At the end of the film, Jim Kirk is formally promoted to Captain and takes official command of the Enterprise. Spock shows up on the bridge and requests to serve as first officer. With the happy crew assembled, Kirk orders the ship to warp. Cut to an exterior of the ship, and Spock — Leonard Nimoy — reciting the “Space, the final frontier.” I think it was actually abbreviated a bit, but I did catch that the non-xenophobic “no one” was used instead of “no man.” However, I would have preferred if Chris Pine had done the narration. After all, he’s Captain Kirk.
GEEK OUT:
So, uh, where’s Sam Kirk? Y’know — Jim’s older brother? Maybe he died on the Kelvin, but from the reaction of Kirk’s parents, Jim was their first child.
Pike asks for volunteers trained in hand-to-hand combat: Sulu volunteers, and tells Kirk he’s versed in fencing. On the Romulan drill, he wields a katana which unfolds. Neat, although, er, fencing is a sport which utilizes a sword which is not a katana (two totally different fighting styles).
I loved the reference to Scott Bakula’s Jonathan Archer, from the prequel-series Enterprise, which is, of course, the only series that is now canon to both the TOS/TNG timeline, and to the Reboot time-line. I won’t go into more detail, except to say that Scotty is, apparently, to blame for the death of Porthos.
Leonard Nimoy’s role is more than a cameo, but at times — particularly towards the end of the film — sees a bit too fanboyish for my taste. Even so, it’s great seeing Nimoy in the pointy-ears again. Here’s Spock, our Spock, lost in an alternate reality of his own past, faced with the destruction of Vulcan and the genocide of its people, and in that, a new purpose for what is left of his future. Meanwhile, I had hoped for a scene with old Spock and Sarek — sort of a, “Look Dad, I turned out okay.”
DORKING OUT:
Nero’s altering of the time-line brings the core TOS crew together much sooner than they otherwise were, and gives Kirk command of the Enterprise considerably sooner than in the “real” time-line. By my best reckoning, this film takes place at about the time of “The Cage”, the original Star Trek pilot, where Capt. Pike’s science officer was Lt. Spock, and the mysterious Number One was both navigator and second-in-command.
The transporter stunt, used by Scott, to return Kirk to the Enterprise, really hit me as being, what’s the word? Wrong. In TNG, the maximum transporter distance is 40,000 kilometers, and at warp speed? Enterprise left Delta Vega waaay behind really quickly.
During the course of the movie, Pike is disabled. We see him, at the end, in a wheelchair, and in a very TMPish looking uniform. Of course, he might not permanently disabled, but it was a nice nod to how he wound up in the TOS/TNG timeline.
Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :
I got the impression that the teenage boy young Kirk drove by was his brother.
There's a lot of suspension of disbelief in this movie, but the only part I found jarring was the end with the whole "cadet to captain" thing. What they should have done was fast-forward eight years to show Commander Kirk being promoted to captain, with all the crew still serving on the Enterprise, with perhaps a hint of makeup to show they're a bit older (I mean, the characters in "The Shawshank Redemption" never aged a day, yet 20 years passed in that movie and it still worked well).
I'm sure Scotty is referring to another dog, as Porthos would have been over a hundred years old by that point.
All in all, I think it's wrong to try to connect the events of this movie to the events of the show, timeline-wise. It's like trying to fit in "Batman Begins" with the TV show Batman. It's just not going to work, no matter what Nero did to the timeline. Things are just too different. Obviously ENTERPRISE could fit into the scheme, but "Admiral A." aside, "Star Trek" should be a stand-alone thing, IMHO.
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
In general, I don't care for these kinds of origin stories. The characters and dynamics we've become familiar with were not all present from the first episode, but developed little by little over time during the series' run. That's part of the pleasure in watching a show, seeing that development as it occurs. It sort of neuters that when you go back before all of it and establish it all in the course of one story. I'm just talking in a dramatic sense here, not necessarily continuity-wise, since the timeline changes can be used to explain it. It's just a little contrived.
