I've rarely seen trailers that put me off a film as much as this one's do. Bad reviews and bad trailers: if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...
Bad reviews? Pretty much every review i've seen has given it 4/5 and praised it for being better than, or at least as good as, the 2009 film, hardly what i'd call "bad".
I'm going to watch it next Thursday (in old fashioned 2D) and I'm trying hard to avoid all reviews and spoilers. I've already caught too many trailers.
I'm going to watch it next Thursday (in old fashioned 2D) and I'm trying hard to avoid all reviews and spoilers. I've already caught too many trailers.
Got my tickets booked for the IMAX double bill on Wednesday night at Cineworld, can't wait
So what excuses do they have for not filming in native 3D? Interesting about the IMAX footage, will there be a film soon made totally on 65mm?
PJ
I think that Paramount sort of ordered Abrams to do it in 3D. From what I heard, he was just planning on doing a few sequences in IMAX film(like the Dark Knight).
As for shooting a whole film on 65mm IMAX - well, that would be one hell of a technical challenge. Apart from the fact that IMAX seems to be favouring digital now - there are lot of logistical problems with shooting in IMAX film. The cameras are much heavier, they can only shoot 3 minutes of film and they take about 30 minutes to reload! Mind you - if it was every done - the film would look amazing!
Had enough of these sci fi movies now. iron man 12, superman 13, star trek 24 or whatever. How many more? Cant match the chemistry of the old star trek series anyway.
As the first film in this franchise was on TV tonight, I thought I'd better watch it again because, in all honesty, I couldn't remember a thing about it (after having seen it originally in 2009). Well, not much of it is memorable this time round, either. Gosh, what a boring film! There's hardly any story, just a lot of flashes and bangs.
Chris Pine is such a wrong choice for the (iconic) role of Captain James T. Kirk. I do realise that it would be hard to fill the shoes of the great William Shatner but Pine's portrayal shows none of the great qualities and personality of Shatner's Kirk. There's not an ounce of his wry humour mixed with the seriousness of the role. And no literary quotes which imho was also a great part of Shatner's Kirk - all adding up to make him the lasting legend that he is. Chris Pine portrays Kirk as one-dimensional and as emotionless as a lump of cardboard!
On the other hand, the other main characters in the 2009 film were good, and it was easy to spot the characteristics of the original characters - Zachary Quinto in particular. He even looks remarkably like Spock!
I will be going to see 'Into Darkness' sometime but after tonight I'm not overly looking forward to it. Except that I want to see Benedict Cumberbatch. The reviews I've read have been glowing about him (but mixed on the film itself). I just hope that there is more of a story this time.
Sorry for my moaning, but as a huge fan of the Original Series, I'm disappointed with what Abrams is doing this time round.
I watched the first movie last night too , I still don't understand the logic of the device that the Romulans employ - its basically a giant chain with a drill dropped from space (?) how long would that have to be?
also - how come the Vulcans don't seem to have any defences ? The chain thing didn't seem too difficult to sabotage - Kirk just fires a laser gun at it and it's kaput .
I watched the first movie last night too , I still don't understand the logic of the device that the Romulans employ - its basically a giant chain with a drill dropped from space (?) how long would that have to be?
also - how come the Vulcans don't seem to have any defences ? The chain thing didn't seem too difficult to sabotage - Kirk just fires a laser gun at it and it's kaput .
Nero's ship was a mining ship, not a warship. Although clearly still with enough 24th century weaponry to wipe out the fleet.
I watched the first movie last night too , I still don't understand the logic of the device that the Romulans employ - its basically a giant chain with a drill dropped from space (?) how long would that have to be?
also - how come the Vulcans don't seem to have any defences ? The chain thing didn't seem too difficult to sabotage - Kirk just fires a laser gun at it and it's kaput .
Much as I enjoy the 2009 film, the plot was full of silly holes. For instance, if you are going to destroy a planet via black hole, why drill into the planet and put it in the middle? Dropping a black hole right next to it would be good enough. Heck, dropping it randomly in the same star system would be more than enough.
Remember, all Spock did with the red matter in the future was launch it at a supernova. He didn't need to put it at the centre of the supernova. Plus, the resulting black hole was enough to gobble up this entire supernova - one large enough that it had already swallowed Romulus whole.
