What Adrienne Thinks About That

I just saw it! I was afraid I wouldn't get past Spock being the bad guy from Heros, but pzzppft! that worry was gone instantly. Loved the casting, every last choice. (OMG: Bones! Did he nail that part or what?) I want to see it again for all the little things I missed, but for now all I can say is that they riffed on every beloved Star Trek motif so perfectly that I wanted to go hug all the writers afterwards.

I agree on all points, especially Bones. I knew who he was supposed to be the *second* he got on that ship. I tried to keep my expectations reasonable and not read a bunch of the pre-release hype, and I'm glad I did. It was such a happy surprise.

Wait, I didn't just see Star Wars?

I was a little bothered by the actor playing Bones being too much of a DeForest Kelly impersonation. And the whole blowing up Vulcan and changing the time line so now we can ignore all the historical past of the other movies and TV shows in our future movies thing. But other than, pretty good.

I liked the new time line thing, as it works with my extremely limited understanding of time travel. I thought it was a clever way to solve some of their writing problems (i.e. that the Star Trek films had gotten so bad and nonsensical that they needed a new start) and a more respectful alternative to outright pretending none of the rest of it had ever happened, which we've seen a bazillion times. I did feel badly for Vulcan, though.

I will admit that scene between old Spock and young Spock was kind of awkward in a "Look away! Look away!" kind of way.

Oh, but old Spock says to young Spock one of my favorite lines! "As my customary farewell would sound oddly self-serving. . ."

Alternate timelines have always been part of Star Trek mythology, so it fits. And of course, it's not like there are no constraints on this new universe---the characters must be true to themselves, which is the most important constraint of all. And it allows them to keep playing the deliciously fun game of comparing the future that unfolds now to another future we already know happened. Brilliant.

Oh, the only other detail I found a bit glaring was the idea that Star Fleet had only managed to staff their brand-new, state-of-the-art starship with a seasoned captain and dozens of fresh from school cadets. Uh...no senior officers? No command structure? Huh? Yes, I know Spock was not a cadet, but he seemed to be the only one aside from Pike.

I watched original Star Trek but never followed TNG enough to know what was going on. We're going to see the film tomorrow night, so I may be the only one in our group going with relatively fresh eyes. My husband had to reel me in when I started to talk about baby Spock and said, "It's not Muppet Babies." I still have some ideas for an animated Star Wars babies 1/2 hour show, you know.

Must. see.

One of the big pluses was that they got the Wilhelm scream out of the way really early.

I thought the relationships established by the crew were great. However an hour after I left the theater and the whizbang effect wore off I was left with little if nothing. Things that bothered me:

Since ST is intelligent sci-fi I expected things to 'make sense'. The time travel thing about visiting your past has been done so many many times. When Nero appeared as a time traveling romulan in my gut I heard the cry "No not again!" This movie was silly in that respect.

Also why were the Vulcans just letting Nero drill a hole through their planet. Send a small ship up there and shot that cord, end of story.

Next, will somebody beam the character formally known as Leonard Nimoy's Spock into deep space. We've put up with his ponderings for too long. He needs to go to that part of the universe reserved for Counselor Troi and Whooby Goldberg. Nomoy brought the movie to a screeching halt every time he showed up. Blah, Blah, Blah...

Next putting Scotty on a frozen planet is near ST blasphemy. Making him a cadet would have been 10 times more amusing.

As a sci-fi movie, apart from the worn out time travel gimmick, this movie brings nothing new to the table to munch on. The original ST was about science meeting fiction, the colission of new ideas. This movie gets a zero in that respect.

I wish Abrams would have slowed down the quick pans and closeups in battle and given us some of the majesty of these giant star ships fighting in space. His directing was disorienting. He needed to pull back and let things play out.

We hear about 43 Klingon(?) ships being wiped out. That would have been great to see. This isn't radio after all.

So great acting (apart from old Spock) and great relationships between the characters. Everything else was a slow let down.