Star Trek (’09)

You know what’s crazy? If they keep making sequels, Die Hard will feature a 65 year old man trying to be Bruce Willis.

What about brown people?

Oh….

Girls DIG boring, creepy assholes, Mr. Plinkett!

I didn’t see a creepy message from his wife in the “Magic Eye” pic. I saw a flock of penguins.

Apparently Patrick Stewart is rumoured to be in it as Russian General!?

No one cares dude

also I hope this is trolling because a studio using the orygilal star trek characters people over enterprise people is just such an obvious choice it cannot be described.

I dont get your problem – when and where did the crew get scattered in this movie ?

Kirk was just a guy before he got captains hat from spock so he could do lots of stuff since he did not have a post, yeah I get that he did not really have to get to that super-powerful ship at the end but hes 1)young 2)active character so I guess he could make such a mistake.

sulu was the only guy with advanced hand-to-hand combat abilities for some reason so he could do action stuff, the ship was screwed if they didnt succed so he wasnt really needed at the bridge

spock was at his post all the time untill he lost it to kirk except when he tried to save the elders which was good decision for his character since 1)his family was there and he has feelings for them even if he does not admitt it 2)he was the same race as the elders and known to them so when he said ‘planets gonna die – move!’ they believed him

bones …. well bones should be at med bay yes, but wasnt it destroyed ?

uhura was at her post ;P all the time ;P possibly to excercise her exceptional oral abilities when needed by the captain or something ;P

russian guy was at his post except when they needed his help with the teleportation device (nice little scene by the way)

and so on

oh and I bet the next trek will be like a normal episode.

You see this was basicly episode 1 of a franchise in which the characters get to know each other and have to learn to work with each other despite their diffriances.

Ultimate Threat to Everyone is an easy way to make that happen and make everything interesting for the audience

next episode I think will be designed as ‘let the audience learn more about the characters’ and will be people oriented not threat oriented. Sure – there will be some kind of a threat but it wont be as big to you know the universe. Possibly very big for one or more characters personally but thats about it.
You know Uhura breakes up with Spock or Spock breakes up with Uhura and than she sleeps with Kirk which threatenes their friendship or something like that. Plus some kind of threat in the background for the action scenes but nothing too big.

Also I can bet my left ball that most or all the characters will be at their posts. Maybe one will be somewhere else and that position will help him/her help the crew at a crucial point and than come back to his/her oryginal post but thats about it. It is possible that one or more of the characters will leave his/her post AT THE END of the 2nd movie because of some personal story delopement and than come back in the third movie.

Than the 3rd will be once again about an Ultimate Threat since well know the characters pretty good and the audience will want more action.

lets say theres another nero here and shes the other neros wife not his. So basicly for the insane nero his wife is still dead

Can you really watch turbolift scenes from the old series and follow the ship map like that? That’s some detailed writing.

Wrong, unless you’re calling the Klingon Empire ‘pre-warp’.

I think I’ll just mention that Uhura said “aural sensetivity” not “oral sensetivity”.
Also, as always, love the review.

You guys completely missed the infuriating fact that Scotty’s accent in this is completely wrong, in TOS he had a more Edinburgh accent whereas in the film Simon Pegg portrayed him with a Glasgow accent, Somon Pegg is a terrible Scotty

As brilliant as Plinkett’s breakdowns are, I’m a little surprised at his critique of the turbolift ride.

It’s true that Spock’s trip to the bridge is truncated for the sake of pacing, and I’m actually surprised at the attention to detail in tracking the movement of the turbolift between shafts, but that fact notwithstanding, there is exactly one calculus used to determine the amount of time it takes for a turbolift to reach its destination: the exact amount of time required to film a scene of dialogue.

This is the same reason that in Wrath of Khan, Kirk and Saavik just happened to be getting on the same lift, were in the turbolift exactly long enough to show Kirk trying to flirt with a newly-commissioned lieutenant when he’s 50, and then she exits right as he’s wrapping up, and she’s traveling to the same level where Bones needs to hop on.

Bonus drama: “Who’s been holding up the damn elevator?” on a show where I don’t remember a character ever having to wait more than 1.5 seconds for a turbolift to appear.

So if they don’t care about that comment, then they don’t care about star trek in general? Whaaaaaaat the fuuuuuu….

I think that figure was actually 96%. 96% of movies are remakes or reboots or something.

So where is the bald guy? Hey this aint really Star Trek,ive been duped!

