Well, I was right. The new Star Trek movie was garbage. As I sat in the theater giving myself a stomach ache with the overpriced partially-hydrogenated crap I bought in the lobby, I was overcome with disgust over the blatant scorn for originality exhibited by the makers of the newest and second worst Star Trek Movie. No whales is the only solace I take from this otherwise insulting movie.
I’ve been saying it all along. Do not make prequels. Why can’t Hollywood learn from the blasphemous mistake made by George Lucas? As if ruining Star Wars wasn’t enough, the Gods of Terrible Prequels had to go and produce the Ted Kennedy of Trek flicks including:
1. Red Matter
Hereafter referred to as Midichlorian Poop. Bad writing and scientific cop out for an easy source of singularity.
2. Uhura is Spock’s Girlfriend
Your basic internet acronym is no longer sufficient to describe my opinion on this matter and so I have augmented the usual with my own suffix: WTFCTIWHPBTWHCUWTGAIAHOGGEDTCMITETP (What the f*#% could this idiot writer have possibly been thinking when he came up with this God awful idea and how on God’s Green Earth did this crap make it through editing to production).
3. Pipes on the Enterprise
There are no fricken pipes in Star Trek! The water is magically transferred from A to B and toilets are mysteriously absent! Are there also union pipe fitters in this futuristic dystopia? This is a major violation and penalties should be created and enforced.
4. An alternate reality (yawn)
Now all we need is Ashton Kutcher with a fat sidekick sporting black lipstick combined with a child molester and violent sibling and this movie is complete.
5. Engineering
Is this the Engineering section of a starship or the set of Willy Wonka and the Bottled Water Factory?
6. Time Travel (yawn)
What this movie really lacked was Christopher Lloyd and a DeLorean. Maybe we could get Huey Louis and the News to do the soundtrack.
7. Eric Bana
As if ruining the Hulk wasn’t enough, we brought this guy back to ruin yet another Childhood joy of mine. Let’s face it folks, Bana peaked in Blackhawk Down and nothing good has come from him since. You might be thinking “what about the Achilles/Hector battle in Troy?” Sorry, that was all Pitt.
8. Beastie Boys
Come on now, this is Star Trek not a Wayans Brothers movie. Now I don’t mind Beastie Boys but this movie needs a score done by the Boston Pops or London Symphony Orchestra, not Sabotage!
9. The Bridge
Is this the command center of a starship or the Apple Store? Is Starfleet having a sale on iPhones? What happened to the arbitrarily blinking LEDs, awkward polygon shapes and the ‘box’ that Spock would look into to learn anything and everything about whatever alien ship was in front of them?
10. Kirk Arriving at the Enterprise Construction Site
This scene was completely stolen from Top Gun! Maybe we should have Kirk high five Spock and say he feels the need for warp speed. I think that would be on par with the rest of the crap in this movie. By the way, the Enterprise was built in space dock, not Iowa.
11. Enterprise Being Sucked into a Black Hole (yawn)
Your kidding right? Was this because of the unstoppable robot Maximilian and Ernie Borgnine trying to fly off with the only means of escape? Highly unoriginal and again, a cop out in lieu of legitimate writing.
Not that the movie didn’t have its good points. I thought Spock’s character was outstanding (except for the girlfriend) and the few space battles had decent enough special effects. I also liked Shaun of the Trek aka Mr. Scott.
However, if there is one thing we have learned from Star Wars, it is:
DO NOT MAKE PREQUELS! EVER!
As an added treat, here is how the movie SHOULD have gone:
~Man Overboard
Image Used in This Post
Star Trek Movie courtesy of flickr user My DotPress under the CC license.
29 Comments
Dude I couldn’t disagree with you more. Perhaps it is because I am not as big of a Trekkie as you are, but I thought this movie was probably the best Star Trek I have seen and makes me want to go back and watch the original Star Trek series. It does no good to be a movie snob and nitpick at movies over details…because anybody can find anything wrong with any movie…thats why I focus on entertainment value and it’s got it.
Without taking the movie too seriously, the special effects were great and the story/character development (team development) was just awesome. Sometimes, you need to let go of the past. I just hope they make more Star Treks with this same cast at least a couple more times. I think the effect it will have on people in theaters today, is the same effect it had on our parents back in the 60′s.
Yeah sorry Jack, gonna have to agree with Greg on this one….I absolutely loved it! The whole damn theater I was at applauded throughout the movie and gave a standing ovation when the credits came on (shrug).
Also going to have to disagree with you Jack. This film gives new blood to the series. The best Trek film since First Contact in my opinion.
