First Star Trek reviews....

Page 2 - Seeking answers about space? Join the Space community: the premier source of space exploration, innovation, and astronomy news, chronicling (and celebrating) humanity's ongoing expansion across the final frontier.
Status
Not open for further replies.
K

Kerberos

Guest
I only recently discovered the Enterprise series, and I have been pleasantly surprised, so far. I never liked the Picard, Sisko, or Janeway series, and wanted nothing more than to see the entire bunch of them devoured by Hortas, so I wasn't expecting much from the last series. I've only watched a few episodes so far, but I like it.
 
D

docm

Guest
jim48":37wg7r3l said:
I've decided that I'm going to see this movie. As I mentioned elsewhere, how many actors have played Tarzan? Superman? Batman? James Bond? But only one actor has played Kirk, only one has played Spock, etc.
One has played Jim Kirk so far (Chris Pine will make Kirk #2), but 5 actors other than Leonard Nimoy have played Spock -

Chris Steven
Vadia Potenza
Stephen Manley
Joe W. Davis

in ST-III: The Search For Spock plus

Carey Scott

as Spock #6 in ST-V: The Final Frontier, to be joined by Zachary Quinto as Spock #7 in the new film.

NOTE: edited for form and to add Carey Scott
 
J

jim48

Guest
docm":1ferolhp said:
jim48":1ferolhp said:
I've decided that I'm going to see this movie. As I mentioned elsewhere, how many actors have played Tarzan? Superman? Batman? James Bond? But only one actor has played Kirk, only one has played Spock, etc.
One has played Jim Kirk so far (Chris Pine will make Kirk #2), but 5 actors have played Spock -

Chris Steven
Vadia Potenza
Stephen Manley
Joe W. Davis
Leonard Nimoy

all in ST-III: The Search For Spock, to be joined by Zachary Quinto as Spock #6 in the new film.

I stand corrected.... sort of. I should have said "adult" Spock. :?
 
C

CommonMan

Guest
jim48":285mge9s said:
docm":285mge9s said:
jim48":285mge9s said:
I've decided that I'm going to see this movie. As I mentioned elsewhere, how many actors have played Tarzan? Superman? Batman? James Bond? But only one actor has played Kirk, only one has played Spock, etc.
One has played Jim Kirk so far (Chris Pine will make Kirk #2), but 5 actors have played Spock -

Chris Steven
Vadia Potenza
Stephen Manley
Joe W. Davis
Leonard Nimoy

all in ST-III: The Search For Spock, to be joined by Zachary Quinto as Spock #6 in the new film.

I stand corrected.... sort of. I should have said "adult" Spock. :?

It looks like you don't SPOCK! :lol:
 
P

pmn1

Guest
9.5 out of 10, I took 0.5 off cos there are a few 'why was that included moments'

Perfect casting for Kirk, Spock and especially McCoy.
 
S

StrandedonEarthsince1970

Guest
Bwaaaaaaahahahaha, that review from the onion was perfect. I'm stoked, I'm going to see it this afternoon.
 
S

StrandedonEarthsince1970

Guest
The movie was quite good. Even my wife enjoyed it, and she is most definitely not a Star Trek fan, so she didn't get some of the signature lines that had the audience snickering.
 
M

mattblack

Guest
This will surprise some of you.

I wanted to like the new movie, I really did. But I couldn't bring myself to love this derivative, poorly-plotted mess of a motion picture that is only Star Trek in name, not in spirit. I don't care if I come off as a Scrooge, railing against what is rapidly becoming a big money-maker. This is Star Trek 'dumbed-down' with a big, BIG budget, shamelessly stealing plot ideas from it's own franchise and disregarding 40 years of backstory and character continuity. I GET that it is an 'alternate timeline'. But that doesn't explain the massive plot and continuity holes that could have been fixed with a few taps on the writers' keyboards.

My defence? You only need look at the wonderful return of 'Doctor Who' and the excellent rebooted 'Battlestar Galactica' to see how a remake SHOULD be done. J.J. Abrams and company plainly did not learn a similar lesson.
 
C

CommonMan

Guest
mattblack":3at76ssl said:
This will surprise some of you.