This was an ingenious way to make a buttload of sequels using the Star Trek Universe, it’s most beloved characters, and new, young actors who can actually do all the actiony things needed to make all these sequels for the next two or three decades. And they justified it by erasing the previous timeline. It’s brilliant…in a very sinister and manipulative sort of way.

There’s no fact there, only theory… It’s just exhausting to get into it on anything more than a basic level since we know little about it. That’s what makes Star Trek good. It stays in reality and only gives some possibilities. No point going deeper on that stuff. Stick to what we can see as the future, technology.

It’s just wrong. Like teaching Christianity without Christ. I only accept that this movie exists because it’s not Star Trek.
And Next Gen is damn good. Even the bad episodes I’d take over most shit on TV these days.

How do you know the nature of time? Time isn’t even as much a fact as a concept.

chris something. the other black comedian named chris that isnt chris rock

The movie was good. Honestly, guys. As much as I adore the original show, I don’t believe it’s possible to actually recreate it.

Preeeeeetty cool ^^

Bambi 2. What the fuck??

Parallels was great, its basic quantum physics and was used in many seminal scifi works.does not de-value destiny as each timeline is distinct and whole regardless of other possible (relative from within each as perspective) realities…think bigger man…how can you rip the others apart so easily and yet give this turd such a nice review…are you a viral shill for abrahms???

HOW DID YOU NOT MENTION ANY OF THESE??? http://whatculture.com/film/15-blunders-that-ruined-j-j-abrams-star-trek-and-destroyed-the-franchise.php

Are you retarded? It wasn’t discarded because *gasp* IT HAPPENED BEFORE THE ALTERATIONS TO THE TIMELINE! Idiot.

Crazy that we know now that JJ Abrams will actually in fact direct the next Star Wars/Disney movie, we all heard it here first!!! (approx at 21:40)

http://insidemovies.ew.com/2013/01/26/j-j-abrams-officially-named-star-wars-director/

Damn right!

Whats worse than a series of movies with plot holes?
-A series of biased (albeit amusing) reviews that have an obvious endgame-right here. if you can’t see it you’re dumb! So, Blatant a change from the others to this review and too many holes skipped in Abrahmatrek.

JJ Abrams is directing the new Star Wars movies. Are you happy now?

What seems to have been missed by everyone (I only noticed it this week myself) was the inclusion of money in this film. I think this is a pretty big deal. Both the shows and the movies state there is no money in the future. Roddenberry himself states this a crucial point to his vision of the future of our planet: that all people started to work together not for profit but for the betterment of all mankind. Cut to:
1) an ad placement for Nokia in the car that young Kirk steals.

2) Kirk states that the drinks are on him and Uhuhrahaha refuses and infers she’ll buy the drinks.

3) Uhruhhhhaa asks for a Budweiser. Another ad placement.

4) McCoy says his wife took everything in the divorce “leaving nothing but his bones,” inferring that he was forced to join Starfleet because he was broke.

I know this is an action movie and I hate it when people speak for the dead but I think Roddenberry’s corpse probably threw up a little in his mouth when this movie came out. Star Trek has always been stories about people and their universal problems and emotions but at its core was the idea that humans could evolve past the obsessive quest for a buck. That is until Deep Space 9 when not just Ferengi but humans also placed monetary value on latinum.

Fuck you, Rick Berman!

the key to this movie, for me, is to look at it as an action movie, NOT a star trek movie, and in that way I enjoy it

No:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRYlPifDUBg

She is on the opposite side of the lift from the control panel, and the turbolift sound never stops for the duration of their scene.

LOL, it’s funny rewatching this review and hearing Plinkett making a comment/joke about J.J.Abrams directing the prequels… The irony.

Double irony, actually.
Because even with Abrams at the helm, the new Star Wars films are not going to have an ounce of depth to them, or the excellent tone and pacing as the originals.

Lucas shat out three awful prequels and made an incredible sum of money by exploiting them; that is precisely what what the next set of Star Wars films will do.
I’d bet anything on it.

The Lowest Common Denominator rules the box office and it was ironically Star Wars that first demonstrated just how powerful LCD filmmaking is by giving us the first true blockbuster movie (and the ultimate irony of George Lucas is realized; he hated the Hollywood studio system so much that he accidentally revolutionized it).

In this, I realized that it does not matter at all whether it’s Lucas, Abrams or anyone else directing. Star Wars is going to succeed regardless of who helms it because it’s fucking Star Wars.

We sling a lot of shit at the prequels now, but when those films were still in theaters, they were critically acclaimed, and well received by the public.
It took YEARS for dissenting opinion to make its presence known, and only really via the internet.

