Star Trek (2009) - Opens May 8th

[Janus]

I saw it with my wife Thursday night also and we both enjoyed it. As an original series fan, I thought it did a nice job of re-booting the franchise while still paying due respect to the orginal. (did anyone else notice in the credits that Majel did the voice for the computer, just as she has from the original series onward? They also dedicated the movie to both Majel and Gene)
Even Spock being a little over emotional at points didn't really step out of bounds in terms of the original series. In the bits we see of the original pilot in "The Menagerie", we see Spock showing a little more emotion while serving with Pike, so we can assume that when he was younger he had more trouble reigning it in.

I know that one reviewer lamented the fact that the score didn't make use of the original series theme until the very end, but I thought its use was pitch perfect.
Up to that point, they were doing an "origin" story. It wasn't until then that all the set pieces reached their familiar positions from the TV series. So it was appropiate to wait to use the series theme until then.

The audience we saw it with (sold-out house of a wide range of ages) was very receptive and even applauded at the end.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I saw it last night and thought it was excellent! Not only did it feel like ST, I thought the reboot without a reboot was brilliant. No serious violations of original format were noted, yet the series is open to explore an entirely new range of possibilities.

Maybe the guy who paid half a $million for the Enterprise D model knew what he was doing after all. Already I am looking forward to the next movie. I just hope they don't get carried away with the notion that CGI is in itself entertainment, as do so many other movies.

 

[OmCheeto]

I saw it last night and thought it was excellent! Not only did it feel like ST, I thought the reboot without a reboot was brilliant. No serious violations of original format were noted, yet the series is open to explore an entirely new range of possibilities.

Maybe the guy who paid half a $million for the Enterprise D model knew what he was doing after all. Already I am looking forward to the next movie. I just hope they don't get carried away with the notion that CGI is in itself entertainment, as do so many other movies.

I watched it last night also. I was a bit dismayed that the theater wasn't even half full. But I did get a most excellent seat. I had to sit front row for LOTR III and almost got whiplash.

But I concur with your analysis. Having lived through 3+ generations of Trek, it was like seeing a great-great grandchild. And the child was quite worthy of it's surname.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Hey, I have a novel idea: They could spin-off a TV series.

 

[Janus]

I watched it last night also. I was a bit dismayed that the theater wasn't even half full. But I did get a most excellent seat. I had to sit front row for LOTR III and almost got whiplash.

And I had almost the exact opposite experience. We went to a small out-of the way neighborhood theater, which normally doesn't draw large crowds, hoping to avoid them, ended up with a sold-out house, and didn't get prime seats.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The place I was at wasn't packed but Trek was showing simultaneously in two theaters. Got a real good seat and didn't walk in until a few minutes before show time.

 

[OAQfirst]

I'm impressed that they decided to give security the umph they should always have had. Before, they were just wimpy little boy scouts.

 

[junglebeast]

I'm still looking forward to seeing it, but your reviews are not cynical enough for my taste.

 

[gravenewworld]

Saw. Liked it. Never watched 1 episode of Star Trek. Never watched a single Trek movie before this one.

 

[Janus]

Oh, and did anyone else sit through the credits and notice that Majel Barrett-Roddenberry once again supplied the voice for the ship's computer?

 

[qntty]

I saw it and thought that overall the movie was good but found the special effects to be annoying at times (e.g. constant lens flares and over flashes of light). I don't know how it compares to the television shows because I haven't seen them.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I saw it and thought that overall the movie was good but found the special effects to be annoying at times (e.g. constant lens flares and over flashes of light). I don't know how it compares to the television shows because I haven't seen them.

Actually, yes, I have to agree on that one. Also, the design of Nero's ship made it difficult to tell what was seen when it was in the background. I found that to be a bit of a visual strain at times.

Also, no, that is not a Trek trademark style. That was unique to this movie.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Did anyone notice how they have gone from a world of distinctively soft hardware, if you will, in the old Trek universe, to a much more industrial look? This struck me as a fundamental change.

 

[Cyrus]

These reviews are not helpful at all. I love TNG becuase every episode had good plots and moral dilemas. Should we violate the prime directive? Data wants to have human emotions. Learning about lost civilizations. Traveling through time sinks in the past/present. Meeting Q and being set to parts of the universe that would take years to get to (even by warp standards).

What's the plot here? It has always been the plot in TNG that made it such an amazing series. (The best, IMO). It worries me that no one has talked about the plot. What do I get walking out of this movie once it's over? What does it question about our humanity? These are the questions that made star trek, star trek. I don't care about fancy CGI space ships.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The reboot without a reboot is brilliant!

Okay, I am being a bit British there, but I loved it. To say more about that would be a spoiler.

I was going to try to say more here, but I hate to spoil the story. Live dangerously, just go see it.