I wanted to like the new movie, I really did. But I couldn't bring myself to love this derivative, poorly-plotted mess of a motion picture that is only Star Trek in name, not in spirit. I don't care if I come off as a Scrooge, railing against what is rapidly becoming a big money-maker. This is Star Trek 'dumbed-down' with a big, BIG budget, shamelessly stealing plot ideas from it's own franchise and disregarding 40 years of backstory and character continuity. I GET that it is an 'alternate timeline'. But that doesn't explain the massive plot and continuity holes that could have been fixed with a few taps on the writers' keyboards.

My defence? You only need look at the wonderful return of 'Doctor Who' and the excellent rebooted 'Battlestar Galactica' to see how a remake SHOULD be done. J.J. Abrams and company plainly did not learn a similar lesson.

"Doctor Who" is an excellent remake?
 
N

nimbus

Guest
I'll ask the same for BSG.. How is that thing a good remake? It's a crappy soap opera made mostly of filler.
 
D

derekmcd

Guest
I enjoyed a saturday afternoon matinee with far, far too much butter and salt on my popcorn. Sadly, there was an e. coli warning in my city and they shut the water down... no fountain drinks.

Other than that, I really enjoyed the movie. The characters sold me as being legitimate and on their own. Other than a few one liners to appease the hard core fans, they were original while maintaining the basics of the orignal characters. The special effects where second to none.

I'm not a critic and can't define this movie like one... I just know that I enjoyed it, thoroughly.

I've been a star trek fan for as long as I can remember (I'm 37). However, I quit watching after Voyager. I love the TOS and Next Generation, but Voyager didn't do much for me... Maybe because I just didn't have time to offer my attention.

Being a 'science' oriented individual, I actually enjoyed checking my brain in at the door and allowing the kid in me to simply enjoy the story... Good Stuff!!!

I felt like I was 10 years old again watching Raider of the Lost Ark.
 
M

mattblack

Guest
CommonMan":56czhaee said:
mattblack":56czhaee said:
This will surprise some of you.

I wanted to like the new movie, I really did. But I couldn't bring myself to love this derivative, poorly-plotted mess of a motion picture that is only Star Trek in name, not in spirit. I don't care if I come off as a Scrooge, railing against what is rapidly becoming a big money-maker. This is Star Trek 'dumbed-down' with a big, BIG budget, shamelessly stealing plot ideas from it's own franchise and disregarding 40 years of backstory and character continuity. I GET that it is an 'alternate timeline'. But that doesn't explain the massive plot and continuity holes that could have been fixed with a few taps on the writers' keyboards.

My defence? You only need look at the wonderful return of 'Doctor Who' and the excellent rebooted 'Battlestar Galactica' to see how a remake SHOULD be done. J.J. Abrams and company plainly did not learn a similar lesson.

"Doctor Who" is an excellent remake?

I assume your question is rhetorical, otherwise you ARE joking, right?!
 
M

mattblack

Guest
nimbus":1jr95h37 said:
I'll ask the same for BSG.. How is that thing a good remake? It's a crappy soap opera made mostly of filler.

Your comment is obviously meant to provoke a response, because you either know you're dead wrong or don't care. Usually when people make such sweeping statements about a film, TV show, book etc, it usually means they've either not seen it at all or at best, an insufficient sample. I used to like the 1970's 'Galactica' and swore that the new version would be a cynical rip-off of poor quality. I was as wrong as it is humanly possible to be!! I should have trusted Ronald Moore from the beginning -- he was responsible for the best years of 'Deep Space 9'.

Re-booted Galactica was a triumph that didn't overstay it's welcome. It bowed out gracefully at the top of it's game. Even hard-to-please critics had been swayed buy its superior standard of writing, directing and acting.

And what you call 'soap opera' -- others call character development, emotion and drama. All the stuff that good storytelling is made of. 'Galactica' was not 'The Days Of Our Lives', you know!!

At least the new Trek film has some emotion and character development.
 
N

nimbus

Guest
I'm not provoking anything but an answer to my question - Why is BSG supposed to be good, other than saying so? I saw a bit more than half of the series, and it was crap, period. Some great moments but overall mostly mediocre repetitive filler and barely hidden fact that the writers badly made it up as they went. Same cheesiness as all the crummy low budget stuff they have on the Sci-Fi channel..
Even hard-to-please critics had been swayed buy its superior standard of writing, directing and acting.
End of argument here.. Agree to disagree, because the acting is quite simply crap. A lot of bad actors acting badly written roles. Having to suffer thru crappy nonsense doesn't help the truly good moments.

