A federation starship, the USS Kelvin is minding its own business, as federation starships generally do, prime directive and all that, when the time-traveling Romulan Nero materializes in a massive, converted mining ship.
Do not confuse this menacing rogue Romulan who is out to destroy Earth with Shinzon, the menacing rogue Romulan who is out to destroy Earth in "Star Trek: Nemesis," the last Star Trek film, in 2002. The writers and director of the latest film are not necessarily fans of the franchise, so they may have never seen the other movies. This is probably just a coincidence.
As fate would have it, Nero has stumbled upon the ship carrying the parents of the future Captain Kirk, and just in time for the arrival of the newborn. We don't know why a woman that pregnant is on board the ship in the first place, but there's little time to wonder as the attack unfolds.
The massive Romulan ship, which has the power to obliterate the federation ship, instead punches holes in the Kelvin until the captain flies over to negotiate. But there's nothing to talk about because the doomed captain doesn't have what Nero wants, the location of a peculiar ship that looks like a hummingbird. So Nero punches more holes in the Kelvin, giving the crew enough time to escape. Fortunately, the Kelvin has more shuttlecraft aboard than the Titanic had lifeboats so everyone makes it off except the new captain, George Kirk, and the extras who had to fly across the hallway in the explosions or get sucked out into space.
George's wife has a lightning-fast labor (must be all the stress) enabling the new arrival to emerge at the precise moment George is about to sacrifice himself to save his crew. This way the couple can name the child together and establish that the newborn is the future Captain Kirk. The destruction of the ship is on hold while this happens.
Next, we get a brief visit to the Planet Vulcan, where Spock has been teased 35 previous times by his classmates in an attempt to get him to blow his stack and show he’s not as cold and stoic as a good Vulcan should be. Evidently, you can say what you want about him but if you call his human mother a whore, we soon learn, he’ll morph into the Vulcan Volcano.
The mother in question is Winona Ryder, an actress only about 10 years older than Zachary Quinto, who plays Spock. The studio probably got her cheap because her career went south after that shoplifting bust. Spock gets a lecture from his dad that he has to work harder to keep his cool. But when the stuffy college admissions board disses his intermarried family again, Spock tells them to shove it.
Later, although it is established that James Tiberias Kirk is growing up in Iowa, where the young man likes to drive classic cars with built-in Nokia communicators off cliffs, he somehow ends up in a bar where Starfleet cadets hang out, although Starfleet Academy is hundreds of miles away in San Francisco. Must be some great beer.
In this bar he encounters Lt. Uhura and some thuggish cadets, and when he gets in trouble in the obligatory barfight scene, Captain Christopher Pike, who wrote his dissertation on Kirk’s father, somehow also turns up in Iowa to get him out of trouble and urge him to join Starfleet. Kirk clears his schedule of car wrecking and bar fighting and obliges, hopping on a shuttle to San Francisco where he meets Leonard McCoy, presumably not yet a doctor, who is afraid of getting airsick. He tells Kirk how his ex-wife took everything, "except my bones," and a nickname is born.
Later, Cadet Kirk has a fling with a green-skinned cadet who turns out to be Uhura's roommate, and he gets to see Uhura in her underwear while hiding under the bed. Maybe that’s why Uhura's so pissed at him later on when Kirk is taking the Kobayashi Maru strategy simulation and she, while also a cadet, is one of the people running the simulation. Dr. McCoy is also part of the simulation, ostensibly to produce a cure for Klingons.
The simulation is designed by Spock. Evidently there are very few people in Starfleet, because everywhere Kirk goes he keeps running into the same four people: McCoy, Uhura, Spock and Captain Pike, as well as the lout who pummeled him in the Iowa bar, all of whom will end up at his side when he eventually finds his way aboard the Enterprise.
Spock is pissed that Kirk reprogrammed the simulation to make it winnable, a feat of which he will many years later boast in “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.” Spock wants Kirk kicked out of school but there’s no time because Vulcan is now being attacked by Nero.
