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VaBeachGuy

VaBeachGuy's Star Trek (2009) Review

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I'm still pissed that Obi Wan was given a Padiwan before becoming a Master, and a Padiwan who the Jedi Council knew would be controversial at best. So Obi Wan defeated Darth Maul, so what? That means he is a good fighter, not a good instructor. Given that Anakin became a Padiwan through unusual means I would think the Jedi Council would have assigned an ultra-orthadox mentor.

 

Chekov might have completed his Academy studies in less than 4 years. That would fit with the way they portrayed him as a whiz kid. However, anyone who knows anything about service academies knows the training is highly regimented, with little room for deviations from the set training schedule.

Yes, maybe he completed it in less than 4 years. So was it 3 years and he was 14? 2 years and he was 15? To me it's just not good writing. If they wanted to make all the changes that they made then why not just make Chekov 21 and say he entered the Academy at 17 or 18? It's like they wanted to have a 17 year old farm boy become wiz kid that masters the force to take on the evil empire... oh wait, that's a different story... :superhappy:

 

As for the whole Padawan situation, those issues never bothered me. To me Star Wars was always set as total fantasy from "a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..." so the little inconsistencies and annoyances just didn't bother me personally.

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While ST XI was a good acton adventure movie - it really had very little to do with Star Trek = other than borrowing names from the series. IMO it needed a little bit more than just the same names to make it Star Trek.

 

I have to agree with VGB - they could have done a better job of keeping some of the essence of Trek in it.

I really agree with this point. To me, Star Trek is about a positive future with humans working together, and going out and exploring and learning. The two characters who exemplified that in this movie to me were old Spock, and Capt. Pike. I don't see Pike being on the next movie as much or even at all. Who will be expousing this philosophy, just Nimoy? The generally young crew of the Enterprise seem, especially the young Kirk, seem to be ready for action first, rather than diplomacy and understanding other races. Their brilliant Science Officer will probably be upset over his personal losses for some time, not to mention distracted by Uhura.

 

I'm not saying that this can't result in interesting stories, but will it be Star Trek? Will the Federation expand, after one of its founding members has been destroyed, or not, since they couldn't protect one of their own? Destroying one of the founders is a huge change, and upseting to some long-time fans, and imo they have a right to be disappointed and /or upset, especially those who have veen fans for 40+ years.

 

Just my 2 cents.

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Will the Federation expand, after one of its founding members has been destroyed, or not, since they couldn't protect one of their own? Destroying one of the founders is a huge change...

 

That's a big and valid point. Suppose West Germany had been swallowed up by the USSR in the 60's, would NATO have had any credibility within Europe after that?

 

To me it just doesn't make any sense to destroy Vulcan and leave it that way under the guise that they needed to attract new viewers. I can just imagine the writers sitting around saying 'We need something BIG... I know!! Let's destroy Vulcan!!'

 

Standing on it's own, it's a good and interesting movie... standing on it's own.

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To me it just doesn't make any sense to destroy Vulcan and leave it that way under the guise that they needed to attract new viewers. I can just imagine the writers sitting around saying 'We need something BIG... I know!! Let's destroy Vulcan!!'

Vulcan being destroyed isn't directly related to the attempt to attract new viewers. It was destroyed as a way to signify in a big way that this timeline is different from the prime Star Trek timeline, the establishment of which was designed to attract new viewers. So its more indirect.

 

What you described may have been how it was conceived but no one really knows for sure, aside from Orci and Kurtzman. I really don't think that destroying Vulcan was just something they threw in when they needed something big. That's the kind of thing that had to be there from very close to the beginning of the scripting process. It's central to the motivation of Nero.

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To me it just doesn't make any sense to destroy Vulcan and leave it that way under the guise that they needed to attract new viewers. I can just imagine the writers sitting around saying 'We need something BIG... I know!! Let's destroy Vulcan!!'

Vulcan being destroyed isn't directly related to the attempt to attract new viewers. It was destroyed as a way to signify in a big way that this timeline is different from the prime Star Trek timeline, the establishment of which was designed to attract new viewers. So its more indirect.

 

What you described may have been how it was conceived but no one really knows for sure, aside from Orci and Kurtzman. I really don't think that destroying Vulcan was just something they threw in when they needed something big. That's the kind of thing that had to be there from very close to the beginning of the scripting process. It's central to the motivation of Nero.

