Willravel

Yes, that's exactly right.

Zotz

Wow! That second trailer rocks. This looks likes its going to be good!

Vizzini

Just going through the cast list. They got quite a few names in there.

Winona Ryder is playing Amanda Grayson (Spock's mom).
Eric Bana
Karl urban
Simon Pegg
and quite a few other recognizable names.

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biznatch

I saw a couple Star Trek episodes, with a friend who's obsessed by it. Some of it is OK. But I think they have enough of a real fanbase to make a killing in theaters, and it seems like a fun movie.

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SecretMethod70

Meaning that it's Spoiler: really a reboot. $100 says they take the parallel timeline and go with it for future movies. They're just playing semantics because they think Trek fans are morons - and apparently a lot of them are. I won't lie, I'm going to see it in the theatre, and I may even enjoy it as a space action movie, but I don't expect to like it as a Star Trek movie.

---------- Post added at 01:08 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:05 PM ----------

Spoiler: Based on what I know, saying this Star Trek movie isn't a reboot is like saying Sci-Fi's Battlestar Galactica wasn't a reimagining because "all of this has happened before and it will all happen again."

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Le temps détruit tout

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Willravel

According to Moore, his BSG was a "reimagining", and by my understanding Kobol was the source of the human life that eventually populated the 12 Colonies. There's no mention made of BSG 1979 and BSG 2004 existing in the same reality. Even taking into account the cyclic model of the big bang.

This Star Trek movie, on the other hand, is technically a sequel to Nemesis. You just need to look at it 4-dimensionally. It's not a chronological sequel, it's a new kind of sequel which takes into account time travel.

SecretMethod70

Will, that's my point, BSG *is* a reimagining, and ST:XI *is* a reboot. They can make up all the ridiculous explanations they want, but the end result will be the same: a new series of movies that don't have any particular ties to past Star Trek. Call it a Spoiler: parallel timeline all you want, but it's still a reboot if they do it for more than one movie, and you can bet they will. Not only that, but I doubt they will ever go back to the Spoiler: "timeline" that the rest of Star Trek has taken place in. Search your feelings. You know it to be true.

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Le temps détruit tout

"Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling

Willravel

I don't know if "reboot" is the right name for it, though. The first scenes in Star Trek Spoiler: take place at least 10 years after Nemesis, with Spock and the Romulan/Vulcan peace process, so at least part of the movie isn't a reboot.

If they're smart, they'll go with the time stream theory of time travel, so that all of the wonderful storys in TNG, DS9, and Ent aren't negated, but simply took place in a different time stream that still exists.

SecretMethod70

Yes, a time stream which they'll never touch again while focusing on an entirely new time stream. Like I said, that's a reboot regardless of how they explain it away.

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Le temps détruit tout

"Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling

Willravel

It's very good, and this is coming from a pretty serious Trek fan.

That said Spoiler: everything that Captain Archer did to bring about the reformation on Vulcan seems to have been for not. Vulcan gets destroyed, and there aren't but a few Vulcans left that were off world at the time. The true teachings of Surok, the father of Vulcan logic, will likely be lost by the time this time line's Picard comes along.

They really, really fuck over the time line in a way that cannot be fixed. I'm concerned about where this goes next because there's a real possibility that it could become a bastardization of what we all know instead of a respectful reimagining.

fresnelly

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Cynosure

This reader's review at the New York Times put a grin on my face...

http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/05/08/movies/08trek.html

Lasereth

Roger Ebert gave it a negative review and he is usually spot on about sci-fi movies, comic movies, etc. Rotten Tomatoes has it at an astounding 96% though so who knows if it's a truly good movie, or if it's simply very entertaining in a theater (which is what most people review movies by...their theater experience, not the quality of the movie).

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Willravel

Like I said, it's very good. Honestly, it's one of the best Star Trek movies, if not the best. There are certainly things to nitpick, but it's Star Trek; there are always things to nitpick.

m0rpheus

To be fair, Ebert didn't really give the movie a negative review. He gave it an "it's okay" review. RT just lumps everything as Pass/Fail, Ebert gave it 2.5/4 stars which they consider rotten.

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Baraka_Guru

This is why I prefer Metacritic, in which case Ebert's review is 63%, which is a "pass" (but just barely).

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Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
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BuDDaH

Ebert is like McCain, he's sooo out of touch. He is reliable to give unabased opinion about movies as using dental floss to catch a whale.

The movie rocked. Period.