 

[Cyrus]

What is 'reboto with a reboot'?

ebert really slammed Star Trek, for reasons I thought it might be lacking.

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090506/REVIEWS/905069997

Again, what is the story behind this star trek? If it's simply how they got together, that's pretty uninteresting and not very star treky.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I'm not telling.

And that was a reboot without a reboot.

 

[junglebeast]

I went out and saw it tonight. I knew it couldn't be quite as good as I was hearing, but I wasn't expecting to be let down as much as I was.

If you liked Transformers, The Dark Knight, or Iron Man then you're in luck, because this is just more of the same.

This movie is not about exploring new worlds or boldly going where no man has gone before. It follows a cookie cutter plot that is artificially epic. The goal is to save the world from evil aliens from the future.

From the opening scene, you see the enterprise holding its own in a fight against a spaceship from the future that has about the same scale ratio as the Earth to the Sun. Reminds of me Battlestar Galactica when there are bombs exploding over the entire surface of the ship and nobody seems to care.

This is really just another movie about time travel that was botched, because they don't stick to their rules of time travel; by going back in time, it creates a parallel universe that changes the future, but half of the people from the original future remember events from the parallel future! Pathetic.

Also, there's a ship stuck half way inside a black hole just chilling out for about 2 minutes...not being torn to shreds or anything. In fact they are chatting over the radio to another ship offering to help them get out of the black hole, as if it were a ditch on the side of the road. Next scene, the enterprise is falling into the black hole and going at max warp speed it can't escape. But fear not! Shooting some torpedo's behind it allows the ship to ride the shock wave out of the black hole, because shock waves in space obviously can propel a ship faster than a warp drive...not.

The acting is not great. The accents are annoying. The characters all look uncanny. This is not a revival of Star Trek...it's just more 2009 Hollywood ******** with a big ticket logo.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Funny, I didn't like any of the movies that you mentioned.

Besides that, you seemed intent on being cynical.

 

[Evo]

Great reviews guys. When you get good reviews from trekkies, come one, you know who you are ;), you can't get a stronger endorsement than that.

 

[junglebeast]

Besides that, you seemed intent on being cynical.

Heh, well I was just joking before. To be quite honest I feel like this is probably the worst Star Trek movie ever made. They took the name only, and left out everything that made the name famous.

 

[MATLABdude]

Did anyone notice how they have gone from a world of distinctively soft hardware, if you will, in the old Trek universe, to a much more industrial look? This struck me as a fundamental change.

I thought the old bridge looked a lot more industrial than the new one (which looks, well, sort of Mac-ish, fused with a rougher version of the TNG display panels--there was a term in the Star Trek TNG Technical Manual, but I forget what it was called). Then again, my idea of industrial is 50s-60s instrument panels with lots of light-up buttons, so take that as you will.

I suspect that you're referring to engineering though. I really liked how engineering was much more full and packed with an entire physical plant and the workings needed to support 400ish crewmembers and their missions. If parts of engineering look like a brewery, that's probably because it was a brewery: Budweiser's (explaining the quid-pro-quo with the Budweiser Classics that Uhura orders!)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_(film)#Filming

While the little things have been refreshed and modernized from the original, overall, things haven't changed so drastically. You still have the stations where they're supposed to be (no Spock scope, at least, none that I recognized), the overall theme, the levers and slide switches at various stations, and the captain's chair was instantly recognizable--even if it got less clunky and more ergonomic.

 

[OmCheeto]

What is 'reboto with a reboot'?

ebert really slammed Star Trek, for reasons I thought it might be lacking.

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090506/REVIEWS/905069997

Again, what is the story behind this star trek? If it's simply how they got together, that's pretty uninteresting and not very star treky.

Between Ebert's review and Junglebeast's synopsis, you pretty much know everything that happens in the movie.

As Anton Yelchin mentioned in his http://www.reelzchannel.com/trailer-clips/32374/anton-yelchin-on-star-trek-movie" with Leonard Maltin, they didn't want to alienate the old trekkies, nor bore kids with a bunch of rehashed Menagerie blah blah blah.

I felt the intertwining of the old and new worked very well.

I'm not sure someone not familiar with the original series would be comfortable in an audience full of trekkies though. Our incessant snickering at the "ah-ha!" moments would probably have them thinking to themselves; "That wasn't even remotely funny. Why are all these old people laughing about someone getting a divorce?"

 

[Cyrus]

Why is it no one can answer my very simple question? What were the hard 'star trek' questions this movie posed? They reallyyy need another movie with captain picard and the TNG crew. That was probably the most sucessful series of star trek made. The new ones are junk, and I am too young for the original ones.

Take the guy who did batman (the first one), add the TNG crew = great movie.

Notice TNG was great and didn't need CGI. That should instantly tell you something.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Why is it no one can answer my very simple question? What were the hard 'star trek' questions this movie posed?