It really made no sense why the Romulans bothered to drill into Vulcan - and later Earth - in order to destroy them. Fly by, launch the red matter and head off to your next target. Job done. It really wasn't well thought through.
Fortunately, as an origin story, it survives this by the Romulan attack really not being the focus of the movie. The focus was on the crew coming together for the first time. I'm going to see "Into Darkness" next Saturday, but I hope it doesn't have these sorts of gaping plot holes in it as it won't be able to fall back on the origin story this time. The plot needs to be tighter.
It's obvious that with "Star Trek", about 1% effort was devoted to the script.
I still don't understand why the Enterprise has an brewery on board. Or why young Spock would waste an escape pod by jettisoning young Kirk onto a planet filled with monsters that could kill him instead of just putting him in the brig. Nor do I understand why a star exploding near Romulus would threaten the entire galaxy as old Spock claimed. I furthermore don't get why Nero would hold the Federation and specifically Spock to blame for Romulus' destruction. The Romulans are not exactly technologically backward. Their empire and fleet matches the Federation's.
Also, the Federation had no obligation to suddenly be deeply concerned about Romulus. The alliance with the Romulans pretty much ended with the Dominion War. All the major powers of the Alpha Quadrant had their own problems to deal with after years of conflict, let alone solve Romulus'
And why the hell didn't Nero simply evacuate his family? You have a ship and a transporter system, you doofus. Just beam them aboard.
It's obvious that with "Star Trek", about 1% effort was devoted to the script.
I still don't understand why the Enterprise has an brewery on board. Or why young Spock would waste an escape pod by jettisoning young Kirk onto a planet filled with monsters that could kill him instead of just putting him in the brig. Nor do I understand why a star exploding near Romulus would threaten the entire galaxy as old Spock claimed. I furthermore don't get why Nero would hold the Federation and specifically Spock to blame for Romulus' destruction. The Romulans are not exactly technologically backward. Their empire and fleet matches the Federation's.
Also, the Federation had no obligation to suddenly be deeply concerned about Romulus. The alliance with the Romulans pretty much ended with the Dominion War. All the major powers of the Alpha Quadrant had their own problems to deal with after years of conflict, let alone solve Romulus'
And why the hell didn't Nero simply evacuate his family? You have a ship and a transporter system, you doofus. Just beam them aboard.
Nero blamed Spock because Spock was responsible for failing to deliver the black hole thing in time to save Romulus from the explosion. Nero also doesn't represent the Romulan empire and is merely just a terrorist with a grudge. And also, Nero was nowhere near Romulus when it was destroyed, so he wouldn't have been able to simply beam them up.
...Nor do I understand why a star exploding near Romulus would threaten the entire galaxy as old Spock claimed. I furthermore don't get why Nero would hold the Federation and specifically Spock to blame for Romulus' destruction. The Romulans are not exactly technologically backward. Their empire and fleet matches the Federation's.
Also, the Federation had no obligation to suddenly be deeply concerned about Romulus. The alliance with the Romulans pretty much ended with the Dominion War. All the major powers of the Alpha Quadrant had their own problems to deal with after years of conflict, let alone solve Romulus'
And why the hell didn't Nero simply evacuate his family? You have a ship and a transporter system, you doofus. Just beam them aboard.
These points are explained in Countdown, the prequel to the movie, but I'm thinking you knew that already.
Nero blamed Spock because Spock was responsible for failing to deliver the black hole thing in time to save Romulus from the explosion. Nero also doesn't represent the Romulan empire and is merely just a terrorist with a grudge. And also, Nero was nowhere near Romulus when it was destroyed, so he wouldn't have been able to simply beam them up.
His blame and grudge should have been against the Romulan government, not Spock, for 1- failing to evacuate Romulus and 2- not being able to come up with their own solutions to the problem. The Romulans should have sent a fast warbird to collect the black hole thing rather than relying on an old Federation ambassador flying a glorified shuttle.
