Star Trek! (Spoilers)

[Gavin Greenwalt]

So what did you all think?

I think it started better than it finished.
A few too many 'oh well isn't that convenient' moments. Even by Star Trek standards. :D "What? You're trapped on an ice planet with nobody for dozens of km... but you ran into Spock's cave? What a coincidence! Oh and spock can teleport you back to the enterprise? How convenient! Oh the Autopilot functionality to automatically target missiles... failed? And the backups? And the backup backups?'

But despite it all I thought it was fun and delivered on entertainment, character and spectacle.

I did feel some scenes were shot a bit "TVish" with too much closeup work for an epic theatrical film. Backing the camera out a bit to let the action play out would have been nice. "Fight scene via ECU on faces" is more frustrating than energetic.

I'd give it **** out of 5. I would love to see more set in this star trek universe.

[Tom Lowe]

I enjoyed it. I'm not a Star Trek fan, but I do like the idea of scifi and space battles and all that -- taking advantage of all the new FX technology. The characters in this movie were really good. That was the strong point. The plot was incredibly simple, though. A bad guy is angry and wants to blow up the world, so they have to stop him. That's pretty much the whole plot.

The visuals were good. They reminded me in places of Revenge of the Sith. The enemy ship was awesome.

I thought the final coda where they "introduce" the crew -- "Scotty checking in!" -- was over the top fan service and cheesy, but who knows.

IMO, this gets to a point I often try to make on these forums. With major franchise pictures like this, including major reboots, it ALL comes down to the director. This is why the Batman reboot worked -- Nolan. Without Nolan you have nothing. Give Batman to Joel Schumacher and you get one of the worst movies ever made. Give it Nolan, and you get something praise-worthy. This is why giving the Terminator franchise to McG was a major mistake, IMO. But I guess we will find out soon enough how that worked out.

In the case of Star Trek, I think JJ is a good director, not a great one for features. So you get a good movie, not a great one.

It all comes down to the director, IMHO.

This is another reason I would like to see the Bond franchise helmed by more serious and talented directors.

[PaulClements]

I just watched Star Trek and have to admit, I really enjoyed it. Perhaps a little simple plotwise occassionally but certainly an enjoyable couple of hours. I really liked the effects, they paid so much attention to how the scenes would have looked if actually shot with the same anamoprhic lenses the rest of the movie was shot with that it gave it a far more believable aesthetic than many space based movies. Compare some of the scenes in space with say the opening sequence of the most recent starwars film and visually star trek was in a different league for me. I also agree Tom that the characters were very strong indeed, which is no mean feet considering the weight of expectation on them.

Tom, don't you like the more recent Bonds then? I think on a whole they've been very good. The scene at the opera in the last bond was brilliantly done and was certainly a movie that is far better the second time round.

I agree that Nolan brought something fresh to the Batman series, he couldn't have done worse than the few films that went before him. Though I think sometimes he could tell the story a little quicker than he does in many of his movies, his pacing is sometimes a little off for me and things start to drag a little occassionally.

Whilst a lot of it comes down to the director without a great script, great talent and great crew the film would be nothing, but yeah a good director at the helm is a good start to a great movie.

Paul

[William Robinette]

Originally Posted by Gavin Greenwalt

Oh the Autopilot functionality to automatically target missiles... failed? And the backups? And the backup backups?'

The self destruct on the Enterprise-E was disabled one time, things like that happen in Trek all the time.

It was good, but the style (while good) was not Trek, and I don't know if that is a good or bad thing just yet.

[Tom Lowe]

Originally Posted by PaulClements

Whilst a lot of it comes down to the director without a great script, great talent and great crew the film would be nothing, but yeah a good director at the helm is a good start to a great movie.

A great director will only accept a great script, or he will write it himself. And he will only work with the best cast and crew. It's up to a great director to bring the best out in everyone. So for me, it all comes down to picking a great, talented director if you are hoping to do something great with a pre-existing franchise. But of course, as you say, without awesome actors and crew, you would have nothing.

In terms of the recent James Bonds films, I like them. The franchise hit an all-time low when Pierce Brosnan did that ridiculous CGI stunt windsurfing over the exploding icebergs or whatever. That series was in bad shape.

I do not like the fast "Borne" style editing of the new ones. Also, I think they badly lack a sense of humor and style we come to expect from Bond. But I'm giving the producers the benefit of the doubt. I'm hoping that Bond starts out as a crude killer, then morphs into the debonair guy who is just as comfortable cleaning out a table at the casino as he is cleaning out bad guys with a sub machine gun. Craig has been saying in interviews that there might be more humor, style and possibly even gadgets in the next one.

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Originally Posted by William Robinette

The self destruct on the Enterprise-E was disabled one time, things like that happen in Trek all the time.

It was good, but the style (while good) was not Trek, and I don't know if that is a good or bad thing just yet.

Self Destruct seems like something that might go awry. After all you don't want a self destruct that's too easy to activate. :D

But shooting down torpedos with the phasers by effectively pushing "Do" over and over again is something a palm pilot should handle in the future.

Calculating firing trajectories in space could be run on a TI-83 for all 43 phaser banks. Meanwhile the computer was still synthesizing a voice telling him things. Alerting him he was on a collision course. Managing the matter-antimatter reactions. Successfully keeping the impulse drive tuned. Keeping the lights on. Rendering a 3D navigational display for his console.

It was like EVERYTHING on the ship seemed to be functioning just fine except for the one thing which would keep him alive. To me that's incredibly contrived and just sloppy writing. That and running into spock on a desolate planet by happenchance were the only two moments that were so terribly thought out that I actually stopped enjoying the movie. The rest of the time I was having too much fun to care.

That being said:
It's a mining ship... that seems to be incredibly well armed... I find the mining ship claim dubious. More improvisational weaponry seems like it would be in order.

The drilling process was pointless. Just drop a black hole right next to the planet and wait an extra 5 seconds for it to do its thing. The original plan was to just drop off a drop next to the star. No drilling necessary. The drilling was sort of a big question mark for me.

They're drilling into earth.... the headquarters of the federation... and NOBODY on earth thinks to shoot a torpedo at it? Nobody has a shuttle they can fly into it heroically? It's an incredibly vulnerable target. (Even though it's ultimately useless as a weapon)

Why even send down sky divers. Just put a torpedo on a parachute if it just takes a few disrupter blasts to knock it out.

If it only takes a drop of that stuff to stop the supernova why does Spock have a whole universe destroying boat load on his ship?

Don't get me wrong. It was fun. But it was fun in spite of its dumb contrived scenes.

[David Collard]

Very Good movie but I wouldn't rush out to see it. Eric Banna's bad guy character was disappointing. Not much range. Very good acting all around with everyone else.
The ice planet location was cool but I never really like it when a good guy interferes with certain death.
Weird to see Leonard Nimoy so old. Good make-up perhaps.

[PaulClements]

Originally Posted by Tom

In terms of the recent James Bonds films, I like them. The franchise hit an all-time low when Pierce Brosnan did that ridiculous CGI stunt windsurfing over the exploding icebergs or whatever. That series was in bad shape.

Couldn't agree more about Bond and THAT movie, an invisible Aston Martin? WTF? Terrible.

Paul

[Zakaree Sandberg]

entertaining... however... im officially turned off by anamorphic lenses.

[Zac C]

I have to say, i did see a ton of lens flares... and CGI shot lens flares, where you could see the CGI dust on the lens..... and I did chuckle a bit on that... lol