Oh I agree wholeheartedly. And I remember people liking the prequels when they came out too (and I know people who still do to this day in fact). I think a lot of people wanted to like them so bad they deluded themselves into liking them not matter how bad they were. They had been
waiting for soooo long for new movies and invested so much of themselves into the hype that having no reward for their patience and efforts was basically unfathomable. But delusion can only last you for so long… Hence the now general consensus that they were in fact terrible movies. Other people however were born in the CGI galore and dumbed down movie content era and will therefore never understand our sentiment of betrayal…

As for the upcoming movies, I do not have high hopes for them at all. Sure, Lucas isn’t at the helm, but it’s still pretty clear that they are being made for the big bucks at the end of the line, regardless of the quality of the films, and that’s where the fundamental flaw lies… The original movie was not made with the mindset of making a ton of money, or even being a hit at all in fact. It was just pure movie-making for the sake of telling a story, a story a guy really wanted to tell, and in his own way. The storytelling was genuine and that struck a chord with the viewers back then. And yes, the irony of Lucas becoming the very thing he hated in the end is just too precious… And who could forget the irony of… “Special effects are just tool, a mean to tell a story. Special effects without a story is a pretty boring thing” – You said it brother… wait, YOU SAID THAT?

there were tribbles in the movie. scotty has them on his desk.

Plinkett 2009 — J.J. Abrams should have directed the Star Wars prequels

Lucas 2013 — J.J. Abrams will direct Star Wars episode VII

“In fact, J.J. Abrams should have directed the prequels..:”
…
Oh no! The timeline’s changing again!

I nerdily agree and beg to disagree. Star Trek IV came out prior to TNG and said there was no money in the future. So, true, maybe no mention in TOS. However, I still think the concept, while introduced later and slightly nebulous, can be considered “canon.” Also, I seem to remember some interviews with actors who had mentioned that the idea of no money was an important facet of Roddenberry’s worldview.

About product placement, yes it is there in Star Trek IV but that’s because it took place on Earth in the 80s not Earth of the future that had no money. And uhh I’m not going to argue about anything concerning Star Trek V.

funny since the actor who played Spock is actually gay lol

Great flick!

If anybody can liken Star Trek ’09 to other Star Trek movies and series of the like… is a moron… everyone in that film was just a caricature of the original character…

Butt… the magic eye thing is a bunch of penguins…

I can not wait for your review of Star Trek Into Darkness. This was so good it’s scary. I too love Pizza Rolls

Boy would i like to know what soundtrack starts at 15:50

“[In the TNG movies we had] a 65-year-old man trying to be Bruce Willis”
… funny, thinking that in the last two “Die Hard”-movies we had an
almost-60-year-old Bruce Willis trying to be Bruce Willis…

Good????? OMG was it bad

You missed an important point about the second ride with Uhura. Uhura STOPS the elevator.

“Into Darkness” had Tribbles and Klingons and Ja Ja Abrahms will direct Star Wars. Mr Plinkett knew the future! And I also think that “Into Darkness” was pretty lame and in the end even stupid. Didn’t like this one either though, the new stuff is just not for the Trekkies I guess. As always, this review is beyond perfect, seriously, I love you Mike! What was that issue with the case of the not-gays…

Well his vision was dumb as shit. Simply based on the way that human minds think, you will never convince billions or trillions of people to commit all their actions to the betterment of mankind. Someone will always be trying to get ahead. Besides, how then is it decided how much everyone else’s aid is worth. Such as in the bar, if the beer is not bought with money than who is supplying it for the betterment of mankind? Do all of the worlds farmers give up their food to the world and get nothing in return? Why would they continue to do their jobs? Are the grocery store workers going about a boring job everyday just so that everyone else can buy their groceries? What about the truck drivers (or whatever vehicle they would be driving at this point)? Deliver service? There are only a few people in the entire world so selfless as to commit to the majorly important things in life completely with no reward for themselves. Expecting an entire galaxy to commit to that principle is absurd. Someone will realize they can get all of the same benefits without doing any work because there’s no money, and 1/2 the galaxy would quickly retire. There would then be a crises, and money would be reinstated. This is why communism sounds so great on paper but ultimately fails when applied to large countries. You simply cannot convince that many people to work together in perfect harmony. You might be able to stop wars (maybe) but you can’t convince everyone in a galaxy to devote their entire lives to helping people they do not know.

Also for this new action movie, J.J. Abrams isn’t going for a Utopian vision, he wants there to be asskicking, because that’s what’s gonna make the big bucks.

