9 May 2009
Review: Star Trek
Posted by Ryan Anderson
Last night, I and my thirty closest friends (much of the Cornell astronomy department) visited the movie theater to watch the new Star Trek movie. The overall verdict: it was good! But of course, as huge nerds and astronomers, after the movie we spent a good twenty minutes standing in the halls of the theater blocking traffic and vigorously discussing all aspects of the movie.
In general I liked it a lot. It was really a lot of fun, and the new cast were great.
This movie does not “feel” like a Star Trek movie. If anything, it reminded me most of the new Star Wars movies. Except that it was good. The comic relief in Star Trek was well done, and mostly centered around the young Kirk. Thankfully, only some of the comedy is physical. Mostly it is witty banter and Kirk’s infectious personality that carries the laughter, and that’s the way it should be. Contrast this with the asinine slapstick that C3PO and R2D2 (and Jar-Jar) became in the new Star Wars.
But again, being similar to the new Star Wars movies is not necessarily a bad thing. The action scenes were really awesome. Plenty of space battles and laser fights and chase scenes to keep your attention. Unfortunately, the action comes so thick and fast that there isn’t much time for anything else. At its heart, this movie is an action movie.
The movie felt a lot more like Star Wars than Star Trek. Here, Kirk escapes from his crashed shuttle on Hoth. I mean... on an ice planet in the Vulcan system.
In fact, one of my biggest problems with it is that it was just an action movie. Part of the appeal of the Star Trek and Star Wars franchises is the universe they are set in. They feel like part of something bigger than the immediate events of the movie. That was less true for this one. I didn’t get much of a sense of the universe outside the events shown onscreen. In fact, this is one place where the new Star Wars movies were better: despite all their flaws, those movies show the political maneuverings as the Empire expands its power and takes control of hundreds of systems across the galaxy. This new Star Trek was a lot more narrow, for better or for worse.
There will obviously be sequels to this movie, and I hope that they chill out just enough to strike a balance between the old Trek and this newest version. The old ones were often dull because they spent too much time debating galactic diplomacy. This new one is thrilling and exciting, but shallow because it doesn’t spend enough time on “slow” scenes like that. I think there’s a happy medium that the sequels should aim for to be great but also carry a little more weight.
Now, on to some specific complaints and spoilers! Don’t read any farther if you don’t want SPOILERS!
Ok, so the premise of the movie is that in the future, old Spock is trying to prevent a supernova from destroying the galaxy by inducing a black hole to form in it. He fails to do so before Romulus is destroyed. The bad guy is a Romulan bent on revenge, but Spock’s black hole sends them both back in time, where the bad guy captures Spock and goes around trying to destroy the Federation planets with the black hole device.
Kirk parachutes onto the giant drilling device that is (somehow) blasting a path to the planet's core.
First of all, the scientific problems: a supernova would not destroy the galaxy. A supernova is the explosion of a star. A galaxy is hundreds of billions of stars. That’s like saying that if one of the cells in your body died, so would you. The difference in scale is so great that the larger entity doesn’t even notice.
Second, the idea of stopping a supernova with a black hole is ridiculous. Why? Because supernovae are how black holes form! In fact, they are the only way that we know of to form black holes! So if a supernova naturally produces a black hole, causing a black hole to form within the supernova would do nothing.
Third, if Romulus is going to be blown apart by a supernova, then that means its star is blowing up. So if Spock had succeeded and stopped the supernova, Romulus would still be a dead world, cooling to frozen darkness as it orbited the black hole where its star used to be. A death by ice rather than fire. So if the bad guy had only known a little astronomy, he might be sad, but not vengeful. It’s hard to take revenge on the universe.
This guy is upset that his planet was destroyed by a supernova that Spock was supposed to prevent. Can you tell he's the bad guy? If not, wait till you see his ship.
