412 replies to this topic

[Overstreet]

Peter Chattaway's review is up.

Great work, Peter.

[CrimsonLine]

I haven't read any reviews yet, so these are my raw thoughts: I liked it a lot. It was not the Star Trek that I know and love, but that's okay. It was a thrilling adventure set in a very different universe that stars the same characters that I know and love. The characters were great. The WORLD of the picture was exciting, felt real, and was filled with detail.

Nero's ship was imposing and threatening as all get out, but Nero himself was lame. It was hard to tell the difference between him and his minions, and when K&S fight their way through minion after minion, and eventually to Nero himself, the threat level did not increase. Nero was indistinguishable from his crew in every respect.

The ships were amazing. I love the Enterprise. I love the Kelvin. I thought the whole of the art design was spectacular, even the big red ball.

The world felt real, and sounded real. The characters were great. The action was intense. Highly recommended.

[Harris-Stone]

(Incidentally, just skimming through my copy of that book now, I came across a quote from a 1978 interview with Mark Hamill where he says the idea is NOT to do sequels in chronological sequence but to do a dozen adventures that take place in the same world but don't connect to each other all that strongly, a la James Bond.)

In a way, doing adventures that took place in the same world, but didn't necessarily connect, would have been much more in line with the matinee/boy's adventure spirit of the original Star Wars film. I suspect I'd have liked that better actually, but who knows without seeing the result. Not that I didn't like Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi. Except for that "I'm your father Luke" thing!

Hmmm. Is James Bond more like a TV series, or more like "cinema", in its approach to character development etc.?

Do the phrases "James Bond" and "character development" even belong in the same sentence? (OK. Maybe if you're discussing Casino Royale and On Her Majesty's Secret Service) Bond is like a lot of older TV shows with one primary character. The character doesn't change and the circumstances of each plot are almost interchangeable. But I guess they are film-like in relying on the visual spectacle of the big set pieces.

What would you make of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings? Both are arguably long single novels made into a series of films. Is this something altogether new with its own unrealized potential? Has a director every tried to tell a long, original story in a series of films? We're certainly getting that now in TV shows like LOST, etc.

Edited by Harris-Stone, 07 May 2009 - 11:24 PM.

[Peter T Chattaway]

Overstreet wrote:
: Great work, Peter.

Thanks. I had to leave a lot of stuff out, but I may blog some additional thoughts later.

Harris-Stone wrote:
: Do the phrases "James Bond" and "character development" even belong in the same sentence? (OK. Maybe if you're discussing Casino Royale and On Her Majesty's Secret Service)

Movie-wise, yeah. And while I didn't think much of Quantum of Solace as a film, I do think it "develops" the character somewhat beyond Casino Royale.

: What would you make of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings? Both are arguably long single novels made into a series of films.

Actually, I think The Lord of the Rings WAS written as a single novel, but it was so big the publisher split it into three instalments. (Correct me if I'm wrong about that.)

And Harry Potter is very similar in that J.K. Rowling had a definite arc in mind before she wrote any of the books; I have not gone back and re-read the first books in light of the last book, but I hear that there are hints in those first books that stand out even more, now that the final book has come out and revealed everything. It sounds like Rowling's later books didn't have to do a whole lot of retconning -- whereas Lucas had to come up with all that nonsense about "being true from a certain point of view" etc. after he decided to make Vader Luke's father.

: Has a director every tried to tell a long, original story in a series of films?

I guess we're bracketing off Star Wars because of the break between the first film and the sequels/prequels.

Actually, The Matrix comes to mind. I believed the Wachowskis when the first film came out and they said they had a trilogy planned, if the first film turned out to be successful enough -- and I still believe them, because the sequels answered certain questions that I had after seeing the first film. (The fact that I didn't care for some of the answers is a whole other issue...)

[Overstreet]

My review's up.

[SDG]

My review's up.

And mine. My verdict:

...compared to any but the most brilliant origin stories — compared to the modest pleasures of Iron Man, say — Star Trek delivers superbly, while opening the door to the possibility of better things yet to come. Where a typical franchise prequel like last week’s Wolverine merely hits the expected numbers, Star Trek surprises and delights. That’s something “Star Trek” hasn’t done in a couple of decades or so. I’ll take it.

[Thom Wade]

My review's up.

