Star Trek Reviews

star trek 5 – please!

We can’t come up with a reason. This is true. I think it has more to do with the intro than anything XD

Stfu

I watched every episode. I liked T’Pol and I adored Trip. I hated, HATED Captain Archer. For some reason, Scott Bakula always seemed like he was acting — or, rather, over-acting — and not in a fun Kirk way. He was horrid in that role, though he was fine in Quantum Leap. It was weird. Anyway, I still like the show for Trip’s sake. He was great!

These are great! But I’m surpised Mr. Plinkett never uses Galaxy Quest footage in his reviews. I mean it’s a great parody of the Star Trek cliches, so I would think it’s great material to use in the edits. But it’s also a very loving homage, in may ways illustrating what’s missing from some of the newer ST movies. I’m curious what Mr. P’s thoughts are on this film?

He wants us to pay for it.. lolz

why RLM, why dont you have an edit function like youtube D=

we’re

Plinkett,

Just got through the Insurrection review. It was very good, as expected. I knew there were several reasons this film disappointed me as a youngster that I just couldn’t put my finger on. Your review now has made my fourteen-year-old self feel much better.

In Rick Berman’s defense though, Paramount never gave him a budget worthy of a block-buster feature film. But, filming it in California is still the lazy move of the 1960s show.

Agreed. Lost is overrated weak shit.

A response to your points. Long I admit, but so was yours.

– The Xindi murder 7 million people on earth, in one blow, and in 25+ years of Trek TV, there is no mention of it or their species. The season (3) itself was the beginning of the end of Enterprise.

– “Awesome story arcs (in the 4th season” And only season 4. The writing changed drastically because it was realized they sunk the series with season 3s Xindi nonsense. In season 4, homage was actually paid to Treks history OFTEN (And not shamelessly, with silly Ferengi/BORG episodes that were tossed in). Thats one of the reasons why it was superior. It didnt just shit on the timline for the sake of itself. The vulcan arc and how more episodes focused on Vulcan/Vulcans. The Andorians, Vulcans & Tellarites coming together (which I admit was dealt with prior to season 4, but not well. Except Shran. He was always good.) Arik Soongs augments paying homage to TOS’s “Eugenics wars”. The episode where Archer has a decent speech about empathy etc, when the incorporeal aliens watch the crews response to deadly infection. The Klingon smooth forehead explanation. Far more Romulan action. Admittedly, all these were last ditch efforts to revive the show, but at least an effort was made. The entire Enterprise era was supposed to be filled with Romulan & Klingon wars etc. Yet we all we got was… ENT… Season 3s only decent episode was “Similitude”. I still watch the show and believe it isnt truly appalling, but in the face of the others series its an embarrassment. In fact many of your points reference season 4 and nothing else.

– Captain Archer? I spend a lot of time in Star Trek broadcasts and he is at the bottom of the captain pole 90%+ of the time. I dont expect him to be Patrick Stewart or anything, but he was bland at best.

– “Andorian/Tellarite involvment” A point I’ll agree with. But… Anything important that happened, again, in season 4. After a drastic change in writing was made because the series prior to that sucked balls. -_-

– “Vulcan focus” That was payed at least some respect in the early seasons. Soval etc. Of course more so in 4.. again. See above

-Romulan war. They danced around it as much as possible without actually doing any of the work involved in writing it out. Its obvious the writes wanted to avoid the war as long as possible. Total laziness and not much of a salute to the timeline.

– “The temporal cold war, helping to explain why Trek chronology is never 100% consistent.” The worst point by far. This is a HALLMARK of terrible science fiction. No consequences respected & the easiest way out imaginable. I dont mean any form of time travel is bad. In my initial Trek days, temporal episodes were always my favorite. But misuse is VERY easy. The lack of consistency is very common in poorly written fiction. Writers : “Cant’t think of way out. Time travel will fix it.” Childrens science fiction. Enterprise KILLED trek in its television form and only led to Star Trek 09. Bravo -_-…

– Human vs Vulcan drama. This was good. I would have preferred to see more Vulcans aside from Tpol and Soval and not the cookie cutter Vulcans sprinkled here and there. Pretty lazy writing overall.