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YaWhateva

I agree 100%! And complain about the Spoiler: alternate timeline/universe all you want but they did it really well. It had enough to pander to the hardcore trekkies and to bring in a whole new crowd. Isn't it better that they did it like this than try to pull something like the star wars prequels? Imagine how pissed everyone would be if they fucked up the prime universe of TOS and TNG et al.?

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Crack

(wow... how did that happen...lol)

Ok, I saw Star Trek tonight! I actually liked it. Total departure from every other ST film, but I think it will stand on it's own and be one of the best.

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Willravel

Um... no Crack. This thread is about Star Trek (2009).

Hain

Did anyone else catch it: Spoiler: out of red, blue, and yellow, red shirts die first.

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Willravel

Of course! It wouldn't be Star Trek without that.

YaWhateva

yeah I enjoyed that, along with Kirk Spoiler: hooking up with a green alien woman There were a lot of nice throwbacks.

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“If the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it's clean, he has nothing, I will apologize to the nation, and I will not trust the Bush administration again.” - Bill O'Reilly

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Willravel

Spoiler: That was model/actress Rachel Nichols as an Orion Slave Girl. I think if Star Trek had one flaw, it was that it wasn't just 2 solid hours of Orion Slave Girls.

Baraka_Guru

Argh! Out come the spoiler tags!

aberkok and I are set to see this tomorrow afternoon. I'm really looking forward to it.

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Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Charlatan

Saw it yesterday and thought it was great.

The film is a reboot (even if they say it isn't) but I don't care. I'd love to see this new crew carry on with new adventures.

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Lucifer

I saw it yesterday too, in the IMAX theatre, no less, which really put it over the top. I don't care about the re-imagining of the whole thing, it totally rocked from the get go.

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robot_parade

I saw 'it' last night. Mostly very awesome. I'm never going back to the IMAX I saw it at again, though - there was *crap* all over the picture, including at one point a freaking *hair* we could see wiggling around in front of the picture. Really detracted from the overall experience.

I'm just gonna spoiler the rest of my comments, in case anyone who hasn't seen it yet is dumb enough to read this thread. :-)

Spoiler:
Liked:

o The way the cast worked together. Didn't seem very forced at all.
- Uhuru and Spock making out - awesome! Especially since the made Ururu more of a geek gurl than shown in TOS.
- Spock losing his temper was awesome.
- Kirk + McCoy working together was good.
- Old spock was awesome.
- They included Sulu and Chekov very nicely...the sword was a little cheesy, especially how Sulu said that he had learned 'fencing', and that was *not* a fencing sword, it was a katana, or similar. 'Wictor' - awesome.
- Red shirt buys it. Awesome.
o The villain was pretty good - I liked how he was 'working class' in a lot of ways - like how he talked to Captain Pike...when they hailed each other. I can't remember the exact words, but it was well done.
o I liked the 'Red matter' concept - pretty cheesy in a way, but they didn't try to over-explain it or anything. It just was what it was.
o I loved the way they handled the alternate-universe thing. Very well-done, I thought. Gives them a great way to explore the characters and universe in a different setting.
o Loved all the little nods to TOS. I probably missed many of them, but those that I saw were cool.
o I expected them to go back in time or something to save Vulcan, but I liked that they didn't. That's a *huge* change. Wow.

Didn't like:
o The biggest thing that bothered me was the silliness with the ice planet - and there was lots of it.
- Why would spock toss kirk on a frozen rock to begin with? Instead of, you know, the brig. I can maybe see that he was worried that McCoy or someone else would let him free again...but if he was afraid of McCoy doing that, then he could have brigged them both. You could also argue that he was showing signs of emotional loss of control over the loss of his planet/mother.
- The chased-by-monsters scene was cute, but a little too cute for my taste.
- The thing that really, really bothered me - Kirk just happens to run into the cave where old-spock is hanging out. Beyond improbable. Surely they could have set this up better.
o I would've liked maybe a little more homage to the original score.
o There wasn't quite enough 'Enterprise-pr0n' for my taste - there were some wide shots, and some very tight shots, and of course lots of action shots, but I really wanted just a nice 'look at me!' flyover of The Ship.
o Minor nits:
- They made a big deal about how hard it was to transport someone that was in motion with Kirk & Sulu, but then didn't have a problem with spock as he was ramming the mining ship, even though he would've been moving *much* faster.
- The supernova that 'threatened the galaxy' and then 'unexpectedly' toasted Romulus wasn't very clear at all. Hypothetically a big enough supernova could threaten large parts of the galaxy, but there would be plenty of time to know when and what it was going to hit - the fastest it could spread would be the speed of light, and warp drive is much faster.
- Speaking of speed, warp drive is obviously very fast, but it seemed like they got from place to place in just a few minutes. That doesn't seem to jive with the other info, or with what makes sense - otoh, the whole series has had lots of problems with exactly how fast warp drive is, so they get a pass on this one.
- How close to vulcan was the ice planet? If it was further than the same solar system as vulcan, then that doesn't make sense either.
- Ok, ok, this is petty, but when Scotty was trapped in the water-pipe thing, and kirk released him, not nearly enough water came with him, even if the hatch closed pretty quickly. I know, minor.

