Abrams delivers a crowd pleaser on a collosal scale; my oh my what his Superman film woulda been.

A

I think Tyler Perry should've appeared in drag here.

I also thought of Superman while watching Trek as well. Could have been a great reboot.

What else can I say that others havnt already. JJ Abram's Star Trek gives us an engaging plotline, strong characters and amazing visuals to set the bar for sci-fi action. All acting is top notch and I quite enjoyed the soundtrack.

My hopes were high but it delivered. Ive never been a Trek fan but now I think i'll check out some of the prevous films.

Grade: A

All other ships were deployed. The remainder of the fleet with mostly cadets went to assist Vulcan, and besides Enterprise all ships have been destroyed. And Pike told them the codes for entering Earth's space. Don't see what the problem with that. I presume Fleet ships are sending the same codes so the defense system would recognize them. Star Fleet was also never the one with the best technology.

Not really much wrong with this movie. The effects were great. The acting was great. The story was really good. The music was average. But one thing was... I never really connected with the movie.

Oh... and my favorite part was when she ordered a SLUSHO drink! YAY!

***.5/****

How did I piss all over the franchise...?

If this is what had Variante Ascari's panties in a knot --

Nemesis was an enormous flop and Enterprise's ratings were mediocre compared to past series, so it's not a stretch to say this franchise had gone dormant before Abrams began developing this film.

And, face it, lots of people despise Star Trek, or thought they did. For a great deal of people, it was a total joke. They thought of it this way -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBnflnDArlk

I don't see how either of these valid points constitutes pissing all over the franchise.

All due respect for the classic theme but i found its inclusion right at the end extremely cheesy. They should have played that sometime later, in the 2nd half of the end credits.

I'm still pissed that the soundtrack basically blows. Just rewatching old Trek and most of them feature superior music. Giacchino should have stayed away from this.

The FX and the cinematography were surprisingly nice to me. The story was nice too not great but I just dont care much for the characters that much. Despite this, I would give it a strong B+. I still found that the bad makeup on that green lady standing out too much against the other aliens

that was about the only bad thing in the movie.

I started to get excited a couple of weeks ago, but damn this blew right by my expectations. It does a wonderful job of bringing new ideas to the table while still managing to keep the spirit of the original TV show. And one thing that took me completely by surprise was how good a job the film does in handling the comedy (Karl Urban doing a spot on DeForest Kelly) and emotion (especially during the first 15 minutes). There's not one false moment in the film. Then there's the cast. From top to bottom they're pretty much perfect. Pine finds the right balance for Kirk. He kept the cockiness of Kirk that Shatner brought to the role yet he's not impersonating Shatner (thank God), though I think during the training sequence he is. Zachary Quinto also does a fine job. Actually, the entire cast does a great job.

One thing that I thought was going to be bug me that bugged me with parts II, III, and IV was the lack of Jerry Goldsmith's score. My worries disappeared within the first ten minutes. Michael Giacchino's score is absolutely beautiful. It's easily the best score for a Trek film outside of the first film.

Abrams, Orci and Kurtzman deserve the high praise they're getting (get Orci and Kurtzman on Superman now!). This is just as good as Casino Royale and Batman Begins. Well done.

****

I thought Michael Giacchino's score was excellent. I bought the soundtrack. The only problem with it: the cheesy song titles.

"Hella Bar Talk"
"Nice to Meld You" (seriously...)
"Does It Still McFly?"
"That New Car Smell"

I would like to hereby announce that I am taking the rare step of changing my rating on a film. In 99.999% of cases, I stand by my ratings to the death, however, as some long term KJ'ers' may remember, this is not my first raised rating.

I went to see Star Trek for a second time today, since I have a standing reservation to see every new Star Trek movie with two hardcore Trekkies I know, and today turned out to be that day.

And as I watched it unreel for the second time, I started to understand what the common man was seeing in this movie.

It's meta-camp.

It is a cursory retelling of a classic tale. It hits the high notes, and pushes the nostalgia buttons, all without having to have us ever engage those old neuron thrusters in our noggins. Once I let go of the depth of the idea of Star Trek, I started to bob on the surface gleam of this bauble with those around me. Yeah... it's trash, but what shiny trash it is!

To help myself process these conflicting reactions, I started to think of it as Stupid Trek, a purposely dumbed down version of the glory that was Star Trek, for the inclusion of those less fortunate in the endowment of their brain bucket. As I let the complexities of philosophy and psychology drain away from my expectations, the film rose to meet my growing retardation. Through Trek I achieved a state of mindless bliss.

Naturally, I'm still quite disturbed with it's facist pro-military undertones - - that's a u-turn from the franchises' founding message of exploration, peace, and diplomacy. But then, we can't forget who's sponsoring these mind melders nowadays... the media wing of the transnational corporate oligarchy, of course. Compliant patriotic simpletons who laugh at parroted catchphrases are an invaluable asset to the cause. But that's just political quibbling - - let's not worry our pretty little heads about that...