Side note: Producers J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof have given hints that when they finish producing LOST next year, and after they find out how many sequels of Star Trek there will be, they will attempt to bring Steven King’s “Dark Tower” series to film….if they pull that off like they pulled off Star Trek…we’re talking a 7 film Lord of the Rings quality epic. I’m freakin psyched!
I hope that never, ever happens
Come on now people. This movie basically wiped out 40 years of a fictional storyline that has more detail and is more involved than any other in history. That’s all gone now. For example one of the most famous episodes, where Kirk was made to fight Spock to the death on Vulcan – gone. Vulcan was destroyed so no more of that episode. The episode of TNG where Spock had a Cameo – gone. What about the scene in Generations where Kirk describes his choice between marrying Antonia or joining Starfleet – gone. If Gene Rodenbury were alive today he would drop dead of disappointment.
This alternate reality crap is a bunch of horse puggy and the “entertainment value” you describe is no less insulting to a lifetime fan than Jar Jar Binks.
Thank you! What is wrong with some of these idiots?! Who but a total idiot would except such an incompetent ending such as Spock of the future just handing the answers to Kirk?! Talk about L-A-M-E!! You couldn’t even do that lame of an ending in Star Trek V The Final Frontier! Uh, screenwriting 101, You Do Not Back Your Character Into A Corner So that the proverbial “Gods of Mt Olympus” (or in this case spock) must descend and save the day! Such lazy and incompetent writing in unacceptable to anyone with an ounce of brain and standards! I’m sorry, but there are some star trek fans who are so pathetic and desperate for anything “star trek” that they would show up if all the characters did was sit around for two hours making shadow puppets! AND BY THE WAY…….J J ABRAMS IS NOT NOW NOR HAS HE EVER BEEN A STAR TREK FAN!!!! HE IS A STAR WARS FAN WHICH IS PAINFULLY OBVIOUS IN THE STYLE IN WHICH HE WRITES THIS TRAVESTY!!! Now don’t get me wrong! I love star wars but it is a completely different style! Let’s do more to keep the two series separate!
Whore – little help here?
lol – while I agree Jar Jar Binks sucked for us, he captivated millions of children attentions to the degree that the series of Star Wars has a new generation of fans…not just us fickle seniors.
I feel you because when everybody said they liked Troy, I couldn’t stand it because of how inaccurate it was based on the Iliad, Odyssey, Aeneid….but when I saw it again and didn’t focus on all it’s inaccuracies, it was a decent movie.
However, I am saying that this Star Trek was better than decent. I think if Gene were alive today, he would be amazed about how his vision/show was brought to life with special effects. Dude, I never watched a single episode of the original Star Trek…so all these episodes you listed….you and the Trekkie convention hall only know lol. Besides, I would think of this movie as separate from the any other series or movies. It’s like a new beginning . . .
Star Trek didn’t need a new beginning. It didn’t need a prequel. Bad idea, bad writing, bad movie.
Hilarious! This might be more entertaining than the actual movie.
Thanks, Phoebe. Although it would appear that the other Babelers do not share your optimistic appraisal of the situation.
I for one thought the new movie was great. It was a fresh take on an old favorite. I’ve been a fan of both the star franchises since I was a kid, and unlike some, I think it’s good that they’ve taken the series and redone it as they have. Now as far as what someone said about alternate reality or time travel having been done before, well, everything has been done before, there is no real original idea. Simpsons did it.
It is technically not a prequel because it does not lead up to the previous movies, but to a new beginning. Of course this “new beginning” as made to look an awful lot like the very beginning giving practically free reign to further movies without having to worry about all the old mythology, but keeping the cast of characters that people know and want to see. The whole plot is a self serving gift from the makers to themselves, so that the franchise may live long and prosper. Prosper in the cash sense of course, not in the cinematic, where it does look an awful lot like the Starwars prequels.
Yeah Kim…just like Batman Begins and Dark Knight….things like the Joker killing Bruce Wayne’s parents were left out as well as other details the chap the asses of the hard-cores. When all is said and done, Dark Knight whooped the ass of any Batman to date.
Sometimes, things need to be redone with current technology. I now understand how much of a bad-ass Capt. Kirk was. William Shatner just didn’t illustrate that for me.
Technology is the key to telling stories. The lightsaber duals in the original Star Wars trilogy should have been 1000X sicker than those in the prequel trilogy, however, we are dealing with 1980 technology vs. 2000 technology. Imagine Vader squaring off with Obi Won with 2010 special effects? It might be the coolest lightsaver battle ever, but the hard-core people will be able to find something wrong with it.