It has been theorized by cosmologists and quantum mechanics professors that black holes may in fact lead to other places in space-time. This is called wormhole theory and is the only conceivable way a wormhole can be created. So, in essence, a black hole IS a wormhole.

I enjoyed most of what “Into Darkness” offered. It’s certainly not perfect but I feel it’s a better film than #1. The characters feel more familiar and the story moves at a better pace. The mission at the beginning was fun and it was nice to see a planet that was actually alien. Some of the references and gags in the film were very enjoyable. That being said however I think the MAJOR references to a previous film got overdone at times. One of the characters shouted a line that’s become a cultural meme and should not have been in the film. I’m still not decided on the reversed homage to the classic film. Cool fan service or blatant rip-off?

Is “Into Darkness” a smart film? No. At times it’s a lot more intelligent than #1 but unfortunately I kept questioning the actions of high ranking officers in this movie. Kirk is still an idiot and ill-equipped to command a starship. He’s definitely smarter than Archer though (and UGH, according to these Abram’s films Star Trek: Enterprise is the only canon in this alternate universe!). The writers think the audience is stupid! (Or maybe the writers are just simpletons?) Kirk and co. are rushed off on a risky and illicit mission to murder a man without giving him a trial while using untested and suspicious weapons. Allegory much? I hope people in charge of starships and the organization running them aren’t so daft in the 23rd century. Where’s Captain Picard to put on the brakes and think about the situation?

Ah well, still a mostly enjoyable film. The Trek fan in me was often questioning the logic in this movie and in terms of the whole Trek canon but as a sci-fi action film, and especially big summer movie, I enjoyed it and was smiling plenty during the film.

Love that the prediction for “what is the next ST movie (i.e. into darkness) going to be about” was absolutely spot on. Or, wait, I don’t love it. I hate it.

Maybe she said Aural sensitivity, Idon’tknow…

I have no problem with a 65 year old action hero

Me! Spoiler. Its penguins.

why do I get adds for diapers? is Mr Plinket trying to tell me something?

I think he meant the review was good.

What’s the deal with these blip fucking ads that don’t work and force us to sit through a minute of fucking boredom?

“Richard the Cat” is the most pandering, brainless, and sensationalized thing to ever exist.

Fuck The Home Depot.

…. I love this review. And I loved the movie.

I think one of the writers said they built the Enterprise in Iowa to honor Kirk’s dad.

RE: Romulus, I think the Prime Directive doesn’t apply to warp-capable civilizations

It’s pretty amazing how close he nailed what the sequel would entail, and shows just how little imagination the new team is putting into these new stories. Wouldn’t it be cool to be totally surprised by something original, and not “oh look what they changed from the original.”?

Like; they’re getting a mission to help with the resettling of the surviving Romulan population or whatever and they get sucked into fluidic space where they run into species 8472, and things get exiting as they don’t stand a single chance as the scramble to find a way back to earth and close fluidic space again. You could also maybe get Spock or Kirk be wounded so the other has to run things and notice how much they’ve come to rely on the support and skills of their friend, balancing their own shorcomings.

That way it’s new, yet familiar. Or something. This would at least be exiting, and it took me 5 minutes. Wow I should go work in Hollywood.

It kinda reminds me of the Title for the never made Spaceballs Sequel. “Spaceballs 2: The Search for More Money.” Frankly i will take most of the original 6 films over J.J. Generic Action Crap. But have to say as Star Wars movies they probably better then the prequels.

It’s understandable they have reasons to make “pop” star trek (the reason starts with “$”). It still wrong, and I like to say why. Personally, what I like the most about this franchise is new generation series, than the motion picture and finally voyager. They’re all very cerebral, about difficult situations and facing the unknown and so on. This defines star trek. If it’s not like that, it’s not star trek. The reboot is violent and misguided. In my opinion, a rape of Roddenberry’s ideals. I believe it’s so empty, it will be forgotten very fast (I think it was already for most people). Why is Spok a red neck??? It’s so hard to put together an interesting plot for star trek about something mysterious on the space, including difficult decision or facing unstoppable forces? Not just for one movie. This new star trek is a rap version of the Beethoven’s nineth, a open smile version of Monalisa, a sensored version of the Sistine Chapel. It’s nothing but a very well made “star just give me you money trek”.

im using firefox with no adblock and still can’t watch the wonderful advertisements, on any plinkertton review! is it just a thing where moziilla likes to fuck with people, or is Redlettermedia gettin shafted by the man in some other way?

hopefully it’s just me with this affliction.

i meant to say, “purposely humiliates and schools george lucas…”.

and obviously this is filmed in a parallel universe (likely, the one where Riker has the castro beard, and the federation is crumbling), thus any inconsistency is meaningless.