Speaking of black holes, they seem to have a very selective effect in this movie. First Spock and the Romulans are sucked into one and end up traveling through time. But apparently when a planet falls into a black hole it is destroyed. And then at the thrilling climax, the Romulan ship is blasted into the black hole and is torn apart, and the Enterprise only narrowly escapes, in true Star Trek fashion, by detonating its warp core and riding the shockwave out. Now, call me crazy, but if you are in a ship that can travel many times faster than light, wouldn’t you want to keep doing that, rather than hope that an explosion expanding much slower than lightspeed will propel you out? Oh well, I guess Scotty does know more about warp drives than I do.
One more thing: why do they have to drill to the core of the planet to kill it with a black hole? Seems to me that if you start the black hole anywhere on the planet, it will do the trick. But then, they know more about the mysterious black-hole-inducing “Red Matter” than I do.
I could nitpick some other science, but at some point you have to accept that this is a sci-fi action flick, not a documentary. If you want even more science-nitpicking fun, head on over to Phil Plait’s review at Bad Astronomy. So instead I’ll move on to nitpicking other things!
Time travel? Did they really have to resort to time travel? Ok, this is Star Trek so the answer is yes. But it is disappointing to me that they chose the time travel route rather than have something interesting happen in “the present” in the movie. I can see why they did it though. By waving their hands and talking about time travel paradoxes, they can say that the timeline has essentially been reset, and can now go on to make as many Trek sequels as they want, and not worry about altering the canon. A shrewd choice.
The USS Kelvin meets its fate in a spectacular battle early in the movie.
Now, about those action scenes. I read a good number of blogs about writing, and have read multiple writing books, and often the advice given to writers trying to make a compelling story is that they should put their characters in a difficult situation, and then make it worse. This movie was a textbook example of that strategy. It is extremely effective, but they did it so much in this Trek that it actually got ridiculous.
Take the opening scene. An evil, evil looking spacecraft emerges from a black hole and begins firing on a Federation ship. They are outgunned. Ok, so we have our situation. The bad guy demands to speak to the captain in person but the transporters are offline due to damage. The captain flies over on a shuttle, is killed, and the bad guys attack again. Ok, it’s getting worse! Now the first officer is the captian! They need to evacuate the ship, so they are going to leave it on autopilot and take the shuttles. But oh noes! The new captain’s wife is, at that very moment going into labor! The stakes are raised: he needs to save his crew while worrying about his wife and child! But Oh noes! We find out that the autopilot is damaged! Nobody will escape unless someone is on the bridge, shooting down the missiles aimed with deadly intent at the escaping shuttles! He must make the ultimate sacrifice to save his crew and his wife and newborn son.
Ok, see what I mean? It’s a gripping scene, but scenes like this just keep happening, through the whole movie. And I found myself chuckling and shaking my head for some of them. They are textbook examples of how to keep the audience’s attention, but they strained my suspension of disbelief. Poor Kirk. I mean, the guy gets dumped on an ice planet, does he have to get chased by a CGI monster, which is in turn chased by a bigger and scarier CGI monster, only to be rescues by a time-travelling old-Spock with a torch? Does he have to have various allergic reactions to medication he took to sneak his way onboard the ship while trying to inform the captain of a deadly trap all while arguing with the guy who wanted him banned from the ship in the first place? It just got to be a bit much to swallow, exciting though it was.
Kirk surveys the Enterprise construction site as he considers applying to Starfleet.
I’ll end on a positive note because despite my complaints, this is a really enjoyable movie. It’s also beautiful. The scenes of the Enterprise under construction, towering over the Iowa cornfields were breathtaking, as were the space battles, and the destruction of Vulcan, and pretty much everything. I even liked the shiny, futuristic-looking bridge.
So, the new Star Trek:
It’s an eye-popping, frenetic, exciting and action-packed movie. The characters are likeable, the bad guys are bad, the space battles are freakin’ sweet, and through it all there is also a great sense of humor.
This is not your daddy’s Star Trek, but I’m not so sure that’s a bad thing.
