Star Trek Fest - Star Trek (2009)

Welcome back midnight viewers to a new era of Star Trek fest My god, hearkening back all the way to two thousand and nine. Ladies and gentlemen and smiz mars. Here we go, Star Trek two thousand and nine. Here's the trailer. I couldn't believe it when the bartender told me who you are?

Why are you talking to me? Man? Your father was. Captain a starship for twelve minutes. You saved eight hundred lives, including yours.

I dare you to do better. Enlist in Starfist. You will experience fear, fear in the face of certain death. We received a distress call. I've been waiting for this day of my whole life, this day reckoning.

We've got no captain in the first office to replace. Here we do. You are capable of deciding your own destiny. The question is. Which path will choose.

James T. Kirk was a great man. That was another life. About you. Torpedo emergency evasive sounded good, don't you think I should be?

Sounded very actionous? My God. In fact, there's virtually no dialogue at all on that trip. Star Trek two thousand and nine, written by Robert Orsei and Alex Kurtzman, directed by J. J.

Abrams, starring Oh my god, it's a whole new cast. I think this is alphabetical John Chow, Ben Across, Bruce Greenwood, Simon Peg, Chris Penn, Chris Pine, Chris Penn. That would be interesting, that'd be fucking fantastic, right, Yeah, get out any formulance. Zachary Quinto. Is it Kinto or Quinto?

I think it's Kinto, Zachary Kinto or perhaps Quinto Winona. Writer Zoe Saldana, Carl Urban, Anton Yelkin, Leonard Namoy, and Eric Banna as Nero HP. Did you see this film in the theater? I bet you did. I believe I did.

I know for sure I saw the sequel. I'm pretty sure I saw this one because this was a big release. This was the you know, the rebooting of the series. And yeah, I'm pretty sure. I can't say for certain, but I'm pretty sure I saw this in the theater.

Released on May the eighth, two thousand and nine, on a budget of one hundred and fifty million, three hundred and eighty five point seven million, the most successful Star Trek film of all time, A Star Trek for a new generation, not the next generation anyway, or Star Trek officially ended cinematically in two thousand and two, so seven years go by. They don't allow much to go on cinematically until we get to hear and of course once JJ abrams the fucking wonderkund of the world. At this point, the JJ abrams that legendary nerd who made it. He can turn everything into guild. He's got a mystery box, you know, HP, He's got a mystery box.

It's tantalizing. It will tantalize you in the first act. In the first act you'll be like, what is this thing? It is shiny and beautiful, and the second act you go, oh my god, I must know. And then in the third act everything will turn to shit in every fucking thing this man does.

What'd you think of it when you first saw. I liked it. I'm just gonna come out and say it. I enjoyed it. Look, we just came from Nemesis, which is a fucking dire movie, and obviously seven years had gone by during which we had no Star Trek movie.

So as much as I tend to resist. The idea of a reboot, I'd be much happier if Hollywood just focused on new properties then. Having to reboot. It's like video game companies, like every other release is a remaster of some fucking game that came out fifteen years ago. So as much as I would like to see them do something original with Star Trek, I was intrigued by the idea of having this sort.

Of reboot, and I enjoyed it. I have to say, I get the sense from the previous monologu ug that you gave about J. J. Abrams that you did not like it. Is that safe to say when you first saw you didn't like it?

I'll say this. The idea of the earlier adventures of the Starship Enterprise with Kirk and Spock and McCoy had dated back to sixty eight. Ron Berry floated that idea as one of the many ideas he floated at the time to get Star Trek back on the air right, but it really didn't actually become an idea that was viable until Harve Bennett started banging the Starfleet Academy drum. Let's do the early days of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy in their days the in Starfleet Academy before they're assigned to any ships at all. Let's get an adventure and we'll tie it into the main cast and it'll be a flashback or something.

No one was biting. Everyone was biting, and no one was biting. They kept circling it, and then the regular cast would fully reunite and they go, fuck, we gotta make another movie with these fogies. They would say, those penny push those penny pinchers. Not me, folks.

I say, let them do whatever they want. But I loved the idea that you kept reading about it. Harve Bennett never shot up about it, admittedly so, and they kept threatening to do it over and over again. At one point we almost got a klingon Homeworld planet kling on Homeworld series as well. That was almost something we received.

But anyway, they keep saying they're gonna do it, they never do it. So when I heard now, at the time, I didn't really know anything about J. J. Abrams. I think I had watched Lost.

Lost was on the air at this point for a couple of years, and I was pretty intrigued with Loss, but that was my only connection to him, and I didn't know how bad that was going to turn out. At the time, so I thought, oh, well, this is interesting that guy and I had liked Mission Impossible two or three rather that there was some interesting stuff in there, particularly with the villain, so I was intrigued. I wanted to see more Kirk. I'm an old school, original, serious guy ultimately at heart, so yeah, I'd like to see younger versions of these characters. I'm not above remakes.

I don't care, you know what I mean, as long as it's quality, make younger versions and recast actors. I'm one of the few people who liked Solo a Star Wars story, so you know, but maybe that means I can't be trusted. I don't know, Judge for yourself. Anyway. I went into this movie completely psyched that we were getting a new version of Star Trek and for a new generation, and that it seemed like somebody committed to the material.

And he kept saying sort of, this is one of the oh I don't feel so well moments. Was he just kept talking about Star Wars in the run up to Star Trek, and I kept thinking, you're kind of a Star War now. Star Trek people can be Star Wars people, but Star Wars people almost exclusively cannot be both for some reason, and that shows from the opening frame of this movie. No, I don't like this movie ultimately, to answer your question, HP, because all of that promise I was talking about as a Star Trek fan is dashed nearly immediately. Not nearly immediately, it comes eventually the trashing of it because I'm going to I'm going to be very unkind to this movie for this entire review, but I will say that the opening sequence of this movie, the Kelvin sequence, the sacrifice of George Kirk, is great.

If it had been its own short film, I would be praising it to this day. But it's attached to the rest of this movie. I think it's beautiful and poetry, and I like the early look of the sort of starfleet in it. I even think the lens flares in that situation added to an immediacy to it. I don't think that was And anyway, by the way, JJ Abrams, none of this is his innovation.

It's all George Lucas. He had come up with these zooming in on CGI things to give you more of a documentary flavor in the Star Wars movie. Same with the lens so they're same with everything, So I ultimately do not like this movie. We're gonna redo our list at some point. This is gonna be real fucking high on the bottom of the barrel portion of the list, or is that low.

I don't know either way. I'm rambling because I just I'm not gonna have anything nice to say past year, except for maybe the actors. I will say this. I'm gonna say a lot of good things about this movie because I still enjoyed it. Now, don't mistake that for me thinking that this is a perfect movie, because this is in no way, shape or form a perfect movie, or, more to the point, a perfect Star Trek movie.

There's a lot that I don't like. There's a lot of minutia that I'll have I'll take umbradge with. But I think overall, I think this movie is never dull. To me, It's never boring. It moves, it's long, but there's a lot of great set pieces.

