The Worst, Stupidest, Star Trek of All Time

Rating: 1/10 (10 May 2009)

Sirs: I so much wanted to like, no, love this movie.
Instead, without giving away too many spoilers (there are a few here), it was simply awful. What Paramount delivered was an ADHD addled mess; one that completely destroys the source material from which it came. I understand that for the uninitiated, they (Abram's and company) can do what they like; and they have done so, I believe, for the sole purpose to be able to 'dumbly go where no worse hack writers have gone before' and henceforth dish out more tripe in the name of Star Trek while absolutely violating over 40 years of franchise history. You can laugh at that, and tell me to get a life, but if you are going to put the name of 'Star Trek' on a film, you need to do damn well better, and stay light years truer, than this crap. 'Superman Returns' certainly accomplished that.
I never thought I'd say this, but the Sci-Fi channel's ill advised 'Battlestar Galactica' was far more honest to its source material than Abram's 'Star Trek'. What he did was to truly steal a known identity, and then produce a bird cage liner that has almost nothing in common with that identity past the title, and the names of the characters.
Unfortunately, this 56 year old Trekker was all too easily able to follow the entire non-plot and action. The dialog overlap was 100% techno-babble predictable. A Power-Ranger's bred child could follow this simplistic 'must fight bad man' drivel.
The story was lame, and I believe that Orci and Kurtzman's claims to be fans of the show are outright lies; meant only as a weak attempt to deflect the flood of criticism they so richly deserve. They followed the beaten down, grossly overused, time travel path that Brannon Braga used to eventually kill the TV franchise.
Romulans??? In THIS time line so readily recognized by the Federation? A Chekov that was even sillier sounding than the original? And if one were to 'allow' the events of this misbegotten movie to be accepted, it would quite literally wipe out ALL of the subsequent 'known' Star Trek events, with the exception of the Enterprise series.
RED matter??? Oh my God, I can see them sitting around a table saying, "Well, we can't use anti-matter, they'd never believe that one, and maybe even Dark Matter would be laughed at today, if we tried to use it as we intend... I'VE GOT IT! We'll call it RED MATTER! No one's EVER used that one! So we can carry a big blob of it around, extract a drop with a HYPODERMIC NEEDLE, and STILL use it to cause a Singularity and a subsequent Black Hole! Yeah, THAT'S plausible, without us ever having to explain anything! Brilliant!" I suspect that the only Star Trek these geniuses ever watched was the much maligned 'Alternative Factor' episode. This 'plot device' (this was so bad, even Clarke's Third Law can not provide cover for it) is totally unbelievable, even when compared to a warp driven star ship. This is the kind of science fiction that a sixth grader writes. Come to think of it, I am probably insulting the intelligence of sixth graders everywhere. Watch for Blue Matter to follow in the next installment.
Speaking of which, this is not an 'alternative timeline' to free them from Canon, this is just an excuse to be able to avoid any accountability to 40 plus years of established 'Star Trek'. This is lazy, sloppy, and weak writing all rolled into one colossal middle finger brazenly extended to Star Trek fandom.
The ONLY thing worthy about this movie was the exterior of the Enterprise itself. It was truly beautiful; and the only piece here that stayed loyal to the original.
The rest is absolute zero worthless.
Sincerely, Dennis Carlson
Oh yeah, addendum: The biggest, worst, possibly most overlooked hole in this entirely stupid movie is the fact that if Nero DID somehow find himself back in time, after the destruction of his wife and home world, why didn't he simply use the opportunity to WARN the Romulan Empire, and the Federation, of what was going to happen, instead of going Postal? This is why Time Travel episodes suck, (Read same fault with Generations). Period. If I could have given this movie a Zero, I would have.
Last Add On, Promise:
1: For all of you who told us few naysayers to 'Get A Life', congratulations on your originality.
2: Yes, we know its just Fiction, and that our DVD's of the movies and series have not disappeared, but at least SOME of us yearn for at least a LITTLE continuity; something which this movie nearly completely destroys. This movie pulls a 'Dallas' 'It Was All A Dream' scam, and sorry, but some of us just don't buy it. Cheap, bad, writing. I'm pretty sure I'd laugh my butt off at the howls of protest from you JJ lovers, if the next movie restored the Star Trek time line as it should be, and rendered THIS travesty to the scrap heap where it belongs. You would scream at the repudiation of ONE movie, how do you think many of us feel about the refutation of nearly 40 YEARS of events, no matter how fictional?
3: And finally, to all of you who say that such extreme measures HAD to be done to revive the franchise, you are completely ignoring the fact that after the mediocre disappointment of 'Star Trek: The Motion Picture', that all it took to revive the franchise then, was to bring in a REAL Writer and Director, Nicholas Meyer, who crafted a superior movie WITHOUT (yes, I know about Chekov-Khan) trashing basic Trek 'history'.