And mine. My verdict:

...compared to any but the most brilliant origin stories — compared to the modest pleasures of Iron Man, say — Star Trek delivers superbly, while opening the door to the possibility of better things yet to come. Where a typical franchise prequel like last week’s Wolverine merely hits the expected numbers, Star Trek surprises and delights. That’s something “Star Trek” hasn’t done in a couple of decades or so. I’ll take it.

So...I guess you all found it at least passable entertainment for a weekend diversion?

[opus]

I was hoping to see this opening night, but it now looks like I'll be seeing it with Renae tomorrow. I can't think of a better date movie!

Edited by opus, 08 May 2009 - 09:02 AM.

[bowen]

My favorite ST review to date:

http://www.filmthreat.com/index.php?sectio...ws&Id=11718

Some coarse language, but quite funny. How can you not like a review with a story like:

I saw the movie with an avowed Trek fanatic. When the lights went up, I asked her what she thought. Her response was that it was good, but it “wasn’t Trek.” Not having paid much attention to the Roddenberryverse since “TNG,” I didn’t have much of a response. But then as I left the theater I thought: “Not Trek? The movie has gaping plotholes, a skirt-chasing Kirk, time travel, and a bullshit pseudo-scientific resolution to a life-threatening situation...who are you kidding? It’s totally f**ing Trek!"

Edited by bowen, 08 May 2009 - 11:48 AM.

[Peter T Chattaway]

Well, for one thing, this movie has no Ideas. Trek was always about the Ideas, whether they were socio-political or religio-philosophical. But this movie has no real Idea beyond its own perpetuation (and that of the franchise as a whole).

Just for the record, I think Roger Ebert is weirdly off-base when he starts quibbling that warp drive is a narrative cheat. I mean, good grief: how many sci-fi stories of interplanetary travel DON'T have warp drive (or hyperspace, or...)? If he REALLY wanted to complain about narrative cheats, he could have pointed at the transporter, which Gene Roddenberry has always admitted was a time- and budget-saving device that saved him from having to land the spaceship every episode. But then, even THAT is a clearly established bit of Trek lore and nothing new to this movie.

Personally, I think the "trans-warp transporter" is one of this movie's cheesier devices and drops into the plot way, WAY too conveniently. But I can almost bend my rules enough to go with it. What I find absolutely ridiculous, though, is the idea that anybody standing on the surface of one planet could see what's happening on another planet, using nothing more than the naked eye. That's simply flat-out impossible -- ESPECIALLY because the movie never employs any techno-magic to MAKE it possible. Even Star Wars never tried anything so brazenly unscientific.

Things move by so quickly in this movie, I keep waiting for somebody to tell me that I'm off-base here, that I missed a crucial detail. But so far, nobody has.

[Overstreet]

Since I promised earlier that I'd clarify my "This is a Star Wars movie" claim, I'll post this excerpt from my review to explain:

You’ll notice I’m saying little about the plot. There’s not much to say. The Romulan threat is cleverly designed in order to maximize the tension between the members of the Enterprise. The troubles ignite their personalities and bring them into colorful conflicts, but will anyone really care much about what the Romulans are up to? Probably not. Abrams never slows down to make us care much about the billions of people who die along the way. (Somehow, the destruction of Alderaan in Star Wars affected me much more than this film’s planetary apocalypse.)

And that brings me to the realization that kept me laughing all through the movie. Orci and Kurtzman’s storyline has done something no other Star Trek tale has done before. It has created a space where the Star Trek and Star Wars camps can live together in harmony.

The characters, the relationships, the technology: It’s pure Star Trek.

But the story?

Does any of this sound familiar?

* A farm boy who likes to zoom around on a sort of landspeeder stops and gazes up wistfully at a starship.
* That farm boy is encouraged by a veteran warrior, who tells him about how great his father was.
* The bad guys blow up planets. We watch this happen in an excruciating scene, where a hero must cope with the death of his home and the people he loves. After the destruction of one world, we know that the climactic scenes will involve the attempted destruction of another.
* The cocky hero is chasing the same girl as the more principled hero. And the audience is rather surprised by who she ends up with at the end.
* The secondary hero must learn to break his code and “have faith.”
* The climactic sequence involves a ship blasting itself free from the destructive power of an explosive calamity.
* It all ends with an award ceremony.