I think in some cases it's extraordinarily well cast, and I think that reflects very well on JJ Abrams and what he was trying to accomplish. I hear what you're saying. It's if you're a real old school star trek Guy and this is what you see. There may be some culture shock and you may say, well, this isn't for me, And that's cool because not everyone's going to share the same opinion. But I not to say that I'm going to give the photo negative of your review.

But let's just say I clearly enjoyed this movie a heck of a lot more than you did. I think if you take this movie as its own, separate what if universe, and I guess ultimately I agree with you. The cast of this movie across the board is great. Chris Pine is as fantastic as Kirk as I've seen. I think the new guy they've got on Strange New World's actually hits Kirk a little harder than he does.

He's doing this kind of exaggerated Shatner. But I like all of that. I like the music a great deal. Michael Giacchino's score, who didn't settle for just recycling anything but managed to do manages. He always manages pay homage to the past while making it new, and that's so rare.

He doesn't run from anything he incorporates. Basically, I would say wildly, because you know why, I can name like six of the movies he's done, and none of them seem to have any connective tissue. He really does seem to compose for the project he's working on, as opposed to working in his signature horns or chanting children. You know I'm talking about Danny Elfman. Obviously I knew you were going there.

Yeah. The other thing I really admired about this film as much as I'm going to fucking tear this fucking screenplay apart. It figured out how to give everyone in the cast something to do, and it all feels like we're working towards the symp towards a focus point. Absolutely more than any other Star Trek movie up until this point. This feels like an ensemble with a couple of leads that are, you know, standing above the rest, but not that far above the rest.

Everyone feels like a working part of this story and that I very much. Admire, and all completely by design. I mean, that's they to me. It feels like they clearly went in and said, look, we don't want to give anybody short shrift. We understand the criticisms of original series Star Trek movies in the past, these actors are this is stacked with good actors, good young actors.

We want to make the most out of them, let's you know. And that's I think that's part of the reason why it's a long movie too. Like I said, it's over two. Hours, which is fine. It moves very fast.

I will give it that. It is a very well made, slick sci fi action film. There's no question about that, and I can see embracing it. But two problems for me are it's not Star Trek and two it is in fact, like the most popular one. So it is the introduction of what Trenk is supposed to be to an entire new generation, and that bothers me.

And I think that's partly valid, and that's partly. There's no philosophy in this movie. There's no philosophy in this field. This is if someone, if one can accept that this is not Wagon Trained to the Stars. There's no allegory going on here.

This isn't This is an action summer blockbuster right here. It just happens to be to take place in the Star Trek universe. It's you said it best. You said, this is kind of a what if movie, right This is not the true tale of these characters in their younger days. They're very clever about the fact that it's actually an alternate universe.

This is the Kelvin timeline. Would you call that clever? That's not the word I'd use for it. But well, I think if you're going to introduce this as a new iteration of this series, that that is not paying homage to that series, it's its own thing, then yes, I think it is clever because they took a central concept and they made it interesting to a whole new audience. And as you said, this was incredibly profitable.

This was truly a new start for the series. So what they did in terms of audiences going out to see the movie, it worked. That doesn't mean it's the best movie since Citizen Kane. It just means they hit upon a twist in the formula and it really worked. I'd say it was lazy.

I'd say it's laziness on the writer's part because I think all of the tenants that make Star Trek could have been put into this movie. They will be put into this universe. It just takes some talented writers to do it. We won't get there until the third movie in this series. That movie Star Trek Beyond feels so fucking star Trek.

It hurts, and it's just as fleet of foot as this movie. It might not be as interesting because it's the third one down the line and they've covered a bunch of daring do excitement scenarios in the first two. But I think it's possible to honor the original, honor the canon of the original, and make it your own, and do so in a way of here's the magic fucking red goo that gives us this sort of white out that we can go anywhere we want and fuck your cannon. Now, I will say that same device is what for me saves the movie because it turns it into the what if scenario. It isn't them being clever, it's them just being I want to do what we want to do, and that's going to sell tickets.

But I contend that anything would have sold tickets for this movie. Like those first teasers where they were constructing, they were like welding the enterprise. I was like, fuck, yeah, of course I'm going to see that goddamn movie. So I think the audience was coming and whatever you were going to give them they were going to take if you did it in an exciting way. But they should have paid more attention to the canon.

And what I will agree with you on even at this early point in our discussion is by the time they got to the third one, the second one, we'll get to that too, And that's to me, that's a low point in this portion of the cannon. But by the third one, and that's the heartbreak is the third one is spoiler alert, it's the best one in the Kelvin timeline. The heartbreak of it is there will be no more after that third one. They finally cracked the code and made it more Star Trek and made it more interesting, and made it more they brought they brought the old school Trek fans into it a little bit more. But for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the death of Anton Yelkin and a variety of machinations in the movie motion picture industry.

I would have loved to have seen this go on for another two or three movies past that third one. So this is what we got. We got this one, We got into darkness, and we got beyond so because they by the third one, they're firing in all cylinders. But at the same time, I will contend for me. Again, maybe I was not coming into it thinking that this is going to be as a real trek experience with the all the allegories and all of the best of what sci fi can offer.

To me, This was just a real, really good, action packed blockbuster. Like I said, Maybe that's maybe I'm judging it a little differently because I didn't. I wasn't seeking those old school trek sort of influences. Maybe I didn't know what I missed. But I'm just judging this purely on is this a good movie?

Was I entertained? Did I shake my fist at the screen endlessly saying this fucking sucks? When is this movie going to be over? Now? None of those things.

I enjoyed it then, and I enjoyed it rewatching it today. Wow, boy, are you wrong? Okay, listen, that's your opinion. Let's be fair about this. Yeah, I know you're fond of saying, Oh, you couldn't be Look, this is all subjective, right.

No, actually it is. No, it's not. The audience has spoken. I can't say that because then you go. Oh, wait a minute, what about all these audiences who win to see the fat Albert movie?

And you're gonna no, I take that back, but. I'm not going to popularity contests or just that. Who gives a shit. I'm not gonna. Wolves won all the Academy Awards.

Who's watching that piece of shit these days? Fucking nobody. I'm not gonna apologize for enjoying this movie. I mean, it's not perfect, but. You know what, I'm diving fucking headlong into this.

Okay, here's my fucking main problem with this movie. That attitude, the lack of care for canon, right, or the willingness to just derail canon for like simple dramatic plot points, because ultimately that's what it comes down to. It's typical of everything wrong with this series of movies under jj Abrams, which is zero consequences, right. It lay up the intellectual idea of consequence without ever really fucking embracing it. In that case, I'm just talking about like basic storytelling, right, Nothing these characters do, no matter how catastrophic things are, it ends up mattering.

What it ends up doing, h feed is it picks up that like the serials, not the serial spirit of Star Trek, but like the episodic nature of it. Because there's a fucking plot point in this movie, just for drama, where they destroy Vulcan. Do you have any idea what would happen to the Federation if ninety nine percent of the Vulcan population will just suddenly disappear. That would become the plot line of every Star Trek movie going forward. It would have far ranging The entire galaxy would fall apart.

They don't. No one on the every fucking writer on this screenplay had the ones that are claiming, oh, I'm a big Trick fan. That was the big Trick fan. They were all Star Trek movie fans. I bet they had a passing fucking had a passing familiarity with the original series and had studied the movies, clearly, because all they do is ape the movies over, ape the original series movies over and fucking over again, with occasional passes towards you know, occasional like throws to fan service.

