Star Trek XI is Alternate Universe Crap. But a good standalone movie May 8, 2009
Posted by showmescifi in scifi.Tags: Sci Fi, science fiction, scifi, Star Trek, star trek XI
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Star Trek XI, from a pure action, character and standalone plot point of view is one the top three Star Trek movies ever.
But Star Trek isn’t about standalone plots and that’s why this movie was so bitterly dissapointing. The whole thing is an alternate reality. So that means the 40 years of Star Trek history that we all know and love is thrown out the windows.
That’s BOGUS.
That aside there are some great things in Star Trek XI both Spock’s are great. Uhura’s relationship with Spock is cool. Kirk is a great character as is his dad. Nero is excellent as is Captain Pike.
The best scene for me was the Kobyashi Meru – that was brilliant. We first heard about how Kirk cheated the simulator in Star Trek II and now 30 years later we get to see how he actually did it and it WAS AWESOME.
The ship itself was a little lame.
Engineering is just a bunch of pipes and knobs, no warp core to speak off, which again is TOTALLY BOGUS.
But the jump to warp speed was cool and the ship’s displays and alert systems are all neat too.
Overall a mixed bag, but mostly positive and we’re likely to see this movie again and again and again. No this isn’t as good as Star Trek II but it’s easily a whole lot better than Nemesis, Search for spock and Final Frontier.
Show Me SciFi 
Actually, I don’t think the alternate universe premise was “BOGUS” at all. It was a perfect way to set up a new continuity, so that sequels to this movie (or a new TV show) could do anything with the crew of the original series without messing up the canon. Now there’s a new universe, in which new – and above all unpredictable – things can happen. This movie has the potential to revitalize the franchise.
I agree with Jean. showmescifi, I’d imagine you’d shit a brick if Lucas decided to do a post-quel pre-quel of Star Wars where it was discovered that Darth Vader was really a hermaphrodite, and mothered/fathered Luke and Leah via imaculate conception, ala Virgin Mary Jesus style!
Jean is ABSOLUTELY right. The alternate reality of the situation only legitimized the new movie (via Spock’s appearance,) but it opened up a new window for further exploration into the universe that we used to know, and still love, and will love to rediscover.
The way that the Romulans looked, the way that the enterprise looked, et cetera – that always changes. Look at original Klingons and Klingons from TNG. It’s a given that a new take on the aesthetics is to be expected. I think it was wonderful visually.
Most of all though, the music was amazing. This is a soundtrack that I will be purchasing, without a doubt. I have been a big fan of this composer for years, and he outdid himself this time.
Movie was amazing. If Kirk and Spock can go back in time to grab a couple of whales to change the future, then this movie breaks no continuity at all. Bravo!
“If Kirk and Spock can go back in time to grab a couple of whales to change the future, then this movie breaks no continuity at all.”
Except that they return to their original timeline with said whales.
What happened in this newest movie, Star Trek 11, was that a brand new alternate timeline was created from the point in time of Nero’s first intrusion into the past, right before Jim Kirk was born. This set the characters onto the path of a new destiny – Spock even says so in the film – watch it again. What this also means is that according to this new film, all of the existing TV shows and movies never happened – including your beloved whale movie. So now, when you watch the original show, or the whale movie, you are not seeing the characters from this new film in their later years – those guys set out on a totally different future when Nero altered their timeline. Reciprocally, when you watch the new flick, you are NOT watching the backstory of the characters who existed in the universe of Star Trek: TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY or even ENT – these are brand new people whose characters we know nothing about. So why even tie it in with the existing canon universe by having Nimoy do a cameo? I would have preferred a straight reboot with no connections to the original story – OR – a canon version of this movie. How hard would that have been, J.J.? Just drop Vulcan being destroyed and nix the alternate timeline idea, get off your lazy butt and do a little damned research on the franchise’s history, and you’d have the same exciting, action-packed summer blockbuster without the unnecessary genocide of a story that’s 40 years old, for Christ’s sake. It’s called heritage, young-uns, heritage. Respect it.
Kirk and Spock and others all return back to their rightful timeline. Spock remains. He told Scotty’s would be future. Vulcan’s destruction would mean from TOS to any future Trek will shows Vulcans are not a common species and they won’t be show easily anywhere. And if there is a timeline police as shown in Voyager, where the crap these guys when there is a major timeline destruction? My conclusion = Reimagined. Just like Battlestar Galactica. I am not sure Gene Roddenberry might agree had he been around. This show aim for the box office but left out a decent logical storyline that binds with a brand that started years before.
hmm Im afraid this movie was an incredible waste of time.
the story line was incredibly flawed. characters were frustrating (I kept hoping Kirk would finally DIE)
physics were shoddy as hell
I hate the current public expecting so little from producers, that when they get a piece of shit the love it.
WAKE UP
I’d view the events of the new Star Trek as a new timeline created by Nero’s intrusion into the past. Star Trek has used this before–in City on the Edge of Forever, the timeline was changed by McCoy and everything would have been different if Kirk and Spock hadn’t fixed things. Ditto in the First Contact movie with the Borg assimilating Earth by going back into the past. In both of those examples, the timelines were restored–in this movie, they were not (who knows, maybe that is in the next movie, but I hope not). I liked the movie except I thought the Spock/Uhuru romance was absolutely stupid. Uhuru is reduced to Spock’s plaything–please.
Thank you someone who sees the same thing as me. You could have made this Star Trek movie with all new characters, and “no Vulcan blowing up” and it would have been a great film. Oh and all those dumbass pipes in the movie make no fricking sense, you don’t even see those in Star Trek Enterprise and that’s set even before this film.
I think this film is fourth in my favorites
Khan
Undiscovered Country
First Contact
Star Trek
They could have redeemed this movie at the end by devising a temporal mechanism where once Nero’s ship was destroyed, the timeline just snaps back to its original ST universe, as it did in the STNG episode where they encountered the Enterprise NCC-1701C coming through the rift. Just as that episode left small anomalies in the time/space continuum (Yaar survived 20 years in the past instead of being killed a year or two earlier), they could have kept some minor anomalies in this storyline and explained them away the same way.
I think they just went too far by destroying Vulcan and not jumping universes back to a living planet Vulcan at the last minute.
Star Trek XI was garbage.
It was the ultimate middle finger in the faces of everyone who kept this sci-fi series alive through the lean years between the end of TOS and the beginning of TNG through conventions, fan fiction and fan promoted events. Watching ST11 was watching an old friend finally succumb to a slow cancer that began with Voyager, worsened with Enterprise and went end stage with the cinematic piece of crap that was Star Trek XI.
But, most fans are such fanboys and girls they’ll gladly cheer anything with the official logo stamped on it, no matter how insulting it is to Gene Roddenberry’s original ideas and the foundations of Trek. Thank God I still have all the old episodes on DVD and hundreds of paperbacks. Ah, the memories. Star Trek is dead.