The Epic Moments of the Reboot Movies (11/24)

[Idril Mar]

Our final epic moments poll deals with the reimagined Star Trek movies.

Love it or hate it, change has come to the Star Trek franchise, rewriting the canon for better or worse, but forever. With Nero's vengeful jaunt into the past and the subsiquent destruction of Kirk's family and the planet Vulcan, the timeline was changed forever.

The changes to the timeline notwithstanding, some of the claasic themes of peace vs. militarism, struggle against unequal odds, and self-sacrifice are constants in the new movies as well. Our new look at the series with younger eyes and actors has not taken it away from its philosophical and teaching-moment roots.

[Idril Mar]

Bump and go, sorry for the delay today.

[Leland Bishop]

These movies are all about Bones and rise and fall based on how much screen time Karl Urban gets.

[T'Mihn]

Different timeline, different universe and an interesting take on what the technology turned put and what clanges made the characters ehat they are. Uniquely different from the Prime universe.

Yeah you can't buikd a ship that size in on the ground, only in space but its to show scale.

Warp travel in incredibly dizzing.

[Rahman and Rivi Vataix]

Regardless of my thoughts on the new movies as a whole, the entire Kelvin opening to the 2009 film is excellent.

RIP little Kelvin...

[Sal Taybrim]

Pretty much I'm with Leland and Rich. The reboot movies have a few good 'moments' mostly from great acting or a nice little scene... but overall the plots were horrible, full of holes and made me sad.

So I guess I'll say the actors are pretty epic for taking such a terrible script and making something watchable from it.

[+ Johanna MacLaren]

I can't say as I thought there were any epic moments in the reboot movies. They just didn't make "epic." The death of Kirk's father is sad and what one would expect of his dad, but not epic.

[Idril Mar]

Ok... so sitting there and watching Vulcan implode wasn't epic?

[Leland Bishop]

I think it would have been, had the movie set us up to care much about Vulcan.

[T'Mihn]

These had plot holes But almost every Star Trek movie did too. They did capture the banter between characters, the serious and fun moments very well. These characters in this universe are likeable and one can care about them.

[Sivah]

I enjoyed the Reboot movies. There are parts that I find fault with, but then every movie has those. To me, the most epic moment was where the Enterprise shows up from out of no where to begin blasting the missiles to save Spock.

[Tracey]

The epic use of lens flare. The epic emotional outburst of Spock for no reason that a Vulcan would actually succumb to on so regular a basis. As I would watch the new movies I actually thought that Spock was actually very emotional and tried to suppress his emotions in order not to make stupid decisions, like punching Khan for revenge while having little regard for the welfare of the Enterprise as it was plummeting to the ground. Spock is epically selfish. Kirk is an epic creap. Bones was epically underused. They epically slapped together different aspects of TOS without any explanation. They epically brought a Tribble back to life with human blood. There is so much more epic stupidity in these films I can go on and on. The writing for Trek in our group is far and above better than the garbage that is now Star Trek. I really think that the writers for future movies should really take a closer look at fan fiction for inspiration.

[Sal Taybrim]

^ More than a few industry professionals have pointed out that turning a franchise over to (professionally selected) fan based writers has made mega millions for the Marvel franchises, why not Star trek, too?

[Ens. T Brei]

The reboot Treks are okay, when I saw who was going to be in the chair commanding the filming (JJ), I knew it was going to be a reboot into a cross between Mirrorish to Star Wars ish, etc. I think in my humble opinion using the brewery for the Warp engines was comical. I actually chuckled in the theatre when I saw that. Scotty's Delta Vegan buddy is cool.

It is what it is, a very much de-viated alternate reality...

[+ LtCmdr Alexander Richards]

*cough* Avengers *cough*

As for epic moments.. Tie between the destruction of the kelvin and the death of Vulcan. I cared about the death of Vulcan because it didn't need to be established to me, it already was with nigh on 50 years of Trek history.

Edited November 25, 2014 by LtCmdr Alexander Richards

[Leland Bishop]

*cough* Avengers *cough*

As for epic moments.. Tie between the destruction of the kelvin and the death of Vulcan. I cared about the death of Vulcan because it didn't need to be established to me, it already was with nigh on 50 years of Trek history.

Oh Totally. But these movies were designed with new fans in mind. Abrams could have worked a bit harder IMO.

[Rahman and Rivi Vataix]

The epic use of lens flare. The epic emotional outburst of Spock for no reason that a Vulcan would actually succumb to on so regular a basis. As I would watch the new movies I actually thought that Spock was actually very emotional and tried to suppress his emotions in order not to make stupid decisions, like punching Khan for revenge while having little regard for the welfare of the Enterprise as it was plummeting to the ground. Spock is epically selfish. Kirk is an epic creap. Bones was epically underused. They epically slapped together different aspects of TOS without any explanation. They epically brought a Tribble back to life with human blood. There is so much more epic stupidity in these films I can go on and on. The writing for Trek in our group is far and above better than the garbage that is now Star Trek. I really think that the writers for future movies should really take a closer look at fan fiction for inspiration.

And I thought I was critical of these films... we need to get Townson Rants™ on the podcast!

I can't dismiss these films outright as they are entertaining, and they have brought in new fans and basically revived the franchise after Nemesis and Enterprise's failings, but I think as Marvel has shown, respecting the source material and making blockbusters is not mutually exclusive.