That said, given that this was obviously the kind of story they were going to do all along, they did it just about as well as it could be done, managing to at least attempt to avoid some of the pitfalls I was dreading they'd walk stright into; ie, Spock being an instructor rather than a cadet at the Academy, etc.
I do think the end is a bit beyond believability though. It would have been much better if upon returning the cadets had basically been told: "excellent work, we expect great things from you in the coming years AFTER YOU FINISH YOUR COURSE WORK." Or if we'd seen their graduation ceremonies at the end instead of them all being field promoted and allowed to just sail off with SF's newest ship!
Posted by Scott Nixon (Member # 540) on :
I also thought that the older boy that the young James Kirk passed on the road was his older brother--in fact, I could swear I heard him say "George" when he was yelling something to him as he passed by. (I guess in the alternate universe, James calls him "George" instead of "Sam"--which I think makes sense, 'cause maybe "Sam" now went by "George" in honor of his dead father?)
As far as Kirk and the other cadets getting promoted so quickly after everything that took place, I figured two things: 1) a lot of Starfleet personnel--cadets and regular officers--died in the small fleet sent to Vulcan, so maybe it would be easier for new cadets to move up (plus, they seemed to push how everyone--from Kirk to Uhura to Chekov--were 'extremely brilliant' for their age or something); 2) Pike probably used his influence to guarantee Kirk got command of the Enterprise (he seemed to favor Kirk from the get-go of the movie). In the original series, I got the impression that Pike and Kirk were only something like acquaintances; in this movie, I got the impression that Pike was something of a father figure/mentor for Kirk--and probably was all through his academy years (not shown in the movie). Who knows--maybe that relationship continues a bit after the movie, too. That is, I can see Admiral Pike continuing his relationship as mentor/guide for Captain Kirk for at least a few years after the events of the movie--at which point Kirk would have grown into his role as Captain firmly enough to not need him (i.e., Kirk finally 'grows up').
I don't get the USS Kelvin having 800 people--though I'm thinking maybe it was because they were on their way to set up a colony when they encountered the phenomenon. I guess it could have been the colonization of Tarsus IV, explaining how Kirk was there when he was a teenager?
Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
Re: Cadet to Captain.
In a somewhat stretching of disbelief kinda way, this actually does fit the "rank as job description" idea. You know, the somewhat utopian view that ranks aren't as strict as they currently are in the military, and are also just used to accurately describe someone's job and responsibility.
In some ways, it's the reverse of the equally strange demotion of Kirk from Admiral (Chief of Operations even) back to Captain, only to command the Enterprise.
Posted by Dat (Member # 302) on :
The boy young Kirk passes by while he was joyriding was called Johnny by young Kirk. It could still be Sam Kirk as that was the intention from an earlier draft of the script, but Johnny would have to be a nickname that Kirk used and then stopped before calling his brother Sam instead.
Posted by Alshrim Dax (Member # 258) on :
As far as the Cadet to Captain thing... Since they joined the academy, 3 years HAD PASSED before they went aboard the Enterprise. I would say, at least, that they were all Ensigns by that point.
And then Pike promotes Kirk to First-Officer as an 'in battle promotion' and promotes Spock to acting-captain; as captains CAN do in the heat of a conflict.
Now - in military tradition, do they get to KEEP those promotions once a conflict is over? If so, there could be an argument that he was a Commander by the time the ceremony at the end took place.
Posted by WizArtist II (Member # 1425) on :
I know that George A. Custer was promoted to Brevet General in the Civil War and afterwards was reduced to Colonel in the regular army after the war. I think that the "Brevet" rank was an honorary thing more than anything else. I don't know if that tradition still exists.
Posted by The Ginger Beacon (Member # 1585) on :
A brevet is an honorary thing. I think it was implied that Kirk got a battlefeild commission. He was elevated to the position of First Officer, but there was no mention of rank.