– Appearance of the Gorn. That was cool lol

– Seth McFarlane? (creator of Family Guy) I know hes a big Trek fan and I enjoy some of his humor. An interesting, unimportant touch lol

– TNG crossover finale. I’m on the fence on this. I feel the show was so lacking they had to do some crazy cross over shenanigans. At the time of its release I heard that Tpols actress (Jolene Blalock) was upset that the show wasnt aloud to stand on its own feet and have its OWN finale. If this is true, I understand her point. Everyone knew the show was too weak to risk a pure ENT finale. Sad really.

– OPs quote ” AND THAT FUCKING HACK: RICK BERMAN!!”

Your Quote “Rick Berman? That Hack that created DS9? That Hack that kept Trek alive for 20 years after the death of Roddenberry? Who managed TNG during its greatest years? Oh yeah, that guy.”

My quote. I think you should learn the difference between Rick Berman & Brannon Braga. Berman, left unchecked, was destructive.

– Mirror Universe eps. Season 4 *cough.

– “Yeah, Enterprise really isn’t that bad afterall is it?” Yes, of course it is lol. A common counter-point to my statements is something like “Why you take it so serious bro D:?! Cant we just have fun and watch” Star trek had comedic moments pre-Enterprise and didnt always take itself as “serious business”, and that was fine. But (old Trek) at its core touched on SO MANY serious issues that I wouldnt want to start listing them. Think of some of the great TNG eps. Theres too many. Politics, ideals, right to life, capital punishment, world wars… See I’m tempted to try and list them. In comparison to even Voyager, ENT is dumbied down and shallow overall. And not one character stood out. If anything, Phlox had the most potential and he was barely utilized. (Sure, Trip was charming at times) If you wanted to watch something you didnt have to think about, but could still enjoy, you should have watched SG1 or something. I’ll say it again. Enterprise led to the lack of real trek now and the creation of Star Trek 09. (And Nemesis didnt help either)

Live long and Prosper

You sir, are a hypocrite.

– I only care about your first point, really. The Xindi. You mentioned later a phrase. “Fanboy excuse”. The Xindi were lame through and through. The fact that such a conflict occurred and didnt garner an event mention or at least some hint of the species. I can “kind of” accept it, but its still stupid.

– You didnt really address that this time period was loaded with intense Romulan and Klingon conflict. Not just the minor espionage on ENT. Lame lazy shit.

– You admitted my time travel point and I used it to back another point of mine. The thing is, I dont think there is too much time travel in “Trek”. ENT just took time travel and roads its ass til it died. Kid fiction etc

– You response to my Berman/Braga rant still didnt negate my point. Berman HELPED make Trek what it is. But as I said earlier, unchecked & on his own as it were, all he did was fuck up IMO. You make him sound like Trek Jesus and carried the show on his back. I think this is obviously not true.

I enjoy Trek talk. Sorry if Ive come off as a prick at times lol. Youve either conceded a lot of my points overall (or partially), or you negated to respond to some points. But there are some spots where you cant argue opinion really, I guess -_-

Agree to disagree I suppose. Enterprises’ timeframe was really only spoken about a few times in the Original Series from what I recall. While Berman is certainly no Trek Jesus, he looks like a fuckin’ genious for his Trek choices in my opinion compared to the action shit churned out by J.J. I still like ENT more than VOY. My order goes TNG, TOS, DS9, ENT, VOY.

ha ha ha so TNG and DS9 are urine? and JJ’s films are fecal matter? So what is TOS?

What Picard references specifically contradict Enterprise? Which Romulan references contradict Enterprise? Perhaps one of us is simply mistaken…

Most of Enterprise doth suck, but, season 4 was a brilliant season almost all the way. I too was sad when it was cancelled.

But that last episode… blergh!
To me, the Terra Prime episode will always be the last one, I just loved Trip and T’Pals romance plot and Enterprise trying to tackle social issues, as Star Trek should.

What’s the deal with dressing Riker and Troi in Enterprise D era uniforms? Why didn’t they just give them Enterprise E era uniforms and portray them on the Enterprise E or some other ship of that timeframe.

Neither of the two can pull off that “young” makeup they had them wear… Especially not if you recently watched an episode of TNG, the contrasts are stark indeed.

Time travel has been a staple of many Star Trek stories. I don’t see what the big deal is, though I do agree it is over used.

Into Darkness! Please review this awful squeal.

