Except they didn’t destroy it, did they?
The funny thing is, once Kirk et. al. file their report, the destruction of Romulus on a certain date in the future will be part of the official record. I don’t see Starfleet not telling the Romulans at some point within the next century and a half, which means that they’ll have more than enough time to evacuate it - if not save it.
In effect, Nero saved his planet.
Is there any known significance to Nero’s facial tattoos? They seemed to be where a Klingon’s “lobster head ridge” would be, though Romulons are not related to Klingons.
Speaking of, do Vulcans descend from Romulons or vice versa?
So Kirk and Sulu were skydiving along with a nearly anonymous chief engineer known only as “Olson.” Oh, and Olson is wearing a red outfit.
Is there anyone who did NOT see what was coming?
Speaking of canon and marriages, in the first appearance by Sarek (and second human wife Perrin) in ST:TNG Picard says he met him once “at his son’s wedding”. Spock’s older half-brother Sybok is the only sibling who’s been mentioned to my knowledge and he was before Picard’s time. Has it ever been said whether Spock married or whether he had any other brothers or half-brothers?
Except she didn’t actually do anything. The scene where she got the job went something like
Uhura: They might be speaking Romulan and I could hear them?
Spock: Good point. Comm Officer, do you hear any Romulan?
Comm Officer: Um… I don’t speak Romulan.
Spock: You’re fired. My girlfriend is a way better Communications Officer than you.
Uhura: You’ve been 1-Up’ed!
Spock: So, do you hear any Romulan?
Uhura: Um… Nope. No Romulan.
The whole movie seemed like a second draft or something.
I was told that they were “mourning symbols” since their planet was dead.
As I understand it, the only real difference between Romulans and Vulcans is philosophical: the Romulans rejected logic. They’re parallel.
Also, they set the whole mission up by saying something like “This is going to be incredible dangerous. You probably won’t even be able to land on the platform. Good luck!” and then they gave all the explosives to the Red Shirt. The fuck?
My verdict after stewing it over for a few hours: Good, but not great.
I’m a long-time Trek fan, but I don’t mind the “alternate universe” thing one bit. If they wanted to restart the franchise using the TOS characters, they needed to find some way to disregard the bloated mess that Star Trek’s canon has become (and I’m speaking here as a hardcore fan of DS9). If they don’t, you end up with “Enterprise.” 
In fact, I would’ve been fine with a straight-up reboot that ignored canon entirely once the basic characters were established. Seeing Nimoy back in character was a lovely treat, but his presence over-complicated the story in (IMO) an unnecessary way. I’m loathe to use the word “shoehorning” for something as purely wonderful as getting to see the original Spock one last time, but it did feel that way at times.
But that’s sort of a running problem throughout the movie - the plotting is just plain bad. And I don’t mean the bad science (although there is plenty of that), I mean in terms of storytelling mechanics. Telling rather than showing. Towering leaps in (il)logic. Plot holes you could drive a Warbird through. And some of the craziest coincidences I’ve ever seen anyone attempt to pass off as story progression - Kirk randomly running into both OldSpock and Scotty, the exact two people he needed to meet in order to move the plot forward, being the most egregious. The black hole-generating goo was another in a long line of ludicrous hand-wavey Treknobabble. Several of the action sequences could’ve been cut from the movie in their entirety without affecting the story one bit. The ice monster, in particular, felt like a cut scene from the Star Wars prequels, while Scotty’s Wild Ride through the pipes in Engineering felt like a level from the admittedly-nonexistent video game adaptation.
Another issue I had was with the villain. Nero was well-played by Bana, and has one of the funniest moments in the movie (“Hello, Christopher! I’m Nero.”), but the character is appallingly underwritten. Yes, I know there’s a comic that explains his backstory in some detail, but if you want an audience to react emotionally to backstory, you had better work it into your movie somehow. “It’s too complicated” is no excuse - either find a way to explain it simply and coherently, or rewrite the damn thing so it doesn’t require 30 pages of exposition to understand. Khan’s origin is no less complex than Nero’s, but we’re given enough explanation (and Khan is given enough screentime) in Star Trek II that his motivations are crystal clear, even if you’ve never seen “Space Seed.”
So that’s a lot of stuff I felt didn’t work in the movie. And yet, I think overall it was very much a success. So what did work?
Well, they nailed the single most important factor: the main characters were spot-on. Although Abrams et al apparently can’t plot their way out of a paper bag, they can write some darn good dialogue. They were ably assisted by the talented cast, who thoroughly embody their characters without aping their predecessors. Most importantly of all, the “core trio” crackled with energy and showed striking chemistry from the moment they began sharing screentime. I can’t wait to see the Kirk/Spock/Bones relationship developed further in the inevitable sequels.
The supporting players were generally great as well. Chekov and Scotty were both entertaining without being annoying, although they’ll need to take care not to Wesley Crusherize Chekov in the sequels. Saldana’s Uhura is a much more assertive and interesting character than the original. I have a feeling she’s not going to settle for endless repetitions of “Hailing frequencies open,” and good for her. Harold’s Sulu made less of an impression, although he got off a few good one-liners. I admit this may be just me - it somehow doesn’t seem like Sulu without Takei’s voice.
The special effects were, for the most part, fantastic. I still think the new Enterprise design looks remarkably silly - it’s great until you get to the engineering section, and then the whole thing kind of devolves into Steve Jobs’s worst nightmare. But the space battle sequences were very effective, particularly the opening with Kirk’s father. I especially liked how the sound abruptly cut out whenever the camera began following crewmembers in space, starting with the hull breach in that opening battle sequence.
The hand-to-hand combat fared less well, mostly due to some questionable directorial decisions. Sulu’s “Wesley from Angel did it first” sword was silly enough. But falling prey to the Star Warsian giant chasms of doom in fight scenes aboard the Romulan ship? Oy.