 

I was being facetious of course. I still don't accept the whole concept of needing to alter the timeline nor do I accept the need to abandon some of the fundamental concepts that have been part of Star Trek going back to the first season of TOS and following through all the way to Enterprise. That fundamental concept is that any alterations to the timeline must be corrected. Spock, as a Federation ambassador and former member of Starfleet had a sworn duty to correct the damage that was done.

 

Throwing out those concepts sets this movie completely apart from all 5 live action series and all 10 Star Trek movies making this a "stand alone" movie and not really part of the Star Trek franchise. Now if, as I've read they intend on putting the timeline back to "normal" by the third movie then that would alter my impression.

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I was being facetious of course. I still don't accept the whole concept of needing to alter the timeline nor do I accept the need to abandon some of the fundamental concepts that have been part of Star Trek going back to the first season of TOS and following through all the way to Enterprise. That fundamental concept is that any alterations to the timeline must be corrected. Spock, as a Federation ambassador and former member of Starfleet had a sworn duty to correct the damage that was done.

 

Throwing out those concepts sets this movie completely apart from all 5 live action series and all 10 Star Trek movies making this a "stand alone" movie and not really part of the Star Trek franchise. Now if, as I've read they intend on putting the timeline back to "normal" by the third movie then that would alter my impression.

Well, firstly, I disagree about the need to alter the timeline. I'm not going to go into why but I think what was done was done for the right reasons and in the right way.

 

Secondly, not all alterations to the timeline have been corrected. In fact, Starfleet officers have deliberately attempted to "damage" the timeline in some instances, often successfully. Kirk and crew remove two whales and Gillian Taylor from 1986. Admiral Janeway travels back and changes her history so that Voyager gets home 16 years earlier. Chakotay and Kim prevent Voyager from crashing onto a Class-L planet. Jake Sisko and the surviving members of the DS9 crew attempt to prevent Ben Sisko from being pulled into subspace. None of these are attempts to "repair" the timeline.

 

Of course, the notion that there is only one timeline that can be damaged and repaired is not necessarily correct. There are several Star Trek episodes which support the notion that there are in fact multiple possible timelines, most notably Mirror, Mirror (and all associated Mirror Universe episodes) and Parallels. The alien species of which Cosimo is a member as well as The Sphere Builders also have the ability to view multiple timelines. Therefore, the idea of only one timeline is inconsistent with what has been presented throughout Star Trek.

 

In fact, the example of time travel presented in Star Trek (2009) is not incompatible with how time travel has been presented in the rest of the franchise. Of course, there would have to be certain allowances made for it to work in some instances. Most notably, proximity of others to the object which causes one to travel through time (mostly back) causes them to experience the future of the alternate timeline created but not to change themselves. So, for instance, Kirk, Spock, Uhura, Scotty, and the two security guards are 'jumped' to the future of the alternate timeline created by McCoy saving Edith Keeler due to their proximity to the Guardian of Forever.

 

This is just me talking here. It may not necessarily be the case but the case can be made. I've read, on another board, there could in fact be two distinctly different forms of time travel: Branch (jumping between realities) and Trunk (traveling within one timeline). However, it is not always straight forward as to which has been experienced.

 

Overall, throughout the franchise, Star Trek has never had solid rules as to how time travel functions (various methods and various impacts). Therefore, one cannot single out Star Trek (2009) as being inconsistent.

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Well, firstly, I disagree about the need to alter the timeline. I'm not going to go into why but I think what was done was done for the right reasons and in the right way.

We'll just have to disagree on that point. I think it was done for the wrong reasons and was done in the wrong way and basically craps on 40+ years of Star Trek.

 

Secondly, not all alterations to the timeline have been corrected. In fact, Starfleet officers have deliberately attempted to "damage" the timeline in some instances, often successfully. Kirk and crew remove two whales and Gillian Taylor from 1986. Admiral Janeway travels back and changes her history so that Voyager gets home 16 years earlier. Chakotay and Kim prevent Voyager from crashing onto a Class-L planet. Jake Sisko and the surviving members of the DS9 crew attempt to prevent Ben Sisko from being pulled into subspace. None of these are attempts to "repair" the timeline.

 

While it could be suggested that bringing 2 humpback whales from 1986 to the future "alters" the timeline I would argue that that suggestion is out in left field and not in the same realm as what we're talking about in Star Trek (2009) so I don't equate that with this situation in the least. I have always had some question in my mind about the writers taking Gillian to the future but some of the writers/directors that they picked for the movies were knuckle heads anyway.

