I’m curious. Does anyone else have a problem accepting that Kirk’s first assignment out of Starfleet Academy was apparently to be put in command of Starfleet’s biggest ship? Or that apparently the entire crew was put together out of the Academy and then served together for the rest of their careers?
If that’s actually the way it’s presented in the movie, then I feel reasonably confident in my prediction that others will also have a problem with it. For one thing, TOS established that Kirk clearly served aboard at least one other vessel before commanding the Enterprise– a quick search reveals that two such ships were mentioned, the USS Republic and the USS Farragut.
But if I had to choose between between egregious rewriting of series continuity or that bridge set, I think the bridge set is probably the deal-breaker.
That, among many things, bothers me. The premise seems pretty weak to me (future Spock goes back in time to save young Kirk), as well.
In Star Trek I, the Enterprise was sent out to intercept V’Ger, alone, and with an extensive refit unfinished, because “no other starship was in range to make the intercept in time”.
I suppose they could make a similar hand wave to put young (Lt? Lt j.g.?) Kirk in command of some emergency reaction ship & crew. Then, once he solves the crisis in a spetacular fashion, he is allowed to retain command. (Although, nothing was mentioned in the Original Series that would support that, other than he was the youngest officer to reach the rank of Captain up to that time.)
It wouldn’t be the first time Paramount changes cannon for the sake of telling a good yarn.
Okay, I have made the decision to not believe that bridge set is supposed to be the Enterprise. I know it’s identified explicitly as such on a couple of websites, but nonetheless I am refusing to let myself believe it. I choose to think that this is a simple error, or perhaps inflammatory psyops from the Battlestar Galactica crowd, whom I personally would put nothing past.
What it is, see: that bridge is obviously the far-futuristic, time-travelling ship that Spock uses to go back and do whatever in the past. And Kirk and the crew from the past have commandeered it in order to fix the timestream, and that’s what we see in that picture. And then later they’ll beam back over to the real Enterprise bridge set, which so far we have not seen any pictures of. Okay?
Or maybe it actually is a nail salon. Yes, it’s a 23rd century nail salon that Kirk and crew have decided to meet at for some reason, before beaming up to the real Enterprise. That accounts for the manicure stand in back too. As we can see in the back, even 200 years from now beauty parlors will still feature rows of incandescent globe lights above the mirrors, because their warm light is essential for proper cosmetic color analysis.
I have had an epiphany. Here is what really happened. J.J. Abrams was getting his hair cut one day in a really fashionable expensive salon, right before the movie was filmed. While thinking about the upcoming project, he happened to glance around at the stylish, clinical salon design, and suddenly realized that the swivel chair he was sitting in was oddly similar to the captain’s chair on the bridge of the Enterprise! So he went back and told the creative crew: “I’ve got a great idea for a set that resembles this futuristic hair salon. I think it’ll be really distinctive visually and will look great on screen. But no matter what, it won’t be the Enterprise bridge, because that would be fucking retarded.”
That’s what happened.
Uh…what is a Kobyashi Maru test?
I like ST, but hardly obsessive about it, so I don’t recall every line and scream, “That’s not canon! His pip is 0.375 cm out of place!” Not that anybody would be that obsessive…
Anyway, I recall it being mentioned that Kirk had served about other vessels before Enterprise, because he was an ensign 11 years before TOS…it was mentioned during an episode about some killer cloud or something. Kirk had the chance to destroy it and didn’t…and another time during the Shakespearean players.
I’d still give this movie a chance, even though it seems to require forgetting everything I’ve always accepted about TOS and starting from scratch. If the script and performances are good enough, we can do that.
It comes from Star Trek II, and describes a no-win situation, akin to the moral problem of having to deal with the fact your child is about to fall out a window, and someone’s going to bomb a building, killing dozens. You have to do something, but can’t save both, so what do you do? Save your child or keep the bomber from blowing up the bomb?
The wiki article describes it well:
Hard to see how that would work. They couldn’t all be students at the Academy at the same time; there’s got to be a 20-year spread in ages from Chekov to McCoy.
I don’t care if the actors don’t look just like younger versions of the familiar actors, as long as the writing is true to the characters. (It is odd seeing a Korean Sulu, though; kinda thought we’d gotten past “generic Asian” casting. James Kyson Lee, who plays Ando on Heroes, would have been good.)
They didn’t have pips in TOS; rank was denoted by gold bands on the sleeves.
…:smack:
I knew that. :dubious:
Seriously, y’all? I thought it was well-established that this movie was tossing canon out the window – aside from the minor nod needed to get Leonard Nimoy into the story.
Yes, different bridge set. Yes, Kirk assigned command of the Enterprise right out of the Academy. Yes, the entire crew together since their first mission. And a minor wibble about Spock traveling back in time to give the hardcore Trek freaks enough wiggle room if they squint really hard from flipping their lid screaming “outrage!”
It’s a re-imaging of Star Trek. Which Star Trek desparately, desparately needs. I say, damn the photon torpedos, full warp speed ahead! I’ve already seen the damn TOS, STNG, DS9, ST:V, Enterprise, etc., etc. stuff. If I want to watch the same stories retold with different effects, I’ll tune in to the revamped TOS episodes. sheesh.
Oh yeah, it’s just that you said “no one would be that obsessive” and I immediately fell into the trap by making an obsessive comment, and I thought it was kind of funny, and I guess I’ll go away now.
Well, I smiled.
Agreed. The nitpickers will have a field day with this one. Just sit back, take a deep breath, accept the fact they are going to ignore some canon, enjoy the ride for what it is, and “Get a life, will ya? It’s just a TV show.” 
Amen. The first trailer is going to be released with the new James Bond movie, which means that I will do something I’ve never, ever done before–watch a James Bond movie. I’m really psyched about this.
The bridge looks fine.
The original looked nicely futuristic 40 years ago.
It no longer does. It looks retro, at best, horribly anachronistic at worst.
No doubt, in 40 years, this one will look just as dated and ridiculously anachronistic. And that’s fine. Technology catching up and exceeding our guesses is to be expected - even encouraged. That’s no reason to make the 24th century look like 1980s technology with 1960s styling.
Why does Spock/Quinto/Sylar have such shiney plastic looking skin?
Vulcan Botox.