How did the writing for this get to the screen?

Rating: 4/10 (12 May 2009)

To start with, I should say that I am not a "Trekkie" - I am aware of the characters broadly and have even watched some episodes and previous movies, but am not an aficionado nor a big fan. I had seen the shorts for this movie and following a young Kirk looked excellent and it appeared to be a rollicking action film.
So, to start with the good:
* Casting was superb, as was the acting. I felt the actors embodied the feeling of the series and carried out their part in the script flawlessly. * Action scenes were well choreographed and were enjoyable. * Production quality, as you would expect, was high - the movie certainly looked very slick, and I particularly like the start with Iowan farm showing massive star-scrapers in the background. * First scenes were good, with Kirk entering the academy.
The bad:
* Suspension of disbelief is severely taxed - I can take "red matter" and other plot elements at face value, but had a real problem taking a lot of other things as such. * We are dealing with an alternate history, but the idea that 25 years of altered history has lead all of the main characters in Star Trek to exactly the same points beggars belief! * There are 430 crew on board the ship, however recent military graduates end up running the entire ship? There is one old guy in the crew and the rest all come from military college - and they didn't even graduate? * Crew was assigned to a new space ship with no time or effort being put towards shaking down the ship nor the crew? * The command bridge of the vessel seems to be a social lounge, where anyone - including civilians can saunter onto * A mining vehicle - even one from 129 years into the future - has sufficient technology that it can destroy an entire fleet of warships - even whilst tethered to a planet and unable to move * The protagonist (Nero) was barely even a one dimensional character - he was simply angry * A mining ship has a huge internal volume for some reason that is fully pressurised and heated * A spaceship that becomes a singularity suddenly has enough mass to drag in the Enterprise (this one is a physics geek quibble admittedly...)
The ugly:
* The writing was just lazy - kirk is ejected out onto an ice planet by Spock - and this is supposed to be in some way logical? ARRGGGHHH!!! * My guess is the writers were hamstrung - they were given a brief where they had to tailor the story in a two hour time-frame so that we could have the old crew in charge of the starship Enterprise to facilitate the corporate requirements of big business movie making - hence the reason why so many of the plot elements make no sense.
At the end of this movie, I was looking forward to the end - just to make it stop! I found it quite frustrating dealing with plot holes you could drive a Mac truck through!
No doubt, now that they have the crew together, the next story they will release can be more self consistent.
Perhaps you just need to be a Trekkie to enjoy this one?