I guess the brig was full of wounded or something. At any rate, no command decisions in this movie make any sense, such as infiltrating Nero’s ship with the two ranking officers with no security.

Nothing but good things? Didn’t listen very well, did you?

Old Spock was probably hoping that the time that was chosen was uninhabited with sentient lifeforms and wouldn’t adversely affect the lifeforms present near the black hole/supernova phenomenon.

Nope, Old Spock’s actions still don’t make much sense.

Yeah, I mean communism was all about no property, no money, everything working for the great good and look how that turned out.

I did, I’m just still surprised how he criticized the TNG movies for being too action-heavy, but didn’t complain too much about this one (which also has a lot of action). Ah well, I guess a Star Trek movie with a slow-moving plot and minimal action is like Coke in green glass bottles: they don’t make it anymore.

Ah, I see. Apologies for that mis-informed statement above.

and i want a cloaked Romulan warbird

The performances are so good that it papers over the flaws of the second movie. Although, in TDK’s case, it’s flaws are minor, which is why it’s considered a fantastic movie, and probably will stand the test of time. Into Darkness has massive story flaws, but is considered to be above average and probably will be forgotten as soon as Cumberbatch is in another, better-written movie.

Was I the only one laughing my ass off during the part where Spock’s flying that tiny ship towards the Romulan ship, and then Nero screams “Fire everything!!!”?

Cumberbatch’s character is no where near as interesting as Ledger’s, though. All Khan did in Into Darkness was punch people.

I’m actually surprised he puts Star Trek VI on the More Boring side of the chart. I thought the action in it was appropriate and each phaser and torpedo hit changed the nature of the situation. It’s a lot like Power Play in a lot of respects, especially in how the action is executed.

I’ve seen this review and the movie a bunch of times, and just noticed Kirk said “Klingon warbird” during the Kobayashi-Maru test

That was the real weakness with this movie, a bad villain whose only emotion is angry. Fortunately, this movie’s focus is on the set-up of characters, which is why this movie worked. It’s essentially a super-hero type movie, where the origin story is more interesting than the second half.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2884178/

I hated the new film, because I just felt the whole film was trying to hustle me, it had no content so instead just tried to keep moving along at a fast pace, yet without content I could not immerse myself or believe it, even transformers worked better as a movie.
The coincidences were lazy plot writing, the trans warping across solar systems dooms the follow ups to a world with too much magic, and the whole science of it was ridiculous.
Ambushing 1 billion miles away from earth and then fighting on earth maybe believable if they were moving fast, but at the same time we have to believe that they are manually driving a starship and dodging objects just a few meters away… And the federation builds mighty warships and then crews them with teenagers, yeah right.
Overall, it made the transformer movies look good, and they were drivel.

I was commenting only on the first film so thought here was appropiate, I’ve not seen the new one and probably will not bother.

While Plinkett does make a good point about the intended (low brow ) audience for this film I think this goes beyond not being too techie. There are just too many dumb moments in the film, its nothing to do with being a trekkie either. Take for example kicking Kirk off the bridge, instead of the brig they teleport him down onto a icebound planet with no supplies (death sentence), where he is promptly attacked by killer wild life – what sort of organisation is this? That sequence there was mind numbingly stupid, in fact it makes the first three star wars films look well thought out, those failures in storytelling and immersion are unforgiveable.

Ah no problem, it sounds like the two movies are equally dumb
I forgot about that scene with the classic car, again really dumb, despite him destroying a car there were no consequences to doing so, a common theme where resources do no matter which leads the (thinking) audience to just wonder if they could replace anything in a instant.

Its a good point with the transwarp technology, it does make ships with warp drives pointless (why not transwarp them around accurately?)

But I was thinking more about th story telling implications, when they establish that people can teleport onto ships anywhere then it does make it almost impossible to create a coherent plot, not a worry for J Abrams though I suspect! Actually I’m almost as disappointed by the Pinkett review, yes the film was perfectly tailored to the chosen audience (he pictured them ), but it still deserves to be thoroughly panned.

To be fair, the portable transwarp beaming device is fairly big (it’s about twice the size of a duffel bag), but seeing as how Scotty was carrying it around to show to Kirk and Spock, it’s probably not that heavy. But yeah, If I were Marcus, I’d have sent a commando team there with copies of the device on their backs to kill Khan, rather than order a captain known for disregarding orders to bombard a planet.