But that's a major fucking deal. But they it's okay because we've got two spots now, you know. What I mean? It doesn't equate. I don't know.

I'm sorry, I'm now op out apoplectic about this because watching Vulcan fucking fall in in itself and then on top of that, let's kill Amanda as well. Like, on the one hand, yes, that creates an entire new universe and entire new stakes for these people, but then it never pays off with any of that. I'm trying to understand your point here, Like you're saying, like, if there were no more Vulcan than Vulcans account for that high of a degree membership in Starfleet. Who brought Earth into the Federation, who has been who has negotiated all the deals in all of the Federation. The ambassadors maybe, but in terms of like rank and file in Starfleet, it seems like what they're saying at the beginning of this, when Spock is talking with the Science Academy and they're saying, well, you're applied this, I got the impression, and maybe this is just an oversight on my part, but I got the impression from their reaction to his application to Starfleet that, oh, Vulcans don't often apply to Starfleet.

That seems odd that you would, because why wouldn't you go to the Science Academy. And that's when he says, well, fuck you, I'm going to the Starfleet, right, Yeah, that's why I would contend that, yes, maybe they're the ambassadorships are heavily trafficked in Vulcans because they're lodging. You're confusing Starfleet in the Federation here. I'm talking about the Federation, the United Federation of Planets, one of the founding members, but perhaps the most important founding member is the planet Vulcan. There's only I mean, there are thousands of species eventually, but at this point, no matter what fucking timeline they've started, is the ramifications were not thought of by these writers.

They don't matter because most people don't know these things about the Federation. But some of us do, man, and it's just give us some fucking consequence. Don't fucking destroy that world just to have a fucking sad moment. Sure, but as we already said, billions just died. Billions just died.

Yeah, Yeah, And they call that out many times. Yeah, they say it a few times, and then there's no fucking ramifications for it going forward other than they're kind of a you know, there's only ten thousand of them left. They're like a refugee thing. And then they just paid for I don't know, man, that occurring in Star Trek is a huge fucking deal that they do not fucking deal with at all. And I don't know why they did it.

It is, but at the same time, we're not dealing This isn't like an epic sweep of the decades following this thing. This is literally this probably from top to bottom, takes place in what like a couple of months, you know, when they first get the distress call from Vulcan to when they defeat eat Nero. It's only a couple of months, right, This is not enough time. If that's the case, there's not enough time to fully absorb the scope of what happened to Vulcan because they're too busy trying to stop Nero. We're not seeing like dispatches from the news organization saying what the ultimate cost of the Vulcan homeworld being destroyed?

Way to prove my point, But I'm not though, because that's not the story that he's telling. Then then why we tell it that's well, he had to kill General z On because he was gonna kill those people. You wrote it that way. Why do we have to destroy Vulcan for a fucking plot point if we're not going to actually deal with what that means? Because that's not the movie that he's made here.

That's because we're making a movie about Spock and we're making a movie about Kirk, and we need fucking consequences for both of them, and we're gonna fuck focus on Vulcan. No, we're focused on you just said it. We're focused on Kirk and the Spock and the crew of the Enterprise coming together and defeating this Romulan nutjob. And there is zero consequence going forward this same team. Look, this movie doesn't exist in a vacuum.

Star Trek does not exist in a vacuum going forward. This fucking team in their alternate fucking timeline, their salad bar Star Trek. We like this. We don't like that. We're gonna focus on this.

This has changed now, Oh, these this race, it doesn't matter if they didn't meet them for another generation. We're gonna put them in here. That bullshit doesn't pay off, doesn't have consequence, doesn't have ramifications. It's just we gee golly, this is in this a fun adventure, everybody. And then they want consequences.

In the second film, They're gonna fucking try and ram consequences down our throat, but only the ones they want Wow. Sorry, got a little heated there, That's okay, this is hot. This was me watching the fucking movie because I had to watch it like two or three times to fucking prepare for this shit, and every time I got angrier and angrier at the fucking the sort of laissez faire who gives a fuck attitude towards this fucking this is worse. I will watch Insurrection on a fucking loop for days than watch this movie one more time to see and. I wouldn't just because I maybe I came into this movie with Clearly I came in with different expectations, and I think, you know, it's like I said, I came into this looking for a good.

Action adventure, and that's what I got. I'm not disputing the fact that if you look deeper you start to see these these details, like the with the ramifications of walking home world being destroyed. Really mean, that's like saying, well, you know, I'm watching Indiana Jones and Teple of Doom and I'm getting into a socio political discussion about the Indian population and what's happening there and the kids. No, yeah, you know what, because it all pays off. That's why you don't have to have that conversation with Indiana Jones because they fucking respect the audience and they respect the Indiana Jones franchise to go along with it.

They're not just going fuck that Indiana Jones had a whip in the previous movie. I don't like a whip. You know what, Now he has a sword. Wouldn't it be great if he had sword and he did kung fu? Let's do that?

Well, right, well, why would he do that? He didn't do that before? Well it'd be cool, it'd be cool. People like that, let's do that. Well no, but if they were going to reboot Indiana Jones and suddenly he's, like, you know, a martial artist.

While that may not be true to the original story, that's not the story they want to tell if you're going to reboot it. If a reboot by definition has to have some. Indiana Jones now has a sword cane in addition to his martial arts skills. What do you think It's not a whip anymore, it's a sword cane. That's the decision that the new generation have decided, and kids like sword knes at least that's what I've heard when I was down at the mall, which no longer exists.

You come up with sword Cane. It's like a James Bond villain. I'm just saying, it's a bullshit thing that you know, some fucking writer thought of on some day and now has to be fucking cannon forever because he was. He's bored with a whip again. Look if they're rebooting it and it's a totally different actor and it's not the same Indiana Jones.

While I may not like the direction they go in, who that's their prerogative. They're rebooting it. If they want to get it. They want to make a piece of shit, shud be You're right, they can make the big piece of shit, and then I can say, hey, that was a piece of shit. Everyone.

We're all entitled to our opinions. I agree with absolutely. Here's where you go. Some of them are wrong and some of them are right. No, I don't need to anymore.

Everyone knows. Let's talk about the look of this movie, shall we? Sure I will say this for the look. You may disagree on this. There's a lot to not like about the bridges.

What do you mean completely? The bridge is too bright? It's white it's I don't like what they did with the view screen. Is now an actual window that they kind of overlay graphics on, which I guess is kind of an interesting idea, but it all looks very. Hospital I'm surprised somebody didn't mention that the view screen is transparent aluminum, just because that's all their points of reference for the other movies.

Specifically The Enterprise. I will go on record as saying I didn't love the look. I think it's too antiseptic. I not only don't like the interior, I don't like the exterior either, I think the cells are ridiculous. Man, I'm serious, man.

Jj Abrams came into Star Trek not knowing anything about Star Trek. All he knew was Star Wars, and all he did was try and make this Star Wars to the point of just like looking at the n cells that you can see the mechanics working in there. Now you can see these like fan blades spinning as opposed to we knew something was moving in there, something futuristic and energetic. But he can't understand that. He has to make everything a real world, so we feel like it's a real world, which, by the way, in engineering in this movie, it looks like a brewery.