His blame and grudge should have been against the Romulan government, not Spock, for 1- failing to evacuate Romulus and 2- not being able to come up with their own solutions to the problem. The Romulans should have sent a fast warbird to collect the black hole thing rather than relying on an old Federation ambassador flying a glorified shuttle
1) He's not JUST mad at Spock, he's mad at the Vulcans in general because of their promise to save Romulus, that's the entire reason for why he destroys Vulcan, the fact that Spock witnesses it is just a bonus for him considering that Spock is directly responsible for not delivering the black hole device in time.
2) Why would they evacuate an entire planet when they thought that the Federation/Vulcans were going to deal with the problem? I know they didn't deal with it due to errors on the Vulcan's part, but the plan was in place to neutralize the shockwave. It'd be like evacuating Earth because an extinction level meteor was coming towards us, they'd try and destroy it rather than evacuating the planet.
3) Spock explains in the film that the shuttle that he is using is the fastest ship at the Federation's disposal, that's why he's using it and not another type of ship. It needed to be that small and fast so that it could outrun the gravity pull from the black hole.
It just seems like you're poking holes in things for the sake of it. Fair enough if you didn't like the film, but you can't make plot holes magically appear.
It just seems like you're poking holes in things for the sake of it. Fair enough if you didn't like the film, but you can't make plot holes magically appear.
The film was fine as a brainless action movie, but all three of your points are plotholes in themselves, because they don't make any logical sense given what we know about the Star Trek universe, as I explain here.
1) He's not JUST mad at Spock, he's mad at the Vulcans in general because of their promise to save Romulus, that's the entire reason for why he destroys Vulcan, the fact that Spock witnesses it is just a bonus for him considering that Spock is directly responsible for not delivering the black hole device in time.
Having the Vulcans promise to save Romulus is a silly plot point given what we know about the technological superiority of the Romulan empire. It was only a few years ago that agents within the Romulan government plotted to conquer Vulcans. Vulcan would have no obligation to promise anything to Romulus (which they wouldn't do in the first instance since making blindly arrogant promises isn't very logical). If the red matter was that urgent, the Romulans should have either collected it themselves, or devised it themselves.
2) Why would they evacuate an entire planet when they thought that the Federation/Vulcans were going to deal with the problem? I know they didn't deal with it due to errors on the Vulcan's part, but the plan was in place to neutralize the shockwave. It'd be like evacuating Earth because an extinction level meteor was coming towards us, they'd try and destroy it rather than evacuating the planet.
Evacuating the planet would be a common sense backup plan, given that there was no guarentee that the Vulcan plan would work. If a meteor was heading towards Earth, evacuating the planet or simply the parts of the planet most like to be severely affected by it would be prudent, and possible given the enormous fleet of starships equipped with transporters at Earth's disposal (and even more if other Alpha Quadrant powers were available to help).
3) Spock explains in the film that the shuttle that he is using is the fastest ship at the Federation's disposal, that's why he's using it and not another type of ship. It needed to be that small and fast so that it could outrun the gravity pull from the black hole.
It makes no sense for such a small ship to be faster than say a Sovereign Class starship for example which has a warp core ten times the size of Spock's entire ship
The film was fine as a brainless action movie, but all three of your points are plotholes in themselves, because they don't make any logical sense given what we know about the Star Trek universe, as I explain here.
Having the Vulcans promise to save Romulus is a silly plot point given what we know about the technological superiority of the Romulan empire. It was only a few years ago that agents within the Romulan government plotted to conquer Vulcans. Vulcan would have no obligation to promise anything to Romulus (which they wouldn't do in the first instance since making blindly arrogant promises isn't very logical). If the red matter was that urgent, the Romulans should have either collected it themselves, or devised it themselves
Actually, the Romulan senate refused to ask for anyone's help despite Spocks pleas because they didn't take Spock's observations seriously. Nero and Spock then went to Vulcan unofficially to ask for Vulcan assistance. The Vulcans refused to help fearing that if the threat wasn't as big as feared by Spock the Romulans would then have access to their red matter manipulation knowledge. That's not something the Vulcans were prepared to risk. Nero saw the Vulcans refusal to turn over the secrets of Vulcan science to the Romulans as a betrayal.
Evacuating the planet would be a common sense backup plan, given that there was no guarentee that the Vulcan plan would work. If a meteor was heading towards Earth, evacuating the planet or simply the parts of the planet most like to be severely affected by it would be prudent, and possible given the enormous fleet of starships equipped with transporters at Earth's disposal (and even more if other Alpha Quadrant powers were available to help).