Yep, the plot is even less coherent then the phantom menace, at least that one was sort of vague, whereas this one is so simple it just makes me go “huh?”. Hopefully the director will be picked up by the Transformers franchise, and the star wars/star trek films he’s made are quietly forgotten.
And yep, I’m expecting his star trek films to be worse than the prequels, my guess would be a poor plot + ridiculous science and a desire to shove previous references in everywhere will be bad enough, and then there will be the lens flare…

J.J. Abrams SHOULD have directed the prequels. Thank god he made it for Episode 7. It might suck, it might be awesome, but it won’t be the prequels and you were the first people to say it. Thanks RedLetterMedia.

the star trek tv series wasn’t low budget, it was one of the, if not the, most expensive show on at the time.

DS9 really should be the kind of direction the new movies should go. It had action, but only to move the plot along. It can be dark and gritty so it doesn’t need to be so positive. And most importantly, it wasn’t that stupid.

lolwut? I just read the wikipedia for the tv series, nothing there indicates that……..

Why are you the one LOL’ing? You looked for “facts” on Wikipedia and you’re laughing at someone else? Okaaaay. Whether it says so or not shouji is correct. Listen to any of the interviews with Gene Rodenberry, Majel Rodenberry or just about anyone else involved in the production TOS. The high budget for the show and it’s low viewer numbers is one fo the reasons it was canceled.

You just figured this out? Such a smart boy. Real quick on the uptake.

Huh, so non Americans are petty, foul mouthed children who get pissy when someone points out that laughing at someone else’s statement while using information that is incorrect and from a source that every child knows can be altered by anyone on the internet? Is that what you non Americans act like? And by the way, if you’re not a Trekkie, then again why do you care if shouji’s statement was wrong? Don’t tell me you don’t give a damn or you were just joking because by your logic here is what you’ve done. You sought out a review of a movie, a Star Trek movie at that, and put in your condescending two cents on a subject you claim not to care about? Gotta tell you ace you are painting Americans in pretty sweet light here Hue hue. What ou are proving is that whatever country you claim to be from is the land of the douche nozzles, with your lack of common sense, simple minded attempts to refute someone on a subject you claim not to care about, and your inability to communicate without sounding like a pre-adolescent who learned some “cool new cuss words.” Also, use of phrases like failtard is a give away that you get your catch phrases and insults from American trolls so ya know “fail on your part there little buddy.”

Great review! Hilarious and perceptive, as always. Does anyone know the name of the song at the end (during the Reference to Star Trek bit)?

I see them too… around a little ice hole with one in the middle. At first I thought they were little poops, or Florida.

I’m not even a real Star Trek fan and even I noticed all these silly mistakes with the technology and plot. I’m pretty worried about Star Wars 7. It’ll be better than the prequels, but who cares. I could film me taking a dump and it might be better than the prequels, depending on what I ate that day.

“lolwut” is often used to indicate surprise by itself. It’s an incorrect usage, but a common one. The LOL here is not significant.

You should do a Mr. Plinkett review of Willow (1988). I loved it as a kid but it would be fun to see it nitpicked by today’s standards. For starters it has George Lucas’s name on it, and probably rips things off of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. Just don’t forget to mention the good things about it, like James Horner’s score, and Val Kilmer’s badassery, like you did with Star Trek the Star Trek!

Hah, at least the worse it is, the better the review will be to make up for it.

Gave nimoy too much cred.. One look at his IMDB shows he doesn’t really have a discerning eye for roles.

The film that was the next-to-last nail in the Star Trek coffin. Way to kill a great fictional world with another rip off of Batman horse manure.

“The Prime Directive, also known as General Order 1, or the non-interference directive was (…) one of Starfleet’s most important ethical principles: non-interference with other cultures and civilizations” … “At its core was the philosophical concept that covered personnel should refrain from interfering in the natural, unassisted, development of societies” …

“A complicated order, the Primer Directive had 47 sub-orders by the latter part of the 24th Century” … “The prime directive did not apply equally to all societies on all planets at all times… The scope of the Prime Directive varied depending on many factors… (For example, interference in purely internal affairs by Starfleet was not permitted in the Klingon Civil War) … The result was a spectrum of applications: the more closely the civilization was tied to the Federation, the greater the amount of interference in that civilization that as tolerated by the Prime Directive”.

