The New Star Trek Movie

[nerdgirl 0]

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Ya know... some people just HAVE to over analyze everything....

Oh, you have no idea.

Looking forward to reading your analysis.
/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

[1969912 0]

Downloading it right now. Never been a big Trek fan, but it sounds like it's worth checking out.

"Once we got to the point where twenty/something's needed a place on the corner that changed the oil in their cars we were doomed . . ."
-NickDG

[kbordson 8]

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Downloading it right now. Never been a big Trek fan, but it sounds like it's worth checking out.

The head down scene is fun!!!

[quade 3]

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Just saw it . . .

"Let's kick some Romulan ass . . ."

Go see it!

NickD

Fuckin' 'A' Bubba

And there we have it. It's a Weld the doors shut, throw a Confederate flag on the ol' NC-1701 and we'll "Bubba up" them Star Trekers kinda movie.

I believe he was referencing a catch phrase from Gus Grissom in The Right Stuff.

Or at least I'd like to believe he was.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[Jeffwxyz 0]

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Downloading it right now. Never been a big Trek fan, but it sounds like it's worth checking out.

The head down scene is fun!!!

Yes!

But, even though the self-packing rigs are nice, you would think that 200 years from now they would have better canopies than we have and helmet visors that don't fog up in the plane!

[rehmwa 2]

and a clear analysis from Jan, who obviously thinks every movie needs to have a self righteous Whoopie Goldberg preaching to society spend some time in Speakers Corner and you can meet a whole raft of like minded people that can't enjoy themselves unless they excoriate themselves and others too......perhaps Milk is a movie more to your liking?

Just saw it, it was a great action movie with lots of references to the previous movies and key series moments that were quite charming.

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[1969912 0]

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Downloading it right now. Never been a big Trek fan, but it sounds like it's worth checking out.

The head down scene is fun!!!

Download complete.

First 10 minutes look like an acid trip/PBS childbirth combo show...

"Once we got to the point where twenty/something's needed a place on the corner that changed the oil in their cars we were doomed . . ."
-NickDG

[1969912 0]

Second 20 10 minutes:

Alien being in a bar - too bad Star Wars couldn't come up with something that good...

"..having sex with farm animals..": Nice

Starting to appreciate not paying to watch this, but time will tell...

"Once we got to the point where twenty/something's needed a place on the corner that changed the oil in their cars we were doomed . . ."
-NickDG

[1969912 0]

Third 10 minutes:

Brown girl catches Jim with Green girl (or something like that). No pipe laid.....

"Once we got to the point where twenty/something's needed a place on the corner that changed the oil in their cars we were doomed . . ."
-NickDG

[1969912 0]

Next 7 minutes (only ~37 minutes into the film):

After a bunch of BS and lame jokes, we're now on the Enterprise..

"Once we got to the point where twenty/something's needed a place on the corner that changed the oil in their cars we were doomed . . ."
-NickDG

[NewGuy2005 51]

Folks: It's 2009. It's not going to be like the old ones.

This was a great Star Trek movie.

[1969912 0]

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Folks: It's 2009. It's not going to be like the old ones.

This was a great Star Trek movie.

So my expectations were too high? Guess that make sense.

I shouldn't be too surprised. My favorite show as a kid was Lost in Space. The remake movie sucked - broke my heart.

But GoatFucking?! Come on.

I'll just finish watching it (for FREE).

"Once we got to the point where twenty/something's needed a place on the corner that changed the oil in their cars we were doomed . . ."
-NickDG

[riddler 0]

Saw it a second time yesterday on IMAX. Spoiler questions below:

- Why was Spock's mother (a human) in the Vulcan's Forge with the Vulcan council of elders? That isn't a place that humans (or any ordinary Vulcan) is allowed to go, I thought.
- What was it that Chekov said enthusiastically after he was able to get Kirk and Sulu beamed from freefall? It sounded like it might be Russian, but after seeing it twice, I can't understand it.

Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

[DJL 232]

Phoentically, I think it was "Yabole!" I only picked this out because in Battlefield 2042 it's one of the phrases the Russian guys say what you hit one of the voice buttons. The English equivalent is "Alright!"

"I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher

[MakeItHappen 15]

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and a clear analysis from Jan, who obviously thinks every movie needs to have a self righteous Whoopie Goldberg preaching to society spend some time in Speakers Corner and you can meet a whole raft of like minded people that can't enjoy themselves unless they excoriate themselves and others too......perhaps Milk is a movie more to your liking?

WTF? Dude, you need to get a life.
It's a movie. I did not like it because it did not live up to the legacy of the original Star Trek series, follow up series and movies.
It has several inconsistencies with the previous story lines that Star Trek had.
This movie has a legacy to live up to, whereas a run-of-the-mill dick flick would not.