I was actually thinking about this at night. I mean, my first fannish impulse was to want to see how the destruction of Vulcan and the new timeline affected the galaxy. Not to mention if they keep Scotty/Spock Prime’s transporter thing, since that would seriously change the geopolitical landscape.
On the other hand:
1. This isn’t well handled by movies. One could do it in tie-in novels or a TV show, but it takes some depth. Star Trek’s universe is a pretty expansive place*.
2. There’d be a temptation to take a lot of Original Series elements (or modern Trek elements) and update/redo them. I know I’m tempted, and the most I’ll ever do is fanfiction. One good thing about the movie being less woven into the series is that it makes a good introduction to fans.
* I already feel like a Big Nerd, since I caught that Uhura ordered a Cardassian drink and I’m not sure if the Cardassians had been contacted at this point in time. (They weren’t in the original series, but that’s no indication.) Then I start postulating if there was a change in the timeline and they were contacted earlier, and what that means. God…
“I caught that Uhura ordered a Cardassian drink and I’m not sure if the Cardassians had been contacted at this point in time”
They also seemed to know who the Romulans were, what they looked like, and that they had a cultural/genetic link with the Vulcans. If I’m not mistaken, this kind of information didn’t come to light until the end of the Romulan-Federation war. Then again, I’m a little rusty on TOS canon.
“It just got to be a bit much to swallow, exciting though it was.”
…Maybe you just have numb-tongue.
“It just got to be a bit much to swallow, exciting though it was.”
That’s what she said.
I was in the Navy when Star Trek first first launched on TV. I bought a small TV to watch and have thus enjoyed the Star Trek premise since its inception. All of the TV plots and movies have played rather fast and free with science, after all this is entertainment not science or education. But at the end of this movie, unlike the others, I was moved very strongly to the view that space is our future as a species. What form we will have and the technology we use to realize this destiny should be fascinating to behold.
Gene Roddenberry would be delighted that his Star Trek concept has been given bold new legs and will continue to go forth to explore new worlds! This new movie kicks butt.
This is not your father’s Star Trek.
No, it isn’t. It has been remodled for this generation, which means annoyingly fast cuts, endless quips, and ignoring science altogether.
They imitated the original Enterprise crew, but it is an imitation, not the real thing. They have said thanks and now get lost to the original fans who made Star Trek possible in the first place, under the guise of wanting to reinvent the franchise.
Clearly the old guard is not wanted any more, and the new guard won’t figure this out until the next incarnation four decades hence, when their kids take over and think they are getting something special.
I don’t disagree with the poster, but the facts are a little off. First, the supernova was never said to destroy a galaxy, only the Romulan star system. A supernova will most definitely destroy all the life on a planet close enough to feel its heat.
I am pretty sure Old Spock says that the supernova is threatening to destroy the galaxy. If not, then Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy misheard the same thing: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/05/08/ba-review-star-trek/
Also, my point about the supernova remains: if it is the star in the Romulan system, which is the only way the planet would conceivably be close enough to the blast to be ripped apart, then the system was doomed anyway, even if Spock had succeeded and turned the star into a black hole before it blew up.
It’s also misleading to talk about “feeling heat” from a supernova. Technically, the Earth is feeling the heat (a.k.a. energy) of hundreds of supernovae right now, in the form of radiation across the electromagnetic spectrum. But to destroy a planet in the way depicted takes a huge amount of concentrated energy (see this page about the Death Star superlaser for detailed calculations of the amount of energy required to blow a planet to bits: http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Tech/Beam/DeathStar.html)
Any planet that is not orbiting in the inner solar system of the exploding star will not receive enough of the supernova’s energy to be blown apart. Thanks to the spherical expansion of the explosion, the energy will spread out according to the inverse square law: an object twice as far away receives one fourth as much energy.
