What is this Star Trek thing you all are writing about?

In 1966 I sat on the couch in the den of our old house in my PJ's. My dad let me stay up an extra hour on Friday nights so I could watch Star Trek with him. I loved that show. We would play Star Trek on the playground at recess and doddle spaceships on our homework.

Then the show went a way for a while and I forgot about it... until high school when it was shown every night at dinner time over and over again until even folks who didn't like the show could recite certain lines from it; "beam me up Scotty" or "I'm a Doctor, not a bricklayer" and the ever reusable "he's dead Jim".

So why am I so attached to the show, the characters AND the actors who played them? Because they have been along for the ride of my life, always turning up every few years in a new movie or TV series.

What I've missed in this discussion is the emotional connection that was formed by longtime fans of the show for the actors.

I liked the new movie but about half way through my heart started to beat rapidly and I had an emotional reaction to the fact as I came to realize there in the darkened theatre that life had moved on, and the actors that I had known and come to love as these characters were gone, really gone, DeForest and Jimmy will never ride the celluloid strip to the stars again.

So anyway, what's important is hopefully this movie and these actors will connect with a new generation of fans who will love them, follow their careers, be inspired to do great things and keep on Trekkin' just like us sixties flower power children were!

I look forward to the franchise being re-energized for the next generation!

Live Long & Prosper!

I went to the new Star Trek film the opening weekend. As a life long Star Trek fan I was really excited about going to see the film. I even looked for an IMax Theatre that was a little farther from home so I could get a bigger movie going experience.

I went in with no expectations about the timeline or about judging it as anything but a brand new SciFi Film. I was totally disappointed!
Not because of the time line changes or the destruction of Vulcan but primarily it felt like I was in a Star Wars film. Lots of laser like blasts, large explosions, and lets face it the sets on the ship made no sense. It was like some weird 23rd century remake bridge with an engineering set out of a 1980's nuclear submarine. The actors could act but the characters were largely two dimensional and it was so dumbed down that the story line was just too simplistic.

I also wondered if perhaps Abraham thought the audience would be confused if the Vulcan's and Romulans looked similar. I am trying to figure out why they looked like skinhead pirates?!

I could handle the story reboot it was just a poorly done movie. Little attention to small details and too heavily relied on massive, fast, mindless action sequences to pull off the whole thing.

Its not my intention to hurt anyones feelings or down anyone who enjoyed the movie. My feeling is that it had little substance at its core. I enjoy action but I expect more from a Star Trek film. Star Trek six was a wonderful final movie and it was much more stimulating and a whole lot less action!

I think the real problem with this movie, is that it is obviously pandering at the mainstream audiences out there. The type that unlike Mike, don't give a flying fudge or simply have no idea about the little details that make up the ST timeline. And that's why canon is unimportant to the supporters of this movie. That's why they have fully embraced it. Because they never cared about the timeline. They don't care that J.J. decided to take a big dump on the old timeline and star anew. They have celebrated the fact that J.J. transformed the franchise into a watchable Star Wars film. Yes, a Star Wars film. Because Star Wars was never science fiction but was merely fantasy. Lots of action and lots of explosions. And that's what we got with this new ST movie. Sure the acting was a lot better (even if its on the same level as the acting you see on the CW i.e. Gossip Girl/90210). J.J. is definitely a better director than George Lucas. Yet I found it very interesting that while watching this film, that I couldn't avoid noticing that a lot of the stuff in it, was inspired by Lucas own space opera. J.J. took the fun from the original SW trilogy and mixed it with the mindless action sequences from the Prequel SW trilogy. This movie made me feel that J.J. actually wanted to make a SW movie. Maybe that's what he was shooting for. Maybe Lucas will let him reboot Star Wars in a few years. And J.J. will no doubt deliver a great SW movie. Meanwhile, we Trekkies, who supported the franchise for decades, we are just suppose to shut up and take it up the arse. Paramount thinks we're beyond the demographic that they can profit from. So we're not important anymore. They're trying to build themselves a new fanbase with this ST reboot. A base made up entirely of easily impressionable tweens (the ones that think Miley Cyrus is a great singer) and people who think 90210 is a TV classic. Plus made up of all those "trekkies" that were never really into the human aspect of the series. Nor about the science. The ones that are now saying that this film is the best Star Trek movie ever. Well lets see how far that takes them. Lets see if the sequel lives up to expectations. And lets hope this wasn't a one hit wonder kinda thing. what with the old timeline being destroyed, what will Paramount do to keep the franchise going? Another reboot?

I am a LONG time Star Trek fan - I was watching the originals with my dad on VHS before I even really knew what "Science Fiction" was. I loved the slam-bang action, the phasers, the distant locales, the possibility of space travel as an everyday thing, and (of course) the lovely ladies that every planet seemed to produce.

