THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW!
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I just saw this movie today, and I found it quite enjoyable.
The thing I liked most about it was Zachary Quinto's portrayal of Spock. On the posters, I first thought he didn't quite look the part, but on screen, he resembled Nimoy's Spock well both visually and in portraying his personality. I mean, Nimoy is Nimoy, but Quinto's delivery of young Spock's (well-written) dialogue was what I'd expect from the character. And even his conflict between the emotional and the logical, being a human/Vulcan hybrid, felt far more natural than the overly emotional and easily irritable Vulcans from 'Enterprise'.
Beside Quinto, I think the actors generally did a good job playing the roles of the original Trek crew, giving them their own voices and faces. I wasn't that sure about Pine as Kirk throughout the movie, and McCoy could have been better at times as well. I like John Cho a lot, but perhaps he lacked some of the swashbuckling charm Takei had in that role.
About what Roemer said about character development and a rushed structure... I think I can agree with that in regard to how the crew gets together... There is a 'Three years later' transition after Kirk, Uhura, and McCoy have made acquaintance, that is there to make us believe that in that time span, they get to know each other and become friends. But in a prequel to the original Star Trek, one would expect that that development is exactly a point that would be addressed carefully over the course of the film; not detracting from the storyline, mind you, but rather being interwoven with it. Scotty's inclusion felt very contrived to me.
I certainly enjoyed this film far more than I did 'Insurrection' and 'Nemesis', but watching it I remembered why Star Trek on the big screen had been leaving me with a slight sense of dissatisfaction, and that feeling is made all the more clear by the series 'voiceover mission statement' that also appears in this movie: the charm of Star Trek, to me, is in the sense of adventure and exploration... the series often feature episodes where phenomena or civilisations are being explored, and those are often the best episodes: though political structures involving races like the Vulcans, Klingons, Cardassians what have you, were often of equal greatness, it seems to me that whenever Trek hits the cinema, it's subject is political, involving a great foe that wants to overthrow the established authorities or subjugate worlds. This makes for a Star Trek story that goes through the motions and follows established paths... the famous bridge scenes that have now been done to death where you can anticipate the shouting of stock phrases like 'Fire torpedoes' 'Shields down to 40 percent!' 'Open hailing frequency!' It's also for this reason that I've always considered Star Trek to be at its best on the small screen, and Star Wars on the big, feature-length films.
If this movie is to have sequels, a world in which Vulcans have been reduced to mere thousands is a depressing notion, considering they're such prominent players in the Trek-verse. It was also a mean play (but delightfully mean) to kill off Spock's mother (or so it appears. Could she have escaped Vulcan's destruction?), because she has also appeared in TOS, which would lead the viewer to think 'Oh, Spock's mother won't die, she's safe.'
The bright red, yellow, and blue outfits with the old Starfleet logo were very cool, though I had a minor quibble with the shortness of the skirts for the female personnel... It looks a bit funny after it was established that pants were retconned in, in 'Enterprise', though that was arguably an 'alternate universe' itself.
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clarity of thought before rashness of action