The cadets are hastily called into action with a lot of other crews, but Kirk can’t come because he’s being given a time out. McCoy injects Krik with a bacteria specimen that happens to be lying around in the starship hangar, then fools a dim-witted security guard into letting him bring Kirk aboard the ship, despite the fact the he is showing symptoms of a contagious disease.
Now we get to meet the new Chekov and Sulu, with Anton Yelchin doing such an over the top Chekov impression laden with "Wulcans" it seems like a parody. After Sulu forgets to switch off the parking brake on the way out of spacedock, the ship is under way on its maiden voyage.
Even while simultaneously battling McCoy's disease and the weak script Kirk figures out that they are headed into a trap, which leaves Captain Pike so impressed that Kirk’s not only off suspension but now second in command of the ship, under Spock. All the other ships have been destroyed. Captain Pike orders Kirk and Sulu to go skydiving from space to disable Nero's huge drill that’s cutting a hole in Vulcan.
Nero apparently has the ability to travel through time and to turn planets into black holes, yet somehow was unable to stop his own planet from being destroyed by a supernova in the distant future. Instead, it was outsourced to Future Spock, the federation ambassador to Romulus, who set out to inject cooling red matter into the supernova, but he missed it by that much, so Nero vowed to not only destroy Spock but the entire federation. No good deed goes unpunished is a weak revenge motive, but that's the least of this movie's problems.
Next, we get a brief visit to the Planet Vulcan, where Spock has been teased 35 previous times by his classmates in an attempt to get him to blow his stack and show he’s not as cold and stoic as a good Vulcan should be. Evidently, you can say what you want about him but if you call his human mother a whore, we soon learn, he’ll morph into the Vulcan Volcano.
The mother in question is Winona Ryder, an actress only about 10 years older than Zachary Quinto, who plays Spock. The studio probably got her cheap because her career went south after that shoplifting bust. Spock gets a lecture from his dad that he has to work harder to keep his cool. But when the stuffy college admissions board disses his intermarried family again, Spock tells them to shove it.
Later, although it is established that James Tiberias Kirk is growing up in Iowa, where the young man likes to drive classic cars with built-in Nokia communicators off cliffs, he somehow ends up in a bar where Starfleet cadets hang out, although Starfleet Academy is hundreds of miles away in San Francisco. Must be some great beer.
In this bar he encounters Lt. Uhura and some thuggish cadets, and when he gets in trouble in the obligatory barfight scene, Captain Christopher Pike, who wrote his dissertation on Kirk’s father, somehow also turns up in Iowa to get him out of trouble and urge him to join Starfleet. Kirk clears his schedule of car wrecking and bar fighting and obliges, hopping on a shuttle to San Francisco where he meets Leonard McCoy, presumably not yet a doctor, who is afraid of getting airsick. He tells Kirk how his ex-wife took everything, "except my bones," and a nickname is born.
Later, Cadet Kirk has a fling with a green-skinned cadet who turns out to be Uhura's roommate, and he gets to see Uhura in her underwear while hiding under the bed. Maybe that’s why Uhura's so pissed at him later on when Kirk is taking the Kobayashi Maru strategy simulation and she, while also a cadet, is one of the people running the simulation. Dr. McCoy is also part of the simulation, ostensibly to produce a cure for Klingons.
The simulation is designed by Spock. Evidently there are very few people in Starfleet, because everywhere Kirk goes he keeps running into the same four people: McCoy, Uhura, Spock and Captain Pike, as well as the lout who pummeled him in the Iowa bar, all of whom will end up at his side when he eventually finds his way aboard the Enterprise.
Spock is pissed that Kirk reprogrammed the simulation to make it winnable, a feat of which he will many years later boast in “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.” Spock wants Kirk kicked out of school but there’s no time because Vulcan is now being attacked by Nero.
The cadets are hastily called into action with a lot of other crews, but Kirk can’t come because he’s being given a time out. McCoy injects Krik with a bacteria specimen that happens to be lying around in the starship hangar, then fools a dim-witted security guard into letting him bring Kirk aboard the ship, despite the fact the he is showing symptoms of a contagious disease.