Having qualified that, I LOVED Star Trek. This was the best Star Trek movie experience I've had since the watching the original films. I'm usually very analytical at the theatre (I review films for Helium) but I found that iwth this film, I turned the analytics off and let myself et swept away. I cheered, I clapped, and more importantly, I laughed my ass off. After the first few minutes of back story, introducing Kirk and Spock the changes in te timeline, this movie takes off at *ahem* warp speed and never slows down. Even Eric Bana puts in a masterful performance, though his character is largely forgettable and never seems very threatening. It IS Kirk after all. The subtle changes to Spock were a work of genius, and giving more importance to Sulu and Chekov was very appropriate I thought. The movie, in short, is amazing. It stands on it's own as simply a good movie, with or without the Star Trek branding. I highly recommend it to any Trek fan, but I also recommend it to any summer blockbuster fan who craves simple, fun entertainment.

I'm a life-long Trek fan. I thought the movie was good but not the second coming that lots of people made it out to be. Plus I've seen all of J.J.'s stuff except for Felicity and after a while some of his tricks and storytelling choices gets old.
But on topic, I wasn't really offended by the movie because as others have said, I just think of this as a split off universe. Kind of like the Dark universe from "Mirror, Mirror" and other "Mirror" episodes. But I have to admit that one thing that bugged me while watching the movie was the whole thing with the transporter. Unless I missed something, during the movie Scotty was transporting people over millions of miles and to a ship traveling at warp which is presumably light years away? Jeez, if they continue this universe in other movies or tv series then the next time someone gets in trouble I'm sure I'll say to myself, "Why don't they just beam Kirk out of the Romulan/Klingon/Andorian ship? They're only 10 light years away and traveling at Warp 7. I thought Scotty knew how do do that now?"
Although I do have to admit that it was cool they brought the whole "beaming at warp" theory to its logical conclusion. In that split second a transporter beam is traveling between the two ships it is traveling millions of miles of relativistic space between the ships. So why can't that apply when you're not traveling at warp? Okay, I'll stop now.
But if a friggin unidentifiable monster or an ancient prophecy shows up in the next Star Trek movie then I'm out. I'll wait for the Ronald D. Moore DS9 movie.

Let's call a spade a spade. "Reboots" aren't about storytelling, or revitalizing a stagnent series. They're about marketing, plain and simple. Abrams could've made the same movie as an original story, and it would have been just as good, and just as fun, and had no plot issues to deal with. But what he did was piggyback his story on the characters and universe that Rodenberry created to enhance his audience. Now that's understandable. But it's also understandable that the fans of Rodenberry's original vision might be somewhat pissed that the story and characters that they came to love were appropriated, gutted and discarded to sell tickets. One of the prime draws of the Star Trek canon is it's consistency; once you suspend belief and accept certain Trek "facts" the story is internally consistent, and what's made it verge toward science fiction versus fantasy. To abridge the entire timeline, the entire story, with such a cheap plot device like time travel is insulting; might as well just be magic. If you couldn't tell the story within the existing framework, don't tell the story.

Well I have to go now, and get back to work on my screenplay for Titanic 2. Don't want to give to much away but what if the Titanic was actually a submarine in search of Nazi gold?

Parallel universe theory solves everything!

Guys it didn't erase the history we watched. That history still exists .. in "That" trek's universe. This is a "parallel" universe that has had an event create it and differ it from the Trek we've watched. It no more negates TOS than the episode Mirror, Mirror does. Chill out!

Sulu wasn't Japanese. Sulu was born in San Francisco. Hikaru is a Japanese name that George Takei gave the character and it stuck. Sulu isn't Japanese, never was, and never was intended to be. Gene Roddenberry intentionally created a "pan-asian" character of Sulu.

Don't get your feathers in a ruffle over something that just isn't true.

I didn't think I'd see a Star Trek movie with worse science than Generations, but this has it in spades... Whether it's that farce of a supernova, beaming without coordinates or any clue of destination, seeing a planet implode from the surface of another body in an adjacent solar system.... the list goes on... bad... at least Generations only had a sublight probe shooting to the sun of the Veridian system in 6 seconds and light instantly dimming... Well, you also had gravity being impacted by Soran's actions... but aside from that, far less egregious science errors everywhere else but in this movie.

But for those saying they aren't stupid and this movie wasn't scientifically bad, here's a question: If it was Romulus' sun, why would making a black hole in the Romulus/Remus star system help? And if they were simply going to contain the nova, still, how did that help Romulus in the long-term if they had no sun? Why didn't they evacuate the planet?

Second question for the geniuses: How exactly does exploding a couple photon torpedoes cause you to be released from the event horizon of a black hole? Not even light can escape that, but a concussion wave from an anti-matter explosion does the trick? please.....

And yeah, since they deleted my post where I actually defended myself instead of my points, I'll post again my favorite quip from there:

I may be a nerd, and I may take Trek too seriously, but you're TV blogger... what's that make you? Your entire living and life is devoted to talking about television over the internet.

And what's even more pathetic? When someone doesn't give you the response you wanted to illicit you create another article to bash them and tell them it's just a tv show.... yeah fonzie, and you're just a tv blogger, douche.