The Romulans refused to acknowledge the threat so hey saw no need to evacuate the planet. By the time they realised the threat was real only a few ships managed to escape, including the Romulans ruling council, Nero killed every member of the council because they had refused to acknowledge the threat.
It makes no sense for such a small ship to be faster than say a Sovereign Class starship for example which has a warp core ten times the size of Spock's entire ship
They decided to use a prototype ship designed to withstand atmospheres that tear most ships apart, including a sovereign class.
A little off topic but I find it interesting that JJ Abrams seems to want to talk more about his love for Star Wars than he does his new Star Trek sequel. I was watching an interview he did with the BBC and then with Sky Movies alongside Simon Pegg. Abrams seems to be more interested in talking about his love for Star Wars and his upcoming direction of the new film than he does about Into Darkness
Personally I don't care as I'm not a fanboy of either franchise but I found this a little curious. I can't see Abrams directing Star Trek 3.
Actually, the Romulan senate refused to ask for anyone's help despite Spocks pleas because they didn't take Spock's observations seriously. Nero and Spock then went to Vulcan unofficially to ask for Vulcan assistance. The Vulcans refused to help fearing that if the threat wasn't as big as feared by Spock the Romulans would then have access to their red matter manipulation knowledge. That's not something the Vulcans were prepared to risk. Nero saw the Vulcans refusal to turn over the secrets of Vulcan science to the Romulans as a betrayal.
The Romulans refused to acknowledge the threat so hey saw no need to evacuate the planet. By the time they realised the threat was real only a few ships managed to escape, including the Romulans ruling council, Nero killed every member of the council because they had refused to acknowledge the threat.
They decided to use a prototype ship designed to withstand atmospheres that tear most ships apart, including a sovereign class.
I read the Countdown comic before seeing the film and it was a great backstory for it. I agree with all your points, based on what we know from that comic.
However, none of this is revealed in the film and only us rabid fanboys will be aware of it. In a similar vein, I found Nero a really interesting, three-dimensional character in the comic, but little more than a 1D plot device in the movie. Similarly, there was a wonderful explanation in the comic as to why the Romulans all had random face tattoos in the film.
I understand why they left all this detail out the film (so it wasn't bogged down in excessive exposition that only the die hard fans would care about), but it did clearly leave certain things unexplained and I can see why many would find the story making little sense because of it.
Personally, I would have loved it if all of "Countdown" had appeared in the film. I think it would have been pretty fantastic - but I say that as a Trek fan since childhood. I can also see that it probably wouldn't have been the critical and financial success it was if it catered purely for fans like me; and to be frank, Star Trek needed a shot in the arm of mass appeal to keep it from flat-lining at that point. So I'll take the loss on the chin, knowing that it probably saved Star Trek from being consigned to the dustbin of history.
Much as I enjoy the 2009 film, the plot was full of silly holes. For instance, if you are going to destroy a planet via black hole, why drill into the planet and put it in the middle? Dropping a black hole right next to it would be good enough. Heck, dropping it randomly in the same star system would be more than enough.
Remember, all Spock did with the red matter in the future was launch it at a supernova. He didn't need to put it at the centre of the supernova. Plus, the resulting black hole was enough to gobble up this entire supernova - one large enough that it had already swallowed Romulus whole.
It really made no sense why the Romulans bothered to drill into Vulcan - and later Earth - in order to destroy them. Fly by, launch the red matter and head off to your next target. Job done. It really wasn't well thought through.
Fortunately, as an origin story, it survives this by the Romulan attack really not being the focus of the movie. The focus was on the crew coming together for the first time. I'm going to see "Into Darkness" next Saturday, but I hope it doesn't have these sorts of gaping plot holes in it as it won't be able to fall back on the origin story this time. The plot needs to be tighter.
