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Just when you thought it was safe to go to the movie theaters again, the latest in the "alternate universe" Star Trek films hits the theaters today. Ars Technica and El Reg have two reviews of the flick.
El Reg, with its usual caustic brand of British humor, calls it "An unwatchable steaming pile of tribble dung", while Ars describes it thusly: "Trek by numbers is no Trek at all". Both articles do heap praise on Karl Urban's dead-on portrayal of Dr. McCoy. Still, it might be worth watching in the theater, for as as we all know there are is no bad Star Trek. Ever!
As for myself, I think I'll do what I usually do and wait for it to come out on video and see if it is truly targ manure.
[From a more general perspective, the Rotten Tomatoes meta movie review site has a critic score of 85% and an audience score of 86%. -Ed.]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 23 2016, @03:39PM
Star Trek: TMP was not a bad movie. Go back and watch it. It is the closest thing to Sci-Fi that the Trek universe ever did outside of TV episodes.
The other movies were mostly action flicks. They were just limited in their special effects capacity compared to today. They are not great movies. TWOK is great, everything else was garbage.
The "stealing the Enterprise" scene from TSFS was probably the best moment in all of the original universe movies, but does not ultimately save a bad film.
The original films caved into the rabid fanbase way too much. Spock was supposed to stay dead. The Excelsior was supposed to be the Enterprise replacement. There should have never been a save the whales campaign.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 23 2016, @06:32PM
I'd get a lot more out of your comments if you didn't abbreviate the names. I don't know which ones you're talking about. "Save the whales" I know. Not sure which Enterprise replacement you're talking about. They seemed to be blowing one up every movie for a while there.
(Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Saturday July 23 2016, @11:41PM
TMP = The Motion Picture (I)
TWOK = The Wrath of Khan (II)
TFSF = The Search for Spok (III)
Enterprise 1701 self-destructed above the Genesis planet in Search for Spock, and 1701-A revealed at the end of The Voyage Home (save the whales)
Enterprise 1701-D (saucer section after a warp core breach) crashed into Veridian III in Generations (VII) and 1701-E revealed in First Contact (VIII)
So, 10 movies, two enterprises destroyed. 3 season TV show and 3 movies with the 1701, 2 movies with the 1701-A (not counting the end of The Voyage Home, just The Final Frontier and The Undiscovered Country), 7 season TV show and 1 movie with the 1701-D, and 3 movies with the 1701-E.
So far with JJ Trek we have 2 movies with the 1701, which is destroyed either in low Earth orbit or near the moon—they couldn't make up their damned minds but it sank into the swamp one way or another. So they built another one, also the 1701. And it sinks into the swamp in this film after a span of time that didn't even last the entire run of TOS (The Original Series). I bet they build another one, which will burn down, fall over, and sink into the swamp. By the 5th JJ Trek, we might actually have a San Francisco that isn't the West Coast Matchstick City [animeworld.com] and a 1701 that can last more than 2 films.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Sunday July 24 2016, @12:18AM
Spock was supposed to stay dead. The Excelsior was supposed to be the Enterprise replacement.
Was that actually the plan? I'd love to see some description of the production plans and what happened that led to the movies we got. Maybe everybody else is already familiar with this except me.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 24 2016, @05:15PM
Nimoy was finished with the character and wanted out, so suggested that they kill his character off. Early rumours were leaked out and Spock's death caused an uproar in hate mail at the time. So they added the Kobayashi Maru scenario at the beginning of TWOK, where Spock is "killed" in a role playing exercise as a way to throw off the fans into believing that the leaked script rumours were exaggerated. They also added a potential avenue for Spock's return at TWOK, the mind-meld with McCoy, which ended up being the basis of ST:III.
There was also a "Captain's Log" where Kirk states that the Enterprise is due to return to spacedock to be retired, and he is to take command of the U.S.S. Excelsior. The design/construction of Excelsior was easily the most time ever spent on a ship not named Enterprise. It took several years to design, had the design patented by Paramount, and was supposed to introduce Transwarp drive which would expain things like, I don't know, going to the center of the galaxy in a few days (traditional warp drive would have taken decades) to meet God (Star Trek V). But fans absolutely could not deal with a non-Enterprise ship. They got Spock back, but were PISSED at the destruction of the Enterprise. So we have the "transwarp drive" malfunction, and the introduction of NCC-1701-A at the end of ST:IV. Which makes no sense if you think about it because why would there just be another re-fit Constitution-class ship sitting unused in spacedock without a name?
So for the next couple of films, Paramount caved in and let there be another Constitution-class Enterprise. But Excelsior was around to play a big role. That opening of Star Trek V, where nothing on the Enterprise-A worked correctly? That was supposed to be the "bucket of bolts" over-engineered Excelsior.