Why does it look so much like a brewery? Guess what. I've been in the engine room of that particular enterprise because that's the fucking Budweiser plant in California that you can take a tour of, So it was a brewery. I didn't love. Everything is big.

The inside of the Enterprise. You see a lot more of it, and there's a lot of switches, pipes and things, and I didn't love that. To me, my favorite Enterprise interior is the Next Generation because that's the introduction of the lacr's system. Everything seemed to make sense, but it has a luxury to it, which makes sense to me. If I'm going to be on a ship for.

Five years or more, I want my ship to be as comfortable and as livable as possible. There's very little about the Abrams Enterprise that seems, you know, warm and friendly to It's very military out. Yeah, it's so bright, man. It feels like they're torturing everybody, you know, like it's been awake for days and days. I don't know what day or is it night anymore?

I don't know. It's all bright all the time. Yeah, but the next generation you had ten forward, everything was soft lighting in places. This is very harsh, like it would burn your retina to live there for more than a day or two. Yeah, it's just I don't know, it's very unappeiling, like this is supposed to be the home for these people, this is where they gather, this is supposed to be the enterprise.

Don't do not like this enterprise. And not only that, but the bridge seems small for the number of people that are on it because there's more railings, and I don't know, it just didn't feel, like I said, tangible and welcoming in the way that the best bridges, like the Next Generation, even the original series had a mellower vibe. And then you go to the lower decks and it's like Freddy Krueger's that you know, you've spank to see somebody shoveling fucking coal into a furnace down there. What are you doing? Man?

There's a happy medium to be found here. Yeah. I don't disagree with you there at all. There's you will find as I'm not gonna sit here and you know, relentlessly defend the movie, but I'm also willing very willing to call out the things that I didn't like. There's some nitpicking involved, but but yeah, in terms of the enterprise itself, it's yeah, I didn't love it.

But putting that aside, I do think that the movie, despite its reliance on CG, I don't think the movie is cheap looking, which I think I think is a big criticism that we've levied at some of the other movies in the series. This movie, the level of Effect's work make me envious for previous entries that they didn't have access to any of this stuff, because a lot of the action is fantastic, the space stuff in particular. You know, he has taken the dogfight aesthetic of Star Wars here, but he makes it work because he knows what that aesthetic is supposed to look like, which is complication upon complication, like threat after threat, like every action sequence you know, notice just kind of tumbles forward and has the same momentum.

Not to say that it's bad, they work really well. It's just that, you know, the formula we kind of came evident the more I watched this movie. Sure, but I like that that worth is shown on screen. I don't feel as a filmgoer. I don't feel like I'm being cheated, like it's a skin flint.

In charge of the series, it felt like they had high hopes for this series, and they threw everything they had at it in terms of money to make it look as good as it could possibly look. Now some of that is unfortunately sabotaged by Abrams's over reliance on the shaky camera stuff like that kind of drove me crazy because that happens a lot. I get it when you have a sequence, like when they do the sky jump and you've got to convey this idea that they're hurtling through space and they're being buffeted by the winds and the atmosphere and all that works. But every fight, every dog fight, has that sort of like esthetic where it's not like completely like nausea inducing, but it's hard to focus on something when the camera is kind of moving on its own accord.

Yeah. I think it's funny that filmmakers in like the sixties and seventies, a lens flare was a problem, you know, like a shaking camera was something that you were embarrassed about. Showed up and then Abrams figures out the more you add of that the more sort of documentarian, the more like homemade it all feels. So he went to fuck it overboard town here, man, the lens flares are a problem. They're a problem.

It's like interior exterior. It doesn't matter where we are, you're blinded at some point. It's just insane. I can understand going with it, but I don't know. Maybe I should respect that he went to fucking town, but I don't know.

It was harmful to my ocular cavities. Yeah, I don't disagree with you there either. What do you think about sabotage? Speaking of sabotage, I hated that absolutely. Here's the thing.

I know that they're trying to convey this notion that James Kirk is as kind of a rebel, and he is kind of a guy who does what he wants, and even as a kid, he's a rabble rouser and he's like a nonconformist. And blah blah blah. So he steals his stepfather's prized sting ray and drives it off a cliff. But I think the fact there's something about using these contemporary to us songs and a movie that's ostensibly about the future, like we talked about this in in other episodes in different contexts. But wouldn't this is what the twenty three hundreds or there about.

Wouldn't there be some other like that century's equivalent to the Beastie Boys. Wouldn't that be the rallying cry of this boy as he's breaking all the rules. It seemed like a cheap. Needle drop to me to use sabotage, as much as I love that song, by the. Way, Yeah, it's the equivalent of you know, Gregorian chant basically, you know, that's how that's how we begin a artold Schwarzenegger commando film with that.

That's what that's what our lead is listening to in order to psych himself up for some cool action sequence. Yeah, that didn't work for me, but I mean it works a lot more than Irving Berlin or stuff that's old to us. You know. Sure, But even that's silly thing for Data to be singing, you know, blue Skies, because what do they know about you know, show tunes and the twenty second cent whatever it is, twenty third century, it's just but that whole sequence, I think they're driving home. Like I said this point, that Kirk is a rebel who can't be tamed.

I just thought it's so over the top and unrealistic, and I don't know, I just I just thought it was kind of dumb. There's any number of ways you could do that and convey his restlessness without having him drive his father's antique automobile, which, by the way, where's he going to get gasoline to run this thing? In the twenty you know, the year twenty six ninety nine. I don't know. I'm picking you are there because I read this script as well, and the one thing that I liked was in that sequence they the writers for once wrote something good where they said the engine should sound not mechanical.

Oh like it's been retrofitted. Yeah, something, I think. At least that. But you know, I don't like the sequence either. I think it's a poor representation of Jim Kirk as a young man who was often described as the bookish kid in the fucking library, you know, the one who knew too much about everything.

I don't mind him being the guy who gets into fist fights, but he can also be the genius who gets into fist fights, you know. And they give you a little bit of that. I mean, obviously this is not the same Kirk that we've known from the original series. But there are pieces where when he's in the bar and he's hitting on Ahura and she says, I study whatever, was like audio? What's her major?

What does She says, she's studying and she said, you won't know what that means, and he's, Oh, I know exactly what that means. It means the study of languages, heuristics, and and she's, oh, yeah, he thought you were just some dumb hick. So there's an element of that. There's more to Kirk than you know, drunken barroom brawls. But then he gets into the drunken barroom brawl, so it's you know, it accomplishes everything we see of Daredevil, young Jackass flavored Jim Kirk jack ass the you know, the Johnny Knoxville series, which was popular in two thousand and nine when they made this movie.

Not saying it was an influence, but hey, maybe. But that sequence also shows me to two of the best casting decisions of this movie. First of all, Chris Pine makes you like James Kirk despite the fact that he's kind of an asshole, at least in those early scenes. But he's so charming, and he has enough of that Shatner swagger, but he's also not afraid to make himself look like a fool and look foolish. Right.