Flippin eck! I'm glad you weren't writing the movie script. I go into see a movie to suspend logic and just want a bit of excitement and drama, knowing full well that its science fiction im watching and will be full of plot holes. You do realise the reason that the script writers went for drilling into the surface, dropping the red matter into the centre of the planet... its because it makes for an exciting 20 minute segment in the movie, not because they made a mistake with the script and forgot they could drop some red matter near the planet creating the same result. Who gives a damn about silly little plot holes. You're telling me you'd have rather had the Romulan ship warp in next to Vulcan, drop some red matter to cause a black hole and then warp out. That would have made an amazing movie...
Its like an argument that when James Bond gets captured by the villians they don't just put a bullet in his head. I know its a gaping plot hole but I know the reason is so we get an exciting movie to watch. Another example, Lord of the Rings, Frodo and company have to travel across fields, forests, through caves, fighting orcs, goblins, and giant spiders and in the end he has to make his way to the mountain to drop the ring in the lava. Couldn't he have hopped onto the back of one of those big eagles, delivering him right to the front door of the mountain without any danger along the way. Yes its a gaping plot hole but.... seriously, writers aren't really that bothered about that, there more interested in making an exciting movie.
Plot holes... who cares. Was Star Trek a great exciting sci-fi movie, IMO hell yes, and I hope the 2nd carries on where the 1st left off.
Flippin eck! I'm glad you weren't writing the movie script. I go into see a movie to suspend logic and just want a bit of excitement and drama, knowing full well that its science fiction im watching and will be full of plot holes. You do realise the reason that the script writers went for drilling into the surface, dropping the red matter into the centre of the planet... its because it makes for an exciting 20 minute segment in the movie, not because they made a mistake with the script and forgot they could drop some red matter near the planet creating the same result. Who gives a damn about silly little plot holes. You're telling me you'd have rather had the Romulan ship warp in next to Vulcan, drop some red matter to cause a black hole and then warp out. That would have made an amazing movie...
Its like an argument that when James Bond gets captured by the villians they don't just put a bullet in his head. I know its a gaping plot hole but I know the reason is so we get an exciting movie to watch. Another example, Lord of the Rings, Frodo and company have to travel across fields, forests, through caves, fighting orcs, goblins, and giant spiders and in the end he has to make his way to the mountain to drop the ring in the lava. Couldn't he have hopped onto the back of one of those big eagles, delivering him right to the front door of the mountain without any danger along the way. Yes its a gaping plot hole but.... seriously, writers aren't really that bothered about that, there more interested in making an exciting movie.
Plot holes... who cares. Was Star Trek a great exciting sci-fi movie, IMO hell yes, and I hope the 2nd carries on where the 1st left off.
Didn't I say I enjoyed the film?
Yes, I think I did.
But plot holes aren't something you shouldn't care about. The whole point of a plot hole is that it is a mistake in the story. My point was that the story they set up contradicted the requirement to drill to the centre of the planet. They could easily have made that a requirement of the red matter - but instead they contradicted that in the actual movie.
Good science fiction sets up a set of rules. These rules are not a part of reality, but they are the rules of the fictional universe. Then it applies those rules to the story. This is what sci-fi should always do in order to create a believable story. Contradicting its own rules within a single story only takes the viewer out of the fiction.
As for Lord of the Rings, I guess you've been watching "How it Should Have Ended," on Youtube. Me too, its a good laugh. Easily explainable, though, as flying on giant eagles isn't exactly subtle and they were trying to go with a low profile. Seeing as they didn't have "air supremacy," its not exactly a guaranteed entry to Mordor.
Compare that to Star Trek actually contradicting the need to deploy the red matter to the centre of a planet. We see two occurrences in the movie of it not being necessary - 1., when Spock destroys the supernova, and 2, when Spock destroys Nero's ship. They contradict their own logic. That's not good.
Yes, like a good James Bond film, the rest of the story managed to negate the problems in the script, resulting in a film I enjoyed - and still enjoy. But to act like it was somehow perfect and cannot be improved upon is just being small-minded and stupid. It had big errors in its script. Errors that could have been avoided with a few more drafts.
Continuing with the James Bond analogy, where that series suffered is when it relied on such overused tropes as Bond being captured and not shot on the spot. If it didn't think through a good reason as to why he wasn't shot on the spot, we ended up with a bunch of bad Bond films. Let's not pretend that every Bond film ever made was a raging, critical success. Some were total shit, not least because of bad scripts.