I’ve seen many people with that opinion, and I respectfully and utterly disagree. I went in expecting more fresh ideas and storylines, and instead got a sub-par Wrath of Kahn remake. I was not impressed.

space adventure film 2 was ok but Abrams kept shoving in star trek references for some reason kinda took me out of. Yea we get it wrath of Kahn was awesome this movie fails at every level to recapture that greatness. It makes no sense and its not well paced, and to all the people who like it because “you don’t have to be a star trek fan to enjoy it.” Then just go fuck off and watch bad boys 2 you don’t need to ruin star trek for the people who keept it alive all these years

Absolutely. Of course everyone is waiting for this one now, who knows if Mike actually does it. I didn’t like both films although they were a little better than the TNG ones. Probably people would understand the problems with “Into Darkness” better, if he reviews it.

Obviously, we’re going to see a Half In The Bag on Into Darkness.

The ending of the ’09 Star Trek reboot left me under the impression that Star Trek was, y’know, rebooted to go on their own adventures.

Now we have two movies that pay tribute and homage to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. I’ve seen Wrath of Khan and I love it just like the rest of you, however, this is getting old and tiresome. It doesn’t need to be like Wrath of Khan in order to get both Non-Trekkie and Trekkie approval. There’s a lot of potential with this revived franchise and they are wasting it by dressing up what we’ve already seen, making it shinier, but not any better.

It is entirely possible to make a good, even great Star Trek movie without relying so much on Wrath of Khan. First Contact, Voyage Home, and Undiscovered Country anyone? Voyage Home raked in the biggest box office numbers. It was a risk that paid off! ’09 Star Trek was a risk that paid off, now they’re just playing it safe. I know they have another great Star Trek movie in them. Please EXPLORE other concepts.

Having said all that, I thought Into Darkness is a slightly above-average sci-fi action flick that is elevated by its visuals (still as dazzling as ever) the performances, most notable being Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, and Benedict Cumberbatch. I also thought this is one of the funnier Star Treks, though Voyage Home still has the chair for the ultimate honor of funniest.

I like theyr review alot, but i find funny how the argument of tng movies is it suck cos it is a dumb action movie… and the new star trek 09 argument of be good is it isnt star trek it is a good action sci fi movie.
i dont understand.

“Comparing ID to WOK is not only unfair to both movies, it’s really not the comparison you should be making.”

How is it unfair to compare the movies when the movie itself was basically shoving the comparison in our face? And it’s disingenuous to say that there’s always been dumb stuff in Star Trek. True, there have been flaws, but in the past the people working on these films at least respected the material they were working with. This last movie just made a mockery of it.

And don’t get me wrong, I went in expecting to enjoy the film. I wasn’t expecting a masterpiece, but I figured it would be entertaining. I thought the last one had a few problems, but I thought it was a solid film. And this one seemed like it was actually going to be really good, and it had my attention and my interest….up until about 2/3 of the way through. Then the whole thing turned into STAR TREK REFERENCE: THE MOVIE!

I’m getting tired of this tendency of remakes and reboots doing this in general. It’s like they don’t even really stand as movies in their own right. They’re just built entirely around references to the original that are just supposed to evoke some cheap thrill of recognition in the audience, like tiny little sugar pellets bursting in the pleasure center of the brain that make you “Hey!” for half a second. The Total Recall remake from last summer was full of that crap. They just shove shit in with both fists regardless of whether it makes sense and call it a movie, and there’s really NOTHING to these movies beyond that.

And now it’s the same with this new Star Trek movie. They just kept throwing references at the screen regardless of continuity, of story structure, or even basic logic. They mocked and defaced one of the most memorable scenes in all of Star Trek just to release another little sugar pellet and to pat themselves on the back for what I can only guess that they imagine was cleverness. Is that what we want movies to become? Just a brainless experience of sitting there and going, “Hey, I remember that. Ahhhhhhhh!”?

Eh, I can’t really agree that the stories in the TNG films were dumber, per se. They were just as poorly written in their own ways, but they also aspired to involve mature thematic content; however comprised by directorial mishandling and the shoehorning-in of action elements not suited to the age of their cast. The TNG films served to dilute the Star Trek brand, but they didn’t involve quite the same level of thickheaded, arbitrary plotting found in Trek ’09 and Into Darkness. The latter were intended to be visceral, flashy entertainment which they accomplish successfully only by the grace of JJ Abrams’ direction.

