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Star Trek XI (The Reboot)

Eh. I don't have the giant hate-on for it that some people do, and I enjoyed it in the theater, but I don't think it's particularily great. It's solid compared to recent Trek films, but that's not saying a lot, and it definitely doesn't hold a candle to Wrath of Khan.
 
commodorejohn said:
... and it definitely doesn't hold a candle to Wrath of Khan.
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I had read somewhere that they wanted to revisit Wrath of Khan in the new timeline, but the first thing that came in my mind was it will be a cold day in hell when they find someone who even comes remotely close to Ricardo Monteban.
 
I diddnt care much for how they made uhura into a whore... other than that it was ok.
 
I loved the "this is both a continuation and a reboot" nature of it. Using the tired time travel plot to reboot sufficiently that they could, if they wanted, STOP using time travel.
 
Coming back to this for a moment, now that I've thought about it, I think what really disappointed me about this movie was the lack of depth to the writing. All the other Trek films have, in keeping with series tradition, been more thoughtful than your typical TV/film sci-fi fare, and had some kind of running philosophical theme that the plot is centered around; TMP is about what happens when our idealized versions of our idols clash with the real thing, Khan and First Contact are both about obsession and revenge, ST4 is about the unintended consequences of our actions, and ST6 is about aging gracefully. Even the bad TOS and TNG films at least try for some thematic richness, even if they don't do it very well. This movie, whatever its other merits, is just a summer action movie, and pretty much nothing more, and I guess that's why it disappoints me.
 
Eh, honestly I never saw it. I wasn't sure I wanted to (not big on recasting and warming up to new folks pretending to be characters I already grew attached to), but when I saw the clip of Kirk and Uhura in the trailer that honestly ruined it for me. Dunno, I guess in the tv show Kirk slept around enough but still, I held the crew up to higher standards than the trailer portrayed. I'll watch it sometime but that killed the motivation. What was sorta funny was my girlfriend didn't want to watch it, I sorta did but wasn't sure, we heard back from our friends and my sci-fi/geek friends mostly didn't like it and her friends (non-geek and non trek did like it).

One friend was honest and said if you watch it as just a movie and not as a StarTrek movie it's ok, but if you expect it to be like previous trek films it'll be disappointing.
 
commodorejohn said:
This movie, whatever its other merits, is just a summer action movie, and pretty much nothing more, and I guess that's why it disappoints me.
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Exactly my thoughts. It was a fun movie that had several nods towards the previous characters. The plot of the movie was good, the "twist" allowing it to be a separate reality worked well (much better than I thought it would, actually), but the writing, characterization, action sequences, it was all... lacking.

I enjoyed the movie for what it was. I really liked Karl Urban as McCoy (he did an amazing job). I liked Zachary Quinto as Spock. I didn't like Zoey Saldana's Uhura - but I think that was more of the writing and directing rather than the acting (I felt that it focused more on her as a woman and less on her as a communications officer). I didn't mind Simon Pegg as Scotty, but I didn't like the writing for the character - Scotty was almost always sure of himself in Engineering. This Scotty was written to be more of a guesstimator, and I didn't like that. I also did not like the Kirk character at all. Whether from the writing, directing, acting, or a combination of all three, I felt that Christopher Pine just missed it. And I totally hated the scene of Kirk stealing a CAR and driving it as a boy. Yeah. Stupid. The only part I felt was right about Kirk was the arrogance - even though I felt it was overplayed, one could argue that Kirk was still a young Ensign, and only "fell" into the Captaincy due to some extreme circumstances, i.e. youth and arrogance go hand-in-hand.

Speaking of that - did anyone else feel that it was stupid for them to LEAVE him in command of the Enterprise at the end of the movie after the crisis had been averted? Placing a young ensign with clear signs of disobedience and flagrant disregard of the rules that had yet to really prove himself being permanently placed in command of the line's first Starship? C'mon. So he led and lived up to his purported potential ONCE. Now you're gonna give him a command? Just like that, without having paid any dues whatsoever? I say again - c'mon.

With all of that said, I went into this movie expecting to hate it. I expected it to be light on the story, heavy on the action and special effects, and to completely kill all of my beloved characters. While it was lighter on the story than typical Trek fare, it had more substance to it than I would have thought from the previews and hype. It wasn't overly heavy on the action, but was heavy on the special effects (as expected). barythrin summed it up nicely:

barythrin said:
One friend was honest and said if you watch it as just a movie and not as a StarTrek movie it's ok, but if you expect it to be like previous trek films it'll be disappointing.
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That was exactly how I went into it... and I came out of it finding it an enjoyable film with two single characters I felt were worthy of the roles they portrayed. That was a welcome surprise, and I am looking forward to more... though for serious Trek fixes, I'll always continue to pull out my DVDs and novels.
 
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