I enjoyed Star Trek (2009). I'm no hater or crazy fan who couldn't accept the reboot. I like it. I own the Blu-Ray. I still watch it and will probably watch it again, next Friday, before going to see "Into Darkness" (for which I am massively excited to see) next Saturday.
But nor am I some rabid fan of the reboot who thinks its perfect. It's flawed. Its very obviously flawed, in ways that anyone who bothers to think whilst watching a movie can see. That doesn't mean I don't like it. It simply means I stay awake whilst watching a film.
Comments
Bad reviews?
Got my tickets booked for the IMAX double bill on Wednesday night at Cineworld, can't wait
PJ
I think that Paramount sort of ordered Abrams to do it in 3D. From what I heard, he was just planning on doing a few sequences in IMAX film(like the Dark Knight).
As for shooting a whole film on 65mm IMAX - well, that would be one hell of a technical challenge. Apart from the fact that IMAX seems to be favouring digital now - there are lot of logistical problems with shooting in IMAX film. The cameras are much heavier, they can only shoot 3 minutes of film and they take about 30 minutes to reload! Mind you - if it was every done - the film would look amazing!
Chris Pine is such a wrong choice for the (iconic) role of Captain James T. Kirk. I do realise that it would be hard to fill the shoes of the great William Shatner but Pine's portrayal shows none of the great qualities and personality of Shatner's Kirk. There's not an ounce of his wry humour mixed with the seriousness of the role. And no literary quotes which imho was also a great part of Shatner's Kirk - all adding up to make him the lasting legend that he is. Chris Pine portrays Kirk as one-dimensional and as emotionless as a lump of cardboard!
On the other hand, the other main characters in the 2009 film were good, and it was easy to spot the characteristics of the original characters - Zachary Quinto in particular. He even looks remarkably like Spock!
I will be going to see 'Into Darkness' sometime but after tonight I'm not overly looking forward to it. Except that I want to see Benedict Cumberbatch. The reviews I've read have been glowing about him (but mixed on the film itself). I just hope that there is more of a story this time.
Sorry for my moaning, but as a huge fan of the Original Series, I'm disappointed with what Abrams is doing this time round.
also - how come the Vulcans don't seem to have any defences ? The chain thing didn't seem too difficult to sabotage - Kirk just fires a laser gun at it and it's kaput .
Nero's ship was a mining ship, not a warship. Although clearly still with enough 24th century weaponry to wipe out the fleet.
Much as I enjoy the 2009 film, the plot was full of silly holes. For instance, if you are going to destroy a planet via black hole, why drill into the planet and put it in the middle? Dropping a black hole right next to it would be good enough. Heck, dropping it randomly in the same star system would be more than enough.
Remember, all Spock did with the red matter in the future was launch it at a supernova. He didn't need to put it at the centre of the supernova. Plus, the resulting black hole was enough to gobble up this entire supernova - one large enough that it had already swallowed Romulus whole.
It really made no sense why the Romulans bothered to drill into Vulcan - and later Earth - in order to destroy them. Fly by, launch the red matter and head off to your next target. Job done. It really wasn't well thought through.
Fortunately, as an origin story, it survives this by the Romulan attack really not being the focus of the movie. The focus was on the crew coming together for the first time. I'm going to see "Into Darkness" next Saturday, but I hope it doesn't have these sorts of gaping plot holes in it as it won't be able to fall back on the origin story this time. The plot needs to be tighter.
I still don't understand why the Enterprise has an brewery on board. Or why young Spock would waste an escape pod by jettisoning young Kirk onto a planet filled with monsters that could kill him instead of just putting him in the brig. Nor do I understand why a star exploding near Romulus would threaten the entire galaxy as old Spock claimed. I furthermore don't get why Nero would hold the Federation and specifically Spock to blame for Romulus' destruction. The Romulans are not exactly technologically backward. Their empire and fleet matches the Federation's.
Also, the Federation had no obligation to suddenly be deeply concerned about Romulus. The alliance with the Romulans pretty much ended with the Dominion War. All the major powers of the Alpha Quadrant had their own problems to deal with after years of conflict, let alone solve Romulus'
And why the hell didn't Nero simply evacuate his family? You have a ship and a transporter system, you doofus. Just beam them aboard.
