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I thought that the movie was surprisingly satisfying to 44 year old trekkie and probably more true to the TOS than later series were. I don't want to get into spoilers but there were lots of little stuff thrown out as winks to the faithful. *Don't leave the ship wearing red!*
I too, liked it. I will throw out a spoiler: If the theatre is 80% full at 11:40 Friday morning; I'll bet it will be more full Sat and Sun.
Busy movie, lots going on in the background even. Not ST VI in the deep thought and dialougue level; but a good sci-fil flick still. And lots of lots of explosions and violence stuff! Definately made for a theatre sized screen, much will be lost (heh) in a home viewing.
Bad side: Ouch, NextGen cast is out of business for at least a decade!
The theater was actually less than half full where I was but we went during a Penguin's playoff game and we're almost as nuts about hockey as we are about football.
I really enjoyed it as well. I think the score really helped pound some of the pathos and drama home, and I love it when the score of a movie manipulates my emotions, a musical emphasis Star Trek has been sorely lacking (both on big and small screens) since about the third motion picture.
Giacchino seems to have really studied how both Goldsmith and Horner scored their work on Trek and combined their styles into one that I found effective. And when the original television theme is finally whipped out in all its glory, there are NO holds barred. I was half expecting a Desilu logo. Lots of fun.
Did any JJ Abrams fans also catch easter eggs pertaining to his other work? I found references to Lost and Alias in there amongst all the winks to the original Trek.
But the best thing of all is that "canon" is now irrelevant and this universe is new, fresh and wonderful.
I just got out. So much fun. Without spoilering, I love how they managed to totally reboot the series (and, to some extent, the characters) while still technically maintaining continuity, using a time-honored Star Trek device. The hardcore fans will largely hate this, I think, but the only faults I found with it were (1) that same lightning fast I-can't-see-what-the-fuck-is-happening action sequence editing style that's all the rage these days, and (2) the guy who played Bones was trying a little too hard to channel DeForest Kelley. Otherwise it was totally worth it.
Word to the wise -- don't shell out the extra money for IMAX. Nothing was shot in IMAX, so you'll be paying more to see the same movie projected at not much larger than you'd get at a modern cineplex with stadium seating. The freaking matinee was $11.50 (as opposed to $7.50 for non-IMAX), and the only reason I went for it was I figured the texting and yammering douchebags would be less likely to turn out for a 10:00 am movie. I was right, but I'm still bitter about that extra four bucks.
What middleclasstool said. I think they implemented the reboot in a very satisfying way -- although I still have fanboy nitpicks about the "how they got from here to there", it works in the story and that's what really counts.
It was superbly cast in terms of both chemistry between Pine and Quinto and the emotional accuracy of their portrayals. There are several hands-down "Kirk moments" like when he says "Bullshit!" that you figure you could close your eyes and it would be Shatner, except without the verbal tics.
I liked something Orci pushed for, which was all the other captains being "strong". I hated the captains in the other films and the series almost always being wimpy or officious or whatnot to make Kirk et al. look good by comparison. Instead you get a more realistic sense of people being inspired by each other the way the military or police often are (note: I went to the commissioning ceremony for our new police chief this morning and that was his theme; when he was a boy he watched a cop snatch a little girl out of the way of a train like it was something he did every day).
I loved Bruce Greenwood as Pike and hated that he wasn't used more. I still remember his entrance on St. Elsewhere, and The Sweet Hereafter is one of my favorite films. I did miss Number One, though!
If there was one overall failing for this fan it was that Abrams, unlike the Roddenberry/Berman films, must have decided that the star wasn't the Enterprise this time out. You barely get a sense the ship is in the film, in fact. Now, the others may have erred on the side of overemphasis, but this was reacting too far in the other direction.
There really is a lot of little stuff in there for the lifelong fans, though. Chekov gets to play Wesley Crusher, for example. ;-)
I wasn't too happy with the extended Cloverfield homage (it wasn't even intercut with anything else, so my inner voice kept yelling "Get back to the plot already!"), and a comic sequence involving Scotty was too darned Willie Wonka for words. Bana was menacing as Nero, but didn't really elevate the character to the baddy pantheon (but if Malcolm McDowell couldn't that's hardly damning). Amazingly, though, a "ha ha only serious" sequence with Kirk and McCoy could have been awful but wasn't.
I'm mystified why the media keep talking about the "sex scene" between Kirk and Uhura. There isn't one, per se.
Speaking of sex, how glad am I that tighty whities have apparently made a comeback in the 22nd century? Perhaps the "sex" scene with the ... you know ... girl had the critics thinking that that was Uhura.
The Scotty sequence and his 'assistant' were a little on the funny dumb side.
I saw a lot of the Enterprise as a star in the film, but most of the shots were quick edits; which matches the attention span of part of the target audience of 20-somethings. The scene where it came out of a ?nebula? cloud did seem longer, and reminded me of the "War Rocket Ajax" emerges from the cloud scene in the De Laurentiis Flash Gordon film. Nicely filmed and it just plain looked cool.
With a goal of good movie and snagging a new generation of fans it did great.
I saw the movie yesterday afternoon (around 430) dreading the possibility of a obnoxious crowd. Quite the opposite. I ended up seeing the movie with just over a dozen other people!
I also didn't expect to enjoy the movie. But wrong again! Go see it.
It was so great! I was so excited by the legions of hot men parading across the screen. Trek is not known for its male eye candy - that role is usually left to the women.
I was hoping that they'd just go ahead and put in the women in actual clothes, too, and ignore the stupid little TOS minidresses, but obviously they didn't. That really bothered me.
I'm so invested in the Star Trek canon that the prospect of watching familiar characters in a "rebooted" series disturbs me. That's not a criticism of the film, just something I found interesting about my relationship with the series.
I'm not a big sci fi fan, I've never seen a full episode of the TV show or any of the other movies, and I still liked it, which I think says a lot about it. I think there's also an advantage to seeing it "fresh" without having expectations of the characters.
Really? I can never tell at all. I thought it was a mistake to have Spock played by someone who seemed to have some kind of congenital smirk. But then, the sort of Spock I'd like would have been way too serious for the new movie.
It was cute. Lots o' jokes, but
Remember never to hit Spock with yo mama jokes.
i'd like to comment on Spock's mom but i think it would be considered a spoiler.
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