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Well I'll tell you.
1. Big budget movie, Used Car Salesman advertising. The marketing promised that this would not be "your father's STAR TREK," whatever that meant, and preview gushers promised that this was the film that would make Star Trek, finally, "cool." Ok. This is fucking insulting, so I walked in already annoyed. I will admit that before going into anything else: I walked into that movie expecting to hate it utterly. Many times in my life, particularly with STAR TREK IV, I have done this and have been pleasantly surprised. I am not stubborn when it comes to determining whether or not I like something. I can change and have changed my mind. So you should not take from my initial resistance any sort of predetermination. However I mention it in the interest of full disclosure: I expected to hate that movie from the way the filmmakers promised it would be nothing like the Star Trek tv series and series of films on which it was based. And the promise that early reviewers made, that the most successful franchise in the history of television would now suddenly and without any precedent become "cool." Classic Star Trek had been around for decades, had spawned multiple tv series, and had been endorsed by no less a public figure than Martin Luther King, Jr. Now the director of FELICITY promised to make it "cool." Oh I get it. You don't mean lasting cultural significance; you don't mean pop culture credibility; you mean tits and explosions. I'm gonna see tits and explosions, and maybe one or two characters talking all ironical and shit. Yipee. I was going to be watching TRANSFORMERS, but with characters named Kirk and Spock and Scotty and McCoy and Uhura and Sulu and Chekov. Those iconic characters shoehorned into a cookie-cutter bullshit action plot. I learned this from the MARKETING. From the shit that was supposed to make me WANT to watch the movie. This I took as a bad sign. This was the first Star Trek movie I didn't see on its opening weekend. I was in no big hurry.
2. Time travel fixes everything. All right. Everyone knew going in that they were "rebooting" the franchise. Everyone knew that we were going to see Kirk in his Academy days, and that the series of films was going to bear only a superficial resemblance to the original tv and movie series. We had already seen this sort of thing done a few times with the James Bond franchise, and by this point we'd already had about six different Batmen. So, no big deal: you make a movie with those characters; you give them those names; you put them on an adventure. Some errors will be made, such as having Chekov on the crew, when we all know he wasn't introduced until Season Two (this error was also made in WRATH OF KHAN, when Khan remembered him even though he hadn't been in the original tv episode. I guess he met him between scenes, like in the bar or something). But this is a reboot, and it doesn't need to match the original series' continuity. So ... these screenwriters made the biggest bonehead decision they could possibly have made. They decided that they wanted to do a reboot, to use the entire cast but in a different way, and yet still have it match continuity. They decided the way to do this was TIME TRAVEL. So Spock travels from the end of his life to a time when he was in his 20s, so that he can completely change everything and create a parallel universe where everything is exactly the same but different. Now instead of small errors in continuity popping up here and there and being forgiven by all but the most diligent nerd followers of the original tv show, instead the entire show is a giant continuity error, with the filmmakers visibly waving their hands in front of our faces while repeating the mantra "time travel fixes everything." Even though everything in these characters' lives is now completely different from before, they all end up in their exact same roles, on the exact same ship, only younger. A REBOOT could have just gone ahead and done this; this story, which has the burden of claiming to credibly fit into the continuity of the original series, is completely fucking ridiculous. It's like if you went back in time to when Hitler was in high school, and by changing a few details in his early life, he'd assume control of Germany a decade earlier, and he'd appoint exactly the same cabinet. Yes, I used a Hitler analogy; this annoyed me THAT much. I'm fine with these guys throwing continuity out the window; I liked it in CASINO ROYALE, and before it, GOLDENEYE. But you can't throw continuity out the window and then come up with a ridiculous scheme for claiming that you stayed true to continuity while doing it. That's madness.
Anyway, I'm not even sure this "parallel universe" idea works within the Star Trek idea of time travel. In "City on the Edge of Forever," did Kirk and Spock and Bones travel to an Alternate Earth past, in a parallel universe? So when they let Joan Collins die, have they just made this parallel universe identical to their own? When they return through the donut of time travel, are they meeting up with their original crew, or is this the crew of a parallel universe, one where everything is the same? That seems fishy; well hell, that episode was fishy anyway. So who cares about "City on the Edge of Forever." I just use it as an example of how Star Trek time travel doesn't seem to be about creating parallel universes. I think they just stuck time travel in here so they could claim they weren't restarting Star Trek, even though obviously they were.