How can we reboot the series without rebooting the series?

 

[OmCheeto]

"Star Trek" beams up $72.5 million in first weekend
Mon May 11, 2009 3:55am BST
By Steve Gorman
LOS ANGELES http://uk.reuters.com/article/industryNews/idUKTRE5491IW20090511"

The $130 million film ranks among the best reviewed movies of the year, and one of the most well-received by critics of all the "Star Trek" pictures.

...

Despite early pre-release tracking data showing weak anticipation levels, the film seems to have won over both older "Trekkie" fans of the franchise and younger moviegoers on whom financial success depends, Paramount executive Don Harris said.

"The way this film is being received ... it looks like the movie will play long and prosper," he said.

Financial success depends on younger moviegoers?
Bah! I'm getting my 4 Star Trek Burger King glasses tomorrow...

 

[Cyrus]

How can we reboot the series without rebooting the series?

Stop saying that, I don't know what it means!

 

[junglebeast]

Why is it no one can answer my very simple question? What were the hard 'star trek' questions this movie posed? They reallyyy need another movie with captain picard and the TNG crew. That was probably the most sucessful series of star trek made. The new ones are junk, and I am too young for the original ones.

Take the guy who did batman (the first one), add the TNG crew = great movie.

Notice TNG was great and didn't need CGI. That should instantly tell you something.

There are no such moral dilemmas; the aliens are just purely evil and prefer to die rather than negotiate with humans. Like I said, it's not star trek anymore. It's more like Star Wars episode 1.

I agree with you, the Next generation was probably the best. I also liked Deep Space 9 a lot. Everything after that sucked. However, my favorite star trek's were the movies they made for the big screen involving the first-generation crew.

 

[Cyrus]

See, now that's a futuristic bridge:

http://z.about.com/d/detroit/1/0/2/8/-/-/star-trek-006.jpg

This looks like star wars, not star trek. And they all look wayyyyyyyyyyy too young.

http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2009-03/45742879.jpg

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Stop saying that, I don't know what it means!

On the serious side, in my mind there was the question of how to keep it Trek without completely violating the existing framework. I think Star Trek Enterprise [TV series] is a good example of the fact that you can never go home - as it stood, you couldn't go back in time and make it work. There are far too many constraints if the series is to retain any consistency. And one of the key features of Star Trek is the consistency. The fans demand it. Alternatively, if we go too far forward in time, the plots are driven to be more and more abstract. If we stick to the near future, we are still limited by the existing framework.

So, how you do you tap into the existing framework but remove the constraints that limit the range of plots that are possible, and still keep it Trek? I think the solution chosen was the best of all options. While I enjoyed the story in its own right, what I really loved was the solution that allows us to reintroduce all of the familiar characters and still make it all plausible, while removing most, and this is key, but not all of the constraints - the reboot without a reboot. It seems clear to me that the writers and producer were serious about maintaining the integrity of the Trek Multiverse. [Am I the first to use that term?]. If done well, it could allow for almost an infinite series of interplays between new and old storylines. That is the sort of thing that hardcore trekkies eat up.

For a trekkie, it is the difference between being "Star Trek", and just a new series having the same name.

Late edit

 

[Janus]

Apparently, Star Trek made $72.5 million on opening weekend. Not a bad showing.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

See, now that's a futuristic bridge:

http://z.about.com/d/detroit/1/0/2/8/-/-/star-trek-006.jpg

[/URL]

To me that looks like something from the 1980's.

This looks like star wars, not star trek. And they all look wayyyyyyyyyyy too young.

http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2009-03/45742879.jpg

Get used to it. It gets worse as you get older. But for a real comparison, look at the early ST TOS episodes. Even the early episodes of TNG were filled with kids playing on the bridge.

 

[hypatia]

I'm going to see it at I-Max this Saturday. My Mothers day gift from my son. I'm really getting geeked about going.

 

[mheslep]

These reviews are not helpful at all. I love TNG becuase every episode had good plots and moral dilemas. Should we violate the prime directive? Data wants to have human emotions. Learning about lost civilizations. Traveling through time sinks in the past/present. Meeting Q and being set to parts of the universe that would take years to get to (even by warp standards).

What's the plot here? It has always been the plot in TNG that made it such an amazing series. (The best, IMO). It worries me that no one has talked about the plot. What do I get walking out of this movie once it's over? What does it question about our humanity? These are the questions that made star trek, star trek. I don't care about fancy CGI space ships.

Yes, others feel just as you do Cyus:
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/trekkies_bash_new_star_trek_film

...If I wanted to see young attractive people doing exciting things I'd go watch sports...

Wait for the DVD, per ONN it will have two hours dedicated to interplanetary diplomacy.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I'm going to see it at I-Max this Saturday. My Mothers day gift from my son. I'm really getting geeked about going.

Cool!