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6.05.09 # Review # 18 Comments
The Star Trek reviews have arrived. Will the movie have the critics beaming and feeling up?
This is the first movie Leonard Nimoy has been in for 17 years. It’s also the first time Tyler Perry has acted in a movie he didn’t make (he plays the head of Starfleet Academy).
Also keep an eye out for Christopher Doohan, real life son of late ‘Scotty’ actor James Doohan, who has a cameo role as Simon Pegg’s assistant.
Rebooting a franchise with an origin story worked for Batman Begins, but didn’t work for Dumb And Dumberer. How will Star Trek fare? Here’s what the movie critics are saying -
Variety -
Blasting onto the screen at warp speed and remaining there for two hours, the new and improved “Star Trek” will transport fans to sci-fi nirvana. Faithful enough to the spirit and key particulars of Gene Roddenberry’s original conception to keep its torchbearers happy but, more crucially, exciting on its own terms in a way that makes familiarity with the franchise irrelevant
“Paced at warp speed with spectacular action sequences rendered brilliantly and with a cast so expert that all the familiar characters are instantly identifiable. …Special effects, cinematography and production design are top-notch…one slight disappointment is the derivative score [which] includes Alexander Courage’s original theme only at the end.”
“…immensely satisfying Star Trek prequel. …Much of the film’s success is down to its casting. Particularly impressive are Pine and Quinto. …For the first time, Star Trek looks as if it might have more of a future than Star Wars.”
Star Trek currently holds a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes from 35 reviews.
Leave your own Star Trek reviews in the comments.
Arnold Rave
Posted by 
sweet, can’t wait to check this out. 100% rating? that’s impressive.
All the reviews are pretty good. Can’t wait to see this film.
Easter eggs:
Christopher Doohan can be seen in the transporter scenes, where he is the co-beamer.
A Tribble can be seen in Scotty’s coat pocket on delta Vega
It may drop from 100% before Friday as more reviews come in, but it’s already got 35 reviews, and all of the nation’s most respected critics have seen it and given it a glowing write up.
This new Trek will be a booster shot in the arm for a country in need of a strong dose of optimism.It will be the antidote to the dark, edgy fare we’ve seen in summer blockbusters of recent years. Sit back. Enjoy! Feel great!
I live in NZ and just saw the film.
Pros: Casting surprisingly good. McCoy is fantastic, and Scotty is good fun. The actors (when given the opportunity–see below) play off each other very well.
Cons: The camera operator and editor should be shot. This is Star Trek, not the Transformers. The editing is fast, the camera never stops moving, and I was nearly ill watching the intro. Visually, the beginning was akin to the intro of “Revenge of the Sith”, in other words, like a video game.
Trek is not and never was an action series. Even the episodes including the Borg were more about philosophy than weaponry. They have a fine cast, but they spent much too much time on effects and not enough on developing their relationships. Too bad, since the actors are good.
cant wait to go see it, even the girlfriend is excited to go see it, and ive never seen 1 star trek movie or episode of the show in my life, it just looks that good.
I loved this movie. I was a little bit afraid that they writers would mess the movie. I will still crossing my fingers and hoping for the best. I have been watching start treak for about 25 years and I am only 32. My mom watched it as she was growing up when the series first started. So, when it was in reruns the orginal she would tell me about it and get me to watch it. My uncle was a Trekkie. When the STNG movies were out. We would be the first to see them. He died 12 years ago and I watched this new movie. I know he would have enjoyed this movie. I hope that every one will go see it. It has something for the old fans and it has something for the people who have never seen it before.
***** MAJOR SPOILERS — DO NOT READ UNTIL AFTER YOU’VE SEEN IT *****
Ok, I was looking forward to this movie..I’m pretty disappointed.
I know people wanted to re freshen Trek etc but I just
wish that JJ Abrams respected the prior story lines
when setting about doing this movie.
