Eh, it's improbable, but you can't fault a science fiction movie for improbable coincidences. I mean, honestly, with as many as every day life has… I've run into friends at hole-in-the-wall bookstores in Prague that I didn't even know were TRAVELING. Them both winding up on that planet makes sense – both were dropped off on a planet near to Vulcan. Spock Prime so he could see it be destroyed, Kirk because they were still near Vulcan when he was marooned. Them both winding up in a cave…. makes less sense, unless it was the only visible form of shelter. But really no more improbable than running into my ex-boyfriend at a concert in Chicago even though he lives in Oslo. And Kirk and Spock, at least in later years, do have that weird connection.

The character of Kirk was 25 when Vulcan was destroyed – we see him born at the beginning of the movie, and are told several times that that scene was 25 years ago. Chekov claimed to be 17. I don’t remember picking up on any other explicit references to character ages but it seems fair to assume the other senior cadets would fall into that general age range.

As far as Kirk taking command in the crisis goes, that’s not so unreasonable – he’d gone through the Academy training in record time, was regarded as a leader by his peers, and had demonstrated a keen instinct by figuring out that Vulcan was a trap. He’d been appointed to a position in the chain of command by the most competent authority available, he wanted the job, and he had no other duties, so he could take over without causing a major reshuffle… To attempt to put anyone else in command at that point would have provoked an internal crisis when the ship needed to be responding to the external crisis.

On the other hand, while almost anyone can be given command in a crisis, making that rank permanent (and not just for him, but for the entire bridge crew) is preposterous – you just don’t skip a raw cadet up to one step short of admiral and give him the single most prestigious command slot – the new flagship – available (the original series Enterprise was just one of a dozen deep-range starships, and Kirk, taking command at 31, was, at the time, the youngest starship captain in Starfleet history). Kirk’s promotion skips him past every single previously commissioned officer below flag rank. Give him a medal, sure, put him somewhere where he can rapidly accumulate experience and seniority, sure, and maybe 5 years down the line give him a captain’s chair, but unless the whole of the rest of the fleet got eaten by space gerbils or something, and the new wave of cadets are the most senior people available (and there’s no retired or half-pay officers who you can reactivate, no admirals willing to give up the desk job, and no way to talk the guy in the wheelchair into staying on) you give the job to seasoned officers, not some guy who, in another timeline, matured into a great captain…

As for the Kirk/future-Spock/Scotty convergence… Leaving aside the question of how an ice-moon comes to be orbiting a desert-planet (maybe the villain set up some sort of fancy telescope, or maybe Spock had a vision or something) there’s still at least a couple of mighty coincidences – Scotty being assigned to that particular isolated outpost as punishment detail (and if it’s *that* close to Vulcan, it hardly seems likely it would be an isolated outpost…) and Kirk’s escape pod happening to land near Spock’s cave – it’s like knocking on a random door in New York and having Woody Allen answer… (and why was Spock planted practically on top of the only federation outpost on an isolated planet – within walking distance of help!) For that matter, how come Scotty didn’t notice Spock being marooned on his doorstep, nor Kirk’s escape pod landing? It’s not like there’d have been a lot of traffic around…

Don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed the movie – the cast made the movie for me – but that doesn’t mean I’m going to ignore the writers’ lapses. I forget who, but one noted SF author once described writing SF as like a game played with the readers – the author writes his story, attempting to get everything right, and the readers then get their turn, trying to find the holes. Original series Star Trek played the game pretty well – well enough for Lawrence Krauss to write a book titled “The Physics of Star Trek” and still be taken seriously as a physicist. It seems pretty clear that the minds behind the new movie didn’t pay much attention to their science advisors (or picked the wrong ones) – though their science mistakes are a whole other rant…

The age of this cast is pretty much the same as the cast was in TOS.

Chris Pine (Kirk) is 29 years old, Zoe Saldana (Uhura) is 31, Zachary Quinto (Spock) is 32, and Karl Urban (Bones) and John Cho (Sulu) are both 37.

For the three years TOS aired (1966-1969), Nimoy and Shatner were 33-36, Nichelle Nichols was 32-35, and George Takei (Sulu) was 29-32.

I still say it’s weird for 32-year-old Spock to have a 38-year old mom though. Six-year-olds should NOT be having babies!

I guess I’m just saying, it didn’t break any molds and the plot was lacking, but the actors held it together, both those with small and large parts.

Black Holes don’t work the way they did in the movie!

“Caves of Coincidences” are replete in sci-fi universes like Star Trek and besides, Nimoy’s role was adorable. Furthermore, if you remember TNG, Spock embraced his human/emotive side a little more in his old age. He always had wit (even on TOS) but by his guest role in DS9 he was pretty emotive and positively friendly. I rather like what they did with Vulcans in this film: as Sarek says, “In many ways, emotions run more deeply in our people than in humans.”

Scott’s plumbing accident was supposed to be funny. The whole audience was laughing the whole time. It was ridiculous, not terribly tense (everyone knows Scotty will make it through that) and funny as hell.