It will certainly be interesting to compare and contrast Mr. Abrams's approach to Episode VII with how he approached Trek since he admits to being more a fan of Star Wars (and as some have noted, took a lot of inspiration from that franchise for his vision of Trek):

Edited November 25, 2014 by Rich

[Blake]

Best parts of these movies, I have to admit, is McCoy. He doesn't get a lot of screen time, maybe, (and I was disappointed to see that Bones was also minimized in the Into Darkness novelization as well) but he always brings a smile to my face whenever he's in a scene.

Edited November 25, 2014 by Deliera

[Brell]

Best parts of these movies, I have to admit, is McCoy. He doesn't get a lot of screen time, maybe, (and I was disappointed to see that Bones was also minimized in the Into Darkness novelization as well) but he always brings a smile to my face whenever he's in a scene.

I agree, he steals the show for me as well. I'm also a fan of Simon Pegg who is good as Mr Scott though a more animated version.

[AlexV]

On the topic of great moments, I plumped for one not on the list: Captain Sulu.

Edited November 25, 2014 by AlexV

[Leland Bishop]

Plumped?

[AlexV]

A Britishism that is perhaps not as widely used as it might be.

Try "opted" instead

[Leland Bishop]

Ah!

[Sal Taybrim]

re: Vulcan imploding

The sight of Vulcan imploding was an amazing special effect. A masterpiece of computer generated artistry. As a feat of visual technology, yes it could be defined as 'epic'

Problematically in the case of Star Trek, I look for definitive story moments and memorable scenes as my definitions of 'epic' and this... wasn't. I haven't watched the movie in over a year and all I can remember about the destruction of Vulcan was: 1. it was a good special effect and 2. I thought it was a bad plot move.

Why did I think it was a bad plot move? Because the story didn't support it well. Nero's justifications for his course of action are as flimsy as a cardboard house in a typhoon, the pseudoscience behind it is barely believable even by Star Trek standards, and worst the best characterization we get of Vulcan in the movie is a hot dry place full of jerks who pick on Spock. So the importance of Vulcan becomes one of two things depending on what kind of viewer you are:

1. A planet you really care about because you have a knowledge and connection to it from canonical trek (aka, you were already a Trek fan)

2. A planet used to show the madness and power of the bad guy (aka you are new to the show, and Vulcan functionally becomes Alderaan, a planet destroyed just to prove a point)

So the pivotal 'epicness' of this moment hinges on your connection to old Trek. If you have no connection to Trek and just came to the new movie you think "whoah, that Nero dude's crazy. Spock's planet died. That's sad."

If you had a connection to Trek - that's when you started to feel angry/sad/ect about Vulcan's destruction. I know some people felt this was an epic pivotal moment for the canon. I did not. I felt it was a lazy, cheap way of riling up the audience and the fanbase. I felt it was JJ Abrams way of whipping out his junk and marking the franchise like a dog marks his favorite fence. 'See that? I can kill Vulcan. I don't need to justify it with a great storyline or a big fight to get there. I can do this because this franchise is mine now.' At base I felt the destruction of Vulcan was disrespectful - not in the fact that it was destroyed, but in how it was destroyed. How it was poorly developed and crudely cast aside.

And the sad thing is? I like 2k9 better than I liked Into Darkness...

[Ens. T Brei]

The epic use of lens flare. The epic emotional outburst of Spock for no reason that a Vulcan would actually succumb to on so regular a basis. As I would watch the new movies I actually thought that Spock was actually very emotional and tried to suppress his emotions in order not to make stupid decisions, like punching Khan for revenge while having little regard for the welfare of the Enterprise as it was plummeting to the ground. Spock is epically selfish. Kirk is an epic creap. Bones was epically underused. They epically slapped together different aspects of TOS without any explanation. They epically brought a Tribble back to life with human blood. There is so much more epic stupidity in these films I can go on and on. The writing for Trek in our group is far and above better than the garbage that is now Star Trek. I really think that the writers for future movies should really take a closer look at fan fiction for inspiration.

And I thought I was critical of these films... we need to get Townson Rants™ on the podcast!

I can't dismiss these films outright as they are entertaining, and they have brought in new fans and basically revived the franchise after Nemesis and Enterprise's failings, but I think as Marvel has shown, respecting the source material and making blockbusters is not mutually exclusive.

It will certainly be interesting to compare and contrast Mr. Abrams's approach to Episode VII with how he approached Trek since he admits to being more a fan of Star Wars (and as some have noted, took a lot of inspiration from that franchise for his vision of Trek):

Technically, it was all JJAbs that ripped off Wars but then again, Wars ripped off Trek, how do I know. I once had a very enlightening conversation with a fellow by the name of Roddenberry Gene Roddenberry and in the conversation he made reference to how even Star Wars had elements from His Trek in it. And since Trek shot first lol.... Literally it did shoot -film first, and Lucas is a fan of Trek and Gene, well the rest is as they say film history.

As for the re-boot it is an Alternate Universe for which I am glad, because it would have been sad to see TOS History mucke up. And lens flares Oi oi I had a headache for a week after watching both reboot movies. They are entertaining, and they are a alternate timeline.

So, I just eat my popcorn and watch them.

Now back to the T.A.R.D.I.S. I have some galaxies to explore.

Edited November 26, 2014 by Renda