Nero blamed Spock because Spock was responsible for failing to deliver the black hole thing in time to save Romulus from the explosion. Nero also doesn't represent the Romulan empire and is merely just a terrorist with a grudge. And also, Nero was nowhere near Romulus when it was destroyed, so he wouldn't have been able to simply beam them up.
These points are explained in Countdown, the prequel to the movie, but I'm thinking you knew that already.
His blame and grudge should have been against the Romulan government, not Spock, for 1- failing to evacuate Romulus and 2- not being able to come up with their own solutions to the problem. The Romulans should have sent a fast warbird to collect the black hole thing rather than relying on an old Federation ambassador flying a glorified shuttle.
1) He's not JUST mad at Spock, he's mad at the Vulcans in general because of their promise to save Romulus, that's the entire reason for why he destroys Vulcan, the fact that Spock witnesses it is just a bonus for him considering that Spock is directly responsible for not delivering the black hole device in time.
2) Why would they evacuate an entire planet when they thought that the Federation/Vulcans were going to deal with the problem? I know they didn't deal with it due to errors on the Vulcan's part, but the plan was in place to neutralize the shockwave. It'd be like evacuating Earth because an extinction level meteor was coming towards us, they'd try and destroy it rather than evacuating the planet.
3) Spock explains in the film that the shuttle that he is using is the fastest ship at the Federation's disposal, that's why he's using it and not another type of ship. It needed to be that small and fast so that it could outrun the gravity pull from the black hole.
It just seems like you're poking holes in things for the sake of it. Fair enough if you didn't like the film, but you can't make plot holes magically appear.
The film was fine as a brainless action movie, but all three of your points are plotholes in themselves, because they don't make any logical sense given what we know about the Star Trek universe, as I explain here.
Having the Vulcans promise to save Romulus is a silly plot point given what we know about the technological superiority of the Romulan empire. It was only a few years ago that agents within the Romulan government plotted to conquer Vulcans. Vulcan would have no obligation to promise anything to Romulus (which they wouldn't do in the first instance since making blindly arrogant promises isn't very logical). If the red matter was that urgent, the Romulans should have either collected it themselves, or devised it themselves.
Evacuating the planet would be a common sense backup plan, given that there was no guarentee that the Vulcan plan would work. If a meteor was heading towards Earth, evacuating the planet or simply the parts of the planet most like to be severely affected by it would be prudent, and possible given the enormous fleet of starships equipped with transporters at Earth's disposal (and even more if other Alpha Quadrant powers were available to help).
It makes no sense for such a small ship to be faster than say a Sovereign Class starship for example which has a warp core ten times the size of Spock's entire ship
Actually, the Romulan senate refused to ask for anyone's help despite Spocks pleas because they didn't take Spock's observations seriously. Nero and Spock then went to Vulcan unofficially to ask for Vulcan assistance. The Vulcans refused to help fearing that if the threat wasn't as big as feared by Spock the Romulans would then have access to their red matter manipulation knowledge. That's not something the Vulcans were prepared to risk. Nero saw the Vulcans refusal to turn over the secrets of Vulcan science to the Romulans as a betrayal.
The Romulans refused to acknowledge the threat so hey saw no need to evacuate the planet. By the time they realised the threat was real only a few ships managed to escape, including the Romulans ruling council, Nero killed every member of the council because they had refused to acknowledge the threat.
They decided to use a prototype ship designed to withstand atmospheres that tear most ships apart, including a sovereign class.
Personally I don't care as I'm not a fanboy of either franchise but I found this a little curious. I can't see Abrams directing Star Trek 3.
To think I rolled my eyes at the idea in the Enterprise premier when it was only four days at mid warp to get from Earth to Qo'nos.
I read the Countdown comic before seeing the film and it was a great backstory for it. I agree with all your points, based on what we know from that comic.
However, none of this is revealed in the film and only us rabid fanboys will be aware of it. In a similar vein, I found Nero a really interesting, three-dimensional character in the comic, but little more than a 1D plot device in the movie. Similarly, there was a wonderful explanation in the comic as to why the Romulans all had random face tattoos in the film.