I am talking chiefly about the destruction of a certain planet. I thought that was insane. It sucks all prior
Star Trek movies into the blackhole too. How can Search For Spock happen without it? They say “oh but it’s a
new alternate universe now etc” blah blah blah!
It’s a license for Paramount to do what they want with
the story now as they have given themselves a clean slate.
Pity it destroys over 40 years of prior history and stories along with that new start.
I am gutted, sorry.
I only hope they have a way to restore the order and bring it back (and Spock’s mother)
Don’t put big spoilers in your comments guys, a lot of people haven’t seen it yet.
Spoilers Below. If you haven’t seen the film, please don’t read my review, but take it from me, the film is awesome.
I felt this movie was absolutely phenomenal. This actually feels what being in space would actually be like. In my review I’ll run through several points. First is the Characters. I thought Nero was a fantastic villain, though more screentime could have been devoted to him and his crew. I wasn’t expecting Nero to be half the badass he was. The first scene, he’s quite silent, then he just leaps up and impales the Captain of the Kelvin. Woah! I literally sat there in my seat and thought, holy crap! This IS a villain! I thought Pine did a great job as a disgruntled, young Kirk who eventually learns to take his work seriously, and gains the respect from his crew. Quinto did a fantastic job as Spock, who captured extremely well his half-human, half-Vulcan heritage, and he even looks exactly like a young Spock. The same goes for the other characters; they do share a somewhat similar look to the original cast, while still keeping solid character development together. One fear I had when I went to see this film was what First Contact tried to do; it tried to give each character equal screentime. This film does not do that. The focus is on Kirk and Spock. Though I did feel they could have developed Nero more.
Second point is the story. For once we actually have a very good internal conflict; Nero actually has a valid reason to be angry about what has happened. And for me one thing which really struck me as a solid story is how Nero actually became angry in the first place. For a while we as the audience don’t actually know why he is angry. We know he is searching for Spock, and when he captures Captain Pike, he claims about Romulus “I saw it happen!” The story development here of keeping us in suspense is very well done. While I’m on the subject of Nero, one point I’d like to re-address about characters is how Nero is portrayed. When interrogating Pine, Nero gets Pine to answer his question by allowing a menacing looking beetle (which looks more like a Scorpion) to embed its self in his brain. Now Nero could have used somekind of syrum that caused pain. No. He used something that I would squirm at at the mere sight of it, and to use something that embeds its self into your brain is evidence that the storywriters really wanted Nero as a vicious character. And they succeeded.
I was quite shocked the planet destroyed was Vulcan, but then again, I wasn’t really that bothered. The continuity was altered immensely, but then again this is an alternate timeline, and though I am a trek fan,(not a trekkie) I couldn’t care less which planet it was, it emphasised the lengths which Nero would go to get his revenge.
Third point is the effects and the score. I thought the musical score was brilliant, it was heavily endearing and it did this movie justice. The effects were also wonderful. I couldn’t tell whether the scenes in space was CGI or someone had actually built models of these things, gone into space with them and filmed from up there. The scenes looked so life-like, and it certainly felt as if every scene was designed to be a work of art, much how 300 did. I also thoroughly enjoyed the realism of this movie. Motorcycles, police, and even Nokia has survived to the 23rd century. The new warp sounds, the new phasers, everything has been revamped and it works fantastically well.
Overall, I conclude that this movie works, because it abandons the formula of other Trek films. It doesn’t bedazzle you with technobabble that you don’t understand, it keeps that to a minimum. While the Enterprise from the original series looked like some ramshackle vessel, the new Enterprise looks extraordinarily beautiful. I’m tempted to go out and buy a model of the thing because it’s so fantastic. The story is solid, for once there’s no villain wanting to destroy the Federation for no apparent reason. I actually felt sympathy for Nero, after having witnessed the destruction of his world because of someone else’s faults, who wouldn’t be hacked off? I thoroughly recommend this film to anyone, FINALLY, the screenwriters have made a Star Trek movie, not for Star Trek fans, but for a film audience. This will draw in a new generation of trek fans, and this film is definately worthy of a sequel (at the end, the Narada is never actually shown exploding or being destroyed, it is just sucked into a singularity …..). My rating:
10,000,000,000,000,000 / 10
Thats how good this film is.