I just saw the movie yesterday. Great review. (I wish they hadn’t had to use a time travel plot, since there have been about 500 other time travel Trek plots already, but it’s hard to think of another way they could have renewed the series.) I totally agree that although this was a good action movie and I liked it, I hope that future installments will have more of not just diplomacy, but also the philosophical dilemmas, interesting alien societies, etc. that the best Trek episodes did so well. On the other hand, maybe the best medium for that isn’t a two-hour movie, but… a long-form TV series! I don’t know whether that’s a realistic possibility at this point, though.
Yeah, that’s what I meant. Not just diplomacy, but anything to give depth. It bothers me that the new Star Wars movies had more depth than this latest Trek.
John Scalzi makes the point that the recent movies failed because they were like giant TV episodes: http://whatever.scalzi.com/2009/05/11/quick-review-star-trek/
I think there’s a happy medium between purely intellectual philosophical plots and pure mindless action plots. I hope they aim toward it with the sequels, but I suspect we’re a lot more likely to see mostly fluffy action.
At least the last few Star Trek films and even the Enterprise series adhered overall to the spirit of the franchise. This dreck now polluting our theaters is a bad copy and a sham.
The Fake Kirk at the end of this film wanted nothing more than to kill the bad guy after a token offer of help upon defeating him. The Fake Spock went right along with him. This and the utterly bad science in this bastard child should tell you all you need to know where this derailed version of the franchise stands and is going.
If you read the prequel story called Star Trek: Countdown it explains “how” the supernova would have destroyed the galaxy. There’s a lot of debate about whether it is considered canon, however the filmmakers were directly involved in its creation and have indicated that it should be considered canon unless it’s contradicted by a future film.
Basically, the reason the supernova would have destroyed the galaxy is because one of the planets orbiting it possessed a mineral which, when ignited by the exploding star, increased its size and destructive power exponentially (this is the same mineral that the mysterious “red matter” is made of, although red matter is the processed version of it). The explosion would have continued to grow until it consumed the entire galaxy. The star that went nova wasn’t the Romulan sun, but a star that was close to the Romulan sun (their version of Alpha Centauri I guess…). They were able to stop the nova from spreading further, but not before the shockwave reached the Romulan/Remen system (which was so close) and destroyed everything in it. No it’s not science, but at least it explains it…
Here’s a link to the Memory Alpha page which gives you the entire storyline (well, Part 1; you get to the next part by clicking a link at the bottom of the page). You can also buy the story on Amazon. Enjoy!
http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Countdown,_Number_One
This is the sort of thing that, while it is nice that it exists, doesn’t do anything to help with the movie. First of all, it’s total handwavium, but I can handle that (I chuckled at the “red matter” but didn’t get too worked up about it). But more importantly, if they had an explanation for their awkward plot device, then it should have been in the movie. They were already doing an info dump, all they would need is another line or two of explanation. There should not be “required reading” to make the plot of a movie make sense. Movies are supposed to be self-contained.
I actually agree. I didn’t know that it existed until after I saw the movie (I ruined Nemesis for myself by constantly reading stories about it, watching reviews, etc – I didn’t want to do that with this movie so I didn’t read anything about it or even watch a trailer). I was confused by the idea of a star going supernova destroying the galaxy since it’s impossible. At least Star Trek liked to PRETEND to be possible, but this seemed like quite the stretch to me. I honestly think they should have “decided” to write a bit of new canon into the script. Make the Romulan homesystem a binary system with all the planets orbiting a standard star and have the standard star in a really far orbit of a red giant. Red giant goes supernova and would destroy the entire system; Spock tries to stop it but is too late. Done.
The movie is completely fine without the Countdown story – although I agree that the supernova thing should have been explained better.
The other thing that bothered me about this film is how the fake Kirk and Spock dealt with the bad guy at the end of the summer popcorn flick.
Fake Kirk made a token gesture to assist the bad guy after defeating him. When the bad guy naturally declined, Fake Kirk immediately said in effect “Yahoo, we get to kill him now!”
