I think everyone is expecting way too much from this movie.  I finally saw it tonight and thought it was great.  This is coming from a Trekkie who watched TOS in syndication when I was three or four.  To compare the new actors to the old isn't really a fair comparison.  When Nero came through the blackhole, the universe changed.  Chris Pine's Kirk is no longer Shatner's Kirk.  Uhura, Chekov and Sulu were all brought a lot closer to Kirk's age.  In TOS, they would have never been a Starfleet Academy at the same time as Kirk, even if he went a bit later than he originally would have.  Spock has also been shown to have grown up a bit differently with embracing his human half a lot earlier than original Spock.

As for the plot being illogical, has anyone seen any of the other Star Trek movies or even the series?  There have been a lot of illogical moments.  Saying the transporters only work when they need to is a typical type of plot device used in countless movies and TV shows.  Heck, our own beloved Star Wars has a lot of illogical moments.  Look at Vader vs. Luke in ROTJ.  As far as we were shown, when Luke fights Vader on the Death Star II, this is only the second time he has ever dueled another person.  Yet, he kicks the crap out of one of the best lightsaber fighters of all time.  Not too logical or realistic especially considering his very limited Jedi training.  The only lightsaber training we see is with the remote in ANH.  In case people forgot, here are the basic plots of all the Star Trek movies:

Star Trek The Motion Picture - old NASA probe is made sentient by some alien race (retconed in several sources as possible the Borg), travels back to Earth obliterating everything in its path to try to find its maker.  Spock can sense it all the way from Vulcan and gives up his Kolhinar training so he can mind meld with it.  Probe essentially assimilates bald chick (never before seen alien species) to speak for it.  Once they figure out it is the Voyager probe and have to send deactivation codes, Voyager blows up its receiver so "the creator" has to enter codes manually and become assimilated.  Voyager then "ascends" to a higher being.

Star Trek 2 - Starfleet completely forgets they have marooned a genetically enhanced despot on a planet and sends a ship to scope out a neighboring planet.  When said ship enters the system, somehow they can't tell that a planet is missing since the planet they want to check out has exploded and ruining the planet that said despot was marooned on.  In typical TOS fashion, both Captain and First Officer beam down to the planet, are captured and then controlled be ear wigs.  Khan takes over their ship, goes on a revenge manhunt for Kirk, and steals Genesis, a magic missile that can create life from lifelessness.  After a final battle, Spock sacrifices himself to save the Enterprise, while Khan blows up and the explosion of the Genesis device creates an entire planet out of a nebula.

Star Trek 3 - Starfleet has sent a ship to investigate the Genesis planet.  Turns out Spock's mind is in McCoy's head, and his "dead" body that was shot in torpedo to the Genesis planet is actually alive...and a young boy...who is rapidly aging, just like the planet.  Turns out Kirk's son cheated and used some illegal tech to make the Genesis device.  Klingons catch wind of all this and want the Genesis device as a weapon.  Kirk and crew break the law and steal the Enterprise to help Spock.  Fortunately, Scotty was working on the one ship that could have pursued them and sabotaged it.  Enterprise gets taken out by the Klingons, but Kirk tricks them and kills almost all of them by blowing up the Enterprise.  Ultimately Kirk beats the Klingon captain, saves Spock and takes him to Vulcan where his "soul" is taken out of McCoy and put back in his own body.

Star Trek 4 - Another alien probe has come to Earth and is devastating the planet.  Kirk and crew a returning to Earth to face the music for crimes from ST3 when they receive Earth's distress call.  Spock figures out the probes communication is whale song.  The only way to save the planet is to slingshot around the sun and go back in time to the 1980's.  Hilarity ensues as the crew attempt to capture a pair of whales.  Eventually they succeed and return to the present and save the planet.  All charges are dropped against the Enterprise crew, except for Kirk's insubordination.  He is demoted from Admiral to Captain, given command of the new Enterprise A, and is sent on another five year mission with the entire TOS crew...all of which are at the rank of Captain or full Commander while back in the TV series, the second highest ranking officer was Spock who was only a Lt. Commander.

Star Trek 5 - Spock's half-brother, the happy go lucky full Vulcan Sybok, has an empathic ability to feel others pain and release them of it.  He and his band of merry men go to a planet where the Federation, Klingon and Romulan ambassadors are having negotiations.  His ploy is to hold them hostage so that Starfleet sends a vessel so he can take control of it.  The Enterprise is sent and Sybok ends up in control of it, eventually converting several crew members.  He wants to go to the center of the galaxy to find a mythical planet, that happens to contain God.  Kirk mets God and is unimpressed.  God needs the Enterprise to leave the planet.  Kirk asks God what he needs with a starship.  A battle ensues and God is defeated.

