Star Trek -- the "I saw it" thread **SPOILERS**

Cafe Society
141

Aha! That’s it!

I knew that for a kid Chekhov seemed really bloody familiar, and I also thought that for all the “Be wery wery quiet, Wulcan’s being wigorously wiolated by windictive Womulons in nuclear wessels” campiness of his accent he actually sounded legit in a couple of scenes. This answers both: he starred as Bobby, the kid who bonds with on-the-lam psychic Anthony Hopkins, in Hearts in Atlantis when he was 11/12. And he actually is Russian (born in St. Petersburg) but came to the U.S. as a baby, so his parents would give him inspiration for an accent.

142

Yes, two or three of the things you said probably make sense, and I would’ve appreciated them if they had been in the bloody movie. But the fact that fanwanking is necessary to derive a consistent film from this incoherent mess of plot devices and lensflares is actually kinda my point: the writers just didn’t bother to come up with something plausible themselves and just threw a load of stuff on the screen, making sure to have it look oh-so-pretty, and then hoped that the audience either 1) wouldn’t care as well, or 2) would do the work of connecting it plausibly for them, like you tried to do. And that’s just lazy writing, and unnecessary.

Also, the fact that it’s called science FICTION does not mean that you’re excused for producing science CRAP – it’s one thing to come up with implausible seeming contraptions to stock your fantasy universe with wonders and miracles; it’s another if these things just flat-out contradict themselves, are nothing but wonder machines of plot servitude, or just make no sense at all, but nobody really cares (in order: miracle black holes with plot sense, transwarp transporter, superdupernova).

Similarly, it’s not actually defending the movie to basically say, ‘of course it was crap – Star Trek was always crap!’, because then, y’know, it still means it was a crap movie (and by the way, while Trek often was pretty cheesy and even crappy, it had some genuinely good moments, so hoping for some of those wasn’t that unjustified). Even accepting Star Trek as being mostly crap, that doesn’t mean it has to be that way! I’m also a bit perplexed by the notion of lowering one’s expectations/standards in order to be more entertained, either because it’s Trek or because it looks really, really pretty – what purpose would that serve? I could probably lower my standards far enough to appreciate damn near anything, but for some odd reason, I happen to like things that I think are good.

And no, not liking this film does not make me a disgruntled Trek fundie. I’m pretty damn sure I would not have appreciated a mess like that if it hadn’t come under this umbrella (and actually, I have a sneaking suspicion that the overall response might have been a bit less unanimously positive without such a beloved label).

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Enjoyed it past the plotholes. I thought it captured the thrills, optimism and cheese of TOS just fine.

I reviewed this thread but didn’t see a reference to this: I thought Spock would’ve hooked up with Nurse Chapel? Didn’t she have an unrequited thing for him? I wonder why we didn’t see her - although I seem to recall her name mentioned in a scene…

145

But but Skald: didn’t you READ HIS FILE??? His something or other was off the charts!

I was expecting Pike + mindy control bug to do more than just give up Earth’s defense codes offscreen. I agree the chain of command stuff was just insane. Chains of command on a ship are not two people long, after which the ship must simply drift in space for want of a commander.

And I don’t understand why Nero would wait for Spock. If Spock’s ship went through after Nero’s then Nero would have no way of knowing once he went through if Spock’s ship ever went through at all. He seemed awfully patient for a guy who is portrayed as boiling over with irrational rage.

This would make the ending a little like Caligula promoting his horse to Senator.

146

I thought we would see Chapel and Yeoman Rand. Perhaps in the next film.

147

I apologize if this has been addressed the the thread already - I haven’t had enough time to go through the entire thing. I don’t think that Nero was terribly concerned about stopping the supernova anymore. From his perspective, he saw that “Spock did nothing to stop the supernova.” We, through the benefit of time-traveling cameras, know that Spock merely arrived too late to save Romulus and that he wasn’t just standing idly by. Nero doesn’t know this however, and his desire to destroy Vulcan and Earth is based on revenge for his planet, not to change the future/past. You’re right - he could have gone to the Romulan High Council or whatever and said “Yo dudes, there’s gonna be a supernova soon; we’d best get our butts in gear and stop it.” He decided not to do that though. He doesn’t want Romulus back; he wants revenge for what happened in his timeline. In that sense, his actions are, if not logical, then at least defensible on the grounds of crazy-Romulan logic.

