Abrams Trek review thread *HEAVY SPOILERS*

[Ezinma88]

Maybe the canon has become so extensive, it's impossible to move in it to write a new story. If we know the entire future from canon, nothing much is ever at stake in any movie about Kirk's time. And Unless you are a Star Trek scholar, there is no way to write a canon-friendly story, so I can see a writer going, "The heck with it, this is a reboot." And I remember that by Voyager and DS9 the writers had already written themselves into some corners by having an all-knowing temporal police supervising everyone from afar. Where's the fun in that? If anyone truely screws up in their responsibiitie, a buracracy from the future will swoop in and patch things up in some inscrutable way. Bleck!

Bleck it may be JT....but that last 20 minutes I was just waiting for the other shoe to drop and some 'do-over' to kick in. I STILL can't believe Vulcan is just gone *weeps silently*.

And, hey! I always liked the temporal police. Maybe, the ramifications of Nero's actions mean the temporal police is never formed.....like a butterfly's beating wings causing a hurricane on the other side of the world. (I'm really hamming this up now )

[Ezinma88]

And did anyone else enjoy the young Spock scenes as much as I did?

Trek hasn't really spent that much time on Vulcan. So, it was nice to see the Vulcan school system in action......And, those vulcan bullies! I wonder how they reacted to Spock's emotional outburst after the beat-down was over.

[JadziaKathryn]

I still think that is has to be possible to tell an exciting prequel TOS without messing up continuity so much. (I too was waiting for the *swoop* it's like it never happened.)

And here's a thought. Trek at its best has never just been about action. From "City on the Edge of Forever" on, the stories with deeper meaning have always been the best. And I feel that this didn't go for that. The NYT review Alelou linked to went on about brain vs. body and I thought, "You were one of those English majors who thought every character whose name started with J was a Christ figure, weren't you?" Unless you want to really play up the Kirk-finding-his-destiny angle, this was an action story about saving the world. For that, was it good? Yes. As an AU? Yes, with qualifications as to ramifications in the 'real' universe.

But, not all of Trek has always lived up to its best.

[anaM]

I have a question, among others. We see at the beginning the Kelvin to ram Nero's ship and explode and a series of explosions inside the Narada. I got the impression the damage must have been quite destructive, but then it's all new again. In fact, why did the Narada not explode? What was the use of Kirk's father's death?

[Asso]

... Sigh, I almost feel like a lone voice in the wilderness...

Do you think this really, KTR?
Does my voice count anything for you?

[panyasan]

I haven't seen the movie yet. We were supposed to see the movie last Friday night, but our babysitter got sick. I don't want to read too much spoilers, while I loved to read all the reviews I got my hands on and I am very eager to read KTR's review. So I just going to ignore all the threads about the new movie until I have seen the movie.

[JadziaKathryn]

I have a question, among others. We see at the beginning the Kelvin to ram Nero's ship and explode and a series of explosions inside the Narada. I got the impression the damage must have been quite destructive, but then it's all new again. In fact, why did the Narada not explode? What was the use of Kirk's father's death?

Well, Nero did have 25 years to fix his ship.

I think George Kirk's death did a couple things: established this was an AU and gave Kirk a reason for a troubled childhood, as well as giving Kirk a reason to recognize that Vulcan was under attack.

[KKGlinka]

I'm honestly bemused and baffled by the common interpretation that the primary timeline was eradicated by the events in this movie. Even moreso by anyone who would claim that Star Trek has consistently used the single timeline expression. Between Mirror Universe episodes, Year of Hell, Twilight, Yesterday's Enterprise and myriad other episodes, it's readily apparent that Trek uses the temporal paradox expression.

A classic example of the temporal paradox is the Grandfather Paradox (from Doctor Who, where time travel is the basis for the show, rather than a decorative plot device). In the GP, a man from the future travels back in time and kills his own grandfather. If the timeline is purely linear, then that man is wiped from existence because his grandfather died. In which case he could not have traveled back to kill his grandfather... but he did. Both timelines occurred, but that doesn't mean that both existed from the dawn of creation to the end of the universe. The alternate timeline is a paradox loop, represented as a loop on a linear timeline. The letter "p" can serve as a visual example. The loop begins at the point of divergence (past) and ends at the point of origin (future). Yesterday's Enterprise is a perfect example of the Grandfather Paradox as Sela would not exist if her mother hadn't arrived from an alternate timeline generated between 2344 and 2364.