However, since all the other cadets were activated with a rank, I expect that Kirk did have a rank (allthough unkown by me, and possibly only provisional until graduation), and Pikes decision to give Kirk the job simply activated Kirk.
As a side note, Custer was a Major General of Volunteers and a Lieutenant Colonel, Regular Army (two distinct ranks, as at the time American Soldiers were seperately members of the Volunteers and the Regular Army). He was breveted a Major General in the Regular Army during the Civil War, but at the time he never ranked higher than a captian.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
What was the battle going on in the movie where all the other star fleet star ships were at?? Where Quintospock wanted to take the Enterprise.
Posted by FawnDoo (Member # 1421) on :
I don't know if there was a battle or not, the Admiral at Kirk's hearing just said that their primary fleet was engaged in the Laurentian System. Engaged in what - battle, exercises, or something else - wasn't expanded upon.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
The Laurentian System that's it! Why would Spock want to race off and join the fleet there if it was just for exercises. The instances mentioned made is sound like the Laurentian System was something very important! I reckon we'll hear more about this in the next movie.
I wonder how Guinan was feeling when the timeline's changed!?! Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
Here's an interesting tidbit from Memory Alpha
"The scans the Kelvin took of the Narada's 24th century techonology (that went with the survivors on the shuttles) were used by 23rd century Starfleet to backwards engineer the more "advanced" technology seen in the alternate timeline, according to a post by Star Trek screenwriter Roberto Orci on Ain't It Cool News."
So the new E based on Tech scanned from the Narada?
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Various thoughts in no particular order:
There were quite a few REALLY BAD SCIENCE moments in this movie- the Transporter from a planet to a ship warping away without knowing anything like the ship's position or speed or, well fucking anything was as lame as any "tech saves the day" thing I've ever seen on Trek.
Having a newly-formed black hole so close to the Sol System wont fuck up anything, riiight?
I thought they used Scotty as cheap comedy relief- he really did so little here. Same with McCoy to some extent- a bit too over-the-top.
Why did the Enterprise fire on the Narada at the end anyway? It was already being consumed by the singularity- that was just silly overkill.
The silly "parachute to the mining platform" gag that the guy with the explosives did not take seriously.
Shooting Kirk off in a lifeboat via the side airlock (shudder)
Kirk just happens to meet Spock and Scotty (can I get a Giant fucking Rolleyes here?)- this is like watching a children's fairy tale plot unfolding.
The whole notion of Kirk going from cadet to Captain- and the doubtless dozens of Enterprise officers not even shown so the cadets could save the day...
The obviously BSG-inspired battles were real tiresome after the initial Kelvin fight (which was the highpoint of the movie for me- it rocked).
The Enterprise fires all sorts of shit from it's saucer- and none of it is Phasers like we know them- the "fireworks" bolts look like Episode 3 footage with a Trek ship thrown in.
Where would a mining ship get a bunch of torpedos from? Why? Eric Bana is wasted as the bad guy ("Nero"- ug.).
Quinto as Spock was great- by far the best acting in the movie...only the guy playing Kirk's dad was as good. Nimoy's interaction with Quinto-Spock was very nicely done at the end, I thought.
Kirk's mom obviously got re-married at some point- it was Kirk's stepdad's car: maybe Sam is an stepbrother in ths timeline. Or maybe this guy is Sam (from the original timeline) and they named him Jim under pressure- meaning that this timeline's "James T Kirk" never existed- we just have sam with his famous name.
Overall I still liked it- there was never a "Fuck Yeah!" moment to the movie like the ones in Generations or First Contact- everyone knew the overall outcome.
Wynona Ryfer was Spock's mom is an odd casting choice- maybe the humans live a lot longer before loooking old in this timeline.
This movie really does not screw up the TNG/DS9/VOY timeline as it's clear it's an alternate history that Spock was tossed into.
I wonder how much Spock will break the Prime Directive here? He knows tech and major Federation fuckups to avoid- he could even get back to his own timeline via the Guardian, I suppose.