None of your “laughable” things really bothered me at all. This movie was far better than Wolverine and most other summer action movies in recent years, not to mention the fact that 5 or 6 of the Star Trek films have totally blown.

My problem is, even if that planet is only as small as our moon, that’s still huge when you consider that Kirk only ran probably a few hundred yards, fell down an incline and then was right at the same cave Spock had been holed up in. The likelyhood of them being placed less than a mile from each other on a planet that big is well….why don’t those number crunchers who posted earlier figure that out and tell us. And not only that, but at the exact time Kirk runs in the Cave, Spock happenes to be waiting right there with a torch already lit and ready to drive the beast back. Holy cow…that’s an incredible suspension of bisbelief.

1) Everything that happened before the Kelvin was attacked should be the same. Therefore, the TNG crew going back to save Zefram Cochrane from the Borg still happened. This won’t happen again unless Q still introduces the crew of the Enterprise-D to the Borg, and the same events play out as before…

2) The ship shown in ST:IV is already on its way to find out what happened to the whales. Will the universe now play itself out in the same way decades from now so that Kirk’s crew is in a position to time-travel around the Sun and fetch some whales from the past? Way too many factors involved here, Genesis Project, Klingon bastards killed my son… Can’t fal-tor-pan on Vulcan anymore! Maybe Old Spock will just warn the new ‘verse about Khan and avoid the whole issue?

3) Earth and Vulcan were the two driving forces behind the expansion of the Federation. Now that Vulcan’s out of the picture, who will take its place in a similar sphere of influence? Andoria? Betazed?

4) Old Spock is still alive, and obviously had no problems sharing technology with the new universe in order to save Earth. Will the spread of transwarp transportering affect the development of the Federation? Will Old Spock embrace the continued disclosure of future scientific knowledge?

I’m looking forward to see what JJ does with his new toy…

I did giggle over the gung ho redshirt. I recognized the moment he appeared that oh, no, here’s the redshirt guy, and at first I couldn’t believe that they were sticking with this hoary tradition, but then when he destroyed himself out of an excess of zeal, well, THAT was funny.

In summary: Spock is a resident of Romulus, he discovers that the system would go supernova, tries to warn the romulans, Nero (having the classic romulan haircut) discovers a mineral that creates red matter on a romulan moon. Spock makes an attempt to use the technology but is being too late, romulus is destroyed. As a result Nero and the rest of the mining crew lose their home, become bald and tattooed, go to a cloaked space station and get the uber borg/romulan technology dreadnought that hunts spock in the new film. Spock creates a wormhole and passes through to the alternative (rebooted) timeline with Nero’s ship.

As for the points. The bloated hand was the most hillarious one (and not mentioned).

1. Scotty’s Mishap reveals that Scotty is a little goofy in nature (which is a better scotty than the TOS), in constrast with Sulu who has amazing sword skill (and does not wait the naked episode to show). Also I think that the creature Scotty has, is actually planted because is a relative to James Doohan.

2. Spock was the reason that this movie occured (in the scenario). If he hadn’t pass the wormhole (rift?) then nothing would have happened. Nimoy’s spock is a wise one; Quinto’s spock is a compelling one (shown from the flashback on Vulcan as well).

3.I don’t get who Tyler Perry is (sorry, I am from Greece hehehe)

4. I do know Winona, but there is a scene I haven’t seen on the movie (and was shown on the trailer). Grown up spock with mom.

5. Red matter is explained in the prequel comic. If you are not so much of a fan, just leave it as a mcguffin plot like the device that Tom Cruise stole on MI:3 out of the chinese building.

6. I wait for Megan Fox to own this franchise too with the help of Zooey Deschanel.

7. Also Jolene blalock should have been there for a role or something 😛 (I explained the sidekick earlier)

8. Yeah. Like we haven’t seen enough paradoxes on Star trek, like Mirror Universe people, hi-jacked from the past people, the whole Zefram Cochrane (First Contact) thing and god knows what else. I’d be really surprised if the Lost Island appeared as a diorama world if there would be a tv series based on this star trek 🙂

9. I agree. Romulans are the complement of vulcans. I don’t know how this particular franchise would work (the vulcans who are considered the no.2 on the federation are now even less than the twelve colonies survivors) while the romulans do exist in numbers (no home planet was destroyed there jimbo). Probably the borg should appear, or even Q and wipe them out as well. Either that or swine flu.

10. Yes, but where is the ipod jack? Also does wall-e walk amongst the trek people?

It’s supposed to be a Shatner joke.

Sabotaaaaaj!

Saw the new Star Trek movie yesterday. The story was stupid and the plot holes were big enough to drive the Starship Enterprise through. I am so disappointed with JJ Abrams vision of the franchise. He had Spock and Uhura hook up like high school sweethearts. Kirk didn’t get any girls, except the slutty green one, and then they made him Captain before he graduated from StarFleet Academy.

Save your money…Don’t go see the new Star Trek film. It’s insulting to the audience’s intelligence!