Star Trek Xi, A Fans Take
Entry posted by Necro
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Let me just say that most of my bad expectations and such were shattered by the movie, so I was able to enjoy it with my precoloured opinions happily cast aside, Still, let's get this started, shall we? Not there are massive spoilers, so there's a very good reason it's in spoiler tags. You've been warned, any comments about me ruining the movie for you are getting deleted.
Product Placement
When Kirk's driving his stolen car, and uses his Nokia phone to talk to his uncle(?). If it were a bit more subtle I wouldn't mind, but as a friend put it, it's sort of like "Guys, PRODUCT PLACEMENT!" And then they NokiaPunch you with their product placement. I'm probably nitpicking, but it didn't really need to be there, they could've made it a generic Star Trek iPhone or got creative with it or something like that. But instead they went with something generic, all the way to the Nokia ringtone. Some people probably find it cute, but I just thought it a bit blatant. If it paid for half the movie or something though, then I'm fine with something that small.
Uhura and Spock
Through the radio I had heard about this before I went to see the film, and basically thought something along the lines of "I guess if it's done right it could be kind of cute", and while it sort of was, at the same time it wasn't. You have a couple shots on earth where Spock maybe looks at Uhura for a second or vice versa, and there's the whole thing with him switching her to duty on The Enterprise, then you have Vulcan blowing up, or imploding if you prefer, and suddenly Uhura's kissing Spock in the elevator, like they've been in a big relationship for years. I mean yes, his planet's blown up and he's acting captain and all, but at the same time it was kind of sudden and frontal and stuffs, kind of out-of-the-blue. I mean, near the beginning, they have what could one day be a nice relationship. Then near the end of the film they have tearful goodbyes on the transporter pad, and Spock going "If I don't make it out of this, tell Uhura I love her" and all that. There wasn't any middle, there was no buildup.
Nero
Nero was kind of generic as a villain. Driven by revenge, (Almost) the last of his kind, things like that. That being said, Eric Bana did a good job with what he was given, unfortunately what they gave him was generic. He was kind of convincing, but he just felt cliche, and at the same time some of the stuff was just stupid. He's right to be angry about his home planet being blown up, but at the same time his motive can be approximated as "Uh, who am I going to blame for this? Hmm...oh, that Spock guy, the guy who tried to save us!" On the one hand sure, he's crazy so he can do whatever he wants, and also watching his home planet die like that he probably was wondering why Spock didn't do anything or something like that, but still, it just felt a little odd to me. Eric Bana actually kind of I like for doing a good job with what he had, but as a whole Nero goes on the first list.
A brewery?
They used a brewery for the engine room. It wasn't as terrible as I thought it would it be when I heard about it, but come on, a brewery? The TOS set was more convincing I think.
Now then, onto what I did like.
Dun dun daaah
Right in the beginning when the ship with Kirk's father on it is flying about and Nero's ship comes through the wormhole/storm thing, someone at Paramount remembered to have the brass section of the orchestra for the soundtrack go "Bum, bum bum baaaa!" which is important for the soundtrack I think; look in any number of Star Trek movies, whenever something bad's about to happen or something ominous happens there's a big dramatic music stab, often done by the brass section.
Spinny chairs!
This really doesn't bear much on the film as a whole, but when Spock sits down in Nimoy-Spock's future craft, the chair spins around, and Sylar-Spock says the traditional "Fascinating". I love spinning chairs, so I love this part.
Sound design
Generally I don't like it when people try to make new versions of old sound effects, but most of the stuff in the movie was pretty good actually. They had the "Pa-ping" from the screen, the "Chikka-chik-chik-chik-chik" form the communicators, the "Ptow" from the phasers an all that kind of stuffs. I just really liked that as a fan of TOS I guess.
Music
Being a musician and music listener I know music is incredibly preferential, so I'm just saying I like the music and leaving that at that.
Reference!
The original captain of The Enterprise is named Pike. The captain of The Enterprise in the unaired pilot episode of TOS is named Pike. In season 1, episodes 11 and 12(It was a two-part episode), Pike returns as the former captain of The Enterprise, but he's in a wheelchair and, as he can't speak, he talks in I think it was morse code. In the sequel from Nero's treatment he's left in a regular wheelchair. I just thought this was an interesting sort of thing because it seemed kind of like a reference to TOS.
Kirk, Spock and Ensign Ricky
Let's not lie. Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Sulu, Chekov, and oftentimes Uhura are the important characters. The redshirted ensign's always die and these characters are always the ones you focus on. I enjoyed these performances, Leonard Nimoy has voiced his approval of not only Zachary Quinto, but also most of the other characters, I'm not sure how Shatner feels about Pine but I think he did a good job, and I think most of the rest of the original cast would agree they did a good job. Heck, Karl Urban(McCoy) remembered something that no trekkie doing a tribute to Bones ever remembered since DeForest Kelly's original; McCoy is from the south, he's southern and you're supposed to give him a slight southern accent. So I really think that the cast did a good job of portraying the TOS crew. There was even a redshirt who died of stupidity, so everything checks out.
Science!
My father is an engineer and my brother is majouring in engineering with a minor in astrophysics. If there are scientific inaccuracies I'd know. But when I asked them both, most of the movie's logic made sense. The thing about Saturn's rings didn't, but otherwise J.J. Abrams did his homework, and I'm impressed.
So, overall? I thought it was pretty good. I didn't want my money back, I didn't walk out, I didn't feel like I wasted my time. It wasn't wonderful, but it was rather good. I'd give it 3.5-3.75/5 depending on what kind of mood I'm in. I admit I was overtly negative about it beforehand and for that I apologize. Albeit on the other hand I think some people are overreacting. It's 97th in IMDB's top 250. It's good, but it's not as incredible as a lot of movies in the top 250. But, overall, this was pretty good I thought. My respect for Abrams went up, so I'd recommend seeing it if you haven't.
Edit; Much thanks to Valenti and Teebs for correcting a few mistakes and answering a few questions.
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