But the other big thing that I kind of forgot about until I watched it again today was Bruce Greenwood as Captain Pike. I fucking loved him in this. He was so captainlike, for lack. Of a better term, you just felt like the gravitas from him, but that he kind of understood Kirk, and he had appreciation for Kirk's father, who had sacrificed himself to save him and his mother. I love that there wasn't enough Bruce Greenwood in this movie.

I thought he was great. He proved a very capable Captain Pike, and he just exudes a nobility and lends that to all of Starfleet. When you look at that guy and go, oh, that's what they represent, I'd like to be that. I can see him recruiting any manner of rebellious youth into dropping what they were doing and taking to the stars. I thought he was fantastic.

Zachary Kino was also great as Spot. I've never heard anyone say live long and prosper and make it mean fuck you. But Zachary Quinto does that when he's before the council, who or chiding him for his impediment, his half humaneness, his disadvantage. Yeah, which is a great scene to be really honest. I had to warm up to Zachary Kinto just because there always did seem to be kind of a tight lipped smirk to the way that he delivered some of these lines.

And I'm obviously that's intentional because there's a meaning behind the words. But ultimately I thought, you know, a spin on Spock, I thought it was it was good. He wasn't my favorite performer in this movie, but he was great. I mean, I don't I'm struggling to think who would have played a better Spock? And then, actually, well, let me ask you, who is there anybody else you could see at the time who would have measured up?

No. At the time, I remember having absolutely no skin in this game. I just knew that it should be unknowns. The more unknown the better as far as I was concerned, So I wasn't looking at who was popular at the time, And you know, I thought they the cast across the board is the right cast for this movie. How about Carl Urban as bone.

Perfect, better than absolutely perfect, better than Chris Pine, better than Zachary Quinto, better than Bruce Green. Would he is bones? Yeah, I can't argue with you. There. I thought he was perfect.

You hear the voice off screen and go, hey, here comes Bones. He's such Carl. Urban when you reflect his big roles over the last fifteen years. He's the anti Ted McGinley. He makes everything a success.

What a fucking versatile actor. I just think he's remarkable. Now he's going to be in the Mortal Kombat movie. He's a writer. He's a writer of Rohan.

He's Judge Dread, He's Leonard McCoy well, I don't. Know who he is. He's Scourge in The Four. He's great in thorn Man. He's fantasy.

He's so funny and he's. Oh my god, is that you know? The Boys? For fuck's sake? And I just watched that.

Don't just watch that new Pirate movie with him, The Bluff. He's great in that. He's in that too. Oh yeah, he's the fucking He's the pirate in that Man. He's fucking fantastic.

Yeah, he might be that terrible fucking movie priest with I always forget his name, Paul benteny Oh. He shows up as this like vampire like fucking with a wide brimmed hat, like straight out of an anime. He's the best thing in that movie. Yeah, I just think he's so versatile, and it's as I said before, he I think I feel like he's the secret weapon of this movie that because he is the closest we have to it to an authentic Leonard McCoy, like the actual character, reaching back to the original series. I think he's fantastic in this But like I.

Said, I appreciate the fact that, like Chris Pine is has all the qualities to be a captain. But yet also there's a whole sequence where they the distress call comes in from Vulcan, so all the cadets at the start at the academy have to be conscripted and have to go and join the fight. But because it will get to the Kobyashi Maru, because I don't like that sequence any more than you do, fad Malone. But anyway, there's an academic tribunal that's called because he cheated, because we all know that's part of Kirk's legend is he reprogrammed the Kobyashi Maru. That's not the legend, but well, that's the legend is he's the only man who beat the Kobyashi because because nobody knew he cheated because he's sly and not a big fucking grand standard, right.

But since Star Trek two, that's when he says, oh, he cheated on he rewrote the rules of the He doesn't see is being cheated or as cheating then, But in this it's a little more. It's a lot more blatant than you know, a fuck you anyway. In that, because he's under academic review, Kirk can't he can't go and join the fight. But McCoy sees how much he wants to go, and he concocts a plan to inoculate him with a vaccine that will cause all these crazy side effects, and he will have to join McCoy because he's under his physician's care. But what it amounts to is basically every few minutes McCoy jabbing him with a hypodermic and his neck and causing all these things, like his hands get all puffy and he can't talk.

And I love the fact that Chris Pine isn't afraid like I said to make himself look silly during this sequence. Some actors, including some that also portrayed Kirk in the past, may not have been so willing to make themselves be the butt of a joke in service of a funny scene. And I think chris Pine is great at that. I agree with that. I think Chrispine is always game to do anything.

He's one hundred percent committed to the character and not Chrispine. Obviously that is different than what we've experienced in previous performers in the role of James T. Kirk. I would say that maybe Chrispine could say, do we need a big slapstick number here in this sequence? Because maybe I'm willing to do it, but maybe do we need slapstick at this moment in the Star Trek movie.

I don't know. Maybe it's personal preference. Probably I thought it was. I mean, it's just if you cut out the slapstick part of it and the entertaining part of it, it is rather silly that, in this dire situation that could mean the destruction of the Vulcan world, why they wouldn't overlook something as silly as well? Okay, you're under you know, academic, you know a tribunal.

We can't send you. You're a body, you're a capable you know, and in fact, you're one of our better students. You would be one of the first to join the fight. So why would be have something silly? And by the way, am I the only one?

I can't be the only one who is. It was completely irked by the fact that Tyler Perry makes a cameo as the judge during this academic tribunal. As the judge, he's the head of starfleet or the. Head of starfleet. Sorry even worse, Harry.

That didn't bother me, That's fine. It bothered it completely bothered me. Why because I hate madea I hate that whole. This is a medea in this movie. This is a fun romp of a sci fi movie.

It's just Tyler Perry playing a character. He's an actor, Tyler Perry. Why is he a creep? He's just you know, he's just playing a part in this movie, this fun, rocking movie that doesn't matter in the grand scheme of Star Trek. Right so different.

This is somebody who's been accused of some serious crimes. Was he accused in two thousand and nine of those serious crimes. No, but now I have in retrospect, I can be a little bit skey. Has he been convicted of any of these crimes now? So you know it's fine?

The same reason why, you know what, that. Whole scene is fucking ridiculous because Kirk never got caught, because Kirk knows what he's fucking doing when he fucking cheats and and tell people for fucking decades later when it no longer matters. This instead of reason, I can't believe. There's a scene in this movie where he's going for the simulator for the third fucking time at Starfleet fucking Academy, and in the midst of the fucking simulation, the power goes out and then comes back on, and then he's not crunch Apple shoot them down. Woo.

I did it and expected to get away with that. They should have kicked him out immediately. There should be no tribunal. It's ridiculous, man. This is like the level like who cares about consequences?

This is just once again proving my point they don't give a shit as long as we're having fun. Well, no, I will further agree with you. I think that scene is terrible. The way that he's lively eating. Anyone with half a brain would have looked at him and going, there's something not right here.

He's a little too comfortable. He's not even really taking this seriously. Why is he even bothering with this? Clearly he did, he knows something that he's not telling. How much more impactful would the scene have been if he had played it totally straight and come up with some fucking off the wall maneuver that wins him the day and then Spock is there's no way, there's no way he cheated somehow, and then they have a tributal that solves it.