It’s funny that you should invite the comparison between Into Darkness and the Transformers films, considering they were all written by the same persons. I agree for the most part however that the new Trek films are above-average action films, but it’s certainly not due to the writing and I’ve no idea from where in the reboots you’re drawing an affirmation of the appeal of Roddenberry’s peaceful and refined vision of humanity. If anything, these films blatantly defile that peace. 😉 As I’ve noted to others lately: they’re passable action film scripts dressed up in Star Trek visuals that have had the hell directed out of them. They’re basically Star Trek porn; everything that’s superficially cool or just plain fun about Trek is amplified to an almost absurd but extremely entertaining degree.

Since there will probably be a full-length plinkett review for ‘into darkness’ and a comparison to Wrath, I wanted to make sure you watch the disc 2 special features interviews of Wrath.

The old guard was worried about the militarization of star fleet (navy-esk uniforms and procedures, 15 men to load a torpedo, submarine-like battles). At the time, some people thought it wasn’t true to trek, that it didn’t make scientific sense. But those movies (1,2,3,4 & 6) ended up defining the next generation of shows (after some tweeking and flushing-out, of course).

I’m personally not a fan of New Trek. Please, tear it up! I think it plays to the lowest common denominator while Trek should do the opposite. But I just wanted to be fair and point out how the old guard resists the inevitable changes Trek has to make to stay relevant, especially in the motion picture medium. I think these changes must take place, but disagree with what I’m actually seeing. I worry about the future of Trek and the possibility of ever getting another substantive, intelligent show.

Good post. Into Darkness is not a remake of Wrath, it just tries to call back to it with cheap and pointless references.

Brad Bird is great choice, he’s a current favorite of mine. His films just feel smarter and he has a good sense of humor.

Your evaluation of Trek movies is accurate. We forget how much cheese is forgiven. Truth is: the expectation of fanboys is so low that its easy to get excited about JJ’s textbook action sequences. And yes, even though I don’t like the JJ Treks, I would take them any day over Transformers or a Mikey Bay movie. Ugh, my IQ dropped 5 points just saying his name.

That song! Oh my god, that song. I knew it we were in trouble when I first heard it. I can’t believe they never changed it in 4 years.

I never like Enterprise either. I tried, but it never felt right. They keep trying to go back to the TOS days, like those were good ‘ol days or something.

Although, some people really like that show. I can respect that. There’s lots of Trek to go ’round.

Of course it shouldn’t be anime. I was pointing to the style of action. You know what I meant.

I think TOS is awful by today’s standards. It’s so old it would never work. So no, I don’t want an episode of that. Or any series for that matter. That’s one of my major problems with new Trek. Why are we bothering with these ancient characters? Dig this….

Imagine a Star Trek movie that doesn’t have a crew from the show. That’s right, a new crew!!! Oh my god. Think of how free the writers would be. You could have cameos, Admiral Riker or some crap like that. That would at least show the old characters moving on to different roles. But the main point is that a new crew would save the movie from the Wrath of Trekkers.

And I don’t care about summer blockbuster profits. Get a director who knows how to do more with less. Take for instance the District 9. !! I don’t want District 9!!! I’m just pointing out what someone is capable of doing with a relatively small budget.

An individual at work has described it as a “wink wink” to the audience. “hey yeah, it’s ST because it has tribbels and Kahn.” I really have to agree with you, I’m not a fan of where the series is headed. It seems like the current generation is oblivious and is just eating it up though.

MATRIX RELOADED or MATRIX REVELATIONS

If you review the Twilight Saga, I solemnly swear right now on my mother’s grave that I will film myself jerking off to each new video. That is how much I would love to see it done.

Okay my nigs, dig this.
Number 1: A time travel story that the alternate time line keep going if they solve the situation is kind of dump and lame for make something new.
Number 2: The new Kirk, Spooky and others dont feel as the TOS ones from the show or Movies.
Number 3: Why they need to make more money from Star Trek or re introduce it for dumb audiences?
Number 4: Gene would never like the direction star trek took after his death, period.
Number 5: JJ movies will only get more stupid.
Number 6: Star Trek should be about life lesons, evolution of man kind and Sci Fi, not about dumb action, any Star Trek.

