Punk with Attitude Takes Over Starship - Saves Universe

Rating: 2/10 (24 May 2009)

Whew! Where to start? Kirk can't keep a car from falling off a cliff but somehow has the moxie to command a starship and understand all its workings while still in the Academy... and where he was about to get drummed out of the service for messing with the mumbo-jumbo unwinnable scenario at that! Ergo, Spock testifies against him at the hearing and so they start off their relationship as adversaries. Was the groundwork EVER laid in the original series to even hint at this version of their meeting?
Then too, Spock somehow innately knows how to drive an alien ship because in the future he had somehow gotten familiar with it, and therefore he kinda has the knowledge before the fact back here in his younger days. Does that make any sense, even given the futuristic setting of the Star Trek Universe? But to make this foreknowledge credible we have the presence of the aged Spock (Nimoy) existing as a contemporary of his younger self.
Was this a sop to appease the older viewers and give this new version of the Star Trek Universe some sort of credibility? Personally, I can't see how Leonard Nimoy could have consented to lending any legitimacy to this version by appearing in it at all. Maybe he just needed the money. Maybe principles and loyalty for all that went before got a back seat to a lucrative offer. Who knows?
And what about the fact that in a previous Star Trek movie James Kirk says he changed the no-win scenario's programming and got a commendation for original thinking? In this "effort" Star Fleet Academy was looking like they were going to run him off for cheating.
Also, in the original series there was enough of a Vulcan civilization to man at least one entire starship with a crew comprised of all Vulcans, so forget about this Vulcan-getting-destroyed jazz. Spock's mother had appeared in the original TV series as well, so there goes the black-hole nonsense, count two.
And speaking about the black-hole stuff, how about the fight scene aboard the black-hole driller where the camera goes into hyperspasm and gets a terminal case of the jitters? I guess this is to cover up the fact that Kirk can't carry on a convincing fight scene. But then too, I don't guess he was very good with his fists anyway, or he would not have gotten the crap beaten out of him back there in that slop chute. LOL
All I can do is echo the other reviewers that complained that this was done by people without the creativity and integrity to invent their own premise, so they instead took a cheap shot and just appropriated Roddenberry's idea... and corrupted it to give their usurpation of the franchise a fake air of originality. This shows ignorance of all that has gone before, or worse—
Contempt for the original concept and arrogance by the ones who came up with this story... in other words, people who think they have the right to do whatever they freakin' please for their own ends.
If you are a younger viewer who is not familiar with all that has gone before, this movie can be entertaining — even dazzling. But for those who know the history of Roddenberry's version — at least in my opinion — the playing of the TV series' theme music during the final credits was a slap in the face.