 

Talking about Janeway and Chakotay/Kim, in those instances did they do what they did with the full blessings of Starfleet or were they pursued as criminals for attempting to break the Temporal Prime Directive? Also in those situations, Janeway getting the crew home earlier and Kim/Chakotay saving Voyager from crashing suggests 1 timeline. Otherwise what does it matter if they do what they did or not? It's just another timeline out of countless trillions of possible timelines, right? Their actions alone suggest a single timeline that if altered affects everything and is not just something "alternate".

 

The DS9 crew didn't attempt to prevent Sisko from being pulled into subspace at all, their attempts were to rescue him from subspace many years after the fact. If they had been successful then Sisko would have began living in that time frame after spending decades inside subspace. No timeline alterations would have been made at all. In the end of that episode (The Visitor), elderly Jake realizes that that Ben has been sort of tethered to him for all these years and that if he (Jake) were to die while Ben was there with him then the tether would "break" and Ben would then be thrown back to the moment of the accident and he could then avoid the accident. Again, this episode supports a single timeline otherwise why worry about him getting back and avoiding the accident at all. In some other timeline there would be no accident at all.

 

The only inconsistency with your examples would be Star Trek IV with bringing Gillian back to the 23rd century, but there is support in TOS for allowing this to happen in "Tomorrow is Yesterday", the only reason Capt Christopher was sent back to his own time though was because they discovered that he had to father a son that would lead an important Earth/Saturn mission. Again, this supports a single timeline otherwise it wouldn't matter if Col Shawn Jeffery Christopher lead the probe or someone else. So why bother with the trouble of returning Capt Christopher to father that son in the first place?

 

Did Janeway alter the timeline? Did Chakotay and Kim alter it? Yes, and in those instances they were portrayed as a rogue element that was breaking Federation law and they knew that in doing it they were breaking the law (to alter a single timeline).

 

Of course, the notion that there is only one timeline that can be damaged and repaired is not necessarily correct. There are several Star Trek episodes which support the notion that there are in fact multiple possible timelines, most notably Mirror, Mirror (and all associated Mirror Universe episodes) and Parallels. The alien species of which Cosimo is a member as well as The Sphere Builders also have the ability to view multiple timelines. Therefore, the idea of only one timeline is inconsistent with what has been presented throughout Star Trek.

 

You're confusing the timeline with alternate universes. In Mirror, Mirror and all of the other Mirror Universe episodes it was never ever put forth as an alternate timeline. It is a completely alternate universe. Independent from "our" universe. The same is so with Parallels, it wasn't suggested that these different universes were alternate timelines but rather different realities that are taking place at the same time as our own. The 2 story devices (timeline vs. alternate universe) can be confusing but are completely different.

 

 

In fact, the example of time travel presented in Star Trek (2009) is not incompatible with how time travel has been presented in the rest of the franchise. Of course, there would have to be certain allowances made for it to work in some instances. Most notably, proximity of others to the object which causes one to travel through time (mostly back) causes them to experience the future of the alternate timeline created but not to change themselves. So, for instance, Kirk, Spock, Uhura, Scotty, and the two security guards are 'jumped' to the future of the alternate timeline created by McCoy saving Edith Keeler due to their proximity to the Guardian of Forever.

In my opinion, this movie is completely inconsistent with the way time travel has been presented throughout all of Star Trek. In this movie they completely alter the entire future of Star Trek and the future of TNG, DS9 and Voyager. The only series not altered (if these were true life) would be Enterprise because it happened before this movie.

 

Look at every instance of time travel in Star Trek, in City they had to make sure Edith was killed in order to correct the timeline... (The single timeline). Tomorrow is Yesterday, they had to return Christopher to protect the single timeline.

 

Yesterday's Enterprise, Guinan told Picard that this timeline could not continue, that it was wrong. The Enterprise C had to go back and be destroyed in order to fix the single timeline.

 

Time's Arrow, the Enterprise crew has to prevent an alien race from causing damage to Earth's past and protect the single timeline.

 

All Good Things... If Picard didn't figure out what was happening in the 3 different times of his life (past, present and future) then all of humanity would vanish from existence so the single timeline had to be fixed.

 

Past Tense, Sisko and Bashir had to insure that the Bell riots took place just as they did in reality in order to protect the single timeline. Even though that meant that Sisko had to pose as Bell in order to preserve all aspects of the (single) timeline.

 

Little Green Men, Quark wants to give Warp drive to the Ferengi of the 20th Century and Nog points out that if he did that then the (single) timeline would be altered.