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Just saw it, it was a great action movie with lots of references to the previous movies and key series moments that were quite charming.

Yeah, it's a typical dick-flick, but it slaps Star Trek legacy in the face. Star Wars' prequel did not do that.

I'm not a Trekkie, but I did name the dog I got last summer, Spock, because he had big pointy ears.

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Make It Happen
Parachute History
DiveMaker

[quade 3]

Jan, I think we might be the only two people on the planet that care.

This frightens me on several levels.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[BillyVance 34]

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Jan, I think we might be the only two people on the planet that care.

This frightens me on several levels.

Could that be because you guys are old enough to remember the original series?

"Mediocre people don't like high achievers, and high achievers don't like mediocre people." - SIX TIME National Champion coach Nick Saban

[quade 3]

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Jan, I think we might be the only two people on the planet that care.

This frightens me on several levels.

Could that be because you guys are old enough to remember the original series?

Possibly, but I also have friends my age that were also fans of the original series that have literally attacked me for daring to say the new movie has flaws.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[nerdgirl 0]

Thanks for all the commentary here. Noticed some things that I likely wouldn't have otherwise.

Thought it was a fun summer movie. Am still smiling at Spock getting the girl … and Kirk not.


[channeling wanna-be-USC cinema school major, ... aka if you don’t like over-analysis, stop reading now ]

In many ways, I thought it was true thematically to the original series (as opposed to the subsequent series.) I start from the perspective that film and television is more indicative of the time of their creation than anything else. The original series , while having occasional moments of social insight, was largely a western in space. Or … maybe because it was largely a western in space, it could offer those occasional moments of brilliance, i.e, slip in social commentary when the audience wasn’t expecting rather than metaphorically shoving/heavy handed preaching a message, e.g. last summer’s remake of Day the Earth Stood Still. Although what may have been subtle then seems awfully straightforward now, i.e., the episode with the warring alien races in which different sides of the faces are painted black & white. (And what was the social commentary/message of the Trouble with Tribbles? Precognition of Eric Drexler’s nanobot-grey-goo scenario, which itself is more sci-fantasy than science-fiction.)

The latest film is a ‘buddy movie’ and a ‘coming of age story’ in space.

Was disappointed in both the character of Scottie and the actor playing him. Bones had great lines. The attempt to make the villain multi-dimensional was weak (like most of the adversaries in the original tv series, imo). The Spock character(s) were the best imo.

/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

[nerdgirl 0]

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Jan, I think we might be the only two people on the planet that care.

This frightens me on several levels.

Could that be because you guys are old enough to remember the original series?

Possibly, but I also have friends my age that were also fans of the original series that have literally attacked me for daring to say the new movie has flaws.

I care ... and I wasn't born until after the original airing of tv series was concluded.

And still looking forward to reading your analysis Quade.
/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

[quade 3]

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And still looking forward to reading your analysis Quade.
/Marg

Well, I almost have it out of my system now. The following is a collection of notes I've made about the film to some of my friends elsewhere. As such, I may have erred in linking them all together and one sentence might not exactly flow into the next correctly, but I think I have it under control.

*** HUGE SPOILERS FOLLOW! IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE MOVIE YET SKIP THE REST OF THIS POST! ***



I dunno, maybe I went off the deep end somewhere along the line. People seem to really like this new Star Trek and among the people I know, I seem to be the sole hold out. Can I really be that unforgiving of just a few minor issues? Is it really all that important that J.J. Abram's vision is so different than mine that I can’t just sit back and enjoy a good movie?

Where do I begin?

Mostly how someone can "reboot" a franchise with more than 40 years of history behind it and completely ignore that in favor of his own "alternate timeline." That's really the big one. It's not that alternate timelines can't be used (hell, Trek might as well have invented the device), but at the end of the day, it all has to come back together otherwise the universe that has been created is MEANINGLESS.

Now, some people know I'm kind of picky when it comes to certain aspects of movies. Fine, call me a nit picker, but when you add up the dozens of things in the movie that go against the grain of the original series, well, to me at least it really detracts from the movie.

Lemme ask you this, when young James T. Kirk decided to go for a joy ride in the Corvette, didn't it take you out of the movie a little bit to see him answer that NOKIA car phone? I really don't give a flyin' F how much money the production company got for that product placement, it was simply the wrong thing to do. Same goes for the Budweiser placement in the bar scene.

And those are just two minor examples of things that took me out of the movie.

Some other things that bothered me about the script.

Why Uhura? Why not, I dunno, NURSE CHAPEL?

If you're being chased by the police in a stolen Vette, why would you drive it to the only 2,000 foot shear wall canyon in Iowa? BTW, canyons like that don't exist in Iowa.