This is Star Wars territory, folks.

As in The Empire Strikes Back, when the hero crash-lands on a remote planet, he steps out of the spacecraft and who is the first person he meets? Why, it just happens to be the wisest mentor he could hope to discover, an ancient and legendary figure who will guide him on the path to wisdom. Strange, this is, and convenient. Familiar, this is.

[CrimsonLine]

Jonah Goldberg says that the worst part of the new movie is Spock Prime:

Literally, in every scene Nimoy’s Spock — “Spock Prime,” as he’s called in the credits — makes the movie worse, the plot less plausible, the experience less enjoyable. Everything Spock says and does lowers the IQ not just of Spock, but of everyone in earshot, including his fellow cast members, the writers, the director, the audience, and the movie-theater ushers. The black hole of Leonard Nimoy’s Spock is so staggeringly asinine, so stupefyingly insulting to the audience’s intelligence, if the movie could achieve escape velocity from its gravitational pull it would slingshot back in time to an age when Teri Garr wore mini-skirts, Klingons were just white guys with brown-shoe-polished faces, and William Shatner’s hair was his own.

[Peter T Chattaway]

I hate to say it, but Goldberg has a point. I'd blame the writers more than Nimoy, though.

I'm also uncomfortable with the way Spock Prime tells young Spock to just put away logic and go with his feelings. (Now THERE'S a Star Wars sentiment for you!) The Spock who evolved over the course of the original movies was more balanced than that. Now, he's just another example of how this movie tries to make these characters palatable by making them Just Like Us. (Or, if they're NOT quite Just Like Us, it is made very clear that they should TRY to become Just Like Us.) I wouldn't go so far as to call it a "demystification", exactly, since there was nothing "mystical" per se about the original Kirk and Spock etc., but this movie does remind me of the Jeremy Sisto Jesus mini-series and other films that have made famous, compelling figures a little too "familiar".

[CrimsonLine]

I hate to say it, but Goldberg has a point. I'd blame the writers more than Nimoy, though.

I agree. I didn't dislike Nimoy's Spock in the other Trek movies. Well, okay - in Star Trek V and VI, I did.

[Harris-Stone]

Actually, I think The Lord of the Rings WAS written as a single novel, but it was so big the publisher split it into three instalments. (Correct me if I'm wrong about that.)

According to Wikipedia Tolkien intended it to be part of a two volume set with the Silmarillion. Interesting and logical. The publisher definitely is the one who split. A wise decision really when you think about paper cost and book price, though War and Peace is actually longer than the combined LOTR. (587,287 words vs 455,125 words, according to a library source)

I guess we're bracketing off Star Wars because of the break between the first film and the sequels/prequels.

Yeah. Making it up as you film over X number of years definitely doesn't count! Though the finished result does tell an epic story. I'll have to watch the whole thing in chronological order some day to see how it holds up.

Actually, The Matrix comes to mind. I believed the Wachowskis when the first film came out and they said they had a trilogy planned, if the first film turned out to be successful enough -- and I still believe them, because the sequels answered certain questions that I had after seeing the first film. (The fact that I didn't care for some of the answers is a whole other issue...)

I knew I was forgetting something!

Thanks to everyone here for their reviews. This is the first Star Trek film I've been excited about in some time. Unfortunately, I don't think it opens here in Mexico for a couple of weeks.

[morgan1098]

Just for the record, I think Roger Ebert is weirdly off-base when he starts quibbling that warp drive is a narrative cheat. I mean, good grief: how many sci-fi stories of interplanetary travel DON'T have warp drive (or hyperspace, or...)? If he REALLY wanted to complain about narrative cheats, he could have pointed at the transporter, which Gene Roddenberry has always admitted was a time- and budget-saving device that saved him from having to land the spaceship every episode. But then, even THAT is a clearly established bit of Trek lore and nothing new to this movie.

I thought Ebert's review was uncharacteristically cranky as well. He usually seems more than happy to suspend his disbelief for things like warp speed, etc.

Personally, I think the "trans-warp transporter" is one of this movie's cheesier devices and drops into the plot way, WAY too conveniently. But I can almost bend my rules enough to go with it. What I find absolutely ridiculous, though, is the idea that anybody standing on the surface of one planet could see what's happening on another planet, using nothing more than the naked eye. That's simply flat-out impossible -- ESPECIALLY because the movie never employs any techno-magic to MAKE it possible. Even Star Wars never tried anything so brazenly unscientific.