Willravel

Just a few small things, as I'm a massive nerd.
Spoiler: The ice planet is one of the moons of Vulcan. It's within visual distance from the planet, and it's the only place to drop off Kirk before warping to the fleet. It's also the perfect vantage point for old Spock to see Vulcan destroyed. It's not totally uncoincidental, I'll admit, but I can buy it. I just wish they would have made the location more clear.

Warp is s(w) = w3c, so warp 1 is the speed of light, warp 2 is 8 times the speed of light, warp 3 is 27 times the speed of light, warp 4 is 64 times the speed of light, and warp 5 is 125 times the speed of light. If I remember my Star Trek correctly, the NCC-1701 had a cruising speed of warp 6 (216 times the speed of light) and a maximum speed of warp 9 (729 times the speed of light). Vulcan is about 16 light years from Earth. If my math is right, that's about a 12 hour trip at maximum warp. I know you give them a pass, but I pretended you didn't so I could nerd out.

You're totally right about making the backstory more clear. If you want, I can email you a copy of the prequel comic books that lead to the movie. They fill in the blanks quite well.

Daniel_

I'll take the comics!

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Overhead, the Albatross hangs motionless upon the air,
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The Echo of a distant time
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thespian86

So, wait. Star Wars and Star Trek aren't the same thing?

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YaWhateva

Spoiler: remember the first transport when sulu and kirk were falling was before old spock came and gave them scotty's formula for transporting people to and (I imagine) from moving objects.

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“If the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it's clean, he has nothing, I will apologize to the nation, and I will not trust the Bush administration again.” - Bill O'Reilly

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Lucifer

I vote Wil scans the comics and posts them here!

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I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls.
- Job 30:29

1123, 6536, 5321

Daniel_

Just back from the cinema.

It was bloody good.

__________________

╔═════════════════════════════════════════╗
Overhead, the Albatross hangs motionless upon the air,
And deep beneath the rolling waves,
In labyrinths of Coral Caves,
The Echo of a distant time
Comes willowing across the sand;
And everthing is Green and Submarine
╚═════════════════════════════════════════╝

Willravel

Oops, I skipped a step in my maths. It should take about 8 days to travel from Earth to Vulcan at maximum warp for the NCC-1701, warp 9.

Baraka_Guru

I liked it. I liked it a lot.

I was satisfied with both the casting and their performances. I'm now looking forward to their continuing voyages.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Hain

The Google agrees with your math. I tried "16 light years / warp 9" but calculator did not recognize it. Pity.

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Charlatan

The only little thing I didn't love was Nero. He could have been fleshed out a bit more. I know they had a lot to do in the film, what with introducing all the characters and setting everything up, but I really would have liked a little more back story or face time with Nero. He was no Khan... but then who is?

I still think this rates just behind Wrath of Khan as the second best Star Trek film.

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dohrk

I saw it Thursday night and was mighty impressed. What a fun ride. So far, my biggest disappointment is the fact that it didn't best Wolverine for opening weekend dollars.

It was apparent that there were huge fans of TOS involved, from the red shirt, to the Romulan phaser, to the voice of the computer.

As far as the Kirk/Sulu beam versus Spock beam, I took it to be a mater of relative speed. I reasoned that 2 separate bodies would be harder to track and lock on than one in a stable body ( the ship.

If that sounds weird, I just wanted to be vague as opposed to using spoiler tags.

levite

So I saw it last night.

Without going too much into spoiler territory, I was surprised at how much it didn't suck. I was very, very prepared to hate this movie, and I didn't.

The particular story device they used in order to facilitate the reboot was, IMO, the only one possible for them to use in order to make it work, and they did it about as creditably as anyone could have hoped, I think.

I still think the choice to reboot the franchise by taking it backward was a poor choice. I still think it would've been better to maintain continuity and taken the Trek universe forward several hundred years.

That said, I was very pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed watching this, once it became clear what they were doing and how they chose to do it.

Was it a perfect movie? No. Could I have made a better Trek movie, given the power and the money? Maybe. But it was shockingly watchable, and not in any way a waste of two hours.

I even find myself looking forward to the next one....

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Absence, because it doth remove
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