Now we get to meet the new Chekov and Sulu, with Anton Yelchin doing such an over the top Chekov impression laden with "Wulcans" it seems like a parody. After Sulu forgets to switch off the parking brake on the way out of spacedock, the ship is under way on its maiden voyage.
Even while simultaneously battling McCoy's disease and the weak script Kirk figures out that they are headed into a trap, which leaves Captain Pike so impressed that Kirk’s not only off suspension but now second in command of the ship, under Spock. All the other ships have been destroyed. Captain Pike orders Kirk and Sulu to go skydiving from space to disable Nero's huge drill that’s cutting a hole in Vulcan.
Nero apparently has the ability to travel through time and to turn planets into black holes, yet somehow was unable to stop his own planet from being destroyed by a supernova in the distant future. Instead, it was outsourced to Future Spock, the federation ambassador to Romulus, who set out to inject cooling red matter into the supernova, but he missed it by that much, so Nero vowed to not only destroy Spock but the entire federation. No good deed goes unpunished is a weak revenge motive, but that's the least of this movie's problems.
Kirk and Sulu manage not to be burnt up in Vulcan’s atmosphere as they descend from space at thousands of miles and hour and open their parachutes to land on target. The third member of their team is sacrificed by the writers just to show that the feat wasn’t entirely a cakewalk.
Sulu, who volunteered for the mission by boasting that he knew how to fence (as the original character demonstrates in a shirtless manic frolic in the episode “The Naked Now”), produces a sword from somewhere in his streamlined jumpsuit. Rather than fence, Sulu can do Ninja and Samurai tricks, complete with backward jumps, as he goes all Kill Bill on the bad guys, leaving us to wonder why there are people aboard a space drill lowered into the atmosphere.
Sulu, who volunteered for the mission by boasting that he knew how to fence (as the original character demonstrates in a shirtless manic frolic in the episode “The Naked Now”), produces a sword from somewhere in his streamlined jumpsuit. Rather than fence, Sulu can do Ninja and Samurai tricks, complete with backward jumps, as he goes all Kill Bill on the bad guys, leaving us to wonder why there are people aboard a space drill lowered into the atmosphere.
Kirk and Sulu knock out the drill wth their phasers, leaving us to wonder why the Enterprise didn't just fire its phasers, sparing all the aerial acrobatics. But it's too late to save Vulcan, which turns into a giant sinkhole, much like the plot.
Spock beams down to save his parents, who are conveniently gathered with the most important elders of Vulcan and saves them all, except for Winona. Before she can say "Betelguese," she get sucked into a black hole, just like her career. (Hey, reality bites).
Meanwhile, Captain Pike has been taken prisoner, and is being held in a bathtub, which leads us to think he’s about to be waterboarded. Instead, Nero comes up with a lamer version of the disgusting bug that Ricardo Montalban put in Chekov’s ear in ST:2. Only this one is taken orally. We’re not really sure what it does, just that it’s gross.
Back on the ship, Spock is now in charge, but he and Kirk can’t stop bickering. Kirk wants to go after Nero while Spock wants to take some time to stop and think about things.
Uhura is so sorry for Spock that she stops the elevator and offers him sexual favors to get his mind off his grief. Not only isn’t this scene hot, it’s awkward because it comes out of nowhere, (with zero previous interaction between the two) not to mention a huge setback to the strengths of the only woman with a speaking role on the Enterprise crew. (Zoe Saldana’s character is evidently a cost-effective amalgam of Uhura, who was romantically attached to no one, and Nurse Chapel, who openly pined for Spock in the series.) Rather than cite Starfleet regulations about sexual liaisons between a commanding officer and subordinates, Spock nobly says all he wants is for people to keep on doing their jobs well.