...because when I view the movie from this new flared perspective, I have no alternative than to raise my rating. It is a prime example of the sparkling zirconian fantasies we manufacture in our dream factories these days.

It's so damn 2009, it hurts.


out of

Bradley, forgive me for having to say this, but yours is a shockingly condescending and superior review considering you love F&F tokyo drift, crank 2, etc. etc.

Could you please tell me if some of the tracks start/have an accord similar to the ones you hear in this video from 0:33 to 0:40 for example.
I liked the music, but every time I heard that short piece of music I had to think about Sith.

77% or C-.

I definitely feel like I am missing something here. As far as Star Trek Movies go this is better then most of the recent ones but no where near as good as Kahn, Voyage Home, and the one where they go back in time with the Warp engine. They be spoilers coming up.

I can forgive a lot of this movie the Special effects are nice but there are some things I just couldn't suspend my belief for because it was too much for even a star trek movie. Stuff like why didn't they just shoot the drills with torpedos early or why does Nero have to drill to the center of planet if all he was gona do is drop a black hole on the planet anyways it doesn't matter where it lands. The obvious answer was it is too stretch and increase tension.(though unneccessary if earth were to be consumed by a black hole it would take a few hours perhaps even days and I am pretty sure with Vulcan they could of had some cool scenes with that)

The Uhara/Spock relationship was just bad and out of character for Uhara. I actually kind of liked the enhanced emotional Spock but Uhara seemed to far out of character to me. The use of roads also kind of botehred me(would they even be selling gas in the 2200s?) and would cops act the same way that whole part felt a bit SW prequlish. Along that same note the increased number of aliens gave that same vibe. The original series wasn't that loaded and it felt awkard to see that in the movie.

Time Travel is a theme that has run constant through Star Trek they pretty much only ever had one timeline and not alternate realities(aka classical relativity) but the new trek broke that consistency and made it more like String Theory or Quantam mechanical kind of neglecting internal continuity of the series even for a device that is as flexable for such a thing like time travel.

Other things felt a little forced like making Kirk a first officer immediately.

The Humor was hit or miss some of it felt to Slapstick like Kirks reaction to the Vaccine or Chekovs accent or scottie and his alien buddy nothing really make laugh but there was definitely some decent humor there.

The use of Leonard Nimoy felt very Deus Ex Machina but was made neccesary by the fact that the main villian has such little screen time and the story about the red matter and the supernova was a fairly weak set up IMO.

OK those negatives out of the way. I was really impressed by Urban's McCoy and the use of a planets atmosphere was pretty creative in this movie almost matching the nebula in Kahn. the Special Effects as noted are amazing and effective. the movie moves along at a nice clip and is well put together.

Overall I found the movie to be bit messy and would probably have been more enjoyable had it not been a trek film.

Best Trek Films

1. ST2:Wrath of Kahn
2. ST4:Voyage Home
3. ST8: First Contact(only decent)
4 ST11:Star Trek

Disappointing. Found it a bit shallow.

C-

I had an even better time the the 2nd time around, not being burdened by the baggage of expectations, plus listening to the original english voices helped, too. I'm leaning towards a score of 9 out of 10 now.

well didn't this new Star Trek basically cancel out all previous Star Trek moments and start over when they came back in time. Now we are starting over with a brand new clean slate Star Trek.

Aren't the only carry-overs, the old Spock and the Vulcans that were saved?

one other wierd thing or mistake? was Spoke & Uhura, that was wierd, came out of nowhere and didn't really make sense?

aw it last night; it's as good as everyone has said.

My only two (minor) complaints which do not, in any way, reduce my grade of A:

1. Too much hand held camera. I really hate it when the camera jiggles around. I shouldn't be noticing the camera movement. Come on, you spent how many millions on this film and you can't buy a tripod?

2. The ice planet fight with the CGI monsters. Added nothing to the plot, didn't look realistic enough, and made me think of Starship Troopers. Meh.

But the casting was great, and all of the actors did a good job "impersonating" the originals. I mean, you didn't have to introduce them at all. I knew instantly who McCoy and Scotty were, for instance.

And the little touches that referred to the old series were fun: Sulu's skill at fencing, Pike in a wheelchair, Kirk and the green skinned woman, "Dammit, I'm a doctor not a <not-a-doctor>"...

On 2 above, if that didn't happen he wouldn't have found old Spock as he wouldn't have gone into the tunnel and would have walked straight by, going to the space base.

For me the only wierd thing, was the relationship between Young Spock and Uhura. Thta couldn't have happened in the old series, unless Spock changed and went totally logical.

also will the Spock Uhura relationship continue and leave out Kirk???

Yeah, and 96% of all those critics who always fall for the hype just proves your point.

Nah, there are other ways they could have met. He could have met Spock at the base. Why was Spock sitting in a cave anyway? Why didn't he go to the base? That would be logical. Or the storm could have gotten worse, forcing Kirk in there.

It just seemed to be a "We can't go five minutes without some action" add on.