SPOILER!!!:

That's all this movie is. A really big temporal paradox loop existing between the destruction of the Kelvin and the supernova. The regular reality is carrying on just fine. If I had to make an educated doctor who fan guess, when Spock!2 becomes an old man, he will find some way, as heavily foreshadowed by Spock!1, to be in two places at the same time. Spock!1 will be delayed by the Vulcan council as before, in their passive but deliberate decision to allow the Romulan sun to go supernova and destroy their enemies. Spock!2 from this alternate reality will use an _insert plot device here_ to stop the supernova. While Vulcan remains destroyed within the paradox loop, both planets survive in the regular timeline.

So I didn't have any problem enjoying this bombastic, melodramatic submarine in space blast that is actually making me like the TOS characters. At least, one version of them.

[anaM]

Well, Nero did have 25 years to fix his ship.
I think George Kirk's death did a couple things: established this was an AU and gave Kirk a reason for a troubled childhood, as well as giving Kirk a reason to recognize that Vulcan was under attack.

thanks, you cleared things a bit

I feel rather stupid, but I don't understand all this alternate timeline thing.
If I understood well the TCW, the temporal agents were going back and forth in time, in order to fix things so that the timeline doesn't change -not very much anyway. So it is linear, but you can move both ways. In the meantime, there are other paralel universes or timelines that do not cross with this one. So far I can grasp the idea.

Now, how can a different timeline be created when something in the past is changed so that both exist at the same time? I mean, I am here. Suppose someone comes and kills his grandfather and a new timeline begins. So I -and everybody else who is not directly involved- get a double? Matter and energy get double?
If a time loop is created it means that after a while the two different timelines will be united again? What then about the changes?

Well, these are no more than logical exercises, but the more I think about it, the more dizzy I get and the less I understand. Wouldn't it be easier to say That Nero and Spock went back in time and to a paralel universe like the Defiant in the MU episode?

[KKGlinka]

So it is linear, but you can move both ways. In the meantime, there are other paralel universes or timelines that do not cross with this one.

Time is nothing but our perception of changes in our environment, which we record as a linear sequence. It's entirely possible there is no such thing as time. What we call time is side effect. One theory of "time" is that it's an entire dimension, that crosses with our own physical ones. As it affects ours, we perceive changes and because we only exist in three dimensions we can only see on proverbial angle of it.

So time isn't linear; we just arrange and record it that way. All possibilities, all changes, exist simultaneously. This is infinity. I think as humans we often have difficulty grasping the concept that there might not be a "beginning" and "end" and therefore finite values in between are equally irrelevant. There is no duplicate energy or mass in the same space because there is no finite measurement to time to begin with; we are merely perceiving a tiny cross-segment of it at any given... time.

It's like how in quantum physics, traditional laws of physics often don't apply. One of the most remarkable recent discoveries is that electrons can "teleport", or more accurately, switch identities and characteristics simultaneously. So Spock!1 has is that electron, having switched positions with an infinite dimension and everything is a-okay.

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

If we don't treat the timeline as linear then all temporal shenanigans - and more importantly all the efforts to set the timeline right again - would be pointless. Then Kirk down on that Guardian of Forever planet could just shrug when he learns that the past as he knew had ceased to exist (due to McCoy saving Edith Keeler) because there'd be a lot of other Kirks in other timelines where Edith Keeler did die. So he could just go hang himself or whatever...

[KKGlinka]

They are pointless (even if you were obviously over-simplifying the temporal mechanics involved using any given theory of time)... to anyone outside of that given timeline. Linear time is a convenient fallacy because we don't actually know what time is, yet. That's why Spock!1 more or less shrugs and points out that life continues, after playing on Kirk!2's assumption that there would be some horrid Blinovitch Effect if the two Spocks met. But if something is going to happen because it already happened, in the future, then it will. It's why the DTI exists, because you can't actually alter a given time-line in and of itself, merely create a divergence or paradox loop and they you're responsible for all the resulting lives. It's what makes Nero's quest so sad and hopeless; his only chance to prevent his tragedy was to help Spock stop the supernova to begin with. What he did didn't create a galaxy where his planet and home weren't destroyed; it created one where his home never really existed.