When Kirk and Spock finally mix it up, Spock uses the Vulcan neck pinch, then illogially ejects him from the ship, rather than confining him to quarters or tossing him in the brig. Luckily, Kirk’s escape pod not only lands on a planet where Future Spock has been marooned by Nero to watch his planet die, but he lands within walking distance of his future friend, and arrives there just in time for the senior-citizen Vulcan to ward off a massive, fierce, hungry monster with only a torch.
The Original Series Spock would be running the numbers in that computer-like brain of his on the odds against all this incredible luck. Instead, they move on to the next great stroke of providence. Not only is there a Starfleet base within walking distance (of which Spock has, for some reason, not yet chosen to avail himself), but the only human posted there is Montgomery Scott, the one man with the scientific ability to get them out of this mess with his untested theory about high-speed teleportation.
As some kind of disciplinary action for being too smart, Scotty has been banished to this wasteland with only a mutated Oompa Loompa for company. Scotty must have a hell of a long-distance carrier, because the uber-beaming to the long-gone, warp-speeding Enterprise works, almost flawlessly. (Though Scotty ends up in a surplus water park amusement that someone has seen fit to inexplicably install on the Enterprise).
On the advice of Future Spock, Kirk has to get command by goading Present Spock into showing emotion, which we have already seen is ridiculously easy. Kirk plays the mom card, Spock pummels him, then responsibly relieves himself of command. But Kirk is magnanimous, and still gives Spock a big role in the attack on Nero’s ship. As they leave, Spock says if he doesn’t make it, Kirk should tell Uhura … We’ll never know what awkward illogical profession of affection it is because Kirk assures him he’s coming back. He tells Sulu to wait for a strategic opportunity to attack, which enables the writers to build up suspense for a nick-of-time Enterprise reappearance.
By now, Nero is drilling into Earth. Since the rule in Star Trek films is that everything bad that happens on Earth will happen in San Francisco, the death beam hits right next to the Golden Gate Bridge as the remaining Starfleet cadets run for their lives, waiting for their friends to come to the rescue
Kirk and Spock beam aboard Nero’s ginormous death ship but, luckily, it’s just a short walk to the place where he has stowed Future Spock’s hummingbird spaceship complete with the dangerous, unstable red matter. It’s also a short walk to where Nero and his goons are. Young Kirk can't yet fight his way out of a paper bag (perhaps he rigged the computers in his judo courses too) but he gets lucky yet again mixing it up with a Romulan who lifts him up by his neck, leaving his hands free to grab the guy’s holstered gun. Spock quickly masters the controls of Future Spock's advanced spaceship and goes on the attack.
Turns out, Captain Pike is still alive and relatively healthy, and close enough for Kirk to rescue. They beam back to the Enterprise when it does that nick-of-time reappearance, complete with blazing, machine-gun-like phasers. Now Nero's ship is being pulled into the black hole.
Nero is still alive and Kirk is again magnanimous in victory. Foreshadowing his trademark compassion to ass-kicked enemies, he offers to pull the Romulan’s fat out of the fire, assuming he will now be able to trust him. Shove it, says Nero, and Kirk says have it your way. Spock agrees: No mercy for Winona's killer. The Enterprise ejects its warp core and detonates it to push itself out of the black hole.
Back at Starfleet, Kirk gets a medal and a promotion for his troubles, and command of the Enterprise, even though he hasn’t finished the academy. We see that Captain Pike didn’t get away completely unscathed from Nero’s Gitmo. He’s in a wheelchair. So when Kirk says “I relieve you, sir,” Pike can’t give the usual answer, “I stand relieved,” and instead says “I am relieved,” which at his point is how I felt because the film was almost over.
Although Spock is not in control of his emotions, getting passed over at the expense of a lesser qualified hothead doesn’t phase him much and he has no hard feelings as he runs into Nimoy-Spock in a hangar. They both agree to stay out of each other’s hair, avoiding the kind of tension between Shatner and Chris Pine, so they can both continue making money off this franchise in harmony and perpetuity.
Kirk takes command of the Enterprise and Scotty and the Oompa Loompa are now in charge in the engine room as they set course for the sequel.
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