 

Trials and Tribble-ations, the crew of the Defiant must find the bomb to save Capt Kirk lest the timeline be altered.

 

Children of Time, the Defiant must crash on a planet after being thrown 200 years into the past but "alternate" Odo prevents it from happening in order to save Kira thus altering the single timeline and erasing the survivors settlement on the planet.

 

Future's End, the crew of Voyager must stop Henry Starling from using the time ship and destroying the 29th Century solar system.

 

Relativity, the fact that the USS Relativity even exists supports the single timeline.

 

Enterprise Seasons 1-3 with it's Temporal Cold War and Daniels insistence that Archer survive because of how important he is to the future Federation all support a single timeline.

 

There's a lot more episodes but they all support a single timeline and the new movie is totally opposite from this concept.

 

This is just me talking here. It may not necessarily be the case but the case can be made. I've read, on another board, there could in fact be two distinctly different forms of time travel: Branch (jumping between realities) and Trunk (traveling within one timeline). However, it is not always straight forward as to which has been experienced.

 

Overall, throughout the franchise, Star Trek has never had solid rules as to how time travel functions (various methods and various impacts). Therefore, one cannot single out Star Trek (2009) as being inconsistent.

 

For the reasons I stated above I believe it's completely inconsistent. Now it could be argued that this new movie is in an alternate universe completely and therefore there are different 'rules'. This could be supported with the age difference of Chekov in fact. But they're not portraying it as a mirror universe movie, they're telling us that this is "our" Kirk and Spock.

 

The movie just doesn't fit within the past 40+ years of Star Trek history and concepts.

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I have been going with the premise, that this film-which I have chosen to accept as a fan-and thought was a good film-and as a longtime TOS fan, as was my 'first love'-takes place in a Quantum Reality, seperate from our so-familiar TOS series reality...which as I understood the writers' intent being to allow this to exist, alongside with the first, and thus, not erasing the one we all know so well. I do agree with VBG, that the preponderance of ST series-films utilizes the notion that I describe it this way, it's like a ruler-ex., Kirk and co. jump from inch ten, in the future, to inch three, in the past, and then back....I have read, if I understand it right, that this idea may not gibe with some interpretations, of what time-travel could and would do..But, even if that were the case, the PERCEPTION, EVEN if the reality of Trektemporal travel WERE so in fact, is that it's all occuring on a single line. It's the way I've always looked at it in ST in all past forms. 'That's the way it is' in ST as we've known it..and one can't be blamed for preferring it thusly. It did take a little effort deciding to accept the Kirk, Spock, and co. in this film as 'others' yet in basic the same, in most ways...but once I did, fine, it's just another aspect of Trek to me...however, I would NOT care for a concept which wipes out TOS, and my beloved future preferences, etc...but it's not how I assume this to be here. Surely, the writers, if nothing else, would know better, no matter how much a 'fresh take ' they wanted for the franchise, to eliminate all the years of tv and film events....Even if this were another timeline, as long as the first remains, then well, fine.A friend of mine and I were discussing at length these very issues of quantification the other night;he'd seen the film three times, and as of this writing,we plan to perhaps go see it together...he made the comment-and the thought has occurred to me, also, before, that, of all the premises they might have picked, if from the perspective of the general public, WHY time travel? That is, as posited in the film...which Trek fans or SF-minded folks would better relate to-if not agree upon, but, yes, it was to allow for another take on TOS....whether one is entirely comfortable with the concept..or not.

Edited by Voyager recruit

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Okay, okay, let's not take the quote, without being in its entirety....!Grin. Heck, somedays, I think I AM from another reality-but then, I'd have a very big place for a vacation!!

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I was being facetious of course. I still don't accept the whole concept of needing to alter the timeline nor do I accept the need to abandon some of the fundamental concepts that have been part of Star Trek going back to the first season of TOS and following through all the way to Enterprise. That fundamental concept is that any alterations to the timeline must be corrected. Spock, as a Federation ambassador and former member of Starfleet had a sworn duty to correct the damage that was done.

How?

 

He was pulled through the black hole at the same approximite time that Nero was. He rematerialized a generation later than Nero did, so Nero had all that time to plan Spock's capture. Perhaps Spock could have used his ship to engage Nero at that point, but he had no idea what had happened. Shooting first and asking questions later was never Spock's way. Very soon before the attack on Vulcan Nero separated Spock from his ship and left him stranded.

