“do some time travel to set things right”

I’ve explained some of this crap to the non-trekkies, including a popular video-reviewer on Youtube, I guess it’s the burden of being a fan(though not a “trekkie”).

They have no guarantee that it would succeed, the event that created the tangent, parallel universe could likely not be replicated, and really, they had to stop the Narada.

That little ship wasn’t suited to fighting a huge, heavily armored mining ship, they could have tried to create a “better” new universe, but there was just no guarantee that it would send them back in time to anywhere meaningful or create a better place.

Nero was a poor choice of villain, agreed. He was not only obnoxiously loud, he lacked any nuance. He was simply not engaging enough to make you want to peer inside his head and understand his psychology. (By the way, if Nero was supposed to be laying low until he could set his plan in motion, why suddenly and inexplicably did he destroy 40 Klingon ships? This wasn’t really explained.)

I also thought that the film really understated the true impact of the destruction of Vulcan on the Trek universe. I mean, it was the single most violent and tragic act ever seen in any Star Trek movie or episode. However, my non-trekkie friends told me they saw it merely as a little teaser for the climax. Perhaps it was an unnecessarily extreme plot device?

However, my main beef is that the plot just seemed rather contrived, with all the red matter and future Spocks and black holes etc. Now, this *is* understandable considering the desire to connect the reboot with the cannon timeline. However, to be perfectly honest, the film-makers pursued this goal at the expense of a more coherent, more self-contained story. Even as a hardcore Trekkie from age 7 onward, I’d rather have had the writers say “F**k continuity! We’re starting from scratch and doing it our way.” But perhaps I’m in the minority on that one.

That’s not to say there isn’t lots to love about this film. The strength of this reboot is clearly seen in the acting, the art direction, and the emphasis on fast-paced action. Thus, I think this film should be regarded more for setting up potential progeny than for its intrinsic merits. In theory, this reboot will provide a very audience-friendly vehicle for revisiting Roddenberry’s vision of classic adventure, complicated character dynamics, and universal moral dilemmas. Let’s hope Abrahms delivers.

P.S. there’s a tribble (in a cage) on Scotty’s desk on Alpha Vega!

If they’d replaced him and his Romulans with, say, a V’Ger-type impersonal intelligence (which initially their weird supership made me think of), I feel like it would’ve been the same movie. Bana & Co were what moved our heroes through their interesting paces, but didn’t matter to me one bit on their own. Can’t say that about Khan or the Joker.

Of course, Bana had to compete with the real fun of the movie for an old Trek fan, which was seeing how the familiar cards were dealt in this new game. Yeah, in the next movie, they’ll have to move past it and just tell a story that’s compelling on its own, a la “Dark Knight.”

I’ll add, though, that Bana did a few things that set him apart from other villains — the most important of which is that he wasn’t shouty in every scene. His calm demeanor and referring to Pike as “Christopher” during the interrogation scene was right out of the Ledger Joker Playbook — it was creepy, understated, and vaguely psychotic. All things that I enjoy in my villains.

Speaking of the Joker, I’m looking for Abrams and the Bad Robot crew to do a “Dark Knight” with the next film. The back story is established; the origins are understood. Now is the time to interject a kick-ass story that’s free of the required catch-up exposition.

Don’t get me wrong — TWOK was still a better Star Trek movie. This one had its flaws. But I’ll say this — my wife has never seen a single Star Trek movie, and she went to this one willingly. And she really dug it. That points to a very bright future.

* Kirk’s life was not the only one changed by Nero’s actions. Hundreds of other people died and a starship was destroyed. The ripple effects of that could have many unpredictable consequences. It wasn’t all centered on Kirk.

* Spock’s ship was not a “time traveling spaceship .” It was a normal spaceship sucked into a black hole and deposited randomly in the past. It is not a reproducible event. Point of fact, Nero’s ship wen’t in slightly later and ended up coming out 25 years earlier than Spock.

That’s my two cents, anyway. It makes as much sense as any of this space opera stuff is ever going to,