3. The Villain Killed Kirk's Dad as Well as Spock's Mom. Seriously. So in the future, Eric Bana has a beef with Spock for not saving his planet from being destroyed. His motives for hatred are ambiguous, but whatever. Javert was a good villain in Les Miserables, and his raison d'etre was just as stupid as this guy's. I don't care about that. What bugs me is that somehow Spock's accident sends Eric Bana back in time 25 years more than it sends Spock. So Eric Bana immediately kills Kirk's dad and noone else, and then he sits and does NOTHING for 25 years. He never resupplies his ship. He never contacts any other planet. He never even tries to go to Romulus to warn them that their sun is going to go nova in about 70 years or so. He just sits there in space with his absolutely loyal crew for 25 years. 25 fucking years! This is a mining ship; why are these guys so god damned loyal to this guy? Why did he want to kill Kirk's dad? Why did he have nothing else to do while he waited for Spock, who apparently he knew was going to come through the wormhole eventually. Why did he know that Is this something that happens in the Star Trek universe, wormholes that destroy entire planets also sometimes send spaceships back in time 25 years apart. Ah, fuck it. 25 years later, he kills Spock's mom, so Kirk and Spock bond together despite their differences and then they get him. That's the plot of this movie: a spaceship carrying some kind of indestructible mining drill goes back in time about 70 years and another spaceship goes back only 45. The one that goes back 70 is used to kill the father of the 45-year traveler's best friend, but in the past. Then the past versions of the 45-year traveler and the son of the victim of the 70-year traveler bond over killing the bad 70-year traveler. That's the plot of this movie. Fuck my life; I can't believe I watched this thing.
4. Kirk has a boner for everyone. Ha ha. A running gag in Star Trek lore is that Kirk had sex with lots of alien women. Eddie Murphy did a bit on it; I think a lot of people did bits on it. So these guys, who admit they never watched Star Trek, take this to mean that Kirk is constantly on the prowl, at the danger of discipline. I can't state this too carefully: Kirk never made a play for a crew member. The original series was far more in tune with naval discipline that any of its franchises, so I understand if this detail was forgotten. While the writers of the various spin-offs had no trouble letting senior officers bone one another, this never happened in Star Trek. This is a minor point, and if they wanted to make "horny Kirk" a running gag in a better movie, it wouldn't have bothered me. But in this one it's just another galling indication that this is a movie made by guys who openly admitted and advertised that they never watched Star Trek, they didn't like Star Trek, and that their goal was "to make Star Trek cool." To make it cool by cracking jokes about weaknesses you believe may have been in the original. Oooooookay.
5. They have an Orion girl in it and she’s horny for Kirk. See above.
6. They have a guy in a red shirt die doing something stupid, for comic relief. Also, Sulu fences. See above.
7. There's a Tribble in it. See above.
8. Kobiyashi Maru. I'd like to just say "again, see above," but this deserves a small rant. The Kobiayshi Maru test, and Kirk's refusal to fail at it, was a significant story element in THE WRATH OF KHAN. Note I say it's a STORY element and not a PLOT element. The PLOT is just the stuff that happens and the order in which it happened. In terms of that, the test has almost no significance to WRTAH OF KHAN. But in terms of STORY, which is everything, from the stuff that happens to what it means to the characters, to character development and growth, etc, in terms of STORY, the Kobiayashi Maru test is the centre of WRATH OF KHAN. This one element ties together everything that is going on between all of the characters in the movie. In STAR TREK: THE PIECE OF SHIT "REBOOT," the Kobiayashi Maru test is written in as a silly sight gag, with Kirk chewing on an apple while he's playing at it. It has no importance other than to remind people that the filmmakers may have heard of other Star Trek movies, so they thought they should reference one. Like all of the Bond sight gags squeezed nto DIE ANOTHER DAY, this make the reboot movie worse. It did not enhance it. Adding the detail that the test was now written by Spock himself made it even more ridiculous. So Spock's a teacher at an officer training academy, one which gives command grade testing to ensign candidates, and in this timeline he meets Kirk when Kirk cheated on his test? Should I believe that in the original timeline they met in exactly the same way, but then Kirk went on to assume a Midshipman role on a ship, then later Ensign, and later Lieutenant Junior Grade, then Lieutenant Senior Grade, and later Lieutenant Commander, and Commander, and then Captain, serving on several different ships and under different Captains (as referenced in episodes of the original series), in a career parallel to Spock's, before they ended up serving on a ship with the exact same name as the one the two serve on in the reboot story? All of this is just stupid. Stupid like Han Solo being raised to the rank of General? Yes. It is exactly that stupid. I've gone a bit afield from the Kobiyashi Maru rant, though, so let me get back to it. Having that test in this movie served no purpose in terms of STORY. It was no more than a gag, like sticking Boba Fett into the rerelease of STAR WARS.