148

So, couple of my thoughts:

If there are any posters to be made, they need to make one of Uhura’s Orion room mate lounged out on the bed. Yaow. That made me want to enlist in Starfleet on the spot. I was actually very sad with the implication that she died on the Farragut (similarly, the only Jedi I particularly felt bad for in Star Wars Episode III was the guy on the bridge, and the really pretty Twi Lek Jedi girl)

The Romulans really need to get thrown a bone on decent starship design. Nemesis did have the cool new warbirds, even if they did annoyingly fly like fighter jets, but the Scimitar undid that with interest with its own design. Nero’s Starship Hentai didn’t help much.

I loved the bit when Kirk and Sulu get beamed in mid-fall (reminded me a bit of Portal, with how the transporters deal with inertia, or rather how they don’t…), but not so much Chekov’s “I CAN DO THIS!” and sprinting through the hallways. Scotty is supposed to be the technical genius, Chekov the badass Ukranian with the phaser. Having Chekov be a genius, and then Scotty a geniuser, just made Chekov seem reduntant (hell, he wasn’t even unique for having a different accent!)

We need a poster of the Orion starfleet cadet. Did I mention that? We need one of those. I was sitting in one of the farther-front rows because we got in about 5 minutes before the show, and I found myself panning back and forth taking it all in.

Also, the scene with George and Winona Kirk talking over the communicator as he was about to ram the Romulan ship was about 30 seconds too long. They should have had it end right after they named Kirk. Give George just enough time to say “James-” and then blow up the ship.

Any problems with people not serving in the right places at the right times in their careers is easily explained as being due to the destruction of the Kelvin and whoever died aboard. Maybe April was an officer who got killed before the evacuation? Also, Spock may have been a Commander in Starfleet due to his very high intellect and scientific skill. I got the impression that it was rare at the time for Vulcans to be serving in Starfleet, at least alongside the humans.

Speaking of destruction and mayhem, the Enterprise arriving at Vulcan struck me as very similar to the Enterprise arriving at Wolf 359 in TNG (Enterprise is delayed due to a problem with getting to warp, arrives at the scene of battle just in time to survey the lost ships. IIRC, Farragut may have been the name of one of the destroyed ships there too. Elements of an Enterprise officer narrowly avoiding death due to refusing an assignment on one of said ships earlier.)

149

That was great, but I’m disturbed by how alien Quinto looks even without the ears and eyebrows.

150

No, I think the Romulans use disruptors. :slight_smile:
Sorry if I missed a previous reply.

151

Mainly, disappointing. The actors did their best, the special effects were second to none, but the screenplay let them all down. I expected better from the writers, a little originality maybe. This was way below the level of many TNG scripts.

And why the hell did they waste time coming up with a story to account for McCoy’s nickname? Doctors have been nicknamed Bones for a century or more, for obvious reasons.

152

I kinda liked it, especially how it tied in with how a man afraid of the wind ends up joining up with a service as dangerous as Starfleet.

Interestingly enough, nobody ever CALLS him “Bones” during the movie.

Also, you ever notice how whenever anything happens to Earth on Star Trek, it invariably happens in San Fransisco? Don’t attacking aliens actually blow up the Golden Gate Bridge in DS9?

153

I thought Kirk did call him Bones again, later on. Maybe I’m mistaken.

154

Well, after Chekov’s mid-air transporter rescue, he might have said something like “OW! My bones!” :smiley:

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Chekov was taken under Spock’s wing as an auxiliary Science Officer in the original series, so my guess is that this plays into that aptitude.

I didn’t find her that attractive, and the makeup job wasn’t very good, either. It looked smudged.

He did, on the steps of the Academy while discussing the Kobayashi Maru.

156

Weren’t they shooting at Star Fleet Headquarters as it were?

157

It was interesting that in the meeting intro re why he’s called “Bones” that it’s assumed they still have an adversarial, winner/loser confiscatory divorce system hundreds of years into the future where money is not supposed to be as big a deal.

158

I realize I’m a girl and perhaps not fully appreciative of the miniskirt, but am I the only one who thought, “gosh, they look cold?” I mean, all the guys are wearing long-sleeved shirts and long pants, and the girls are flouncing around in tiny skirts and cap sleeves? From my office/cubicle experience, guys tend to be warmer than girls, so I just kept thinking, those poor girls must be freezing.

Oh, yeah and the rest of the movie: ridiculous plot, but I did like each and every one of the characters. I do wish they’d spent a little more time getting them together though, it all seemed a little slapdash.

159

I heard that the “no money” thing was more of a Next Generation concept, and that it was far from fully implemented into the original. Just what I overheard, though.

160

Yes. I haaated the lens flares. Otherwise I enjoyed the movie well enough. Good fun for a couple of hours. But the constant lens flares drove me nuts.