Star Trek XII: Into AAARRRGGGGHHH! Part 1

Warning: This post contains spoilers!

So here we are again, another J. J. Abrams Star Trek film which means another ranty post, but don't worry I'm not going to be petty and do the whole ubergeek thing of lambasting small details that didn't happen in episode 6, scene 5 of Star Trek: The Original Series, however, I will be pointing out just how bad this film got from start to finish. Even my girlfriend who hates Star Trek hates this film and the ironic thing is that this series was written to appeal to people like her!

Let's just get this over with!

We start off on the planet Nibiru and... wait, did that just say Nibiru?? They're just not trying any more are they?? For those that don't know Nibiru, or Planet X, is a reference to a hypothetical (or mythical) planet outside our solar system that is only supposed to come close to our planet very few thousand years due to it's highly elliptical and elongated orbit. Which will mean that if it is the same planet it's going to be damn cold and I can't imagine that there will be much of an atmosphere either...

So, back to (sigh) Nibiru, where a robed figure (Kirk) is being chased by the indigenous population because Kirk stole their religious document just to prevent the population from being wiped out by a volcano that they were living next to. This bold plan is being helped by Spock, Uhura and Sulu by flying into the volcano and detonating a cold fusion bomb. During this scene Sulu cannot maintain the shuttle within the volcano because of the ash causing problems to the craft and Spock ends up being dropped into the volcano as the heat burned the wire that was holding him. Back to the chase with Kirk, who runs into Bones and they run off, jump off a cliff into the sea where they swim to the submerged Enterprise.

And this is where my first major problem with this film lies – the sheer lack of cannon understanding. Yes, I know you're going to scream “ubergeek” at what I'm about to say but just hear me out. The Enterprise is now atmosphere capable, which means that it can land on planets – a feat that wasn't achieved in the original timeline until a century later (not only that it was a budget constraint, but nonetheless). A. Whole. Century. That century that included wars with Klingons, Romulans, the Borg and many other races. Why do I mention wars? Wars help to advance technology a lot faster than the norm and yet this was possible thanks to a solitary Romulan mining ship from the future? Ok, so what about the Doomsday Machine or Vger (ST: The Motion Picture). True, they were discovered a couple to a few years after this point in the timelines but the point is those threats, which arguably equal that of the current mining ship from the future, did not advance ship technology that significantly!

Kirk gets reprimanded for breaking Prime Directive, with help from Spock, gets demoted and the Enterprise taken from him. Starfleet buildings get blown up by a character named Harrison (who we'll get to in a moment) and following the bombings a meeting is held by senior Starfleet staff who mostly get killed by Harrison with the exception of Kirk, Spock and Admiral Marcus. Kirk's now surrogate father figure, Pike, gets killed in the firefight - what follows is the shortest grief stricken scene ever, let's not forget that Pike was instrumental in getting Kirk into Starfleet and has been a father figure ever since.

Kirk and co. find out where Harrison buggered off to after the attack, as he used a portable transwarp beaming device to send him to the Klingon homeworld planet, Kronos. Kirk requests the command of the Enterprise from Admiral Marcus and sets off after Harrison. Scotty bitches about classified photon torpedoes being brought onto engineering without him being able to look over the specs and resigns. Kirk ignores orders to torpedo Harrison from the neutral zone border, takes a small team consisting of himself, Uhura, Spock and two red shirts and goes down to Kronos.

This is the second problem I have with this film. The shot of Kronos. Here we have a planet with a moon, a moon so dangerously close to Kronos that not only could you base jump back to the home planet, it almost looks like it's going to crunch into the planet itself. I may not be an astrophysicist but I know bullshit when I see it. Remember also I talked about respect to cannon, well Kronos, sorry Qo'noS, has a moon called Praxis, this was the Klingon Empire's key energy production facility that exploded causing deadly pollution of the Klingon homeworld's ozone layer. This was a catastrophe that was so large to the Klingons that they couldn't cope and had to make peace with the Federation – a major plot point in Star Trek VI. Yet here is that moon, fully exploded and the Klingons are still at war with the Federation, which makes absolutely no sense!

You cannot tell me that the death of one man, Kirk's father, allows a planet to escape that type of catastrophe with just a shrug.

Or maybe it does, because, y'know, alternate reality.

Next: Part 2 >>

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