jeffreies tubes???
* ok, Nero & co are supposed to be future romulans. Where are the forehead ridges? Also, romulans aren’t stronger then humans, so how could that one guy lift kirk up like that?
* its not clear how much time passed between the defeat of Nero & the awards ceremony at the end. Sooo, how did Pike get promoted to Admiral in that time (and not just a first level admiral from the bars on his shoulders). Oh. And Kirk gets promoted from a cadet to the rank of Captain. Uhhh, that’s a jump of about 6 ranks!!!!! That’s a bit hard to believe!!!
A star goes supernova. It somehow ‘threatens the galaxy’
Yeah, that is insane. Why couldn’t it just threaten a local area that includes Romulus?
The only way to stop said future supernova is the super ship & red matter, which won’t be created because he destroyed Vulcan.
Maybe he plans to use the red matter on Spock’s ship to save Romulus. Still, he’s running a pretty big risk.
I have a hard time accepting that TOS crew all met and were around the same age. My thinking was that Scotty and Bones would be a little older then Jim.
I think they tried to handle that. Kirk meets Scotty on the ice planet instead of at the Academy. McCoy still seems older than Kirk, and is enrolling in Starfleet on the rebound from his divorce. But I agree that it’s still a stretch.
Uhuru, Sulu, and Chehov would all be younger then Kirk.
They do mention that Chekov is some kind of wunderkind. But yeah, they should all be still younger compared to Kirk.
Uh, the Kelvin seems to have only one warp nacelle. I thought it had been established that ships had to have atleast 2.
I think I recall seeing a one-nacelle ship before, but I couldn’t swear to it.
Also, the secondary hull seems to be mainly a shuttle bay full of shuttles. But the interior of the ship looks huge with open spaces.
See a similar problem here.
Also, romulans aren’t stronger then humans, so how could that one guy lift kirk up like that?
Well, Romulans are supposed to be physically like Vulcans. In some episodes we’ve been told that Vulcans are three times stronger than humans; though in other episodes they’re plainly equivalent in strength to humans.
In related news, I’m not fond of the new transporter effect.
I thought I was the only one who noticed the “non-rivalrous/non-excludable thing”.
I’m definitely using a clip of the non-rivalry/non-excludability bit in class next semester!
(My date was not nearly as amused by it as I was.)
Maybe in the reimagined universe all of the Federation is a hybrid of Austro-libertarianism and mutualism.