Star Trek 6 - A Klingon moon that provides much of their power explodes in an industrial accident.  The collapse of the Klingon Empire is eminent.  Kirk and crew (minus Sulu who has been promoted to Captain and given his own ship) are sent as a peace delegation to meet with the Klingons.  After a lovely dinner, the Klingon ship is fired upon (later revealed to be shot from a cloaked Klingon ship that can actually fire while cloaked) and Kirk surrenders when the Klingons threaten retaliation.  Kirk and McCoy beam over to the Klingon vessel and find the Chancellor dying.  McCoy can't save him and after a sham trial Kirk and McCoy are sent to a prison planet.  They are eventually rescued and begin to unravel the plot.  Turns out it was a conspiracy between the Chancellors War chief and a Starfleet Admiral with the help of a Vulcan crew member of the Enterprise.

Generations - Whoopie Goldberg used to live in a magical place called the Nexus which is a ribbon floating through space.  It is a destructive force that can tear up star ships which happens to the Enterprise B on their shakedown cruise.  Captain Kirk is presumed to be killed on this cruise, but is actually sucked into the Nexus while Whoopie and our villain are pulled out.  In typical fashion, the main Enterprise crew is get rank heavy as Worf is promoted to Commander and goes through a holodeck ritual.  Picard finds out his brother and his brother's family have been killed and becomes quite weepy for most of the movie.  Meanwhile, our villain has decided the best way back into the Nexus is not by flying a ship into, but by blowing up stars to change the gravity in star systems so he can direct the Nexus to another planet.  Picard goes to stop him, but is too late and is sucked into the Nexus.  He finds Kirk and an "echo" of Whoopie says he can leave at any time and go anywhere.  He and Kirk go back and defeat our villain but Kirk is killed in the process.  Oh, and Data installed an emotion chip.

First Contact - A single Borg cube is back and ready to kick the crap out of Earth.  The Enterprise is sent to the neutral zone to monitor Romulan activity.  Picard says screw it and saves the day since all the other ships can do crap.  The cube is destroyed, but they manage to launch a sphere that goes back in time.  Picard follows and blow up the sphere that was firing on the site of Cochranes first warp ship.  Fortunately the Enterprise's shields were down so the Borg could beam aboard and take over the ship.  Half the crew beam down to the planet to help make sure Cochrane completes his first warp flight so First Contact happens.  The other half stay on board to fight the Borg, who have a never seen before Queen.  The Queen tempts Data with humanity, but eventually the crew prevail, maintain history and can conveniently replicate the Borg time travel to return to the present.

Insurrection -  Data goes haywire on a magic planet where everyone stays young and can even deage or regrow eyes.  Previous inhabitants of the planet have come back to steal all the magic deaging powder in space around the planet.  Turns out Starfleet is in on it, and has created a holodeck ship that they hid in a lake and were going to relocate all the inhabitants to another planet.  Eventually Picard and crew figure it out and save the day.

Nemesis - The Romulans clone Picard in hopes to infiltrate Starfleet.  They abandon the plan the leave the clone to rot on the mining planet Remus.  The clone and the Remans get revenge and vaporize the entire Romulan Senate.  The clone becomes Praetor and lures in Picard and crew for "peace" negotiations.  His true goal is to destroy Picard and the Federation with his giant ship that can spew lethal radiation.  Eventually the Enterprise wins, but only with the noble sacrifice of Commander Data.  Worf becomes first officer and Riker finally gets his promotion to Captain and his own ship.

Star Trek Reboot - Romulus and Remus are destroyed by a super, super, super nova.  Nimoy Spock manages to stop the nova with red matter that can collapse stars into black holes.  Spock and Nero are sucked into the black hole and sent to the past.  Nero causes trouble, eventually killing Kirk's father, who was a major influence in Kirk's life.  Baby Kirk escapes and the entire Star Trek universe as we knew it is changed.  Nero destroys Vulcan and is eventually stopped by Kirk.  Captain Pike is promoted to Admiral and Kirk is given the rank of Captain straight out of Starfleet Academy and command of the Enterprise.

How many of those plots sound logical? 

I do think I could hear Shatner screaming when Nimoy came on the screen.  Nimoy's appearance makes him the actor with the most Trek film appearances.

