He’s not a very big fan if he didn’t remember about the superfluous Vulcanian eyelid. 
I actually am going to see this tonight. I hope StR is wrong about it.
Hmm…let’s say 7. I’ve watched all the series from the beginning (with the qualification that I saw TOS only in reruns as I was just being born when it was cancelled), have seen all the movies, and used to buy the novels, but wouldn’t be caught dead doing cosplay.
My problem with the movie was not that it deviated so from Trek canon (apparently everything but Enterprise is now out the door, which at least means Voyager never happened 
). It’s that the movie was so breathtakingly stupid. It’s that I actively hated Kirk. When the classic car went off the cliff, I was hoping that he’d go with it. When Spock said put him off the ship (which made no sense–don’t they have brigs), I was hoping he’d be spaced. When he was being chased by the two monsters, I was hoping he’d be eaten. I actually yelled “Kill him! Kill him! Kill him and bring me his eyes!”* during the hand-to-hand fight scene at the end.
This has nothing to do with the change in actors. It has to do with the character being a snotty, arrogant, vomitous son of a bitch who was so uniformly and reliably repellent that not only is it plausible for Nyota Uhura would decline to give him the time of day, but any woman who was willing to make the beast with two backs with him may, on that evidence alone, be reasonably assumed to be suffering from profound and likely incurable mental illness.
(Incidentally, the makeup on the Orion girl was simply awful.)
HAVING SAID ALL THIS… there were good things in this movie. Three, in fact, though in two of the three cases they undercut themselves.
I liked Spock & Uhura. I thought the actors portraying them had genuine chemistry. I liked their interactions; I liked them together; I was pleased to see Spock shut down Kirk’s nosy and inappropriate question about her name. But he’s a commissioned officer–a freaking commander–who’s teaching at the Academy and romantically involved with one of his students? That is just odious.
I also liked the bits with Spock’s childhood. His remark when he turned down the Vulcan Science Academy was simply perfect. But though it’s one thing for young Vulcans to be bullies, it’s quite another to make PEOPLE IN AUTHORITY be blatant and explicitly racist, if you want us to sympathize with them.
Lastly I liked the opening scene on the Kelvin. But why the fuck is George Kirk’s heavily-pregnant wife on the God! Damn! Ship! in the middle of a God! Damn! dangerous mission?
Why did they go out of their way to show Sulu and McCoy as both being incompetent? Seriously–if the guy at helm can’t get the ship to go because he forgets what is clearly an elementary part of its operation, and you’re headed into what you expect to be an important mission, that guy is going to get replaced right then. And McCoy came damn near to killing Kirk, or at least it seemed that way. And Urban was simply mimicking DeForrest Kelley’s performance; he brought nothing new or interesting to the table.
And I hated [del]Wesley Crusher[/del] Pavel Chekov as well.
And why is there no god! damn! chain of command? Why is Scotty made chief engineer when he is not even posted to the ship? What the fuck is wrong with Starfleet that it’s reasaonble to predict an officer can get his first command in FOUR YEARS of active duty? Why does no one understand the meaning of basic military terms? You don’t ENLIST to enter a officer training academy. If Spock RESIGNED HIS FUCKING COMMISSION, he is no longer an officer; and if Spock is no longer an officer, he can’t go on missions.
And human nature! Good god! Kirk insulted Spock’s relationship with his dead mother on the day she died. Those two guys will never, ever, ever be friends. Spock will never want to see him again unless it is when Kirk is on fire so he can decline to piss on him.
And logic! Does Pike really have enough juice that he can obtain an appointment to the Academy on ONE DAY’S notice? Is Kirk so rich that he’ll give his motocycle away? Why should Kirk listen to elder Spock’s advice about destiny, given that Spock has just explained to him that, since the timeline has been altered, neither he nor Nero has knowledge of the way that history will unfold. Why does elder Spock think he knows anything that can matter? NONE OF THIS CRAP HAPPENED IN HIS LIFETIME?
But none of that matters. It’s all so pretty.
Yes, there are good bits in the movie. But the dreck is of such mass that, like a black hole, it inexorably draws everything in its vicinity into itself, ripping it apart on a subatomic level and forever trapping it inside.
*Okay, to be honest, I did not say the bit about the eyes. But I did say “Kill him!” twice. The people around me must have found me very annoying, but fortunately I was bigger than they are.