The above is quoted from Memory Alpha, a sort of Wikipedia for Star Trek.

Wikipedia says this, however:

“The Prime Directive was indicated to apply not only to just pre-warp civilizations, but also, indeed, to any culture with whom Starfleet comes into contact. In such situations, the Prime Directive forbids any involvement with a civilization without the expressed consent or invitation of the lawful leaders of that society, and absolutely forbids any involvement whatsoever in the internal politics of a civilization. This understanding of the Prime Directive resembles the concept of Westphalian sovereignty in political science.”

So, unless the Romulans expressedly asked Ambassador Spock’s help with the supernova problem, then taking the initiative would’ve been a violation of the Prime Directive. Not the first one, to be sure, but still…

the “masses”

Oh, and Plinkett, Star Trek’s science is actually worse than Wars’. Seriously. Look up the first rule of engineering (simplest design that accomplishes the same task is the winner, in case you are too lazy). Every time Trek has tried to explain science concepts, engineering concepts, and Human anything, it has not merely failed. It has gone in the exact opposite direction of right.

It’s funny how, as the years have gone by, how my opinion of this movie has changed. At first I liked it, but as I’ve become more and more interested in Star Trek I’ve really grown to hate it for the dumb masses-pandering movie that it is. They’re as Plinkett said “Space Adventure Films set in the Future of Space”. While movies like Star Trek V and the TNG films were bad, at least they tried to come up with original stuff, these new Star Trek movies can’t even do that.

i had the notgays till i saw Rich Evans.

I love the harder science fiction of shows like ST:TNG, but like Mike, I can also appreciate this movie for what it was – Star Trek by way of Star Wars. However, that feeling doesn’t extend to “Star Trek Into Darkness”, which strayed too far into dumb schlock for me.

From the wholesale theft of things from Wrath of Khan, to the cashing-in of the as-yet-unearned friendship between Spock/Kirk, to the giant secret Federation death-ship, to using TOS Spock as a convenient deus ex machina (again!), to the more blatant and impossible-to-ignore violations of basic science and physics.

Compared to Into Darkness, things like cheating on the length of turbolift trips look almost quaint. I think my favourite (to hate) new thing in Into Darkness, were the trails of blue pixie dust left behind after ships jumped to warp.

This all fills me with hope that Abrams will be a good choice for the new Star Wars, because Abrams is a good director of action – but clearly doesn’t give a shit about the “science” in “science fiction”.

Nope, they clearly state in numerous next generation episodes that the prime directive prevents them from interfering in internal affairs (except with permission from the legal government) even among highly advanced societies like the Klingons and Romulans. So the prime directive is much stricter when dealing with pre-warp societies, but there are still rules that apply to post-warp ones.

Well okay, but I meant more in the specific terms Mike was outlining in this review – the part about not interfering in the “cosmic plan” of the universe. It may also outline how they can or can’t interfere with non-Federation space faring races, but that isn’t what Mike was talking about, since the Romulans allegedly requested the Vulcans’ help.

In fact, in the film it’s not even clear to me whether this was a Federation mission, or just one undertaken by the Vulcan Science Academy, in which case I don’t think the “Prime Directive” necessarily applies at all.

My ultimate point is that the Prime Directive isn’t some sort of suicide pact. Ignoring the preposterous science and physics about a “nearby” supernova destroying Romulus – if the planet were Vulcan instead, it’s not like the Vulcans would be forced to do nothing because that’s the “cosmic plan” for their planet.

It’s about not polluting the development and evolution of primitive cultures and civilizations, because of the potential unforeseen circumstances (like the TNG episode where they are seen as gods). But if Earth were threatened by a supernova, and the Federation had some technology to deal with it, it’s not like the Prime Directive tells them they can’t.

/ramble

Star Wars does not preen itself around, dancing like a bad stripper, proclaiming itself to have “better science” or to be “more scientific” than others. In that sense, it admits to what it is, a cowboys and Indians cum medieval fantasy set in outer space.

I will admit to getting this from a third-hand source, but Trek even has at least one scene in one series where someone, possibly even an engineer, proclaims this or that engine or teleporter design to be better because it is more complex.

Not trying is not worse than failing so completely.

As a person who has read a book called “The Physics of Star Trek” by astrophysicist Lawrence Krauss, who goes into detail about how a lot of the technology on the show is theoretically possible, and addresses actual issues presented by things like quantum physics – I’m gonna have to disagree with you. Especially when you say it doesn’t use any more actual science than Star Wars.