When I walked out of Episode I, which I believe was with you and you Jack and your sister, I was like….hmmmmmmm not too sure about that…good lightsaber and force stuff, pod-racing was neat, but Jar Jar?? Actually, I was like…lets go to the diner I need some eats..ROFL. The other night when I walked out of Star Trek, I was like….damn that was a great movie
I just watched this last night and I cn’t say thaty you pointed out anything wrong.
However keep in mind that there is nothing they could have doen with these characters that would have worked except what they did. Fuck the the big ice monsters and Uhura’a idiocy. I am not happy with the glowing bridge and a few other small details, however I can see this one growing on me if for no other reason thant they did a briliant job with the big 3.
The writing for Kirk, Spock and Bones was pretty damn good and I think we have all now seen the part that Karl Urban was born to play.
I did not love the movie but I also did not hate it. Maybe I am getting soft as I get older but fwhat I tool away from the film was an acknowledgment that you could never remake what Gene did, nor could you do anything wiht these characters as they were and have it work within the original mythology of the characters and the rest of the Universe. However while it was a cheap dirty trick to throw in time travel and the alternate reality scenario, it is the only thing that works and allows them to take the franchise onward.
The work done with Spock’s character was brilliant. It gives the writers of future Trek movies the opportunity to take the character in directions never before possible.
I wanted to hate this movie. I wanted with every fiber of my being to hate this movie. I don’t. Depending on what they do with the franchise from here will determine how much I like this flick or how quickly it will go into the throw away bin never to be spoken of again.
Probably not what you wanted Jack but it’s what I got.
I sat through two hours of this garbage today. I have followed Star Trek all of my life and loved it!! However, this film is an insult to the excellent science fiction writers who first made Star Trek happen. There is no story here, it is just horrible, when will the public and film makers realize that special effects should enhance a great story not try to carry a crappy one!!! Thanks for letting me vent.
Beau
I just saw the movie and was not crazy about it. I thought it was decent at best; I just never got the feeling I was watching anything of significance. I did however enjoy the jobs done with Bones, Kirk, and Spock.
Jack I could not agree with you more. I have put off going to see this movie because I knew from watching the trailers it was going to be nothing by disappointment. I was talked into by all my non trekker friends who said ” OMG You just have to go see this!.. It was the best movie ever.” Roddenberry would roll over in his grave if he could see what Berman has turned his franchise into. They basically flushed 40+ years of canon down the toilet to make a buck from those who only wanted to watch special effects and stuff blow up. IMO Star Trek has never been about that. While I do have to admit that it is fun I really missed the cerebral aspect of the story. I had to actually use Google when I got home to discover the message of morality in the movie. I still don’t think I get it. As for me I will continue on with Star Trek Prime (As people are already calling it) and pretend this garbage had never been made.
I’ve been a trek fan for a long time and I really wanted to like this film. From everything I heard I was supposed to love this film. I didn’t. I can take the alternate reality stuff but a story, especially a science fiction story, should be internally consistent.
The big white ice planet monster gets chomped and thrown away by the bigger red ice planet monster so it could chase the puny biped? Come on. That’s when it really lost it for me.
Sulu and Kirk can put a couple of phaser blasts into the mining drill and destroy it but the advanced Vulcans couldn’t come up with a couple of guns to do the same thing?
Kirk leaps over 4 ranks to become captain?
The outside of the Enterprise and it’s bridge look very sleek but the engine room has exposed pipes, metal, and beer vats?
The only thing they did right is call Kirk on the carpet for cheating on the Kobyashi Maru test…that one always bothered me in the traditional canon.
For me, the special effects did not save a movie with a horrible storyline and plot holes you could drive a starship through.
I know JJ Abrams is not a trekker (not even close by his own admission) but isn’t he supposed to at least be able to write?
I could go on but suffice to say I’m glad I’m not the only one alive who did not like this movie.
Thanks for letting me vent.
Well done, Harvey. Fear not, for emotional rant and anrgy tirade are the very lifeblood of this establishment.
I only saw New Beginning last night when it came to our $2 show. I could not believe I had not heard a word when it came out. Now I know why. It had every thing a Star Trek movie needs. Good looking sexy crew members, comedy, a evil enemy, and great heroism from the Captain and main crew. It had every thing but the truth. How do you totally change a whole life filled with memories?. All of the other Star Trek series and movies would not have happened. As bad as the Star Wars prequels were they still followed a truth. The ones who thought Beginnings was good, were not fans. If they wanted to do a new Sci-Fi movie, do it but don’t call it Star Trek. I really loved Scotty, but Spock and Uhura give me a break.