If you've just reprogrammed a psych test, do you really sit and eat an apple while dozens of people watch you obviously cheat?

If you're about to be thrown out of the quasi-military organization for cheating, do they really hand you the co-pilot seat to their new flag ship when there are 800 other people that have graduated right there?

If you piss off the captain of your ship so badly that he ejects your ass off said ship, what are the odds of landing on the only moon in the entire galaxy that simultaneously has; the same captain that has transported back from the future, the ONLY person in the galaxy that could possibly transport you back to the ship and . . . Yoda? WTF WAS THAT THING? And really, Hoth (where is Skywalker and Solo anyway?) is so close to Vulcan it's larger in the sky than the Moon appears to be from Earth, but the temperatures are so vastly different?

You have a magical substance that doesn't exist in science. If it touches anything, it creates a black hole. Why then, do you need to drill into the center of a planet to place the substance?

Oh wait, you don't have to? Just spilling it will do?

BTW, if the bad guys have to drill into a planet and the only way they can do so is by lowering a giant laser on a 10,000 foot piece of chain . . . why have guys parachute down to the laser? Why not, I dunno, just zap the chain with your phasers?

Stories, by necessity, have to occasionally have strange coincidences or plot points that you just have to roll with. Ok, I get that. But it’s the conglomeration of so many in this movie that blows it for me.

Beyond the dozens of story issues, here's my real beef;

The series Gene Roddenberry created wasn't about blowing stuff up. (Sure, it did occasionally, I'll give you that.) Star Trek, the original series and Next Generation, were mostly about human issues. The stories had points well beyond "let's kick some Romulan ass."

If some members of a race are black on the right side, how will they treat the other members that are black on the left side?

What are the ramifications of a civilization suddenly getting the technology of a more advanced civilization? How does that affect the planet's balance of power?

What is the nature of beauty? If you simply could take a pill and make yourself more "beautiful" would that change you as a person?

I believe movies can be way too preachy sometimes and the characters can have WAY too much "inner struggle" that ruins an otherwise perfectly good story, but . . . to me . . . this latest Star Trek movie just didn't have a point. I guess I wouldn't mind nearly so much in a franchise that was completely new and didn't have a history. Maybe I AM holding it to a different standard than some other films.

I still think it's a better standard.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[SimpleJack 0]

I agree with most of what you said, but I didn’t let it bother me. I still really liked this movie.

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If you've just reprogrammed a psych test, do you really sit and eat an apple while dozens of people watch you obviously cheat?

The first mention of this is in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Kirk is stranded in the center of the genisis planet, and basically talks about how he cheated on the “No win” test and how he was the only person to ever pass it. It was made to believe that nobody actually found out about his cheating until right then and there.

In the this new movie, he is actually found out, and put on trial immediately afterward.

The apple chewing was completely obnoxious and too obvious to take seriously.

The whole movie was edited very hastily and had a ritilin induced choppy factor that seemed to speed the plot out at a much faster pace than necessary. I guess they wanted it to be exciting throughout but there wasn’t enough time for the plot to sink in. You need a few dead areas to make the fast parts more meaningful.

It was not cerebral enough, at least compared to other Star Trek movies. It's a popcorn summer flick. Pure and simple. Enjoy it for what it is.

[quade 3]

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The first mention of this is in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Kirk is stranded in the center of the genisis planet, and basically talks about how he cheated on the “No win” test and how he was the only person to ever pass it. It was made to believe that nobody actually found out about his cheating until right then and there.

What I think would have been WAY more interesting would be if, although he cheated, nobody, not even Spock were able to figure it out until much later when Spock could ask him about it and he could say he cheated.

Several times in the original series Kirk outwits Spock, not through logic but through intuition. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, Kirk even beats Spock at chess by doing something that is NOT logical.

I've always thought THAT was the quality that put Kirk above other captains. Not just cheating.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[SimpleJack 0]

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What I think would have been WAY more interesting would be if, although he cheated, nobody, not even Spock were able to figure it out until much later when Spock could ask him about it and he could say he cheated.

The whole Kirk on trail scene was ridiculous. They had what appeared to be over 1,000 spectators in robes in a large stadium like theater. Seems like a big turn out for a minor disciplinary hearing. It also looks like they shot the final scene of the movie that same day where Kirk is promoted to Captain. Same stadium hall, same spectators in robes, just a little more bruised and banged up.

[skydiver30960 0]

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I mean a push bar door (Federation outpost) in the 23 century?.

HAHAHA! I saw that and thought "DAMN, I'm totally bitching about that on dz.com when I get home." Glad to see I'm not the only one bothered by that one.

Elvisio "funny as hell" Rodriguez