I understand why they left all this detail out the film (so it wasn't bogged down in excessive exposition that only the die hard fans would care about), but it did clearly leave certain things unexplained and I can see why many would find the story making little sense because of it.
Personally, I would have loved it if all of "Countdown" had appeared in the film. I think it would have been pretty fantastic - but I say that as a Trek fan since childhood. I can also see that it probably wouldn't have been the critical and financial success it was if it catered purely for fans like me; and to be frank, Star Trek needed a shot in the arm of mass appeal to keep it from flat-lining at that point. So I'll take the loss on the chin, knowing that it probably saved Star Trek from being consigned to the dustbin of history.
Flippin eck! I'm glad you weren't writing the movie script. I go into see a movie to suspend logic and just want a bit of excitement and drama, knowing full well that its science fiction im watching and will be full of plot holes. You do realise the reason that the script writers went for drilling into the surface, dropping the red matter into the centre of the planet... its because it makes for an exciting 20 minute segment in the movie, not because they made a mistake with the script and forgot they could drop some red matter near the planet creating the same result. Who gives a damn about silly little plot holes. You're telling me you'd have rather had the Romulan ship warp in next to Vulcan, drop some red matter to cause a black hole and then warp out. That would have made an amazing movie...
Its like an argument that when James Bond gets captured by the villians they don't just put a bullet in his head. I know its a gaping plot hole but I know the reason is so we get an exciting movie to watch. Another example, Lord of the Rings, Frodo and company have to travel across fields, forests, through caves, fighting orcs, goblins, and giant spiders and in the end he has to make his way to the mountain to drop the ring in the lava. Couldn't he have hopped onto the back of one of those big eagles, delivering him right to the front door of the mountain without any danger along the way. Yes its a gaping plot hole but.... seriously, writers aren't really that bothered about that, there more interested in making an exciting movie.
Plot holes... who cares. Was Star Trek a great exciting sci-fi movie, IMO hell yes, and I hope the 2nd carries on where the 1st left off.
Didn't I say I enjoyed the film?
Yes, I think I did.
But plot holes aren't something you shouldn't care about. The whole point of a plot hole is that it is a mistake in the story. My point was that the story they set up contradicted the requirement to drill to the centre of the planet. They could easily have made that a requirement of the red matter - but instead they contradicted that in the actual movie.
Good science fiction sets up a set of rules. These rules are not a part of reality, but they are the rules of the fictional universe. Then it applies those rules to the story. This is what sci-fi should always do in order to create a believable story. Contradicting its own rules within a single story only takes the viewer out of the fiction.
As for Lord of the Rings, I guess you've been watching "How it Should Have Ended," on Youtube. Me too, its a good laugh. Easily explainable, though, as flying on giant eagles isn't exactly subtle and they were trying to go with a low profile. Seeing as they didn't have "air supremacy," its not exactly a guaranteed entry to Mordor.
Compare that to Star Trek actually contradicting the need to deploy the red matter to the centre of a planet. We see two occurrences in the movie of it not being necessary - 1., when Spock destroys the supernova, and 2, when Spock destroys Nero's ship. They contradict their own logic. That's not good.
Yes, like a good James Bond film, the rest of the story managed to negate the problems in the script, resulting in a film I enjoyed - and still enjoy. But to act like it was somehow perfect and cannot be improved upon is just being small-minded and stupid. It had big errors in its script. Errors that could have been avoided with a few more drafts.
Continuing with the James Bond analogy, where that series suffered is when it relied on such overused tropes as Bond being captured and not shot on the spot. If it didn't think through a good reason as to why he wasn't shot on the spot, we ended up with a bunch of bad Bond films. Let's not pretend that every Bond film ever made was a raging, critical success. Some were total shit, not least because of bad scripts.
I enjoyed Star Trek (2009). I'm no hater or crazy fan who couldn't accept the reboot. I like it. I own the Blu-Ray. I still watch it and will probably watch it again, next Friday, before going to see "Into Darkness" (for which I am massively excited to see) next Saturday.
But nor am I some rabid fan of the reboot who thinks its perfect. It's flawed. Its very obviously flawed, in ways that anyone who bothers to think whilst watching a movie can see. That doesn't mean I don't like it. It simply means I stay awake whilst watching a film.