Instead, they have to keep going for the fucking laughs in this movie. Man, I agree with you there. I think the way they handle it is ridiculous because, like I said, anyone who's just observing him knows that he's up to no good. But if he took it seriously, if he reprogrammed the simulator so that I don't know, like the ship could operate at one point five times normal speed so they could like zoom around something that's not easily detected, then yeah, that would have been really cool. But like a lazy, lazy screenwriters.

Okay, here's speaking of lazy screenwriting. This is a problem. This has been a problem throughout the Star Trek movie. So it's not just it's not just germane to this particular film. If you're not gonna have a star fleet, don't bother calling it starfleet.

Once again, the Enterprise is the only ship available. I know. We get to Vulcan and they've already decimated a bunch of ships, right, two or three of them, but they're really the only ones. Once again, I just hate that. But I did the fact that so they're going to Vulcan and Kirk overhears them talking about there's a lightning storm nearby, and oh my.

God, yeah, let's see if you want to get into that. Jesus Christ. The thing I did like about that is then he runs to the bridge to try and convince Captain Pike, hey, you know what, we're going into a trap, and he's relying on this idea that the same thing happened when the Kelvin was destroyed. So then they when they come out of warp like, they're just surrounded by dozens of ships that have been decimated by the whatever what do they call the Romulan ship. We haven't even gotten to the Romulans quote unquote Romulins in this movie.

The Narrata is the name of the Narrata is the name of the Romulin mining ship in this movie. Yeah, yes, the scene you're talking about. By the way, he overhears that the Nerata arriving is presaged by a lightning storm in space, which they say during the opening sequence, it's like a lightning storm in space, because that's something you would say as a space explorer. Nobody would have taken any readings if you had maybe written a dissertation mentioned in this movie about that event. That's what you came up with.

Nobody went out and tested that area for radiation? What was this lightning storm in space where his ship came through and suddenly destroyed a Federation ship? And then we never followed up on even though it's clear what happens because they tell us what happens in the movie. Oh boy, And that's the description lightning storm in space. And then Kirk, here's this description that he was not present for because he was not yet born.

And then I guess read it in fucking Captain Pike's dissertation. It's lazy, fucking screenwriting. Man over and over it. I understand what you're saying. I like the idea that he figures out something that they don't, but like they could have just accomplished that with Uhora's fucking I overheard this prison break from I guess it must have been Ruapente because they mentioned it's a kling on prison World.

It was because there's a deleted scene where Nero is actually getting interrogated on Ruapente, but we don't see it because, like I said, it's a deleted scene. But yeah, you're absolutely right. Welcome back to father Malone rants for two fucking hours about this film where everything was in irritation. Here's the irritation hp okay putting aside the they're the only ship that can get there, even though it's going to take them a few days to get to Vulcan, and there's a fucking emergency on Vulcan. Right then, right, They finally arrive after an entire fleet has been wiped out above their above Vulcan in the Vulcan upper atmosphere by a romulent mining ship.

I'm going to keep saying that. And then they engage the enemy, realize what they're doing, and then tell Vulcan. You guys need to evac you ate your planet. Where is Vulcan's defensive systems? Where is the Vulcan fleet?

You're telling me they don't have them, because I know they do. Why is suddenly Starfleet the only people who can help these planets? They putting a cybe, We're going to destroy the fucking world, Like, where's their own defenses? Why weren't they already fucking evacuating? It makes them They're the most logical of.

The fucking feration. They picked the wrong fucking world man, and they only did it because their lead character was Vulcan. It's so fucking stupid. I can't I just come on, come on, they draw, they fop up fucking drill into their upper atmosphere. Nothing on Vulcan fires back at that thing, going what is this?

Nobody? We gotta wait for the starfleet to arrive so they can be destroyed by a mining ship. I liked. I liked Eric bannis performances Nero. I didn't like the character of Miro, but I thought his performance as Nero was a lot of fun.

Hello Christopher, I'm Nero yet, why don't you come join me on my ship and then when he puts it to him, he really puts it to him, you know, he does. And it continues the Star Trek predilection for weird insects that are put into your body that will render you, you know, susceptible to suggestion. It's a really awful sequence too, because they have to basically hold Pike's mouth open and shove like a scorpion looking thing into his mouth that's going to attach itself to his brainstem. That's awful. One problem I had, so we were talking about the mining ship.

This is a futuristic romulent mining ship. My problem with it is it might be the most dangerous ship ever to be a passenger on because all your it's basically it's like miles wide, like literally it's five miles wide and ten miles. Deep or whatever. But it seems to be just exclusively made up of time like narrow platforms that you can only access by hopping mining. Yeah, Like, it seems like dangerous under the.

Best of circumstances. I'm just struggling to understand the industrial you know, use case for this. I mean, it's scary. I would be terrified to be on this ship. I don't know about you, but it looks horrifying.

There are entire rooms that are ankle deep in water, Like, what the hell is going on there? They've been on that ship for how many years? Nobody ever bothered to put a shop back to use something. It just seems, you know, hey, can we build a stream? Can we build a platform from one?

Like a like a gang? For me, I don't think. I don't want to jump down there, man, I'm really scared. Yeah. And like all that water that's standing water, there must be mold everywhere.

I mean, you're going to develop a nasty cough at a minimum. I mean that Maybe that's why he's so angry. That what part of the problem I have with I like Eric Banna. I agree with you. He has a strange accent that I don't know.

It's hard to really. Place, but it works for the character. But so these are supposed to be romulent Yeah, and I know they're future Romulins, but yet they look nothing like Romulins. Not that Romulins have a consistent look from the original series onward. But I guess my problem is yes they do.

But is with this is they could have been any race of people. They didn't have to be Romulan. It's just romulins in name only. Right because JJ Abrams said, let's use romulins because they haven't been used except they had just fucking used to them in the last movie where we got to see what actually where we saw what romulins actually look like, which they are forehead ridged but basically are Vulcan because they evolve from Vulcan. Instead of this, they're all bald and like they all seem to have like super orbital ridges and everything is tattooed.

H God, almighty. Not good. Not as bad as what we're gonna get in the next movie with what passes for Klingons. But you know what, this is pretty fucking bad if it's is rama again, it's just like you said, who cares, don't make it romulins, make it any race, it doesn't matter. The reason for them being there wouldn't have changed just because Smock was involved.

Like tying it to next generation only hurts the movie. Yeah, another big problem I had with it while we're talking about these actors, and is maybe my biggest criticism if I'm in a Levy, you know, not that I, like I said, I've been overly praising this movie. I don't think I have. But the biggest criticism I have is I do think this movie relies far too heavily on coincidence, because what happens is Kirk basically gets on Spock's case to the degree that Spock exiles him to a like a snowy planet, like a hof type planet and ice planet, which I think is crazy on the face of it, Like he he just drops him on this planet with no that's a danger. The computer says, it's.

