Just Left - Took Mother-in-Law for Mother's Day

Rating: 9/10 (10 May 2009)

My wife, her brother-in-law, and me took my mother-in-law for mother's day.
At 40 y.o., I've been watching ST since the cartoon days in the early 70s, my wife learned to watch it from her mother who watched TOS since its original run.
I have many books (including Prime Directive, part of the inspiration for this movie according to the writers), a TNG uniform in my closet (not that it has fit for 15 years...), all of the movies on DVD, etc. While I'm not a convention-going fanboy, I do consider myself a bigger-than-average Trekkie (well...excluding DS9 - sorry).
All of that said, this was a bloody awesome movie!
Look, you all can complain all you want about "cannon", or the "science", but Trek has never been perfect on this point. As someone who's read many of the books / comic books, I'm used to lots of plots, etc. that have nothing to do with what I expected. That doesn't prevent me from enjoying them as good or great entertainment.
There were a couple of cringe-worthy points, but there are in just about anything.
Now, I just want respond to a couple of the complaints I've seen on here.
--- Begin Spoilers ---
1) "Fluctuating command structure": Look, if you were paying attention, all those ships loitering at Earth's spacedock were understaffed - they yanked all of the senior cadets to staff out the ships. There WERE no senior officers available to fill out the bridge positions. In fact, the Enterprise was not yet even officially launched. And battlefield promotions are hardly a new thing.
2) Chekov's presence on the bridge. While we know he didn't appear until the second season, most everyone has decided to accept that he must have been on the ship SOMEWHERE, just not a primary bridge officer (um...Khan knew who he was...). Second, they establish that in this case he's some kind of 17 yr old wonderkind. So the timeframe, while not perfect, is a bit better.
3) Spock being emotional - reference The Menagerie - he was shown as more emotional when he was younger, even grinning when touching a plant.
4) Kissing on the transporter pad. OK, not the perfect point of decorum, but his emotions were at boiling point, and apparently you've never been a soldier, or married to a soldier, who is about to deploy somewhere dangerous.
5) The "These are the voyages..." at the end. OK, I know this is a "TOS" movie, but apparently folks' memory has a 25 year blind spot: This is what it has been since the start of TNG, and the end of ST VI. We should go BACKWARDS in killing sexism and return it to "man"?
6) "Admiral" Pike. Yes, he was a Fleet Captain first time around. But really, Fleet Captain is something hardly used, and Admiral is much more common.
Now, I know there are some folks out there who say "Wow, if you like this movie, you must be an idiot."
My wife has an MBA and is the administrator of a school at the U of Washington. I'm an occasional Java / SQL developer owning his second business. We're not idiots. Just people who know the difference between reality and fiction, and know how to enjoy something.