Number99999: thanks for the reply realy, im just making a “funny” character parody, those are kind of how i feel about the new movies yes but im here most to rip off… i mean pay a homenage to Plinkett 😉 I didnt ment my first comment neither this one as a real critic 😉

The TNG films were Star Trek films for Star Trek fans. They’re fanservice that crossed over into deviantart fan fiction. Star Trek: Just Star Trek and Into Darkness are big blockbuster hits for the dumb masses. They have nothing to do with Star Trek.

TOS is a low budget cheesy sci-fi show about racial diversity. 1-7 fall in line with this concept fairly well. Punch enemies for being enemies, not for being black-I mean Klingon. 2009 and Into Darkness kind of accomplishes this. TNG was a mid-budget serious sci-fi show about respecting every thinking and living creature as a “person” and treating it how you expect to be treated. The TNG films have nothing to do with this whatsoever.

Star Trek fans hate the new Star Trek movies for not being Star Trek, not for being bad movies. Star Trek fans love the TNG movies for being silly fanservice, not for being good movies. It’s opposite sides of the same coin. Just different marketed audience and demographic.

Into Darkness really had that potential, or at the very least, allow the writers to come up with their own universe, which was the point of the canon wipe. Instead, they…don’t.

The irritating thing about ’09’s red shirt death is that there were other scenes where that would have made sense, such as when they decided to board Nero’s ship. Instead, they send the two ranking officers BY THEMSELVES into a firefight.

Someone needs to make a porn series called “Blatantly Defile That Piece.”

Get to it, internet.

It seemed like it would have made more sense for the Romulans to have done the 9/11 inciting incident than the Xindi. Seeing as how we know so little of the Earth Romulan war other than that it was big enough to be talked about a century later. Instead, we have a council of races that we don’t quite care enough about, even though the diversity was the largest so far (aquatics, insectoids, AND hominoids? Finally!)

The technology, while feeling like it fit into the other series, always felt a little too advanced for that era. Phase-pistols are a great example and they really annoy me because by The Cage, they were using laser weapons, and I don’t quite remember those having a stun option. So why trade up a weapon that had more utility for a presumably more powerful one that is not as useful?

It got really silly when they had to go back to WW2 to show the Sulliban messing with the timeline. But I guess it’s worth it to see stuff like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONiJ23AKHY4&list=PLyeOqz0Vgsa4JvFqk3uJ5j13rsOxB77kx&index=130

http://www.myconfinedspace.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/star-trek-sloth-make-it-slow.jpg

Will you ever do the Star Trek: TOS movies?

LOL, JEEZ dude!

What review dose Plinkett talk about Worf with his purple space gun?

Some of the TOS movies have a bad rep, V in particular, but even Search for Spock is a pretty good movie compared to Insurrection, and the TMP director’s cut from 2000 is actually a really strong film — kinda sui generis, odd compared to the others but still a really good, classic 70s hard SF movie.

Resurrecting a character when the original actor has only died a matter of months ago is probably the lowest point a producer can go to in terms of lack of respect. And I do not just mean in terms of the character. It shows a serious lack of respect to an audience who might seriously identify with the original actor’s portrayal of that role.

The “reboot” Trek is really a slap in the face not just to Trek but to the public in general. When a person who is going to lectures about media decides “I could shoot better space battles if I shove the camera up my arse and crawl around to the models”, that is a bad sign. When you are going back to what is _still_ the best Trek film ever made and the only one that would _still_ be a good film even if you removed all Trek trademarkings from it, and blatantly stealing from it when they only just did that about two films/six years ago, that is an open-and-shut that you are indeed creatively bankrupt.

There are people out there who have original, even unique ideas for stories that could hold up a mirror to our world and say “why?”. That people like Abums are getting the $200 million budgets instead of them is, frankly, insulting to all of Humanity.

there is a commentary track for it.

The scene is from Insurrection but the part your talking about is an aside in the First Contact review.

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To his credit, Michael Dorn (Worf) was the only one who tried to act like his character from the show. Mike was exactly right about everyone else. It was like they all said to each other, “Let’s just be ourselves and forget about our characters from the show. We are such amazing people in real life. Everyone will love us, even if we are totally out of character.”