The movie looks good im gonna go see it
Should have been a PG. I went with my dad and took 2 of my sons (9 & 7) and started out thinking “this must have been what it was like going to the movies when star wars first came out”. My opinion soon changed though, as this is far more realistic than Star Wars and loses the magic/spiritual side.
We all liked it. It was very slick and cool. All the characters were great, I was impressed by Chekov and Bones and relieved Simon Pegg managed to get Scottie right! There are also some great scenes of Spock in Vulcan school. I think we should adopt those learning pits over here!
One thing I wasn’t expecting was the comedy, there were lots of LOLs from around me in the cinema. The contrast helped to make the dramatic scenes even more tense.
One issue I had with the film is that the SFX were too perfect. The CGI is so believable, it is almost unimpressive. 15 years ago you wouldn’t be able to believe the realism but now it is almost second nature, sad but true. The soundtrack is set to overkill, imposing over scenes with unecessary oompahs and “Lost” style groans.
Thankfully, the story is great with loads of emotion and character development. I’m not sure if the whole time-travel theory actually works but that is another topic altogether! I would definately like to see some sequels come out
I just watched STAR TREK and it is unbelievable. I am a moderate treky . However I understood the storyline very clearly. The characters were recognizable immediately, But the way they blended in the original characters and story
line with the new age sci-fi thriller is nothing less than genius. ( I felt like I was 12 yrs old all over again)
I saw this movie and I thought it was going to be good. I have to say that It was just a thought. My uncle used to take me to the conventions when I was little so I am aware of the real story not the distorted version that this guy told jj abrams. Captain kirk had an older brother and he was not born on a ship. he was born in Iowa. Captain Pike he had a first officer that was a women. Uhura well that was a slap back to slavery the only thing missing was yessa boss… It even stole the notion of the the first interacial kiss… Captain kirk had an older brother George Samuel Kirk… which Jim kirk called Sam. This movie went against the whole thing that Gene Roddenberry stood for that if it could not be proven it was not aired. If a star is gonna supernova .. come on trekkies you evacuate the planet…. not inject a red dye in the core of the planet.. be for real… The actors were okay but the movie stunk I hate to hear what my Uncle is saying about this movie…. After all he s a bigger fan then I am but I enjoyed watching the original episodes with him. If your gonna tell a story that has deep roots and a fan base… then take a note from a real story teller George Lucas who did prequels that the story matched up to the original movie that we all had seen. It is a shame that nobody read michael and denise okuda’s book if they did they would not have missed so much of the real story instead of this crap. The movie was disappointing… it never spoke of the so many characters that made them who they were.. where was gary mitchell? where was Lt.Kelso ? where was Dr. Carol Marcus? What happened to Ben finney ? Where was Finnegan???? this was not a reboot it was a travesty….
Spoilers and such
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The acting was decent. The story was okay, except the story behind Spock and Nero’s trip from the future is horrible. A supernova threatened the galaxy? What? Supernovas happen very often to no ill effect! Why would they send a really old ambassader alone to save a planet? Why did the Romulans not have any Red Matter? For that matter, how the hell did the Romulans not see this coming? There’s no possible way it would have been in range of the supernova (a supergiant star is way too volatile to support life), and even if it HAD been in range the Romulans should have known about it for at least hundreds of years! We know how old our sun is! Why didn’t they? -_-
In addition, the part at the end where old Spock talks to young Spock…he endagered the earth and the rest of the Federation so Kirk and his younger self could learn the power of friendship? Are you kidding?
And the destroying 40 years of history, all the other movies and shows…yeah. I am not even that big of a Star Trek fan, and this movie irritated the hell out of me.