Star Trek XI

[Jedi Master Spock]

I saw the Movie on Friday, and I have to say it is now my favorite Star Trek Movie.

I was rather impressed by the new Enterprise's rate of fire, I don't think I've seen anything with a similar rate of in Star Wars.

Anyways, who else wants Sulu's Sword?

We have seen similar rates of fire. Jango Fett's Slave-I, for example, or the Imperial TIEs. Of course you may mean captial ships, so no, we have not seen anything quite like that, at least not in the movies, nor can I recall anything like that in the TCW.
-Mike

I had the impression that it was faster than we saw from the Slave I. A very visually stunning moment, when they opened fire with everything.

On the whole, I wasn't actually that impressed with the movie in terms of plot coherency. A supernova threatening the galaxy? Smashing into Romulus before a warp-speed ship can get to it? Completely messed up. Lots of implausible crap and bad explanations. However, now that someone mentioned that the original continuity is probably still in place, I'm going to hypothesize...

... the Trek intellectual property is split at the moment, right? Paramount Pictures owns the movie rights, CBS owns the television rights. So it makes sense that they would break the franchise into two separate continuities. And soon, Star Trek will be about as messy as a comic book universe in terms of canon.

There were a lot of good scenes - moments, at least - in the movie, and I liked how Abrams did that Kirk-Uhura-Spock triangle. And Sulu's sword was pretty rocking.

Visually stunning, intellectually lacking, fairly solid characterization, alternate-reality level continuity butchering. I give it three stars.

[Mike DiCenso]

I had the impression that it was faster than we saw from the Slave I. A very visually stunning moment, when they opened fire with everything.

Well I did say similar, not the same. Probably the Kelvin and the Big E's RoF is faster, though not by that much more. Dunno, just have to wait to see it all on DVD for a side-by-side comparison and to get proper scalings of the starships.

fairly solid characterization .

That's what's by and large winning over people is the characterizations, the opening scenes with the Kelvin and the death of George Kirk, and the birth of James Kirk, and Spock's boyhood on Vulcan. If Abrams and company can lock onto this, then the franchise will live again.
-Mike

[Praeothmin]

He was unconscious and didn’t wake up until after the pod had landed. If it’s an escape pod or some special landing pod it should have a phaser as part of its equipment set. I lack of one would mean that either Kirk didn’t find it, didn’t use it, or it wasn’t there. Spock trying to kill someone just isn’t very Spock-like.

I never got the feeling he wanted to kill him, just get him off his ship because of the disrupting influence Kirk might have.
He also "shot" him close to a Federation base, and the pod specifically told Kirk to wait for help, which of course he didn't do...

It is explicit that it's rewriting some of history, not moving into a parallel universe.

No, it's explicitely stated, in the movie, that Nero had created a parallel timeline through his actions...

A supernova threatening the galaxy? Smashing into Romulus before a warp-speed ship can get to it?

The comic book related to the movie explains the backstory, and the SuperNova is a technobabble one, of the effects which are not too unsimilar to the "Q" war in Voyager...

And soon, Star Trek will be about as messy as a comic book universe in terms of canon.

SW is already messy and it only has 7 movies and a series...

intellectually lacking,

This is a point that I've seen a few times from people criticizing the movie.
Let me ask you this:
What do you mean by that, and which movies weren't intellectually lacking?
And what series weren't?
Which episodes?

I haven't watched any ST movie that made me think on my human condition, not one.
Apart from the obvious ST VI cold war reference with the cheesy "people are afraid of change and the future", the movie was pretty much a very good action flick in the ST universe...

I personnally loved the movie:
It was fast paced, the characters were great, each were unique, even Chevov contributed to the story, something I've always felt lacking from the original depiction.
There were great Starship scenes, great emotionnal ones too, and the all the small bits of the original ST era thrown here and there were great.
It is definitely the best ST movie ever, bar none.
It has surpassed, IMO, even TWoK and TUC...

[GStone]

No, it's explicitely stated, in the movie, that Nero had created a parallel timeline through his actions...

The pseudo singularity created a paralle timeline, but that doesn't mean that they went into another universe. It rewrote the timeline. The whole idea is that it went back in time of the same reality. Otherwise, there'd be no point. Old Spock's Vulcan would still be around. There's nothing to suggest that a new universe has been 'created' or they moved to one. That's why people are crying 'reboot'.

[Praeothmin]

The pseudo singularity created a paralle timeline, but that doesn't mean that they went into another universe. It rewrote the timeline. The whole idea is that it went back in time of the same reality. Otherwise, there'd be no point. Old Spock's Vulcan would still be around. There's nothing to suggest that a new universe has been 'created' or they moved to one. That's why people are crying 'reboot'.