Final thoughts: Star Trek '09 was witty, well-acted, and (to borrow Scotty’s phrasing) ex-CIT-ing, but whoever came up the plot should… ah… probably be replaced. I’ll have to see it again to be sure, but right now I’d rank it after Star Treks II, IV, VI, and First Contact - in other words, in the upper-middle of the Quality Continuum ™. The most important thing in my mind right now is that, for the first time in a long, long time, I’m excited to see the next adventure of the Starship Enterprise. If they can maintain what worked, and tweak the stuff that didn’t, we should be in for quite a ride in those inevitable (but not in a bad way!) sequels.
One thing I forgot to mention - I hated the score. The main theme was uninspiring at best, which wouldn’t have been such a big deal except that the composer didn’t bother to come up with any other melodic ideas. He repeats that one crappy theme for every single moment in the movie. Action sequence? Brassy rendition of the theme. Sexy sequence? Slinky rendition of the theme. Sad sequence? Solemn, string-led version of the theme! He doesn’t even vary the timing!
That’s something you can get away with if your main theme is as good as the one in “The Dark Knight,” but when it’s a generic bit of “Adventure… in SPAAAAAACE!!!” fanfare, all you’re doing is making my hackles rise during what should be emotional or exciting moments. Bad, Composer. Very bad!
As for the ‘Nero sitting around 25 years waiting for Spock’-thing, I actually thought that was one of the more sensible bits in the movie – even if he planned to save Romulus, he’d eventually need some of that red matter to do so.
The Romulans split from the Vulcans sometime in their history. Memory Alpha says, “Romulan history describes the remarkable rise of an Empire from a group of Vulcan fugitives… around AD 370, the ancient philosopher Surak, revered as the father of Vulcan civilization, led his people in a great reformation to reject their emotions in favor of a philosophy that embraced pure logic… One group, known as “those who march beneath the Raptor’s wings” (the future Romulans), did not accept Surak’s teachings and split off from the Vulcans at this time.”
And that’s where Romulans come from!
I got to thinking about this last night after I went to bed. I think we are wrong here. Nero didn’t sit around for 25 years he went back into the black hole and came out 25 years later.
My reasons
[ul]
[li]During the attack on the Kelvin Nero needed the star date ie he didn’t have a clue [del]where[/del] when he was[/li][li]As the Enterprise was rushing to Vulcan Checkov’s ship wide broadcast mentioned interstellar lighting (or something) tht brought Kirk racing to the bridge to talk with Captain Pike.[/li][li]The visual of the Romulan ship was the same just before the Kelvin attacked (Kind of 1/2 way out of the disc thing) as it was just before the Enterprise got there[/li][li]Didn’t a Romulan crewman say something about being at the right time to capture Spock (which might indicate a third trip into the black hole)[/li][li]Aw hell I give up, my brain is starting to hurt.[/li][/ul]
Good point Rick. The lightning came from the black hole time transfer…they had to have jumped ahead in time.
Unfortunately, a glance around the net has indicated to me that the next movie is going to have the very same writers.
Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman’s previous movie credits are: Transformers, Mission Impossible III, The Legend of Zorro, and The Island.
I saw Transformers and was absolutely unimpressed–perhaps nearly appalled, if I cared a little more–with the script. Poorly plotted is saying the least of it.
I haven’t seen any of the other three, but have heard only bad things about each of them.
Unfortunately, Nero said twice that they’d been waiting around for 25 years.
Your idea makes more sense, and I was hoping I was misunderstanding something and that they’d just jumped back in and back out. But no–he said they’d been waiting for 25 years.
Aye
Hey now- everything can be improved by taking inspiration from Wesley! Maybe next movie he’ll stab a junkie to the wall.
Yeah, maybe not. It’s ST, not the WB
Then how do you explain the interstellar lighting near Vulcan that sent Kirk to see Pike? Not to mention the exact same scene of the Romulan ship coming out of the disc like thing (which I assume was the black hole), and the comment on board the Romulan ship that they were at the correct time to capture Spock.
Of course if they had gone back into the black hole, they would have had to calibrate it for when they came back out. How do you calibrate a black hole?
The more I think about this movie the bigger the plot holes become and the less I like it.
At the rate we are finding holes in the story, very shortly, Independence Day will look tightly scripted and logical.
I liked the movie overall, though I’m still in shock over the complete and utter reboot. No Vulcan?
And I agree with the plot holes being way too much in your face, even for a trek movie.
Let’s see, I’m the captain of Romulan mining vessel who gets pulled into a singularity (and instead of being destroyed by being reduced into a soup of quantum particles) I instead get taken back in time. I then capture the guy who was trying to save my planet but failed. Nevermind that what he was trying to do was pretty much impossible, I’m pissed at him anyway.
So, now I have this singularity creating stuff in my cargo hold… let’s see do I :
a) Destroy the Vulcan homeworld out of spite, then earth, in some supergalactic tantrum.
Or
b) Use the god damned singularity creating matter to say, oh I don’t know, collapse the star that is going to go supernova near my home system?!
A. Definitely gotta go with a.
Of course temporal causation would get all screwy, since if I collapse the star that would have gone supernova, it would not go supernova… which in turn would mean Romulus would not have been in danger, and Spock would not have tried to rescue the empire, etc, etc, and then I would killed my grandfather and had sex with ym grandmother, etc, etc Which would unravel the very fabric of the cosmos. The. VERY. fabric. of. the. cosmos.
Good. They did a very good job on this movie and I’m sure they’ll do a good job on the next one.
Yeah, the hair and her pink lips clashed with the green. She looked like a Christmas Elf or something.