The new Star Trek movie, did they give homage to a legend or fail miserably?

i think it was good.

I thought it was a fantastic movie. Tons of adventurous fun. I thought they nailed the characters, were respectful of the original while modernizing the franchise.

But, I’m not a faithful “trekie” and not too concerned with the minutia.

Not a bad movie, just not a great Star Trek…

It was a failure. An insult and a disgrace to the franchise.

@ragingloli: “a failure”, “a disgrace”... really?!?

Why do you think so?

Amazing movie and i think it was very needed to revitalize the franchise for new audiences.

It was interesting and fun, but it wasn’t Star Trek.

Star Trek is supposed to be a social critique. It is supposed to deal with important issues of human society, like war, slavery, racism, gender equality, poverty, etc.. Every Star Trek Movie before this one covered themes like this.
This movie had nothing of this.
Instead, it was a mindless action movie with excessive lensflare.
It didn’t even follow the basic structure of any good movie, e.g. beginning slowly and steadily leading to a climax, with a short epilogue.
What this movie did was start off with a loud space battle, then rush through some superficial backstory of the characters, then more space battles and combat until the end with the occasional superficial introduction of more characters.
At no point in the movie could I say “Yes, this is the climax.”, because the intensity was always identical.
So to make a verdict, not only was this movie a failure as a Star Trek movie, by failing to adhere to basic dramaturgical structures, it was not even a good science fiction movie.
What this movie did was opening up the Star Trek franchise to people who prefer to shut off their brains when watching it and instead pay no heed to plots and drool at explosions, laser blasts and fist fights.

I despise this movie. It killed the franchise.

@ragingloli: I understand your point about the lack of “social critique”.

@ragingloli one of JJ Abrams “things” is starting the story midpoint, or at the end, then going back to the beginning. See: The pilot episode of “Alias”, “Mission Impossible 3”, etc. The beginning was excellent in that it drew people in, was fast-paced, and created an emotional touchstone for the movie. But who says movies have to start out slow? half of the reviews i read from major critics or anyone start with “The movie started slow, but…”.

yes, there was too much lens flare, and Abrams has stated as much.

as regards social critique, yes, it didn’t have some heavy-handed moral (the environment, democracy, etc.). But, again, half of the time, people panned the moral part of the story. Especially at this time, people don’t want to be beat over the head with a life lesson. They want movies as a means of escape. That’s probably why Transformers 2, despite all it’s flaws, is the highest grossing movie this year. It’s escapism, which is what movies are supposed to be. You want someone dropping life lessons, go see a documentary or watch Lifetime Network.

It seems to me that you wanted another cliched star trek movie. my guess is you didn’t like the James Bond reboot, nor the Batman movies.

This movie was great, because you totally don’t have to be a Star Trek fan to enjoy it, even more so than the previous films, and it provides a totally new foundation to reboot the entire franchise.

There’s a new Star Trek movie?

I haven’t seen it yet but this is a franchise that was definitely in need of a reboot.
The last Star Trek movie that was any good was Wrath of Khan.

Sylar is an awesome Spock from what little I’ve seen.

Trekkies need to lighten up and be open minded to another interpretation. Rick Berman was surely just a one off.

@The_Compassionate_Heretic
“Trekkies need to lighten up and be open minded to another interpretation.”

What interpretation?
Removing the substance and replacing it with mind numbing cgi explosions is not an interpretation.

@ragingloli seriously, did you see the last few movies? do you think there was substance there? Nemesis was probably the worst star trek movie ever, and Insurrection wasn’t far behind. They were both essentially episodes of TNG, not movies.

@ragingloli I’m going to see the movie this weekend and I’ll get back to you with my personal review.
That last 6 Star Trek movies had little of the substance you’re citing.
I’m open to some new stuff.

Star Trek IV with the whales and time travel back to the 80’s was an insult to sci fi fans.
Nuclear wessels? * gag *

It was entertaining, but the new star trek ended up so far removed in so many ways that I hardly consider it part of the franchise. It did succeed in taking the “science” out of science fiction

@eponymoushipster
The worst Star Trek movie ever was, without a doubt, the new one.
Insurrection was true Star Trek. Yes it had not a lot of action, but in light of the theme that was worthy of Star Trek, the lack action was secondary.
Nemesis was ok as well. The theme about how your experiences and actions shape your character, i liked quite a bit.

@The_Compassionate_Heretic the nuclear wessels thing is particularly inaccurate, since Russian speakers can pronounce the V sound (it’s the third letter of the alphabet), but cannot pronounce “w” (the sound doesn’t exist in Russian). And the fact that they made a Russian actor tow the line with that incongruity is kind of insulting.

@ragingloli well, given that you enjoyed two of the least liked Star Trek movies in the franchise’s history, i’d say you’re definitely in the minority on disliking the current movie.

All I can say is as Episode I killed my lifelong interest in Star Wars, the new Star Trek movie ignited my interest in a franchise I was tepid about at best.

@cprevite Good god those new Star Wars movies were bad weren’t they?
If anything the new movies only highlight the Awesome that was present in the originals. Now that I think about it, I think Episode I was the best of the new series despite the wretched Jar Jar. It had Darth Maul. The franchise needs more of that.

I’ve seen 2 other films with Hayden Christiansen in them and he couldn’t act in those either.

If not for Ewan MacGregor and Liam Neeson, those movies are unwatchable.
Natalie Portman is an excellent actress but Padme Amidala was a completely uninteresting character. Even Samuel Jackson was boring and that’s tough to make happen.
Jimmy Smits was just taking up space.

@eponymoushipster True, I’ve known several Russians and they have no problem with their W’s. The Americans have never given the Russians an even shake.

whats the point of having a russian character if he doesn’t have a thick accent. shesh

I enjoyed it very much. Thank you! If I was looking into getting some lessons on impotant issues. Star Trek will be the last movie I go to see.

@TheCompassionateHeretic: Agreed. And I was so looking forward to Episode I when it was announced; and then…meh.