Things move by so quickly in this movie, I keep waiting for somebody to tell me that I'm off-base here, that I missed a crucial detail. But so far, nobody has.

What are you referring to here? The only thing I can think of is when Spock Sr. is standing on the ice planet and he sees Vulcan implode in the sky. That doesn't seem like it would be impossible. Surely if our own moon exploded we'd be able to see the effects from earth?

Edited by morgan1098, 08 May 2009 - 02:51 PM.

[Harris-Stone]

See? Um, wouldn't there be some pretty serious gravitational induced problems

coming the observer's way quickly? The pull of the moon moves the whole ocean.

What would happen if it suddenly went away? And what about debris? Ducking and

running for cover would be like an ant trying to escape a fire bomb.

Edited by Harris-Stone, 08 May 2009 - 03:34 PM.

[morgan1098]

See? Um, wouldn't there be some pretty serious gravitational induced problems

coming the observer's way quickly? The pull of the moon moves the whole ocean.

What would happen if it suddenly went away? And what about debris? Ducking and

running for cover would be like an ant trying to escape a fire bomb.

I understand what you're saying. Certainly there would be huge problems with gravity and debris if our moon exploded. But those factors aside, something like that would be VISIBLE from Earth, wouldn't it? That's why I'm wondering whether Peter was referring to the Vulcan implosion sequence or something else. And even in that situation debris wouldn't be a problem because the planet (and, presumably, all the debris) were sucked into some sort of black hole.

Sorry about all the spoiler text.

Edited by morgan1098, 08 May 2009 - 03:53 PM.

[Peter T Chattaway]

morgan1098 wrote:
: What are you referring to here? The only thing I can think of is when Spock Sr. is standing on the ice planet and he sees Vulcan implode in the sky. That doesn't seem like it would be impossible. Surely if our own moon exploded we'd be able to see the effects from earth?

Vulcan has no moons. And my goodness, if you destroyed an entire planet, just think what it would do the orbits of any moons that it MIGHT have. (I mean, if Ceti Alpha VI's explosion wreaked such havoc on Ceti Alpha V... and they were entirely separate planets, in entirely separate orbits!)

And the problems with that part of the movie don't stop there. Why on earth is Spock on Delta Vega to begin with? Can it really be that Nero, having witnessed the destruction of his home world Romulus, wanted Spock to witness the destruction of Vulcan ... but DIDN'T want to witness Spock witnessing that destruction? Heck, how can Nero be so confident that Spock will be looking up at the sky when the destruction of Vulcan actually happens? What if Spock happens to be looking somewhere else, or running for his life from one of those ice-monsters? Shouldn't Spock really be on the Narada at that point in the story?

For now I'm bracketing off any consideration of the fact that, in the original series, Delta Vega was on the outer edge of the galaxy, right near the Galactic Barrier. For one thing, I don't think it's entirely possible that there might be two planets with the same name, and for another, I'm trying to stick to objections that any non-Trekkie could have with this film.

[Harris-Stone]

I understand what you're saying. Certainly there would be huge problems with gravity and debris if our moon exploded. But those factors aside, something like that would be VISIBLE from Earth, wouldn't it? That's why I'm wondering whether Peter was referring to the Vulcan implosion sequence or something else. And even in that situation debris wouldn't be a problem because the planet (and, presumably, all the debris) were sucked into some sort of black hole.

Sorry about all the spoiler text.

I'm no astrophysicist, but I don't think you'd live long enough for your brain to even register the event, though there would be light and a lot of other stuff streaming at you. Remember if a black hole were pulling everything in, it will also be pulling you and whatever you're standing on, breathing, etc. in as well. And a lack of atmospheric pressure isn't good for humans. I think we pop without it. If a real black hole can pull a star apart from some light years distance. If we were close enough to SEE it, we wouldn't stand a chance.

But of course in Trek, they are somehow immune to normal inertia and momentum, etc., while their ship jerks from one spot to another with enough rapid acceleration to dissolve them into something unrecognizable sprayed across a bulkhead. So, I guess so long as one's disbelief remains firmly suspended, anything goes!

Edited by Harris-Stone, 08 May 2009 - 04:10 PM.