War Handwavium

Just saw “Star Trek” (reboot), rev 2009. These are my initial impressions of the war handwavium score for the movie. I’ll do the exact math when I get it on DVD.

!!!SPOILERS!!!

So, the best part of the movie? On the way out of the theater, I was singing “Spock and Uhura, sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g!” That was an interesting and original twist. It also makes me wonder if the two were supposed to be “involved” during the old TV series. And if so, why didn’t Spock get jealous when Kirk kissed Uhura during that interracial kiss?

Otherwise: meh.

It was entertaining to see the new characters reintroduced. At one point, it started to drag a bit. Try to imagine a TV series wtih a large cast, say Brady Bunch, and suddenly they make a movie of what happens after they’ve all grown up. Every main character has to get an intro, have a backstory, yada, yada, yada. Yeah, we get it, Chekov can’t pronounce “v”s. Can we get the movie going now?

The bad guy was no Khan Noonien Singh, that’s for sure. He isn’t even Hans Gruber. He’s just a mad, mad guy, and he happens to have a big ass starship 150 years ahead of its time. Yeah, there’s time travel, more on that in a bit.

First of all, a scenario for the audience out there: You’re at work. Your house catches on fire. Someone calls the fire department, but before they get there, the fire reaches the gas line, and your house blows up, killing your wife and son.

Question: Do you spend the next 25 years of your life hunting down the firemen to kill them? And their families? And the planet they live on?

If your answer is yes, why would anyone put you, an admitted psychopath, in charge of a big ass spaceship with massive, planet destroying weapons on it?

That’s the main problem with Star Trek/Reboot. The bad guy doesn’t make any sense. So, apparently what happens is there’s this big supernova thingy and it’s about to blow up and it’s threatening Romulous, and Spock (who is a 175 year old Vulcan ambassador at this point) gets on a ship in Vulcan, takes some “red matter” which will turn the supernova into a black hole, and rushes to save the galaxy.

Except, before Spock can get there, the star goes supernova and Romulus is destroyed, killing everyone on it, including the wife and child of our villian, Nero. But apparently, no other planets are harmed, so I’m not sure why Vulcan was required to save Romulus.

Nero apparently is somewhere near Romulus. Near enough that when Spock shows up to create the black hole, Nero attacks him. The two ships fall into the black hole and end up a century or so back in time. How he was near enough to attack Spock, but not near enough to rescue his wife and child on Romulus, I don’t know.

They had enough time to know the supernova was a threat to BUILD A SHIP for spock, but they didn’t have enough time to evacuate Romulus?

Anyone who is considering writing a story with time travel in it should take this advice: don’t. Odds are you’ll screw it up.

So, Nero and this big honking ship is thrown 150 years back in time. And what does he do with this unbelievable opportunity? Does he go to the local Western Union office and write his wife a letter to get off the planet, to be delivered a week or so before she would have died? No. Apparently he never saw “Back to the Future 3″.

Does he take his advanced weaponry and attempt to help romulons win their war against the federation starting 150 years earlier? No. Apparently he never saw “The Final Countdown”.

What does our brilliant supervillian do? He hangs out near where the blackhole occurred and waits for Spock to show up, doing nothing else. HE WAITS FOR 25 YEARS. When he first arrives back in time, he destroyes a federation ship, and kills Kirk’s father. But then he disappears for 25 years to allow baby Jim Kirk to be born, grow up, steal a car, drive it off a cliff (apparently Kirk has seen “Thelma and Louise” and knew to jump before he drove the car off the cliff. Why did he drive the car off the cliff? I have no idea. Why is there a big ass cliff in flatland Iowa? I have no idea. But I digress.) Then when Kirk is all grown up, that’s when Future-Spock comes back in time, Nero captures him and puts him on a planet, and then blows up planet Vulcan. Then, and only then, does Nero decide that he ought to blow up the other federation planets while he’s there. Except since he’s waited 25 years, young Jim Kirk is all grown up and can kick Nero’s ass for killing Jim’s father.

If you’re a psychopath bent on vengeance, why would you wait 25 years to blow up Vulcan, and only then go after the other federation planets? Why would you make only one known contact with the federation, klingon, and romuluns (the destruction of the USS Kelvin and the death of Kirk’s father) and then hide 25 years? Why wait till you have captured future spock before you blow up vulcan and earth?

And how did he know that he’d eventually capture spock? Spock might have ended up 25 years BEFORE Nero for all Nero knew, and would forever avoid Nero’s capture, or even put in a crafty plan to defend vulcan, eath, and even romulus from nero and supernova catastrophes. (All he’d have to do is find a Western Union office, really.) If Future Spock got thrown a century back in time, he could have been like the naval officer in The Final Countdown who uses his knowledge of the future to secretly nudge the US in teh right direction. But no. None of that.

Nero is just mad. Really mad. So mad he can’t think about anything for 25 years mad. His crew is either really subservient to their captain, or they’re really mad too. I don’t know about you, but if I found myself on a ship, 150 years in the past, and all we did for 25 years was search for the white whale and remain hidden as we did it, I might think about transferring off the ship.

Which means, the movie has plot holes big enough to drive Jack Burton’s “Pork Chop Express” right through it.

But war handwavium wise, it’s not too bad. When kirk is about to go into combat as a federation officer for the very first time, he’s with Sulu and a red shirt, and the red shirt dies. It’s kind of funny, in a “fruit cart” sort of way. See a guy in a red shirt, shout “red shirt!” and then shout “Red shirt down!” when he dies.

Then Kirk and Sulu kill two cardboard characters. And then no combat happens for a while as the whole time-travel thing is explained. They did get one thing right. When the plot makes no sense, try to gloss over the explanation as quickly as possible. And then we’re back to dealing with Nero. And at that point, spock and kirk beam into nero’s ship and kill maybe a dozen cardboard characters. the rescue Captain Pike, and then spock blows up Nero and his ship.

Overall, the war handwavium score is very, very low. It’s the plot that’s the problem.

Personally, I found the movie was fairly entertaining. It’s flashy and moves fast and so on, so I’d probably say it’s worth a matinee just to see the effects on teh big screen. It’s not a fancy dinner followed by a full-evening-price movie. It’s a grab a burger and some cotton candy at the concession stand matinee kind of movie.