For those of you too young to know or remember the original Star Trek series, while of course there were fights and attacks in episodes, the real Kirk and company always tried diplomacy first and last before resorting to photon torpedoes. Same with Picard and the others before this bastard child of the franchise came along.
But now we have a punk (and he is a punk) who is far more concerned about himself and beating the crap out of anyone who defies him. Guess this is a reflection of the culture this dreck is part of now.
Enjoy, youngsters. Clearly you do not know what quality is any more. Plus the fact that any of you are even trying to justify the utter nonsense about one supernova destroying an entire galaxy makes me weep for the future.
I agree. And I hope (perhaps in vain) that in sequels we see the punk kid that is Kirk, develop into a more mature Kirk who doesn’t always get his way by fighting and breaking the rules.
I think that this latest version of Trek was fun, and I enjoyed watching it, but much like its characters, it needs to grow up.
As the previews showed, we’re going to have a whole bunch of “fun” films this summer. How about a few that engage the brain just a bit? Star Trek could have and should have done that, but it didn’t.
9 looks interesting and different, at least.
Thinking can be fun, too, if only the public would ever realize that.
As an adult and father, I was not impressed with Kirk the juvenile delinquent, to put it mildly. And the way he jumped through ranks at Starfleet was beyond ridiculous. In any reality he should have been either thrown in their version of the stockade or kicked out of the Academy permanently.
The most bothersome part again was watching Kirk and Spock happily kill off an opponent withour remorse or consideration of alternatives. And what was the bad guy doing for the last 25 years anyway? Why didn’t he spend that time trying to fix the reason he was in the past to begin with?
If this new and fake version of Kirk and Spock ever come upon the Horta, I am willing to bet they will kill it just for being a big old ugly monster and let the Janus 6 miners eat her eggs in revenge.
That is the “new” Star Trek we may have to look forward to.
Oh Valhalla, stop being such a whining prude. You really don’t know what you’re talking about anyways. The best part of Star Trek has always been the violence! Even Roddenberry knew this – the best episodes were always the ones with violence and have you watched any of the past movies?! Uh hello!? They were all (with the exception of TMP and Voyage Home – both about mysterious probes and both sucked) about a bad guy who is trying to hurt a lot of people. And guess what?! The bad guy dies at the end of THEM too!
I mean come on! This guy had just destroyed Vulcan and killed 6 BILLION people and was about to destroy Earth too! He was worse than Hitler – would you help Hitler off a cliff if he was about to fall after witnessing what he had done? I highly doubt it. The fact that Kirk even offered assistance was beyond what anyone else would have done.
The last incarnation of Star Trek died a slow and painful death and it was caused by fans like you! Crazy people who are obsessed with everything being good and always having happy endings. Mainstream fans abandoned the show and the drivel that followed (Voy and Ent) was directed at people like you.
Roddenberry’s image of the future NEVER involved everyone being perfect and the universe being at peace. The positive future he was espousing was positive for the human race only and Earth in particular. He was saying that the people of Earth can work together in the future and accomplish our goals without warring with one another. He never said we shouldn’t kick some alien ass if we need to.
You possess all of the negative qualities of a Star Trek fan – the biggest ones being pretentious and smugness. You have this screwed up vision of Star Trek and think that just because EVERYONE ELSE thinks it sucks that just means everyone else is wrong/stupid/not as good as you. This movie FINALLY wrestles control of Trek from the nerds and gives it back to its rightful owners: the mainstream audience – where Roddenberry wanted it in the first place.
I agree that this new Star Trek does indeed give the franchise to the masses – whose tastes run the gamut from reality programs to NASCAR. And you have certainly helped to prove my point.
Enjoy your new, shiny, shallow Star Trek! I’ll just keep watching my copies of the original ST in my parents’ basement next to my model of the Enterprise as based on the design from the first three films.
Live long and prosper – I mean, hang cool, dude!