Oops, misunderstood your meaning.
In my defense, you were using big words... ;)

[Mike DiCenso]

And does anyone remember if Kirk had a phaser on the planet? I don’t remember seeing one. He certainly should have had one for protection and heating rocks.

It was probably not given to him so that he couldn't fight back before he was ejected onto the planet. He was also landed 15 km from the base.
-Mike

He was unconscious and didn’t wake up until after the pod had landed. If it’s an escape pod or some special landing pod it should have a phaser as part of its equipment set. I lack of one would mean that either Kirk didn’t find it, didn’t use it, or it wasn’t there. Spock trying to kill someone just isn’t very Spock-like.

Even still, would you trust to give the guy a phaser and he just happens to wake up as you're loading the pod into the tube to be fired off? Of course not. Also as pointed out already, the pod computer told Kirk to stay put and wait for rescue, but Kirk being Kirk doesn't wait around! As for Spock trying to kill Kirk, nothing was said about that, but Spock was not in the right state of mind after the death of his mother and the destruction of Vulcan, and so by marooning Kirk on Delta Vega puts Kirk at serious risk of being killed, either because of a pod malfunction, or for other reasons, like what nearly happened to Kirk with the monster attack.

Still not convinced? Look at how easy it was for Kirk to goad Spock into attacking him on the bridge for everyone to see. Once Spock realized this, he stood down.
-Mike

[Mike DiCenso]

Interesting to note how warp drive is portrayed in this movie; it seems to have been changed into something more like Star Wars' hyperdrive than anything we've seen previously in the Trek movies and series. The choreography of the Starfleet task force jumping to warp to get to Vulcan in very reminiscent of the Rebel fleet's jump to Endor in RoTJ. While in warp, the Big E was not able to scan ahead to see what was going on at Vulcan and it's arrival at Vulcan amist the debris of the fleet's debris is rather strikingly similar to the Falcon's coming out of hyperspace into Alderaan's debris field. As far as can be told, there is no way to scan into this new version of warp just as there is no apparent way to scan into Star Wars hyperdrive.

Interestingly enough, this warp drive is very fast, too. At least 6,000c based on the fact that it took no more than a day for the fleet and the delayed Big E to reach Vulcan across 16.5 light years. In fact, given the almost continuous series events shown of Kirk being smuggled onto the E by McCoy, the trip might not have lasted more than minutes, perhaps an hour or so at most.
-Mike

[watchdog]

Interesting to note how warp drive is portrayed in this movie; it seems to have been changed into something more like Star Wars' hyperdrive than anything we've seen previously in the Trek movies and series. The choreography of the Starfleet task force jumping to warp to get to Vulcan in very reminiscent of the Rebel fleet's jump to Endor in RoTJ. While in warp, the Big E was not able to scan ahead to see what was going on at Vulcan and it's arrival at Vulcan amist the debris of the fleet's debris is rather strikingly similar to the Falcon's coming out of hyperspace into Alderaan's debris field. As far as can be told, there is no way to scan into this new version of warp just as there is no apparent way to scan into Star Wars hyperdrive.

Interestingly enough, this warp drive is very fast, too. At least 6,000c based on the fact that it took no more than a day for the fleet and the delayed Big E to reach Vulcan across 16.5 light years. In fact, given the almost continuous series events shown of Kirk being smuggled onto the E by McCoy, the trip might not have lasted more than minutes, perhaps an hour or so at most.
-Mike

I knoticed that too, after they went to warp Chekov makes his little speach and states that they would be arriving at Vulcan in 3 minutes, I thought 'wow, the ships are faster now.' The return trip seemed to take much longer though.

[2046]

No, it's explicitely stated, in the movie, that Nero had created a parallel timeline through his actions...

There is no such statement, and the script and film as completed do not necessarily support that conclusion. Obviously I do not have the transcript, but the Monsterprise crew talk about the fact that history's been changed, that things will unfold differently, Spock refers to the idea that "destinies have changed", and Uhura says something about an "alternate reality" to which Spock says "precisely".

[GStone]

While in warp, the Big E was not able to scan ahead to see what was going on at Vulcan and it's arrival at Vulcan amist the debris of the fleet's debris is rather strikingly similar to the Falcon's coming out of hyperspace into Alderaan's debris field.

I'd have to bring the vid up again, but I don't remember this. However, if we assumed this was true, how would Scotty be able to transport himself and Kirk to the E, while it was at warp? Some kind of FTL field would be required for the sensors to make sure transport was successful and that the stuff was sent to a FTL moving thing to begin with. It had to be moving quicker than the E, which I doubt was on a path that was totally linear.

