SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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 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.