But the original Kirk was indeed brash and prone to going against authority. Over and over and over. It seemed very in keeping with his character, at least to me.
My recollection is that each and every time they got together, it was at HER instigation. He even pushed her off once or twice. I see no problem.
The person in authority thought that he was being very oblique and polite by referring to Spock’s “disadvantage.” He was even complimenting him! Not at all atypical of racists. They honestly don’t realize what it sounds like to the victim.
IIRC it wasn’t so out-of-the-ordinary until Nero showed up out of nowhere.
But as I recall, didn’t they say that all the other ships were away, and this was the only one, and the recent cadets were the only option? Sure, it is a very lame plot device, but at least they addressed the issue.
He worked in Engineering, but was he really the Chief? I missed that.
Mileage varies. I don’t recall 60s!!Kirk ever violating regulations for the hell of it. When he disobeyed Starfleet to save Spock’s life in “Amok Time,” for instance, it was something he had to agonize over, and ultimately does because the mission he’s avoiding is not vital; the Enterprise is making an appearance purely for the sake of appearance. And even so he fully expects to get busted for it and accepts that. McCoy explicitly tells him that this will cost him his career, and he replies, “Yeah. My CAREER. But my FRIEND will still be alive.”
But 09!Kirk steals an obviously-valuable antique car belonging to a relative and goes out of his way first to damage it, and then to outright destroy it. Why, exactly? Why I am supposed to like him? Why am I supposed to like or respect someone who clearly has no grasp of military discipline? Who doesn’t even pretend to believe in any sort of system or hierarchy?
[Ebert]
I hated, hated, hated Kirk in this movie.
[/Ebert]
As I wrote upthread, I liked 2009!Spock (except for the dickish overreaction of putting Kirk on Clone!Hoth rather than in the brig), and Uhura. But Kirk’s vileness was of such magnitude that nothing could compensate for it. Rooting for him to win, to be promoted, to be acclaimed, felt like rooting for a villain. There was not a single damn likeable thing about him.
I loved it. Thought it was fabulously good fun.
While I agree with others that there’s nothing out of Kirk’s character here, I do wish the movie could have found a way to portray his training and his growing respect for the rule of law. My reading of Kirk’s character (and I think this was probably suggested in a novel or something, I’m sure I didn’t come up with it myself) is that he came to value and rely on the military values of Starfleet over time during his training, as a means of self-control. But under the mature officer he grew into, there is still the rules-be-damned kid who will poke out every now and then to put things right when the rules have gone wrong.
I think that scenes portraying this growth somehow would have done alot to address your concerns here.
And hey, that would have made for a nice parallelism between Spock and Kirk–both needing to learn the value of their humanity, one by learning not to fear his emotions, the other by learning not to fear control of his emotions.
Well geez. Why didn’t they have me write the script?
Not a good film. I just saw it at the Neptune Theater in the U. District of Seattle. Problems:
- If you need to destroy a planet with a black hole, putting it in the center is unnecessary. You could put it near the surface and things would go just fine.
- The number of times people hang by their hands from cliffs is really annoying. It occurs at least three times: when Kirk is little, when they land on the drill device, and on Nero’s ship. Even once is too much IMO.
- Uhura sort of making out with Spock? No. No. Just. No.
- Why is it that sometimes black holes destroy things, and sometimes they cause them to move to other points in time? And why do they move them to plot-relevant points in time? Seems rather convenient.
- Vulcan is destroyed? This is not a slight disruption in continuity. Everyone I say this to talks about a “reboot”. Is a reboot a time when a sci-fi fanbase is given the middle finger? Yes, that seems to be how the term is used.
- Few of the characters seemed like their original characters. Only Scotty really impressed me.
The best acting in the movie was Leonard Nimoy as Spock. When I saw him, I thought the movie might get good, and it seemed to have some real potential for a brief period of time. His acting abilities go far beyond anything seen elsewhere in the film. His gravity was so amazing - seeing him, I realized what the rest of the film was not.
I would point out that you need to keep in mind an important detail here - though we learn the story of Kirk’s birth in the very first scene of the film, we don’t learn until much later that this is not the way it really happened as far as “the canon” goes. Kirk’s car theft and general disregard for authority is a direct result of his father’s death… but we later find out that in the original time-line that never happened, that his father lived to see him become Captain of the Enterprise and was his lifelong hero and inspiration. So you can’t show too much back story detailing how young Kirk became the Captain we all know and love, because this Kirk is not going to become the same person at all.