Some of Star Trek is technobabble, and some of it is conveniently made up technology (inertial dampeners, dilithium crystals, etc.), but it’s made-up technology to address actual physics problems.

And I called it “harder” science fiction – as in, harder than the science fiction in the Abrams Star Trek films, which I’d think is beyond question.

Huh, I just watched the Yesterdays Enterprise episode, and I realized one of the biggest complaints most people have about this movie gets a pass in the TNG universe. As Plinket points out with the alternate time line thing, what most people missed or ignored about TNG is that “everything after yesterday’s Enterprise is in an alternate universe from where TNG started out. Lt. Yar’s resurrection and the birth of Seela should never have occurred. This means that the whole thing with the Klingon civil war should never have happened. I guess Guinans Spidey sense didn’t get the message that something was still “not right” with their time line. But maybe it’s like that episode of the Simpsons where Homer keeps going back to fix things and in the end there was just one small out of place detail that he then shrugs off and says: “meh, close enough.”

I totally agree and understand your ranking gradient of Star Trek films from more/less boring good to bad. I don’t hate generations nearly as much as you do Mr Plinkett but the rest are pretty much exactly where I would put them as well. 😉

agff, please let me clarify. Some of what Trek gets wrong is literally so bad that no amount of right can make up for it. Implication that it is better because of how complex it is would be a great example, but it is far from the only one.

Any engineer can tell you the simplest design that accomplishes the same goal is the best one. The automobile industry literally thrives on that. Yet oh-so-valid Trek seemed to not get that memo.

I find that hard to reconcile with statements like what you are telling me. If Trek is good enough for Krauss, that lowers my opinion of Krauss, not heightens my opinion of Trek.

And you are right about the space fantasy thing. Which is what bugs me about people making this comparison all the time. One tries and often inobviously but glaringly fails, the other does something entirely different. But sci-fi authors like Heinlein, Dick, et al, do not write so much about warp engines or the physicalities of alien peoples so much as they explore what it means to be Human in context of an advanced society. The prequels would have been immeasurably improved by trying to do the same in context of The Force. What does it mean to be a sentient person when you can make certain people think the things you want them to think? But Lucas is nowhere near the calibre of anything required to seriously explore such ideas.

Guess what I am saying is both suck, but they go about it in different ways.

So with the part where you mention the turbolift time, I actually had a funny opposite discovery on DS9. See, the turbolift is just a device for exposition most of the time. Deep Space Nine had a peculiar moment in the episode “One Little Ship” where the Gamma Quadrant Jem’hadar is telling Sisko about his back story. It’s a significant info dump, explaining how the new Jem’hadar bred in the Alpha Quadrant are different and this and that. I didn’t notice it for several viewings, but suddenly it dawned on me… um, isn’t the Defiant only 5 decks tall? How are they not there yet?! I think the turbolift is powered by plot power, so that’s why sometimes its fast.

I actually felt Into Darkness was “deeper” than Trek ’09. The villain had a clear motivation that made sense, and they had a slight debate as to what the Federation was all about, military vs exploring, the prime directive, and the idea of letting your friends go for the greater good. It also backtracked a bit to explain why starfleet was different and more militaristic in this timeline from the original
.
But…
Benedict, though a good actor, was NOT Khan. That was the dumbest thing ever, as was the role reversal Wrath of Khan ending and the Spock cameo that ruined what should have been his farewell in 09, promising to “let the new Spock figure out his own life” and passing the torch for real. If John Harrison was just a pissed off Starfleet agent or even another Augment, it would have worked. But they played it safe and made him Khan for no damn reason but to appeal to people who knew that villain. It would have been so much better for him to be another augment as we never really got to know the other Botany Bay crew, and most of them would be close to as formidable as Khan. They could even freeze him at the end and put him next to Khansicle as a good foreshadowing cliffhanger for the masses to go “ohhhhhhh” at the end of the film/closing credits.

Even being a Star Trek fan I really enjoyed this movie, all it really needed was a better script.

Star Wars is so bad in terms of science it confused a unit of distance – a parsec – with a unit of time. Star Trek is better by comparison. Let’s not forget that Starfleet is a government run operation and as Doctor McCoy once said, “Bureaucratic mentality is the one constant in the universe.” And it’s that same bureaucratic mentality that allowed for a thermal exhaust port, which was directly connected to the Death Star’s main reactor.

I like how Worf’s daily life, or a typical Worf day consists of an unending nightmare of existential horrors. Timelines and batliff trophies and paintings from Data.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CG1dhWTVIAAqB1I.jpg

That is all.