The new ST movie was great. Nero could've been a little less bland.
 
J

junkheap

Guest
I liked it.

However, I hope for the next movie they have enough money to build a real engine room set rather than shoot on location at a brewery. :lol: At least I hope the cast and crew got free beer.
 
D

docm

Guest
For the record I watched both the BSG and Dr. Who reboots for just about 1/2 season each. Haven't made a point complaining about them, but the reasons were pretty much as listed by others.

Both started out decently enough and had high enough production value to watch more than just the pilots, but after a bit both looked like the writers were pulling it out of their arses one episode at a time.

'nuff said.
 
S

space_tycoon

Guest
mattblack":6k4c3fh4 said:
This will surprise some of you.

I wanted to like the new movie, I really did. But I couldn't bring myself to love this derivative, poorly-plotted mess of a motion picture that is only Star Trek in name, not in spirit. I don't care if I come off as a Scrooge, railing against what is rapidly becoming a big money-maker. This is Star Trek 'dumbed-down' with a big, BIG budget, shamelessly stealing plot ideas from it's own franchise and disregarding 40 years of backstory and character continuity. I GET that it is an 'alternate timeline'. But that doesn't explain the massive plot and continuity holes that could have been fixed with a few taps on the writers' keyboards.

My defence? You only need look at the wonderful return of 'Doctor Who' and the excellent rebooted 'Battlestar Galactica' to see how a remake SHOULD be done. J.J. Abrams and company plainly did not learn a similar lesson.


Good post Matt, I agree. I was somewhat disappointed. Didn't really take to the story, after the first act. Not as much depth as I had hoped.

After a very strong start, the film descends into typical junky summer fare, albeit with some heroic acting by the main leads and supporting characters.

It's not an awful film really, just too much action, too little exposition and thinking. Serious lapses in logic and common sense, even for Trek. Not going to get into all of them here. The biggest by far was when Kirk, Elder Spock and Scotty just happened to stumble into one another on some backwater ice planet, in one of the greatest astronomical coincidences in motion picture history. That was the "jump-the-shark" moment, at which point I kind of sighed, sat back and waited patiently for the end credits to roll.

I'm not a slave to canon, never have been, but at least stick to the general framework of the backstory that Roddenberry had established in 1965. Much has been discarded in this movie that really did not need to be. And I still don't like the "new" NCC 1701. Sorry, I just don't. The interior is very interesting... a tad cluttered but oh well. The bridge is very high tech, which is nice, but why keep those dorky chairs? And how come we saw almost nothing of sickbay?

Now for the good news. The acting was tight. The characterizations were dead on, and there is a genuine charisma coming off Pine, Quinto and Urban's take on Kirk Spock and McCoy. Zoe Saldana's Uhura is a lust object, but also tender, affectionate and intelligent. Cho and Yelchin have a good reparte as Sulu and Chekov. Scotty was always my favourite character, and Simon Pegg certainly did justice to him. One of Trek's biggest failings was the misuse and neglect of the supporting players. That clearly has been rectified here.

Production values are top-notch and the visuals are stunning. Glad to see Saturn, my favourite planet, and it's moon Titan. Neat. And the Starfleet ships have a hard, tactile, techno-industrial aesthetic which is very realistic, much more my idea of space travel.

Final verdict: I give Star Trek '09 2.5 stars, that's about as far as I'm willing to go for now. Maybe repeat viewings will bump that up a notch. I promised my ladyfriend I would see it with her in Imax, so perhaps my opinion will improve.

Having said all that, I suppose that we should be thankful that we have a great cast and good characters to draw from. At least this holds open the possibility of sequels which are, hopefully, more thought-out than this mess.

Imagine if we were stuck with a movie that was not only dumb, but filled with an unacceptable cast. Where would you go from there?



.
 