Actually all I did was disprove your point and you just proved mine! Star Trek was never meant to be in your hands. It was always meant to be part of the mainstream. And BTW, most people are pretty perceptive and (believe it or not) SMART! Just because they didn’t like the old Nerd Trek doesn’t mean you’re smart and they’re not. And thanks again for proving my point that many Trek fans are arrogant and smug.
If Roddenberry had had the budget in 1966 he would have created something like this movie. There, I said it and I know I’m right. There’s nothing shallow about this movie – it actually reminds me of TOS in many ways (the important ways). The only thing that’s shallow here is you.
Keep it civil folks. Attack the movie all you want, but don’t attack each other. I don’t want to stifle discussion, but I won’t tolerate personal attacks.
It’s clear that this movie was catering to a different audience than most other Treks, and for the most part it succeeded. Whether or not that is a good thing is a matter of opinion. I think the pro is that we will get more Star Trek in some form. The con is that it is likely to be more action and special-effects oriented and less cerebral.
Chris, I am afraid you’ve forced me to remove my authentic ST Original Series Phaser I and II model from its never been opened before box and powered up its fuel cells.
Don’t make me actually fire it, because then its value will go right down the Jeffries Tube.
Quick – what’s the combination to Kirk’s safe in his ship quarters?!
WRONG!
I liked it because it appealed to people who were Star Trek fans, casual fans, and non-fan. Being a casual Star Trek fan (I mostly grew up on TNG), I really enjoyed this movie. Certainly, I won’t get all of the in-jokes until I see the original series, but with my rudimentary knowledge of the show, I enjoyed it a great deal. I think the fact that the movie could be enjoyed by anyone is something the people involved in the movie should be proud of.
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mljblog.wordpress.com
There are already too many films out there made for “everyone” (just look at the pile of mind junk that is coming out this summer).
I want to see at least a few SF/ST films that force people to think and confront real issues for a change, like ST used to do before it became corrupted by the Generation X crowd and their iPods.
wow, great article. Keep it up.
Thanks! I’m glad you enjoyed it.
Why are they constructing the Starship Enterprise on the corn fields of Iowa? Wouldn’t it make much more sense to build the huge spaceship in, say, space?
And are there canyons in Iowa?
That didn’t bother me too much. If you’re going to accept that they have the technology to travel faster than light, then it seems like getting into orbit should no longer be a problem. If that’s the case, construction on the ground would probably be easier to do. Also, it looked really cool. I especially liked the mysterious silhouette on the horizon during shots of Kirk diving around.
I don’t know of canyons in Iowa, but maybe Iowa has undiscovered mineral wealth relevant for the construction of starships?
So, digging for mineral resources to build the Enterprise almost cost the life of the very person who would one day be its greatest Captain in Starfleet history. How ironic.
If they had built it in space, they could have done so either around an asteroid out in the Belt or dragged a few into Earth orbit. Either way, Little Kirk wouldn’t have almost gotten hurt and the Enterprise would already be in space when it was completed.
That scene does sum up the film overall – the new Star Trek is a lot like Paris Hilton: Looks pretty, but not much going on underneath.
I sem to recall a *lot* going on unsderneath Paris Hilton, but I might be wrong… 😉
Yes, but like this new Star Dreck, there is nothing there of any substance.
And just like with Hilton, once you’ve been taken advantage of by this incarnation, you feel stupid, dirty, and want to take a shower while desperately watching the original series to keep from getting sucked into this horrible new parallel universe.
great article the new star trek file looks great can’t wait to watch:))
I found the movie enjoyable but parts simply made no sense and Kirk was a highly un-likable character for me. I also was not a fan of the portrayal of Spock’s battle with his emotions (the result of which was: “Don’t be rational, since nothing good comes from rational thinking.”)
Firstly, “One more thing: why do they have to drill to the core of the planet to kill it with a black hole? Seems to me that if you start the black hole anywhere on the planet, it will do the trick.” My friends were slightly doubtful of this, that maybe the black hole would be too small… or something. Anyway, good to hear I’m not crazy.