Un don't leave the tube, don't leave the tube. But you know, he's maybe Spock, if I'm being generous, Spock maybe knows that there's a starf outpost on this planet. Anyway, he's there, and he Kirk gets out of the tube and he's immediately chased after by a series of beasts, large insectoid, crazy beasts, and he makes his way to a cave and he's saved by a figure in that cave. And that figure coincidence of coincidences, it's Spock, our Spock. Leonard Nimoy.

I guess he was enticed out of spock retirement to do this movie by Abrams. And it's so hp it's so good to see him. Then at that moment, I forgot about how fucking stupid everything leading up to that moment was. But it's a dumb coins. What are the odds that he would be shot into this.

Planet, you know, in an escape pod and fucking Spock is there? Who knows Kirk Oh looks at him and is, oh my god, it's Kirk, it's you, Jim. I'm not excusing it. I think it's the most stupid thing in a in an entire film of stupid things. HP.

Imagine all of my problems with the movie, and then you put this on top of it. You put in that against every fucking Starfleet regulation, he maroons a crew member, effectively court martialing himself. Like that's it for the rest of Spock's career. As soon as that gets back to Starfleet, he's done. I don't care how valuable he might be, that's the end of his career.

He would never ever fucking do that. And then it just so happens that he's chased by not one, but two separate snow monsters and then falls into a cave where Spock has been deposited by Nero. And then they find Scottie, who happens to be on an outpost on that mode with. Some weird alien assistant. I'm not sure what their relationship is.

And now he introduces something that never existed ever in Star Trek because it makes everything impossible and stupid, and it's basically like the Deo six mocking the machine, the transwarp transport. You can transport somebody onto a ship in warp. Yeah, we don't fucking care about your Star Trek. We're just doing fucking whatever we fucking want. Transwarp transporting.

Yeah, it's the transparent aluminum moment of this movie where he Spock tells Scotty, Yeah, you just need to do transport transwarp transporting, and he's like that, that's crazy, that would never happen, but you wrote the equations or you will someday and he's, oh, I never thought of space being the thing that's moving and not the individual. So you know it's that as I agree with you. As much as I loved seeing Nimoy and how unexpected it was, because I didn't know that going in that he was going to be in the movie, it did strain credulity to the breaking point for me at that point because I'm like, this is silly. And then on top of that, when Spock tells Kirk about how this all came about, it's such a I thought it was such a flimsy way of justifying Nero's like thirst for vengeance, because it's there's a star that's gone super nova and the Romulin home planet is going to be destroyed.

So Spock, speaking of by the way, speaking of planetary evacuations, the Romulans would have been off Romulus at that point. They knew full well that it was they there was enough time known that was going to happen, that the Vulcans went out and figured out this plan and set it in motion, they would have been off planet. I just thought the thing of it is so So Spock develops this black hole device that is later stolen by Nero. But he develops this thing with the red matter, and he's going to, you know, create a black hole that's going to take care of the dwarf or the supernova star. But and he says this, and it's I think it's just so to your point, this is lazy, where he says, unfortunately I didn't make it in time, and the it's no I think for this to really be an effective, sort of misguided like Hunt for Vengeance, it would have been something like It wouldn't have been a matter of I was too late, because that just seems dumb to me.

But if he had misunderstood Spock's intentions in some way and believe that Spock betrayed him when in reality Spock did exactly what he said he was going to do. How about this? How about this? One star was going to explode, destroying both or two stars were going to explode. One was going to destroy Vulcan and one was going to destroy Romulus, and he fucking saved Vulcan when Romulus nova, you know, you know what I mean, make it a choice exactly this well, and then I was just too late.

What are you going to do? Folks? Yeah, hey, you know the traffic on the alley, that's. Seriously that I thought was a very thin sort of because how honestly, like, I think I would have been pretty pissed if I was Nero too, if the guy was just like, hey, sorry, man, I fucked up. I thought I was gonna get there in time.

Boy, traffic was really rough that day and I just couldn't or you know, the red matter wasn't cooperating, and I thought that that seems like to really make it work, you have to Nero can't necessarily be justified in his anger because this. I would be pretty pissed if Spock said I will save your planet and then just failed to do so for no good reason. Hey I just didn't make it in time. Well fuck you, I'm going to take out everything that you hold, deer motherfucker. But if it was a case where you know, he misunderstood his intentions, or somehow Spock wasn't responsible for the home world being destroyed ultimately, then that makes him an interesting He's more villainous in that case.

I guess I think they dropped the ball there too. So many balls on the floor, none of them in space. But again, despite all of that, maybe it's just I had this ability to spend my disbelief. Wasn't exactly you know, there were there were I'm not going to say there weren't a lot of you know, things that are papered over by the action and by the lucky look of the movie, a feel of it and the acting. Despite all that, I was still entertained at the end of the day, Father blaw.

I am not going to deny that. I don't think my level of disbelief was in question during the movie. I bought everything that they were doing. It's just that my level of quality seems to be above yours, because I'm not going to settle for this fucking nonsense from these fucking screenwriters, these fucking pretenders to the fucking throne, Robert Orsi and fucking Alex Kurtzman and the jj abrams plague. Get the two Star Wars and fuck that up to guys.

That's what I have to say about Star Trek. I guess, you know, as much as one someone you know, you love a good steak dinner, sometimes you just want a hamburger. I guess that's true, and you can get that. That's any number of Star Trek movies that have come before that were, you know, respectful of the material that it derived from, you know, and didn't do a bunch of fucking cutting corner nonsense like TransWarped Transportation and the Cave of Mystery coincidence on the planet hof or. Cave of Mystery.

I think that was a true short adventure. Book that would be more interesting and well thought out than what these fellas have come up with for this particular franchise. That was the Cave of Time. That was number one, the. Cave of Time.

I do remember the Cave of Time as a matter of fact. Love those books, loved them anyway. No, I had something I wanted to say, Fuck, what else is terrible about this movie? But everything? What else was good?

I don't know nothing really. Well, I'll tell you one thing that wasn't good that that still irks me even now is Winona Rider as Spock's mother. I thought it was ridiculous then and I still think it's ridiculous now. I think it's ridiculous to bring back Wuenota Rider at that point. Who when this movie came out, she was basically only now then renowned for shoplifting.

So it was nice to see her back, but then to immediately kill her. I thought, well, what was the point of her even being here? I don't think we got another of her. She has three lines of fucking dialogue and then it's all Sarah for the rest of the movie. What do you think of Ben Cross?

What do you think of Ben Cross as Sarah? Mister Sarah connoisseurur. I liked him. Look he's he is a different spin on the character. But I thought it was great.

I thought he had that restraint of being a Vulcan who is trying to hide their emotions, but when it came time for him to actually mourn his wife. I thought it was very effective. And I thought his support of his son was wonderful. I thought their relationship was great. I love ben Cross problem.

I have. One of the problems I would have went on a Ryder is that she's six fucking years older than zach Kinto. It's not fucking believable. Father alone. I didn't believe her for a second as as Fox mother, not for one second.

Oh, I don't know paged her up. I didn't have a problem. It looked so fake to me. Oh, you're really going off on all a really minor things, but given a pass to Oh they fucking destroy Vulcan just for a fucking stupid plot point. Oh, I don't care about that.

It's a rollicking good time but shows up for ten seconds. I can't fucking believe it. Can you believe that Tyler Perry is in this movie? What's going on? Guilty is charge weird?

