I am one of those freaks who feels that Star Trek helped shape who I am. I admit I was appalled when I first heard they were doing a movie about the young versions of the original crew. But, over time, I gradually started getting interested and finally got caught up in the hype. Thus, I found myself in line at 1:00 a.m. in the morning last night to watch the new Star Trek movie on IMAX. I'm happy to report that, as an avid fan, I quite enjoyed the movie. That's not to say that there weren't a few things that I didn't like much--but, overall, the focus was on character development rather than story and plot, and they got it right more often than not. Go see it!

Standing in line, I was also struck that there really are very few real Star Trek fans below the age of 35. By 'real' fans, I mean those who watched the original series in their formative years and felt profoundly affected by the experience. At one point, you used to find such fans across all age brackets, but I think the original series has finally passed into pure nostalgia, especially with the dated special effects, costumes, etc. I rarely even see reruns of the later series (NextGen, Deepspace, Voyager, Enterprise) being shown. Ah, well, perhaps this new movie will kickstart a new era for this great vision!

I saw it at the IMAX too and was completely blown away. I'm going to see it again tomorrow, I loved it so much.

Though I love Star Trek, I will admit that I'm not a huge fan of the original series. I do enjoy it, but TNG is my most favorite, followed closely with DS9 and Voyager.

I saw it today, and I thought it was great. My mom was a huge fan of the original series, and really all the series since. Really easy Mother's day present. I had a few problems with it too, but overall, awesome.

Should be going to see the movie this evening in a normal cinema. I wasn't rushing to see it until I saw the trailer for the first time on Thursday night and it looked so good I instantly wanted to go see it at the IMAX. Sadly booked out this weekend apart from neckbrace seats right at the front.

Nemesis and Enterprise really killed Trek for me... not even Ziggy could save Sam from that series.

As for the original series, I'm 28 and that was the first series I watched! TNG had only just started up when I was getting into Star Trek. I still love the humour in the original.

"I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer!"

Yeah, they use pretty much every silly line you can remember.

Keeps it funnyThey even kill the red shirt...well, jumpsuit. I bet my mom $5 that when they jumped from the shuttle, the guy in red was a dead man. She wouldn't take the bet..

I didn't grow up with TOS (being only 23), but I grew up with TNG. While I consider myself now to be more of a Star Wars fan (thank you Mando Mercs) Star Trek always has had a special place in my heart for getting me addicted to sci-fi. I've seen most of TOS and there may be only a few eps of TNG that I haven't seen, though I doubt it. I was never much into DS9, but I enjoyed VOY qute a bit. Enterprise had nothing for me. Of all 11 movies, only 1 and 5 truly sucked in my opinion, while the even numbers (even 10) have been outstanding. I saw the new movies last night and enjoyed it, even though they changed a lot of things (which they had a clever excuse for). Some of the actors (like Karl Urban) really nailed their roles, and you can't camplain about the quality of the special effects (though the lens flaring was a bit distracting).

It's not out here in the cinema yet

My favorite part was KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!

Scotty (or however it's spelt, I'm sorry I'm not a huge fan I mostly only watched it as a kid because my dad put it on) was my favourite character, as well as his little helper who was adorable.

I did enjoy it as someone who wasn't too too into the show, and didn't really know much about it in the first place. Plus, the fact that it was an "alternate" reality made it easier for me to follow as it didn't require me knowing little random details or detract from the movie as I sit through movies based on books I've read and gone "..That never happened"

I just need to convince my friends to see this tomorrow night instead of X-men

Scotty is Pegg right? Of course he's your favorite character because Pegg is amazing. I haven't even seen it and Pegg is my favorite character.

Just saw it! I enjoyed it, but physically, involuntarily nerd shuddered during the movie at the implications of it all.

I saw a midnight screening on Wednesday night (well, Thursday morning) and I have to say I really enjoyed it. (Highlight for my crappy review.)

The time travel plot was very well done and didn't feel shoehorned in like time travel plots so often do. (It kind of reminded me of the time travel plot in the webcomic Schlock Mercenary, actually.) It was pretty much the perfect way to reboot the franchise: not only did it add dramatic tension, since it was a different continuity and so characters were no longer protected by Plot Immunity (case in point: the destruction of Vulcan), it appeases the more rabid fans of the original series, since it makes the concession that yes, this is a different Star Trek, while simultaneously having old Leonard Nimoy bless the proceedings with his cameo. I enjoyed virtually every character, though obviously Bones was my favourite. "Are you outta your Vulcan mind?!" made me giggle like a schoolgirl. Spock was also very well done. My only complaint was that it spent a lot of time building things up and left comparatively little time for the actual plot. But I guess as a franchise reboot there's sequels on the way, so here's hoping for one by 2011!

EDIT: Also, I think it's very funny that Pegg got a role in this film, because one of his most memorable lines in Spaced is "it's a fact - as sure as eggs is eggs, as sure as day follows night, as sure as every odd-numbered Star Trek movie is shite". I guess they broke the cycle.