Ergo, it is completely pointless to hate the new movie because it supposedly obliterates the past series. People are rejecting this movie for the exact same reasons people rejected Enterprise and that strikes me as a bit hypocritical. Hate it because it was boring, because the plot was thin, because someone's eye color was "wrong", not because it supposedly erases your favorite series. Which it doesn't, anyway, judging by the continued existence of stuff like the Mirror Universe and Spock!1's explicit statement that this world is an alternate universe rather than an overwrite.

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

If indeed the temporal shenanigans are pointless, then a lot of Trek stories and episodes are pointless. Why make sure Edith Keeler dies, or why make sure Vosk doesn't succeed with his mission?

Old Spock's statement about an "alternate universe" doesn't mesh with what most other Treks have treated changes in the timeline (again, the Edith Keeler example). In my view that just a bone Abrams threw in for people like me. If Spock cared enough to go back to the depression era with Kirk, the why does he just shrug Nero's actions off in this movie?

And if you read my review, the erasing/overwriting is not the only reason why I didn't care for this movie.

[Alelou]

If indeed the temporal shenanigans are pointless, then a lot of Trek stories and episodes are pointless. Why make sure Edith Keeler dies, or why make sure Vosk doesn't succeed with his mission?

Well, if they didn't go back and make sure Edith Keeler dies, their current universe would really suck since it involves being marooned on an echhy planet with no hope of rescue and none of their loved ones anywhere. And if they didn't stop Vosk, that really screwed up their past and possibly everyone they left at home, though fixing it may also be screwing up people we met in the Vosk timeline -- we'll never know. For this new crew of Enterprise, this alternative timeline doesn't really mean that much compared to the other one because 1) it's already been screwed up for 25 years, which is the way they know it, and 2) they have no way of knowing what the future was supposed to be anyway (unless Spock1 tells them). For Spock1, it probably ought to be more horrific, but maybe he's a lot more comfortable with temporal physics than I am. Or maybe he's just really in control of his emotions after all these years.

I don't understand how this 'reset' means Romulus never existed, though, KK. That supernova is still hundreds of years in the future. Not only that, there's a Spock1 in this universe who can conceivably prime the younger version of himself to save it -- but then this AU would disappear, presumably, and we'd reset to the other one? I dunno. This stuff is mindbogglig. All I know is that I'm game for the chance to watch a younger version of this crew do it all over again, but not the same way.

Here's my important question of the day: What's the fan acronym for this movie???

[Aquarius]

Plus, I still want to know where this puts the "real" universe.

Nowhere! It's gone. Dead. Passed on! It is no more! It has ceased to be! It's expired and gone to meet its maker!

I disagree. They've well-established that this Trek is an alternate reality, and I believe it was done specifically for the purpose of preserving the canon we know and love. This was done to avoid overwriting anything. Nimoy's Spock make it clear that this past is not the same as the one he came from, so it still exists somewhere.

The "real" universe can be revisited any time--unfortunately, for that to be on any kind of a screen, it has to prove financially lucrative for them to do so.

The only reservation I really had was Uhura's romance with Spock, but I just figured that was there to show us that he SOOOOOOOO did not go for the Kohlinar, as he suggested to his mother he might; it suggests he struck some kind of a balance between his human side as well as his Vulcan.

I LOVED Simon Pegg! I guess that was the other reservation I had--it needed MORE SCOTTY!!

I was overjoyed when my mom caught the reference to Archer and Porthos!

Honestly...I was afraid they were gonna screw this up, and they didn't as far as I'm concerned. Could some things have been better? Probably. Is it possible they'll make that up to us in the sequel? Absolutely--look at how much TWOK outshined TMP!!

BTW, did anyone notice how Pike's uniform at the end of the movie was more like the TMP uniforms???

Any way, I liked it, and if it was in the budget, I'd see it again.