J

jim48

Guest
Okay, Y'all. Just saw the new movie. Here it comes. As a hardcore fan of the original series I have to say that Star Trek is KEWEL!!! I loved it. Guy who plays Kirk gets better as the movie progresses. Guy who plays Spock nails it. Guy who plays McCoy also nails it and I hope they give him more to do in the next movie. Guy who plays Scotty steals every scene he's in. Sulu and Chekov come off very well and Uhura is a sexy babe! Captain Christopher Pike is here, as is Leonard Nimoy as elder Spock, hanging with the youngsters. Great visual effects, of course. They messed with the Star Trek universe somewhat but not badly so. They had to, since they were starting from scratch. Drama=Conflict. Nice nods to the series with some of the old sound effects and snatches of dialouge. Some tender moments. Nice to see Star Trek young and energetic! For the most part they got it right but some hardcore fans might not like the conflict between.... Nope. Not gonna' give too much away. :)
 
M

mattblack

Guest
I should clarify one thing about my opinion on the new Trek film; I didn't really have a problem with the actors at all. Most of my objection has to co with the script and some canon violations. Notice I said SOME canon violations!! I know previous Trek has had trouble keeping some things straight in the past, but the new film had instances that were hard to swallow and sometimes downright cringeworthy. I'm not 100% percent happy with the new ship design, but by God it could gave been a lot worse!!

NOW LOOK: talking about 'Galactica' is putting us seriously off-topic, but I've got to round off my participation in this digression:

As for a previous poster's assertion that the Galactica actors were terrible -- now, I can understand why he'd dislike parts or even lots of the 'rebooted' show -- but I CANNOT let the comment about the actors pass. I'm fighting the urge to unleash some grumpy invectives and blasphemies here! Unless you've got specific actors in mind, you surely cannot claim that the likes of Edward Olmos, Mary McDonnell or James Callis are bad actors?! Man, I've taught acting! I've produced plays and helped make student films. I know what good acting is. Clearly, you frakkin' don't!!!

Otherwise, we can respectfully agree to diasagree on ALL the other points. You can reply if you like, but don't feel you need to.
 
M

mattblack

Guest
nimbus":fjlmzixq said:
Start a new thread. Hold the mayo^H^H^H^H verbosity :p

What you call verbosity, some of us call literacy. As for the "agree to disagree" declaration. Well, even to stretching my point, that's like saying "We can agree to disagree -- but I still say they didn't land on the Moon".

Hey, well, we can all believe what we want -- rational or not -- but that does not make it right... :roll:
 
C

crazyeddie

Guest
jim48":3okevf2e said:
Okay, Y'all. Just saw the new movie. Here it comes. As a hardcore fan of the original series I have to say that Star Trek is KEWEL!!! I loved it. Guy who plays Kirk gets better as the movie progresses. Guy who plays Spock nails it. Guy who plays McCoy also nails it and I hope they give him more to do in the next movie. Guy who plays Scotty steals every scene he's in. Sulu and Chekov come off very well and Uhura is a sexy babe! Captain Christopher Pike is here, as is Leonard Nimoy as elder Spock, hanging with the youngsters. Great visual effects, of course. They messed with the Star Trek universe somewhat but not badly so. They had to, since they were starting from scratch. Drama=Conflict. Nice nods to the series with some of the old sound effects and snatches of dialouge. Some tender moments. Nice to see Star Trek young and energetic! For the most part they got it right but some hardcore fans might not like the conflict between.... Nope. Not gonna' give too much away. :)

I just saw it on Saturday. Like some other members, I have very mixed feelings about this "new" ST. I loved the actors, who seemed to nail the mannerisms and personalities of the original stars pretty well. But I was bewildered by so much of this "alternate reality" that I found it disconcerting. It took me a while to realize that Nero was a Romulan....what the hell?! Romulans are supposed to look like Vulcans!! Spock is having a romantic relationship with Uhura? I almost had an apoplectic fit! Why did the bridge look so cool and high-tech, but so much of the rest of the interior of the "new" Enterprise looked like a sewage treatment plant? And did they really have to resort to the tiresome old time travel plot device that this franchise is well-known for over-using? Too much visual detail and action, not enough thoughtfulness in this movie. I left the theatre feeling discombobulated.....pleased, on one hand, that the film is generating so much excitement, but dismayed over the prospect that I may not be able to get used to this "new" Star Trek universe...... :cry:
 
N

nimbus

Guest
mattblack":2y3o9zdo said:
nimbus":2y3o9zdo said:
Start a new thread. Hold the mayo^H^H^H^H verbosity :p

What you call verbosity, some of us call literacy. As for the "agree to disagree" declaration. Well, even to stretching my point, that's like saying "We can agree to disagree -- but I still say they didn't land on the Moon".

Hey, well, we can all believe what we want -- rational or not -- but that does not make it right... :roll:
Turtleneck much?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest posts