I saw it a few weeks ago and have been eagerly awaiting the reviews from hard-core Trek fans. My guess was that most people would really like it, especially the casual fans, but that some of the Trekkies and Trekkers would despise it. Seems like that’s turning out to be the case.
I, for one, really enjoyed it, if for no other reason then that for the first time in ages I’m really looking forward to another one. The altered timeline has opened up a great range of possibilities and the actors were all first-rate.
What she said - it was a perfect start to our household’s Summer Movie Season! I’m not a huge fan of TOS, although I liked Next Generation and loved DS9; I’ve probably seen more of the movie versions of the TOS characters than the actual TV show. I’m a sci-fi geek who likes the sci as a background to my fi; give me characters I like in a storyline that entertains me, and you can fudge the science quite a bit.
Anyway, I thought Quinto was perfect as Spock (my Sylar crush is growing by the minute!) and I could definitely see this version of Kirk turning into Shatner’s Kirk, albeit with less annoying speech patterns 
I even thought Scotty’s lizardy sidekick was kinda cute.
Bith, as I understand it an alternate timeline was created when the Kelvin was destroyed and James T. Kirk was born. That will allow them to take future movies in any direction they want because hey, it’s an alternate timeline*! Characters can be different - for instance, Kirk grew up without a father. Spock lost his mother. How will this change who they are? (Or, on preview, what The BoltEater said). If those things don’t let you enjoy the movie, well, I understand how you feel; there are certain Star Wars movies we don’t speak of around here for some similar reasons.
*Note: I understand the time travel paradox thing annoys many people. I am one of them. However, I am willing to let it go to get to enjoy more Star Trek!
Here’s the Onion’s take on it, which more or less parallels some of the posts above:
“Trekkies Bash New Star Trek Film As ‘Fun, Watchable’”
I’m a long time Trek fan (my wife and I first bonded over TOS trivia), and thoroughly enjoyed the movie. Wherever it ranks among the Trek films, it certainly is not the Worst. Film. Ever.
YMMV
Believe my, my hatred of the film is not based on being a Trek fan. It’s based on it being entirely incoherent. I find it difficult to imagine that we all saw the same film.
I assumed that there would be major changes in the story, and that doesn’t bother me. TOS is extraordinarily light on continuity: except for Nurse Chapel, none of the characters joining the crew gets an intro story, and nobody who leaves (read: Janice Rand) gets an exit explanation.
My dislike is based on my storytelling tastes. I want the plot to make sense; I want it to be a vehicle for exploring character, and character to be a mechanism by which the plot is advanced. I want characters I can, if not always like, empathize with, identify, with, enjoy saying; want to root for. I want not to be spoon-fed crap.
This movie supplied very little of that for Kirk. All his supposed gifts are informed attributes. All his character traits appear from nowhere. His story is just…incoherent. He has no plausible motive for anything he does. He’s right because the script demands it. Spock is wrong because the script demands it. No one has any sort of natural reaction to anything. Nothing is believable even in terms of the universe.
Kirk, who must be no more than 24 years old, gets as his first assignment – without ever being even an ensign–command of a starship. He never has to do any scut work. He never has to deal with hierarchies, with being a junior officer. It’s utter wish-fulfillment. It’s like it was written by a 18-year-old kid whose never had a job and is utterly assured of his own genius. It was repellent.
The Spock-Uhura story was better.
Yeah, I’ll have to give you that one.
Being annoyed by time travel paradoxes in Star Trek is almost like being annoyed by hops in beer 
Almost. I’ve never watched a dozen ST’s and then barfed in a subway station toilet
Speaking as someone for whom the only Star Trek is the original series I have to say that I enjoyed the new movie. It hit all the right notes in style, action, and above all character. The space shots in particular were handled better than anything Trek has ever done.
Even though I loved the movie to little itty bits, every bit, my favorite thing is still Scotty asking if the future has sandwiches.
Oh, Simon Pegg, you can play a character completely differently from how I thought of him, and I’ll still love you ever so.
“Hi Christopher!”
I am so not catching what I assume from the quotation marks is a reference to something. Please to elaborate?
I didn’t have time to read the whole thread so I don’t know if anyone else brought this up. if so I apologize. But you can escape from a rotating BH.