Secondly, why didn’t Nero and his crew use force fields or locking doors to keep spock and Kirk under control and kill them immediately upon boarding the ship, or just fire more missles… It just seems very doubtful that Nero’s ship, after dispatching every other colonial vessel, would be so easily stopped by the Enterprise.
Kirk was an unpleasant person. He came up with ideas, berated everyone around him with them, and acted on them without reasonable consideration. His decision to hunt down Nero made no sense, as Spock said. I just couldn’t get behind him as being the hero when his heroic acts were just fortuitous stupidity, luck, or being a jerk. And why did he become captain… wasn’t there ANY more senior officer on the ship more fit for command than he? hmm
Regarding the pointless drill, why did starfleet, and the entirety of Earth, (and Vulcan, for that matter)do nothing to destroy the obviously poorly defended drill which was going, apparently, lead to the demise of their entire planet.
So, despite the fact that I felt the movie rather… unlikely, and as Ryan said, suspension of disbelief became difficult at times I found it entertaining. I liked the overall premise, learning more about Spock, and the movie as a whole, though I felt it could have been better if it were different.
I felt the comic relief to be good, but I think there should have been less, as the general plot became comic as so much began happening at once. I wasn’t a fan of the green dude with Scotty, either.
I think I’m better at criticizing than finding good things…
“Secondly, why didn’t Nero and his crew use force fields or locking doors to keep spock and Kirk under control and kill them immediately upon boarding the ship”
Did you miss the part where he’s a bad guy in an action movie? Everyone knows bad guys are physically incapable of just dispatching the hero without explaining their evil plan and giving ample chances for escape. 😉
Of course this Star Dreck would denounce rationality over emotions, because if anyone looks at this film with even a little rational logic, they will realize just how awful it truly is.
If this is the future for the Star Trek franchise, better to drop some red matter on it now and put everyone out of their misery.
All previous incarnations, even the lame Enterprise, still held to the overall spirit and mission of the series. This thing, however, is only there to suck money out of wallets.
As far as I can tell from all the research I’ve done no one has ever specified what size the star was that went supernova that destroyed Romulus. If it was a super-giant star that went super-nova and if the planet containing the mineral that it interacted with after exploding was also a Jupiter or Saturn sized planet then it certainly is not hard to believe that it’s affect could have spread across a good deal of the galaxy. This could have taken millions of years but then Spock in his flashback sequence with Kirk never said how long it would actually take to “destroy the galaxy” only that it eventually would. So I don’t find this aspect of the movie all that hard to believe since we were only given very scanty details.
Sure, supernovae can affect very large volumes of space, but they certainly cannot “destroy the galaxy”. In fact, they trigger star formation, so if anything supernovae keep the galaxy going. We wouldn’t be here if a supernova shockwave hadn’t passed through a cloud of gas and dust 4.5 billion years ago, compressing it and seeding it with elements heavier than iron.
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I am proud to call my self a Trekkie, I attend conventions, dress up and I even have “Live Long and Prosper” tattooed on my back. My family however, despite my best efforts, will watch the occasional episode but have never embraced the Star Trek world as I have. My husband took me along to the premier of Star Trek in London last night and thank you JJ you converted him in one film, I have been trying for 25 years! What JJ Abrams has done is create a film that can be enjoyed by all, its irrelevant whether or not you have seen Star Trek before, this film stands alone as brilliant entertainment. There are plenty of references to the original series to keep the fans happy. Of course there are going to be the “hard core” fans who will criticize certain aspects. I enjoyed seeing the lead actors imitate the characteristics of the original crew, Karl Urban as Dr Mcoy was particularly good. Good story line, plenty of humour, non-stop fast action, fantastic special effects, great acting from all the main “crew”, Zacchary Quinto and Chris Pine especially. Can’t wait for the next one to see more in-depth character development (of all the characters, not just Kirk and Spock and a moral dilemma which is at the heart of the best Star Trek. Film fans are going to love this film and that means Star Trek Lives Long and Prospers!