Nothing about this movie makes the Enterprise not look like total shit with those gant dumbass nacelles-which I kept hoping would get ripped off by the singularity and replaced with classic TOS versions at the end.
Maybe he'll mind-meld with Young Spock to eperience some of that sweet sweet Uhura lovin' first.
There's more stuff to bitch and praise but I'll have to re-watch it on my bootleg first. Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
quote:Having a newly-formed black hole so close to the Sol System wont fuck up anything, riiight?
Actually, no, it won't. A black hole is a function of density, not of mass. So long as no significant new mass is added to the system, everything should continue orbiting just as it has been.
Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
Besides, unless gravity moves faster than light (wait.. does it? how the hell does that even work in the real universe!?), we have at least 16-ish years left before we can even see Vulcan missing in the sky.
Posted by Wes (Member # 212) on :
Gravity is a force and doesn't 'move'. It can 'move' other things, like mass or light.
Posted by FawnDoo (Member # 1421) on :
quote:Originally posted by AndrewR: The Laurentian System that's it! Why would Spock want to race off and join the fleet there if it was just for exercises.
I'm guessing so that he could hail the nearest ship and say something along the lines of "Could you all come and give us a hand to deal with this massively powerful Romulan ship that just blew up Vulcan?" I don't think the Laurentian system is all that important, beyond it being a handy place for the fleet to be when Vulcan was attacked. As for why the bulk of the fleet was deployed away from strategically vital planets like Earth and Vulcan...well, it's good to see that some elements of the Prime timeline have been faithfully reproduced in the new movie!
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
The effects of gravity do move at the speed of light, or at least that's the best current theory. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_gravity Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Another bad science moment was Spock being able to see Vulcan's destruction- that planet him and Scotty were on would have had to be as close as the moon is to Earth....and that planet shoud have experienced massive tidal forces that close (see SG1).
The Black Hole close to Sol is still VERY problematic- a massive navigational hazzard if nothing else.
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
Ejecting and detonating the warp core probably sealed the hole, if these phenomena (obviously not traditional black holes, though described as such) don't all seal themselves, as the one that Spock and Nero came through apparently did.
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
Yes, all this talk about the irregularity of the "black holes" in the movie; it was a Trek-style singularity, and as with other romulan singularities (such as in their Warbird cores), could it not be possible that its habit of staying stable and keeping a relatively small event horizon body, as long as it gets fed with fuel, makes it as different from a regular Hawking Black Hole as a Star Wars laser is from a real-life laser?
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jason Abbadon: Another bad science moment was Spock being able to see Vulcan's destruction- that planet him and Scotty were on would have had to be as close as the moon is to Earth....and that planet shoud have experienced massive tidal forces that close (see SG1).
Exactly what I stated earlier. Unless Delta Vega a moon, there's no way Spock could have seen Vulcan's destruction, unless Nero left some sort of giant projector in orbit.
Posted by bX (Member # 419) on :
Oooh and then maybe after the destruction of Vulcan, he'd put STV on a loop. Now THAT's revenge.
Posted by Peregrinus (Member # 504) on :
Too many changes for the sake of change. There was nothing wrong with Matt Jeffries' original design for the Enterprise, or with the hand cannons (pre-phasers) or other kit. I didn't like the Starfleet delta shield tesselation on the uniform shirts. I missed the non-delta insigniæ, regardless of whether they're for individual ships ( which I reject) or for each fleet within Starfleet (which I like).
Spock struggling with his emotions was a central arc of his character. Now, by having Spock-Prime tell him to embrace them, that is removed.
They had to jettison the established canon and "EU" canon (books, etc.) in order to 1) tell the "gathering of heroes" story they wanted to tell, and 2) have the audience not be able to predict what's going to happen next or who's going to live or die.
Here is my reconstruction of the original timeline, dates adjusted to fit actual observed phenomena within TOS, the movies, and the novels -- dates adjusted where necessary to fit more primary sources (I ignore the Okudas' arbitrary dating and lack of deep research). You'll see the problems the new filmmakers faced:
2235 (not '33) -- James T. Kirk born.