9. It's just a dumb revenge movie. Honestly, everyone who says "It had good action and stuff" is ignoring that the story is about a guy who gets mad at another guy for failing to save his planet, so when he goes BACK IN TIME, all he can think to do is to kill the guy who failed to save his planet. Not destroyed it; failed to save it. And he doesn't kill him in the past; he waits for him to come back in time, even though he has no reason to know he's ever going to. What if Spock's ship went FURTHER back in time, like a thousand years, and he's already dead? Never mind; Eric Bana's agent sent him a copy of the script, so he knew if he jus sat there and did nothing, eventually old Spock would show up and then he could get his revenge by destroying Vulcan and making him watch. This is what he waited 25 years to do, to destroy Vulcan and to make Spock watch. Oh, and then to destroy Earth. ????? Gotta do that. Wouldn't be an adventure movie where a little mining ship bypasses all of Vulcan's planetary defenses to satisfy a petty revenge kick that a villain had with a guy from that planet, if he didn't then inexplicably need also to destroy Earth! Gotta have him try to destroy Earth, or who would care? Yup, that's it. So Eric Bana's goal is to destroy Vulcan while Spock watches, and then to destroy Earth, even though he thinks Spock is exiled in a cave on a dead planet and will never know he's destroyed Earth. WHEN IN YOUR PLAN ARE YOU GOING TO SAVE ROMULUS? YOU FUCKING RETARD! Yeah, whatever.
10. The "plot" is just one dumb action scene after another. I'm trying to forget that the movie started with Kirk's dad being killed by the eventual villain of the film. So for me, the film opens with an adolescent Kirk driving a muscle car through Iowa while listening to the Beastie Boys. Jesus. I can’t imagine an adolescent kid TODAY listening to The Beastie Boys, but apparently there's a Jewish rap revival in the 23rd century. In the 23rd Century. Also, is there a canyon like that in Iowa? Should I care about this? Or should I just roll ahead to the bar fight? So in this alternate timeline, Kirk is a burnout, but Chris Pike sees potential and talks him into Officer training after seeing him get into a dumb bar fight with a bunch of guys who don't have the military discipline necessary to avoid bullying strangers in bars. Yeah whatever. Then Kirk goes to school and he sneaks on the Enterprise by taking a pill that makes his hands big. Then he's shuttled sown to a planet where he's chased by a giant monster in the snow, which he outruns despite it living on that planet and probably hunting things all the time, and him just panicking and falling down a lot. Then he meets Spock in a cave on a planet roughly the size of Earth. The he beams back onto the Enterprise and Scotty is trapped in the chocolate fountain from Willy Wonka because the last scene had too much talking but it's too early to bring the villain back. Then they have to skydive onto a giant drill and fight guys who apparently live in it, because I guess this drill is immune to missiles but it's not immune to guys jumping on it. But also even though they can beam onto ships moving faster than light they cant beam onto a stationary drill that's digging into the Earth after waltzing past all of Earth's planetary defenses and probably a fleet of spaceships. Then Kirk and some people beam onto Eric Bana's ship and fistfight a bunch of fiercely loyal abd probably schizophrenic loonies who have been cooped up together for 25 years with no sense of purpose, except to do whatever their captain says, and their captain wants to kill a guy that he stranded somewhere on another planet, so let's attack Earth now, cause he said so. Then they use the magic red stuff to make a new black hole and it either destroys Eric Bana or it sends him back in time, depending on what the next movie wants.
11. The next movie will have Khan in it.
12. Uhura offers Spock a blow job. Yup; that made its way into Star Trek.
13. People get appointed to senior officer ranks just because they happen to be standing next to ship's captain when something needs to get done. Ok, the future may be different, but in the original series, Star Fleet fairly closely resembled the US Navy. So, no. A Captain could really like someone, and he could recommend a promotion, but it would still need to go up the chain of command. In this movie, Pike promotes everyone to the rank they held ten years or so later in the universe we know. Apparently noone blinks, and Kirk assumes command of the Enterprise after only a couple of years of Officer school and about a week of active duty. Meanwhile Uhura becomes Senior Communications Officer because she knows a couple of words in an obscure language. And this is on a ship that has a computer that translates languages for you.
14. Kirk nicknames McCoy "Bones" based on something he says about his recent divorce. In the original series, it's clear that "Bones" is short for "sawbones," a slang term for a surgeon. So, the writers didn’t understand this, and noone involved with the production ever questioned them, so I have to contend with the idea that in a parallel universe Kirk come up with the exact same nickname for one of his closest friends, but for a completely different reason. I know, this is a small beef, but again it's evidence of the effort put into the writing of this movie. Tits and explosions people! Tits and explosions!
15. Leonard Nimoy is in it. I know I've complained enough already about how time travel was thrown in here to pretend that this movie is a part of the original Trek continuity, but I think it was also put in here just so they could have Leonard Nimoy in it. Ok, we have a new actor playing Spock, but we got Leonard Nimoy too! Isn't that awesome? Fanboy squee! Folks who didn't even like Star Trek but watched this anyway shrug! Fucking Christ.
That's enough for now.
This post has been edited by civilian_number_two: 21 August 2010 - 04:04 PM
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