Charged? Weird? What bothers you but you know, it takes all kinds to make a movie, my friend. It takes it takes a whole bunch of different planets to make a federation. And now we don't have the Vulcans anymore.

But it's okay. We got two spots, everybody, two spots for the price of one. Bridging Again, what. About the design. We already talked about the interior of the Romulan.

What did you think of the design of it? Overall? I didn't like it. I didn't either. It kind of reminded me of a Doctor Seuss kind of thing, where everything is, you know, claw and there's nothing.

You know, we're going for organic because we haven't really seen a lot of that in space movies, but it seems like that's the only reason they're going for it. It's just, well, let's do something new and interesting, different, Just like everything else they're doing in the movie. It bears no resemblance to anything of anything we've seen of Romulan technology up until this point. You know, and I and granted it's in the future, but it's you know, it's not much further than next generation, so we're well aware of what romulants were like then. Too.

Yeah, although I liked Spock's future ship, the little tiny ship. That was a little squid thing. Yeah, I like that. Yeah, that was cool. I like that.

I liked you know, I liked some of the you know, the debris scene when they then they warp in. It was marsh. Yeah, it was good. Good. I liked the sky jump scene.

I like the they well except for the fact and maybe this was deliberate, I thought it was funny. I wrote this down. I'm like, oh, it's Sulu Kirk and yeah, some red shirt. Because it's so patently obvious when this guy's getting ready to jump down to the platform, you know that this guy's just he's gonna he's gonna bite it. But but I also appreciated their willingness to like just dispatch these guys with abandon because he jumps, he misjudges when the shoot is going to open, and doesn't he get vaporized by one of the flaming grates.

That he does. Yeah, that's part of that escalation I was talking about earlier in every action scene. So it's not enough to have Sulu get caught on the edge and nearly burned by the torch. He has to fling back up where where he's using the winch in his parachute to pull him back up. But along the way there's another event firing fire up through it.

You know what I mean. It's just it's it's I think the movie that this, as far as the action goes, owes most of its lineage to its Actually die Hard. I just kept thinking of every action scene in this movie is basically the rooftop scene and die Hard. I'm stuck up here. I gotta get these people down, those shooting machine guns at me.

The whole roof is going to blow up. I go off the edge. Okay, I made it in through the window, but now this is pulling me off as well. It's every action scene seems to be based on that, those series of maybe I'm crazy. No, I don't think you're far off.

I could see that a little bit. Yeah, sure, it was very exciting sequence. Though the action is not in question here. It's really good. And I like a lot of the space battle stuff too.

I'm not immune to that. I'm here for space battles in Star Trek. That's part of the appeal. I do prefer naval battle in Star Trek, and I was curious what that would look like in AJ James movie. But there are too many missiles firing from too many places all at once and look out, and this movie is like a decompression fest.

We usually don't get that in Star Trek movies. It's usually rarely we get to see like where a bulkhead blows out and crew members go floating off into the void. But this movie does it a lot. It does. And this movie does the thing which you see occasionally more now where when you actually you know, it takes place in the vacuum of space, like when they jump to the sky jump sequence, or when somebody gets sucked out of the Inner Calvin at the beginning and they just go flighting off in the space.

Everything gets completely quiet, Yeah, except for breathing. Like that to me is really effectives super effective. Man. You know, it's the vacuum of space. It's fucked up.

You're not gonna hear anything out there. I just it's so simple and so elementary. But I love when movies do that. Yeah. I mean, Abrams knows how to fucking make movies look good.

It's just I question his storytelling ability. So this movie ends where they go to rescue. They spock steals the black holes. Oh my god, right right they Okay, so they've established that one drop of this red liquid will create a singularity, it'll create a black hole, and then they blow up this gigantic fucking blob of it. Which which would fucking they choose the it falls in on itself method of THEO six machina here at the end, whereas I was expecting that to fucking destroy the universe.

Man, Yeah, that seem a little bit extreme that, you know, because you're figure, because yeah, they do only take a little drop of it to destroy the entire planet of Vulcan. So yeah, that seems a little ridiculous. How about this just have three samples of it, you know, like he had three missions to do with this, the tiny samples. You don't have a gigantic thing to drop this seemingly endless supply of wormhole or black hole creators. The size of the red matter source material is, I would say, it's not as big as like a cushion, like a big puffy cushion you'd like a bean bag cushion you'd sit on, But it's close and if only a little drop of that can take out one planet.

You could take out the whole galaxy with this thing. Who cares about drilling into a fucking planet? Take a drop and love it into the upper atmosphere. As soon as it starts burning up, that fucking planet is going to No, it's not going to be habitable. That's what he would have been doing this whole time.

God, they didn't even think about their own fucking plot lines. It's so fucking it's insulting. Honestly, I'm insulted. As a Star Trek fan. I changed my mind.

I hate this one. No you don't. You still like it? No? I look, like I said, I.

Will never say that this is a perfect movie. It's far from it. But was I entertained for two hours? Sure? Did?

I like the cast and the effects and some of the action sequences. Sure, But I'm not refused to sit here and defend the movie to you, because what's to defend. You've pointed out all these shortcomings and I can't argue with that. But despite all that, I enjoyed myself for a couple hours. You know what it was escape?

It was escapism. It is definitely escapism. And like I said, I ultimately what angered me about an alternate timeline to begin with. Ultimately is a bomb because this is just a what off. This is just a what if scenario as far as I'm concerned, Like some of these same creative people will go on to Shepherd's Star Trek from henceforth with Discovery and Picard and Section thirty one, but you know, as well as the New Star's Academy, So I can't be mad at them overall, particularly with Strange New Worlds, where they right a lot of the wrongs I felt were done with the Kilvin universe.

So I'm super excited that I never have to watch this movie again. That's an unexpected benefit of Star Trek Fest. It's teaching me exactly what I what I do and do not like in this in the in this world universe timeline. Yeah, genre my part. For my part, I think the worst.

I think the worst is yet the worst is yet to come. That's my curse here, because as much as you might have hated this movie for me, the second one like blows that out of the water. I fla you know spoiler. I did not like In the Darkness, and it's going to be a tough watch for me Father alone, for the same reason that you had a tough time with this movie. Well, here's a spoiler.

I watched this any number of times, and then the last time I watched it, I followed it with Into Darkness and then followed that with Beyond. So oh, I think I think we might have switched positions when it comes to our next episode, and that's going to be Star Trek Into Darkness and that's next here on the Star Trek Fest. Until then, Where can people find you when they're looking for you? Mister h Pemusicplace dot com. Go oh, that's so you can find me.

I co host the Night Mister Walters Taxi podcast with Father Malone. Here I also host the Noise Junkies podcast. And as he started to say, I have a band camp site Hpmusicplace dot bandcamp dot com. As for me, go to there listen to his music. It's good.

You're gonna listen to some in a second, whether you like it or not. The for me, do you know what you're doing here? It's midnight viewing. Twice a week. There's a Father Malone weekly round up.

I do that if I review things that come out weekly, and we also do this and the Come on man, come mine. You all know, you, all know Star Trek. Everybody