So another pissed off alien fucks up the timeline and everything we know about the Star Trek universe is wrong from now on?
And did Old Spock risk Earth just to make sure New Spock would like new Kirk? Are we to think that old Spock and old Uhura were secretly doing the zero-gravity horizontal mambo? Can you tell what’s playing on my TV at this very moment?
The original Star Trek universe isn’t “wrong.” All of those events still happen(ed) and nothing has changed. The difference is that Nero’s actions caused an alternate dimension to form, like the one in Mirror, Mirror with evil!Spock. What we see in the new Star Trek movies from now are the events in that parallel universe.
Spock didn’t see his actions as risking Earth, I think. I think he was certain that nu!Kirk and nu!Spock would resolve their differences because it’s fate, destiny, etc etc. And the only way to stop Nero was if the two of them worked together, because that’s how most good Star Trek plots are resolved.
Old Spock and Old Uhura were not doing the zero-gravity horizontal mambo.
I went GISing for any hint that old Spock and old Uhura were getting it on and found this picture. Ha!
Also, the Romulan who was so pissed off because his whole race was killed-- shouldn’t he have-- I dunno-- tried to save Romulonia (or whatever his planet was named?) ?
As soon as I heard “Oh, this is a completely new universe and isn’t bound by canon,” my immediate fear was that this would be quickly followed by a new version of the TOS that was all “dark” and “edgy.”
I like this and glad I thought of it. In an alternate universe.
I haven’t seen the movie, so I can’t comment on it, just dropping in to share what was, for me, a mind-blowing Star Trek revelation.
Of course they were. Why else would Spock be such a dick to Nurse Chapel?
Romulus.
The best report about the reboot: http://www.theonion.com/video/trekkies-bash-new-star-trek-film-as-fun-watchable,14333/
Nero was sent to the past, he didn’t have any control over that. Romulus was (is? will be?) destroyed far in the future.
I know this. He had one hundred years to tell Star Fleet the sun was going to go super a bit ahead of schedule looooong before it happened. He had a lot of years to do this.
Nice. 
I loved this reboot, and thought the casting was especially good. They only have the cast locked up for 2 sequels though. Pity. If the other movies are this good, I could’ve done with several more.
Well, they all know now.
But he wanted revenge on Spock and had 20 some years to think about it. You have to remember that Nero wasn’t a super smart guy or even a military leader. He was a miner. He’s basically the equivalent of a captain on Deadliest Catch.
It’s too late at night to quote Bored of the Rings and say “It’s a pity I’ve run out of bullets”.
dammit
I just saw this movie a couple days ago. I knew the basics of Trek lore, but I have no idea how this deviates from the normal timeline. I like they used the time warp device to free themselves from canon.
And I’m sure that at some point in the following 150-odd years, they’ll tell the Romulans, too (after all, this IS the Federation), which will give the latter more than enough time to prepare for the supernova. In effect, Nero was successful: he saved his planet, and destroyed Vulcan. Earth was always an afterthought.
FYI, for those of you who have watched and loved the Plinkett reviews of the Star Wars prequels on YouTube or at Red Letter Media, he does the same thing for 6 of the Star Trek films including the last one. You can watch them here. They are really really funny and very well thought out.
It’s pretty simple. After Kirk’s dad dies, everything that happens to Kirk is new, except the Kobiashi Maru. After Vulcan is blown up, everything that happened to Spock is new. After the ships are destroyed by Nero, everything that happens to the Enterprise crew is new. And after Spock talked to Scotty, everything from there is new for him.
In other words, everything that Nero did completely changed things. A better question is what’s the same.
And, yes, to the Trekker’s lament, Spock’s relationship with Uhura before his mother died did happen previously. At least, it fits with what Nimoy claimed about Spock’s backstory in I Am Spock. According to that book, Spock had had a problem with women developing crushes on him in the academy, and that he didn’t really withdraw from possible romantic entanglements until something happened.
We also know that he had his first pon farr early enough that it was likely not with his arranged fiance, (Star Trek III shows it happening at an age before we saw the marriage), and that he was quite emotional in his earlier days when he served under Captain Pike. (The Cage)
In other words, I see no reason why Spock could not have been in a relationship with Uhura, one that likely fizzled out when he had to become too emotional. Even if you think that Spock was trying to be logical, he still has human emotions, was rebelling against his father who taught logic, and thus likely could have not been exuding as much control as he does in later years.
I very much enjoyed this movie, in a purely entertainment-value respect.
That said, it was full of huge plot holes, many of which I’m willing to ignore, but the one that sticks in my craw the most is the seeming total lack of defenses on Vulcan and Earth. Sulu and Kirk disable the drill with a small arm, a rifle of some sort IIRC. There were no weapons at all on Vulcan or Earth that they could have shot at the drill with?! They really needed the Enterprise to show up and save them (or not, in Vulcan’s case)?
Not to mention that there’s really no point to drilling a hole at all. A drop of “red matter” creates a black hole, right? Why does it matter that it’s in the center of the planet?
About the timeline:
Plinkett claims to have calculated, based on the number of times we’ve seen history changed in the Star Trek universe, and extrapolated to the rest of the Federation that we HAVEN’T seen, and from there to the known number of galaxies, that history is changed every 23 millionths of a second, or 186 million times in the time it takes to say it.
But he refers to an episode in the series where we learn that new universes are being created constantly, with each and every change. So, in the time it takes to say it, 186 million new universes.