Quote from: EdSolo on May 15, 2013, 10:07 AM

Quote from: Master_Phruby on May 15, 2013, 09:41 AM

Quote from: McMetal on May 15, 2013, 08:43 AM

Quote from: EdSolo on May 15, 2013, 06:52 AM

I would call a movie based on political disputes over a trade route a poor story.

Seconded, what an abysmal mess that was.

Yet we all loved it and bought every toy related to it.

It wouldn't say everyone loved it.  I would attribute a large portion of its success on the fact that it was the first Star Wars movie made in 16 years at the time it was released.

Then where was that criticism at the time?  For some time, the only thing SW community was outwardly critical of in The Phantom Menace was Jar Jar Binks.  And then when Episode II finally came out, THEN the floodgates opened and people were hating on TPM more outwardly. 

Personally, I've found the delayed criticism of the prequels to be more objectionable than the movies themselves.  And I've always looked at that criticism through the filter of an audience that saw the OT as kids, and they wanted to relive that level of excitement as 20/30/40 somethings.  That was never going to happen, and no filmmaker could live up to expectations that high.

Where were you at the time?  Movie critics weren't too hot on TPM as I recall.  On-line communities were also a lot bigger by AOTC as compared to when TPM came out in 1999 so the hating was as in your face as it was by 2002.  Many Star Wars fans weren't pleased with TPM and it just wasn't Jar Jar.  One big gripe was that Obi-Wan was Qui-Gon's apprentice and not Yoda's apprentice.  Young Ani was pretty universally bashed as well.  I was certainly disappointed that the story was poor.  I remember sitting in the theater thinking that I hoped the movie got better.  It was just an age thing either.  Lucas made a poor story.  He was much more interested in special effects and digital filming than actually telling a good story.  If he had given up some control as he did with ESB and ROTJ, the PT trilogy could have probably been a lot better.

Quote from: McMetal on May 15, 2013, 08:43 AM

Quote from: EdSolo on May 15, 2013, 06:52 AM

I would call a movie based on political disputes over a trade route a poor story.

Seconded, what an abysmal mess that was.

Yet we all loved it and bought every toy related to it.

It wouldn't say everyone loved it.  I would attribute a large portion of its success on the fact that it was the first Star Wars movie made in 16 years at the time it was released.

I would call a movie based on political disputes over a trade route a poor story.

I would think the major gripe with the "twist" is that a major villain from the Iron Man universe essentially doesn't exist.  I suppose a true Mandarin could show up later, but I think that ship has sailed.  I don't see why Kingsley's version couldn't have had the magic rings.  I think the depiction of AIM fit very well in the movie Marvel universe.  I don't think you could have brought in a character like MODOK into the movie.  I think they did a good job with most of the Extremis elements as well.  I'm not sure I would have gone with the Killian arc as they did though.  Overall, I think the villains have been the weak point in the Iron Man trilogy as a whole.

I don't know if Episode VII will do Avengers type opening weekend numbers.  The prequels left a sour taste in the mouth of the casual Star Wars fan.  The only reason TPM made the most money was because it was the first Star Wars film in 16 years.  The poor story certainly hurt the box office of AOTC and the poor story of AOTC hurt the box office of ROTS, which was easily the best of the three prequels.

The saving grace for Episode VII will be signing the big three to appear in the film.  I think that will get people who were turned off by the prequels somewhat excited.  However, you are going to get the "they are too old" crowd.  The story will really be a key in all this.  Disney cannot afford to have a boring trade dispute/political story line.  There will need to be an enemy that is a credible threat to the Jedi and a lot more action than we saw in TPM.

When new movies were announced in the 90's, I really wanted them to make the sequel trilogy back then.  At that point, the major stars were not "too old".  Ford has always said he wouldn't play Solo again, but I bet Lucas could have at least got him to cameo for a death scene.  The other reason was so that nine episodes would have actually been made.  At that point, I never though Episodes VII through IX would be a certainty if Episodes I through III were completed.  Until the Disney sale, that was the road Lucas went down with his revisionist "I only intended to make six movies" statement.

Lucas is new Spoiler Source: Big 3 returning

If you get the entire quote from the Bloomberg article, Lucas goes from saying they were signed, to they were in final negotiations, to who knows if they would have signed.  He seemed to really backtrack on it after he initially let it slip.  I think the most interesting thing is that Lucas was actually going to go forward with the sequel trilogy on his own as a means to showing the franchise was still profitable for any potential buyers.

As long as RG3 is back at 100% by August, I will be happy.