2245 -- Enterprise launched, under Captain Robert April.
Early 2250s -- April turns Enterprise over to Christopher Pike, is promoted to Commodore and begins serving as a roving ambassador. Kirk enters Starfleet Academy. Axanar Peace Mission somewhere in here. Kirk participated as "a new-fledged cadet", received Palm Leaf of Axanar. This presumably ends the EU's Four Years War with the Klingons.
2256 (presume) -- Kirk completes core curriculum as Ensign, serves on Republic. Spock begins serving under Pike, presumably on Enterprise.
2257 (presume) -- Kirk returns for advanced studies as student instructor, promoted to Lt., j.g. Gary Mitchell in his class. Kirk is described as "positively grim", "a stack of books with legs", and that one has to "think or sink" in his class. Mitchell reports Kirk needing to be set up on dates, he was so attached to his studies. One of these was presumably Ruth ("Shore Leave"). Another, Carol Marcus. Kirk's three sittings of the Kobayashi Maru test somewhere in here. He reprograms the simulator himself. Gets commendation, not academic suspension.
2258 (presume) -- Kirk graduates as Lieutenant. Serves aboard Farragut under Garrovik ("from the day [he] left the Academy"). George Kirk, Sr., alive to see his son graduate.
Early 2260s -- somewhere in here, probably, Kirk attains command of a Destroyer; also participates in Vulcanian Expedition (meant to nudge the Vulcans out of their isolationism). Also around here, George Kirk, Sr., is on a ship that disappears on deep-space mission.
2264/2265 (presumably) -- McCoy, Sulu, and Uhura enter Academy in here somewhere. As with Troi, McCoy evidently goes through a specialized training program for civilians with advanced degrees and enters active duty as a Lt. Cmdr.
2267 (or so) -- Pike promoted to Fleet Captain; Kirk gets command of the Enterprise, meeting Pike for the first time and inheriting Spock as his Science Officer. If this is anything like Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Kirk then oversees the refit of the Enterprise, amongst other things, boosting crew complement from 203 to 430. Gary Mitchell is Kirk's First Officer. This is also presumably when Scotty joins the Enterprise. Dr. Elizabeth Dehner aboard as ship's psychologist. Dr. Piper aboard as CMO. Lee Kelso is the first Alpha-watch helmsman.
2268 -- "Where No Man Has Gone Before". Gary Mitchell, Dr. Dehner, and Lee Kelso die. Dr. Piper retires, is replaced by McCoy. Sulu transfers from Sciences division to Command, becomes Alpha-watch helmsman. Uhura assigned to Enterprise (or promoted from another watch/department) as Lieutenant. Department heads switch from Command gold to their division colours. "Charlie X" Thanksgiving of this year.
2269 -- Remainder of TOS first season, beginning of second. Chekov posted to Enterprise as Ensign.
In here are the rest of TOS and the animated series.
2272 -- End of Kirk's five-year mission, promoted to Rear Admiral, l.h. (damn Gene for forgetting the rank of Commodore). Enterprise goes in for refit.
2274 -- V'Ger Incident/Star Trek: The Motion Picture. This is my other bookend of this range of events.
There's a lot of other conjectural stuff in there that I haven't bothered with. That's mainly Kirk's arc, and where others were in relation to him at significant times. The very structure of Starfleet is an organic and evolving institution. There really isn't room there for a "gathering of the heroes" story.
There are, however, plenty of other engaging stories to be told in there, if the writers weren't so damn lazy and uncaring of their core audience -- the ones who would come back for repeat viewings if the filmmakers honoured the universe they were playing in. The frustrating thing is, someone involved in the script knew and cared. One instance: Incorporating McCoy's backstory like that worked really, really well. It stood out to me because of that -- a shining gem amidst the poor treatment of the other characters.
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