Of course it does. While the Earth may have cast aside war and hard nationalism upon First Contact, it’s pretty well established that nations still exist, even if the distinction between nation-states does not. There’s all kinds of examplse throughtout the films and shows; “Star Trek Into Darkness” shows the Union Jack beingp roudly flown in London. Chekhov is famously proud of Russia. Uhura is from a nation called the “United States of Africa,”( which presumably is a federation that includes southeast Africa because Uhura speaks Kiswahili and her name’s inspired by that language.) In “The Next Generation,” a young officer incorrectly states Riker is “Canadian,” but Riker corrects him; he’s actually from Alaska.
It’s pretty clear people in the Star Trek universe still think of themselves in terms of being from distinct nations.
All I know is that I, who only know the olden-days TV Star Trek, was confused by Captain Pike dying. What the hell man, he’s paralyzed and can’t speak and is confined to a cardboard-looking wheelchair. He’s not supposed to die.
Also if I were a dude I’d be so jealous of Zachary Quinto - he’s gay and gets to make out with Zoe Saldana and can’t even appreciate it!
For a movie that’s nonstop action, there was too much exposition via dialogue.
The redlettermedia review of this movie asked - if in a vacuum of ST canon and you didn’t know anything prior about Kirk/Spock, would you even know that they’re supposed to be friends? When Spock watched Kirk die, wouldn’t he just kind of shrug and move on? There’s nothing in this movie that shows the two being friendly, much less friends. Coworkers who are forced together and don’t like each other very much.
Yeah, when they showed Spock looking at him, with Pike’s horrified expression, that was the first thought in my mind- “are they going to put him in that beeping chair with that expression on his face?” Then he kicked the bucket, so that idea went out the window. But on reflection, they’d have had to have a cyborg Pike in some fashion; they just couldn’t leave him that gimped up in the 23rd century, you know, and that would have been 5x stupider than anything else in the movie.
Apparently redlettermedia didn’t actually pay attention to any of the exposition via dialogue, or they would have figured out what I mentioned upthread: Spock was traumatized by any loss. It didn’t have to specifically be Kirk, nor was it necessary that they be established as superlative friends.
Although, there was quite a bit of exposition not via dialogue that establishes their developing friendship.
And, really, this Spock has all of three friends now: Old Spock, Uhura, and Kirk. Logically, a loss of 33% of your friends is quite significant.
And 24 hours before there were at least a half dozen Starfleet vessels in orbit seeing as all their captains had gathered for the slaughter.
It is the little inanitities that get to me. A week and a half later I’m still thinking about Robocop shooting the Enterprise out of warp.
He does that and they come out of warp about the moon’s distance from Earth. It’s a freaking good thing Robocop did them that favor because another half second in warp and they’d have been most of the way back out of the solar system. Either than or Kronos really is somewhere around the same distance as Mars.
I’m not even all that sure he’s a villian - or at least, that what he did in the movie really showed his villany.
[spoiler]
Certainly, he attacked starfleet command and killed a lot of people - but then, we know he was being blackmailed into helping a rogue in charge at starfleet who wanted to start a massive interstellar war!
Also, he attacked the Enterprise - but first, Kirk betrayed him when they were buddies.
Well, yeah, killing the warmonger dude by squeezing his head like a grape was a bit over the top, but hey. [/spoiler]
That would be stupid. They have the technology readily available to just clone one and raise it from scratch to be a supportive superhero instead of a supervillain.
We went to see it last night, and I quite enjoyed it. My two complaints - lens flare, of course (so freaking distracting when it is everywhere, all the time), and the way the relationships and where the characters are in their lives is so forced. I don’t have a problem with the idea that everyone will eventually fall into the same places, basically, but they have to get there organically, not just be forced there by “take the easy way out” writing.
(I recomemded to a person who had just watched ST II to watch III and IV
I’m sorry but ST IV makes NO SENSE unless you watch III. It is the middle act of a great three act story.
I loved the fact that III starts about a week after II left off and IV is only about 2 months after. (I know the exact ammount of time is mentioned and I (gasp!) can’t pull that up right now. The computers are smashed.
If they ever made a Star Trek V, I like to think it would have taken place shortly after IV, with the crew working up the new Enterprise while dealing with some kind of emergency situation.
I would much rather watch Star Trek V over TMP and and TNG movie other than First Contact. But I personally don’t count V as even being a Star Trek movie. It makes very little since when held against the others.
Oddly, several of us who work at the opera are Trek fans (space opera? Who knows). Bunch of us saw it, some of us twice. With the summer festival ramping up, ST ends up getting more discussion than “Peter Grimes”. Overall consensus is we liked it better than the 2009 movie, and none of us, older or younger fans alike, have any problem with the reboot in general. Much love for Cumberbatch - no surprise there as we are mostly all “Sherlock” fans as well. The females among us are irritated that the few female characters get short shrift, with even Uhura more channeling a sorority girl than a professional. The men didn’t notice that until we mentioned it.
Still, good summer movie, better than I hoped for. Loved Michael Giacchino’s score. Can forgive the plot problems and those birth defects that come along with the Trek universe as a whole so long as I’m not bothered by them while watching the movie.
