Not to be unkind but the one thing that you think makes you an objective reviewer is the one thing that makes you a bad reviewer for this movie: you aren’t a fan so you don’t understand the movie. The Star Trek movie really isn’t about making sense, but about getting the old gang back together, so the coincidences are sweet. Though it was made to reach a wider audience, it probably is pretty hit and miss for entertaining people who aren’t already fans. There were tons of things referring back to the original and the personalities caught the same old atmosphere although with a different flare this time around. I’m sure there are fans who find the movie an abomination, but for this fan it was great.

Also, there’s the fact that “they” have pretty much messed up the Star Trek franchise by making bad movies based on it with the occasional good one mixed in, and then started making really bad movies based on it. Most any movie based on ST that does it half well is going to be good. And as Nathan said, it really is a space opera kind of franchise, not a for-science-nerds kind of movie. Fans study the science and factoids of this alternate universe to great detail, and they even learn to fluently speak a language that was totally made up just for the ST universe.

Note: If you didn’t like or understand Galaxy Quest you wouldn’t understand this movie either. It really is a niche movie for fans.

@ TopperH:

Interesting. Plinket seems to like it, but he does complain about the science fails. Also, his complaint about the Vulcan and Hoth being too close together is better than mine.

@ Nathan:

In my defense, I wasn’t comparing this to other Trek movies or TV series. I haven’t really watched that much of them to be able to accurately compare the amount of silly plot holes they had. So I was reviewing it as a “summer science fiction flick” that just happens to be Trek related. And as such, all I expected it to do was to keep the plot free of major holes and at least make their science failures minor and obscure enough to pass by me.

Also, you are right. My complaint about the planets makes no sense. What I meant is this:

Since Vulcan is visible from the ice planet it means they must be passing very close to each other. This means that the ice planet has to be in a similar orbit. So at that particular moment in the movie, the Hoth planet should be about the same distance from the sun as Vulcan. Which would indicate that both planets ought to have similar climate – the ice planet should be experiencing a balmy summer. But it does not…

@ SapientIdiot:

Very true. I suspect that if they skipped all that time traveling craziness it could have been a better movie.@ Rob:

Yes, it would be much better. But I guess what they were trying to bank on is the nostalgia and instant recognizability of the characters and famous quotes. Also, remakes are in vogue these days. :P

@ jambarama:

I LOL’d. Thanks for the link.

Regarding families on starships, that silliness was worse on the next generation. The Enterprise, the flagship of the Federation, is loaded with families and sent into dangerous situations all the time. Can you imagine the Star Fleet military personnel that are okay with that?

I did like how they tied the retcon into the plot, rather then simply ignoring that. But as you pointed out the implementation was rather flawed

I don’t have as many hangups about the organization side of the movie as you, but the plot had an impressive number of holes and absurdities, and the dialog was crummy. When I made some comments about it being a weak movie, my in-laws (particularly my mother-in-law) about disowned me.

Luke – you’ll appreciate this, if you haven’t read it already.

You really have to suspend disbelief when it comes to the science stuff in all of Star Trek, not just the Abrams movie. It’s kind of a recurring theme all throughout the series.

I thought it was a fun movie overall, my biggest problem with it is that I wished they had just gone and created a new Star Trek television series that was another jump forward in time like TOS to TNG. Have a whole new crew with a whole new ship in a whole new era. So much more possibilities in my opinion than trying to re-imagine old characters.

The more i watch star trek (any of them) the more logic/science fails i start to notice.

For xmas last year my girlfriend gave me a book called “The Nitpickers Guide to Star Trek TNG”. It actually got me into watching the entire series again just to see all the plot oversights.

Having been really into both TNG and DS9 as a kid, i would still say i wasn’t really disappointed with the new movie. Its like you mentioned, they did a good enough job making it so fans could just ignore it. I’ll admit i actually kind of enjoyed it for what it was, a very condensed, action oriented tribute to the original.

Although I think that they could have done without tying it to the original timeline at all and just said it wasnt supposed to be cannon. Then they could have avoided all the silly things about spock and the red matter… but then again i guess they wouldnt have been able to fit Nemoy in.

I think you’re missing the point:
* The Abrams Trek reboot isn’t a complete reimagining of Star Trek. In fact, there are several shout-outs and references to the original series and previous movies. Sort of a reassuring “don’t worry, I know the canon and I’m not going to completely screw it up” pat on the back.

* If you’re going to complain about science fail, implausibility, contrived plot devices, or things that are just plain silly, you probably shouldn’t be watching Star Trek in the first place. It’s a campy space opera, not a freaking master’s thesis. The ships go faster than light, you can near-instantaneously transmit exabytes of qubits of physical information from one point to another, alien species all speak flawless English…and that’s just the original series. Let’s not even talk about holodecks, replicators, and the DS9 worm hole.

* One your points is just plain wrong:

…clearly see his home world in the sky, about 3-4 times as big as our moon. This means that the ice planet must be closer to Vulcan than out moon is to Earth

Um, that makes no sense. The earth from the moon looks much larger than the moon from earth, and presumably Vulcan is closer to the size of earth than the size of the moon. Presumably the ice planet (or more likely the ice moon) is a distant satellite of Vulcan. And Spock Prime was put there by Nero explicitly so he could see the destruction of Vulcan. Thus, it’s not a complete coincidence that he would be there when Kirk landed.

I’m not saying that your points are all wrong. However, the Abrams Trek fits in well with the rest of the Star Treks: campy, fun, geeky, not a lot of attention to actual science. Honestly, my gripes about the film are with Abrams’ cinematography rather than the plot.

I really share your feelings about this movie.
If you haven’t seen it yet, take a look at plinkett’s review.
It’s really worth it.
http://redlettermedia.com/plinkett/star-trek/star-trek-09/