Yeah, but I can't help but think "been there, done that" already for possible sequels, since we've already covered the time after. Even if it really isn't... you know, the same time as before.

I just got back from seeing it, and my initial reaction is:

Awesomesauce with sprinkles of win.

There are some thing that niggled me, but right now I'm waaaay too hyped on the awesomeness to form a coherent critique.

Loved: Bones, Old Spock, keeping true to the original ship design. How the guy in the red uniform died.

Liked: Scotty, Syl.. I mean New Spock, Chekov, the way they did the time travel and the alternate reality thing.

Was ok with: Kirk, Uhura, Sulu.

Disliked: No-one yet. I'll tell you once I've seen it a second time.

I just had a vision of Sylar playing 'Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock' with a victim and morphing into Spock to play his choice.

I'll admit, when Spock was holding down Kirk I could only thing "Damn, he's about to do the whole cut the top of the skull thing"

I just saw this today.

I believe Estarra is correct about the age bracket of Star Trek. I know I'm within her "age bracket", and I do think TOS is based a lot from growing up in the 70s, where it ruled in Syndication. I was a big fan of the movies, and The Next Generation as well.

What I believe hurt Star Trek a lot was the over-milking of the franchise. They got a little greedy and needed to scale back. Deep Space Nine was okay but I stopped watching it (not by choice, but from work obligations), and when I was able to get into it again it's complex continuity lost me. Voyager was a little bit boring. I also found the writing to suffer a lot--I was much more interested in Babylon 5--and I ended up getting a bit disconnected from Sci-Fi, as I felt Trek was way too focused on Technobable and accurate Klingon language where the human elements and solid plot/characterization was important. I ended up watching The West Wing instead of Voyager. Enterprise lost me because I felt going back in time was just stupid and setup continuity issues. (And they blame the continuity issues but I think that's an excuse for weak writing as well as not having enough good ideas--what they should have done is cancel TNG, then put it in a box for 5-8 years, have good, well-written movies featuring the TNG crew, then come up with a new series a few generations later).

I enjoyed this reboot--it wasn't a total reboot since it's more or less an alternate reality--especially since Vulcan got annihilated and "our Spock" is still around. One issue I did have--normally, when the time line gets messed up, the characters work to fix it--that's occurred in every story before, but not here. I also didn't like the phasers because I don't like them as "blasters", I'm used to the solid laser beams. Minor nitpicks, though.

I also felt this was the basic Trek--it didn't go all weird like Battlestar Galactica (as soon as I saw the Cylon in a Red Dress and heard Edward James Olmos say "don't watch if you're a fan of the original", I said--nuh-uh, not watching this.

Estarra, the problem with Re-runs is that they are regulated to cable and thus not in regular syndication. That's become a problem lately with a lot of TV shows. I believe Spike TV had the rights to TNG, DS9, and Voyager and they only really show TNG.

Ok, so, onto the nerd niggles...

The time travel: while I can run with what they've done, I have a few questions. In previous Trek storylines they have always repaired the timeline and there have been no far reaching changes to the universe as a result. This is a massive departure from that. This seems to imply one of two things, either there isn't a single time line for the universe, such that at each possible choice or change we see the birth of a new universe parallel to the existing one, in which case this current Trek is infact a parallel universe and the original timeline is preserved thus ensuring that the mining ship and Spock who tried to save Romulus exists somewhere for them to travel back to start this timeline. Or, there is one timeline and by travelling back through time and causing these events that timeline has been destroyed but old Spock and the mining ship are protected from the effects of the new timeline by the very fact they have travelled through time. The third possibility is that the timeline will re-adjust itself so that the situation in which old spock and the miners get thrown into the black hole becomes unavoidable, even with new Spock's prior knowledge of the events.

The second monster on the ice planet: seems ill adapted for it's environment, it is a bright colour, hardly effective for a predator, also it seems to have no appreciable body fat of thick hide to protect it from what would appear to be very cold temperatures. There was no point in that creature existing aside from to provide an exciting chase sequence.

The drilling rig: what benefit does the mining ship gain from its deployable mining rig? It would seem to me to be an unnecessary cumbersome and vulnerable attachment to achieve something which could easily be achieved with a laser mounted closer or on the mining ship. On a ship which seems to consist mostly of spiky bits, where are they storing that exactly?? Also, the design of the mining ship, very impressive but it would seem to be quite a strange design for a mining vessel. Where does it store mined ore?

Planet based construction of the Enterprise... really how does that work? are the impulse drives strong enough to get the ship to escape velocity. No warping out of there if I remember some previous warnings about activating a warp drive in an atmosphere.

There will be more niggles, that's what I can think of right now.

I walked into it without taking anything seriously and loved it. Would watch again.

@Caffrey:


It would seem to me (but I could be entirely incorrect) that in their world, they subscribe to the "time is a tree" rather than the "time is a line" school of thought. The way I saw it, they went back up the branch, and down a different one, and now they exist in an alternate universe, while the other normal universe has a very limited amount of romulans and no Spock.