 

He might have been able to hook up with Scotty on the ice planet to somehow reverse things, and perhaps he was already en route to do that, but without a ship to travel back to pre-Kelvin time there was nothing either of them could do. Use the Enterprise? Possibly, but that would mean old Spock and young Spock meeting up in a different way which, at the time, old Spock was trying to avoid. He later changed his mind, and maybe the sequel will have old Spock, young Spock, Kirk, Scotty, going back in time and taking out Nero before engaging the Kelvin and restore the original timeline, but that is all speculation.

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I was being facetious of course. I still don't accept the whole concept of needing to alter the timeline nor do I accept the need to abandon some of the fundamental concepts that have been part of Star Trek going back to the first season of TOS and following through all the way to Enterprise. That fundamental concept is that any alterations to the timeline must be corrected. Spock, as a Federation ambassador and former member of Starfleet had a sworn duty to correct the damage that was done.

How?

 

He was pulled through the black hole at the same approximite time that Nero was. He rematerialized a generation later than Nero did, so Nero had all that time to plan Spock's capture. Perhaps Spock could have used his ship to engage Nero at that point, but he had no idea what had happened. Shooting first and asking questions later was never Spock's way. Very soon before the attack on Vulcan Nero separated Spock from his ship and left him stranded.

 

He might have been able to hook up with Scotty on the ice planet to somehow reverse things, and perhaps he was already en route to do that, but without a ship to travel back to pre-Kelvin time there was nothing either of them could do. Use the Enterprise? Possibly, but that would mean old Spock and young Spock meeting up in a different way which, at the time, old Spock was trying to avoid. He later changed his mind, and maybe the sequel will have old Spock, young Spock, Kirk, Scotty, going back in time and taking out Nero before engaging the Kelvin and restore the original timeline, but that is all speculation.

That's the thing, will they restore the timeline at some point? Right now we don't know but maybe in a couple of years we'll have that answer. As to how Spock could do it, I'm not suggesting that he come out firing. But at the end of the movie he seems content to just let things be and he's off to start a Vulcan colony for the 10,000 survivors.

 

At that point he has his future ship that he could then do a warp around the sun to travel back to the future (with Doc Brown?) and there fix the things that caused the problems to begin with. Will they do that in the next movie or something similar? I don't know, I doubt it because I have zero faith in these writers and this director but I hope so.

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I don't they will do that for the simple reason that Nimoy is getting up there in years. He might not be around to do another movie, especially with him playing action hero, so anything continuing with the old Spock with a major player would be putting too many eggs in one basket.

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More likely Section 31 would pick Spock's ship apart for its secrets.

Well, as Jack pointed out and I had forgotten the ship was destroyed.

 

Anyway, I've tried to make it clear a couple of times that I like the movie and I've seen it multiple times. I don't believe it's 100% perfect in every single aspect, I have a few issues that I was disappointed in and figured that an open and honest discussion on those issues was proper. I've made my views known now though, so lest I "piss off" too many people that may not appreciate differing opinions I'll let the issues rest.

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I've made my views known now though, so lest I "piss off" too many people that may not appreciate differing opinions I'll let the issues rest.

It is better to be pissed off than pissed on.

It's actually better to not allow yourself to get pissed off over someone elses opinions about a ficitional movie.

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I was watching the special features disc for Star Trek II last night and saw this clip from one of the interviews and I think it says it pretty well. The specific part is near the end but I left his whole statement in and I think it goes to the heart of why some fans have an issue with some aspects of the new movie.

 

 

When the rules are ignored or arbitrarily changed, that's when people get upset.

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I've made my views known now though, so lest I "piss off" too many people that may not appreciate differing opinions I'll let the issues rest.

It is better to be pissed off than pissed on.

It's actually better to not allow yourself to get pissed off over someone elses opinions about a ficitional movie.

The movie is real. The *plot* is fictional.

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It's categorized as a fictional movie, specifically a science fiction movie. That's not saying that the existence of the movie is in and of itself fictional but rather that the type of movie category that it falls into is as a fictional movie. Meaning a work of fiction.

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I re-watched the movie for the first time in a long time, I was able to enjoy it more this time than the last time I watched it. Some of the litle things still stuck out to me but I went into the task of watching it with the intention of ignoring those little things.

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You're trying, that's the important thing. ;)
It seems too grow on you.
I've always liked the movie by itself. There's just a few aspects here and there that gnaw at me. Things that could have been left out or done differently without harming the movie.

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