Was the dialogue that they 'couldn't' scan ahead while at warp or was it that they just hadn't and weren't thinking that it was necessary because they weren't expecting a battle?

The warping/ returning to sublight makes me think more of nBSG than SW actually. I think there might have been some light flash that lasted only a few frames or it might have just been from the E going to and coming out of warp. This needs to be verified frame-by frame to be sure, but that's what it seemed like when I watched it.

[Praeothmin]

There is no such statement, and the script and film as completed do not necessarily support that conclusion. Obviously I do not have the transcript, but the Monsterprise crew talk about the fact that history's been changed, that things will unfold differently, Spock refers to the idea that "destinies have changed", and Uhura says something about an "alternate reality" to which Spock says "precisely".

You're right, it was more like an "alternate reality", not a parallel one...
My bad! ;)

Was the dialogue that they 'couldn't' scan ahead while at warp or was it that they just hadn't and weren't thinking that it was necessary because they weren't expecting a battle?

Well, they did try to communicate with the fleet while in Warp, which does imply it is not totally blind like in SW.
And, perhaps their sensors weren't, yet, capable of FTL sensing, or were slower then the fastest Warp speeds...

[Enterprise E]

To me, though, that still means that the Prime timeline still exists. Everything that has been done before hasn't just gone out the window never to return, it's still there in the Prime timeline. To me, the Prime timeline still continues after the destruction of Romulus, and Spock and the Narada going into the past, creating a new timeline. So I don't know why some people would be mad about that. So I don't know why some Trek purists are angry about this. Though I will admit that I could be misunderstanding your points. The alternate timeline, to me, simply means that this timeline will be different than the one that Spock Prime came from. Heck, for all we know, one of the timelines Worf entered in "Parallels" could have been the Alternate Trek timeline.

[Mike DiCenso]

Interesting to note how warp drive is portrayed in this movie; it seems to have been changed into something more like Star Wars' hyperdrive than anything we've seen previously in the Trek movies and series. The choreography of the Starfleet task force jumping to warp to get to Vulcan in very reminiscent of the Rebel fleet's jump to Endor in RoTJ. While in warp, the Big E was not able to scan ahead to see what was going on at Vulcan and it's arrival at Vulcan amist the debris of the fleet's debris is rather strikingly similar to the Falcon's coming out of hyperspace into Alderaan's debris field. As far as can be told, there is no way to scan into this new version of warp just as there is no apparent way to scan into Star Wars hyperdrive.

Interestingly enough, this warp drive is very fast, too. At least 6,000c based on the fact that it took no more than a day for the fleet and the delayed Big E to reach Vulcan across 16.5 light years. In fact, given the almost continuous series events shown of Kirk being smuggled onto the E by McCoy, the trip might not have lasted more than minutes, perhaps an hour or so at most.
-Mike

I knoticed that too, after they went to warp Chekov makes his little speach and states that they would be arriving at Vulcan in 3 minutes, I thought 'wow, the ships are faster now.' The return trip seemed to take much longer though.

If it took the Big E an hour total from start to finish to get to Vulcan, that is an average speed of 144, 540c. But it if it is really 3 or so minutes, then we now have a new Trek warp speed record of 2,890,800c! This, I believe is the second highest conventional warp speed after ST V's 10-20 million c.
-Mike

[Jedi Master Spock]

If it took the Big E an hour total from start to finish to get to Vulcan, that is an average speed of 144, 540c. But it if it is really 3 or so minutes, then we now have a new Trek warp speed record of 2,890,800c! This, I believe is the second highest conventional warp speed after ST V's 10-20 million c.
-Mike

STV: 32-38 million c, by my reckoning.

"Where Silence Has Lease," using similar logic as the above interpretation of the new movie, clocks in around 12 million c.

The high end of "The Chase" (i.e., going with the low end of two weeks and assuming a similar actual mileage/distance traveled ratio as VOY) is not terribly far behind. It would also fit perfectly well with "Emanations" and "Favorite Sun" in Voyager.

[Mike DiCenso]

What occurs in "Emanations" and "Favorite Son" that result in such high warp numbers?

As for "The Chase", the upper end of those numbers are restricted to what Professor Galen stated about "Weeks" to traverse the 35,000 to 40,000 light year distance shown on the galaxy map. Assuming the E-D only spent a week chasing down the entire route, over a maximum distance of 40k ly, that would mean a top speed of 2,085,714c, which is in the neighborhood, but still falls short of the Big E's speed.
-Mike