Many fans of the new Star Trek are like some fans I know of the prequels to Star Wars; no matter how bad they are, they will still love them. I have a friend who is a bonafide Star Wars fan, and to him it didn’t matter how bad the prequels were (in particular the boring, unwritten “Phantom Menace”), he will still defend it as a great film. This Star Trek was All Flash & Little Substance and was NOT a great film, period. I knew this film was in trouble when the BEST SCENE was the opening sequence. After that, it slowly goes downhill.
I love it when so-called “newbies” of Sci-Fi & Star Trek denegrate so-called traditional fans like The Onion parody newspaper did when they got all snarky w/ their “Fans of Star Trek decry new film as Fun & Watchable” headline. They miss the point entirely; MUST ALL MOVIES BE SO DRAMATICALLY DUMBED DOWN TO THE LEVEL OF 3 GRADE CHILD ANTICS TO APPEAL TO TODAY’S AUDIENCES & MAKE MONEY? Couldn’t JJ Abrams have shown more ambition and have made a intelligent, sweeping, dramatic, ambitious, sprawling epic that was also fun, action-packed and thoroughly watchable Star Trek acroos the board? Peter jackson did it w/ his LOTR trilogy. Don’t get me wrong; the new Star Trek is mildly entertaining at best (to the point of mind-numbing silliness…), but this film was nothing more than a misshapen tapestry of incidents transpiring at the speed of light w/o any real direction, cohesion or point to it all (except to dazzle w/ action, and no more…). It was a script devoid of any kind of sustained intelligence & drama. Example, the villian Nero was barely in the film and a terrible excuse to rehape the Star Trek universe (another dumb plot device). Let’s face it; this was just another shot at making money, period. Well, they succeeded, but given the average intelligence of summer movie goers and the media blitz this film got before it opened, it did not surprise me. I sincerely wish the new cast & crew luck, but quite frankly I was very bored w/ this film & won’t be getting in line for any new adventures.
Side note: while the cast did reasonably good job of portraying the characters including Karl Urban, I admit had a wishful hope that Gary Senise could’ve played “Bones” McCoy. I’m serious! Check him out & compare him to DeForest Kelley & you’ll see what I mean! He’s got the look, the voice, everything! What a missed opportunity…!
Nice call on Gary Senise, he is a dead ringer for McCoy.
Regarding your thoughts about Hollywood targeting the mentally less-inclined, I actually think (more like hope) there might be a light at the end of the tunnel. Perhaps this will lead to a new large niche of savvy moviegoers that the big production companies will start targeting. I’d wager that there is plenty of people who’d be willing to throw dollars at a worthy bit of film making, unfortunately it just seems safer to target the mouth breathers who spend their disposable income on bad movies and jawbreakers.
Oops! I see I made a few TYPOS…I meant to say this in this line —-
“MUST ALL MOVIES BE SO DRAMATICALLY DUMBED DOWN TO THE LEVEL OF 3 GRADE CHILD ANTICS TO APPEAL TO TODAY’S AUDIENCES JUST FOR THE SAKE OF MAKING MONEY?” My point was to compare any film of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, which hit high marks for intelligent writing, action, humour & acting and apply the same quality formula to Star Trek. In my humble opinion, JJ Abrams is not even close to being as good a director as Peter Jackson, not by a long shot. (Hmmmm…I wonder if Peter Jackson would ever consider doing a Star Trek movie?)
My anger bubbles just below the surface.
I have kept my mouth shut long enough about this movie, saying to myself over and over “give it some time…”. I just can’t hold it back anymore.
I’ve been a Trek fan since I was young (I’m almost 30 now, I grew up watching every new episode/rerun of Next Generation since the 2nd season). I loved Star Trek because it was, above all, the story of humanity as a whole, shown through the eyes of a handful of explorers. Gene Roddenberry always said that one of his main goals in creating Star Trek was to show us our potential if we could stop with war and the infighting between ourselves. It also introduced valid scientific concepts (albeit with a thick sugar coating of techno-babble) that spurned in me a life long love of physics, astronomy, and chemistry (remember the Dyson Sphere in TNG? Or the self-sentient computer program Moriarty?). The entire series has predicted thechnological problems that we are just now facing today. And even forgetting about technology, every show/movie was a character study of these complex interactions that have never before been possible. I just don’t understand this new movie. It really makes me sad more than anything is that it is all gone now. What we have is a flashy action movie with no heart, no soul. Star Trek should get a restraining order against JJ Abrahms. I’ll testify on it’s behalf!
Maybe we should just let Trek rest if this is the only way it can be ressurected.
