Whooo! Just back! Loved every bit of it!
Didn't even realise that I had been in there hours until it actualy ended.
I went with two people who have damn all interest in Trek. Hell, one went purely because she'd heard Eric Bana was in it. Both of them thoroughly enjoyed it, which says a lot.
Now, my thoughts:
The Good
The new
Enterprise: From the pictures I had seen of it initialy, I thought it looked a bit off. But it looked pretty damn good on the big screen.
Ship interiors: A good mix of futuristic and practical.
New warp effect: Looks cool. I like it.
Characters: The actors all nailed their characters. Going in, I thought it would be a bit odd seeing other people playing characters I'd always seen as someone else. But they all did brilliantly.
The
Narada: Very cool looking ship. Sleek and spikey.
Leonard Nimoy: Awesome to see him back again.
Special Effects: Brilliant and top-notch.
Sulu's folding sword: Utterly ridiculous, but I liked it none the less.
Nero: Take
that Shinzon!
That is how you play a Romulan villain!
Poor Porthos: A nice nod to ENT. Although the series sucked, I thought it was a good gesture. Great to see all the references to other series.
The Vulcans: I really liked this film's portrayal of the Vulcans. Far better than ENT's cardboard cutouts.
The Vegan Bear-Hound: The big wolf-thing that attacks Kirk first when he lands on Delta Vega. Looked pretty cool, and a nice concept for a predator on an ice world.
The Bad
Kirk appointed 2iC: That bit where Pike made Kirk the second in command of the
Enterprise just didn't work for me.
Surely there're other experienced officers aside from Pike and Spock on board. That whole bit just didn't sit right with me.
The battles: Far too short, and somewhat difficult to actualy see what was going on.
Chekov's accent: I see what they were going for here, but it was just too over the top for my liking. Though "Woolcan" and the "Wictor Wictor" scene got some laughs.
Enterprise's lack of a real fight scene: I'd expected to see the new
Enterprise strut her stuff in a battle with the
Narada. Sadly, the n
Enterprise didn't really do much. The only time it fired was during the end, when the
Narada was already fucked. I'd've at least liked even a brief exchange between the two ships.
The Ugly
The camera: Jesus H Christ. Was the cameraman having a fucking seizure or something? When done well, the shaky-cam effect can be very good. In this instance, however, it sucked. During the battles it was damn near impossible to see just what the hell was happening.
The Vegan Spidersaur: By which I mean the weird multi-legged lizard thing that attacked Kirk second. You know, the one that was red. On an ice planet. Where everything is white. Yeah, a
red predator in an enviroment where
everything is white. Come the fuck on!
The science: Dear God, no. A supernova destroying the galaxy? Yet again, come the fuck on! Even the people I went with, who have damn all interest in sci-fi or space, knew that was just dumb.
That said, I loved the film. It was great. I'll probably go again on Wednesday. I give it an excellend 5/5, despite it's flaws. It went back to the old action/adventure spirit of TOS, and pulled Trek out of the fire to live another day. While
The Wrath of Khan still holds 1st place as the best Trek movie ever, ST:XI takes a well-deserved second place behind it.