Also, I just didn’t like 1/2 of the new cast (especially the Kirk kid) because they only seemed like 1 dimensional characters.
I could sit and go through all of the nerdy inconsistencies, but I could forgive those if only this iteration of Trek had the beating heart of “Star Trek”. It has waxed and waned over the years, but this is the first time that I feel like it has been entirely absent in a Trek title. God bless you original Star Trek series, you were thoughtful, original, cool, and just plain fun- not a flashy mess of special effects. Special effects only add to a story… they can not define a story. JJ Abrams is not Heinlin- I know that… but why not just create a Trek “like” movie if you wanted to completely change every peice of spirit that I attribute to it. Oh yet, of course, cash money. Obviously they were able to be true to Gene’s vision and still make a whole lot of money in the past. What’s changed? Is there a backlash in cinema to the intelligent “talky” movies (Whit Stillman I’m looking at you!) of the 90′s / 2000′s? There has always been a lowest common denomenator, but there has always been a great market for film makers to take the higher road. Or hell, how about just mixing the two? I really could stomach “Larry the Cable Guy” in a Trek movie if the movie was true to the franchise. I just can’t beleive the reviews were so positive for this movie, and that more Trek fans aren’t speaking out. I know that I tried for months to give it a chance because it carried the name of Trek, but now I know that I was just silly to hope I’d actually like the movie. Thanks for reading-
(PS- The biggest pet peave I have was that they promoted Kirk to captain cause he had “good instincts.” Utter drivell.)
There is a very simple reason why this movie sucked yet so many dickheads were like “wow – what a great movie!”
Firstly: I absolutely HATED this “Star Trek” movie.
For a start, it was not a “Star Trek” movie, it was an interpretation by a “Star Wars” fan (JJ Abrahams) who needs a severe IQ boost to even begin to conceive what Star Trek is all about it. Star Wars was entertaining but it was nowhere near as Well written as Star Trek. Star Wars was “Action” – Star Trek has always been “Drama.”
Abrahms has DELIBERATELY SABOTAGED a 40+ year franchise. This movie WILL NOT STAND THE TEST OF TIME. Already people have forgotten it, as another “CGI laden” action movie with not much substance and almost completely devoid of the essential ingredients that made Star Trek what it is.
This new movie is written and produced for the HOMER SIMPSON majority population. And because the Homer Simpsons of the world are the MAJORITY, they by sheer numbers alone, have MONEY that the Studio WANTS and simply by appealing to the shallow, I-have-to-rely-on-drugs-to-handle-all-my-problems, greater percentage of people, they get what they were after : THEIR MONEY.
The truth of the matter is : THIS MOVIE SUCKS BALLS AND WILL ONLY APPEAL TO THE LOW INTELLECT MAJORITY HOMER SIMPSON TYPES WHO LIKE CGI MOVIES FULL OF ACTION AND NO SUBSTANCE. THESE SAME PEOPLE PROBABLY REALLY GOT OFF ON THE 2 “TRANSFORMERS” MOVIES AND “GI JOE” AND PROBABLY CHEATED THEIR WAY THROUGH COLLEGE AND CAN REALLY RELATE WITH THE PEOPLE OF CAMDEN COUNTY IN “MY NAME IS EARL”
Earl and Randy Hickey would have loved the new Star Trek movie.
It’s for them and everyone like them.
Unfortunately they outnumber the SMART people who appreciate and can understand Star Trek for what it is.
JJ Abahams middle name is Homer Simpson.
this film sucked.
it is on par with the star wars prequels, i liken it to transformers 2 good effects o so poor painful thin story line.
just a little depth would have been nice, good vs evil – good wins. is that enough for you, were is the plot or plot twist. clever writing anyone?
i scoured the net to make sure i wasnt going out of my mind, at first it seems i was as most critics give the movie 10 out of ten, and alot of comments agree.
i was pleased to see some agreeung with me, im not a trekkie but i know a decent film when i se one, this one had me reaching for the laptop halfway through.
ice monsters, 12 year old enterprise crew, kirk just demands to be captain and takes a seat wtf?, dodgey one liners to camera (only arnie can pull this off all other actors take note), crew member starts snogging spok were did that come from, kirk actor suited to fast and the furious not star trek who cast this fool?
rant over, s%ite film.
I must say that the movie was the saddest piece of horse pucky I’ve ever seen. I am so tried of alternate time lines! It seems like the movies produced today have lots of special effects with little story line. For myself, don’t mess with the Trek time line and no one will get hurt
.
I award double points for that comment in the off chance that “horse pucky” was an obscure Maximum Overdrive reference.