Star Trek: No Subtitle

[Wowbagger]

(1) No, I'm pretty sure that was an optical illusion created by lens flare. Definitely intended to create that impression (because it was a cool impression) but very deliberately not violating canon -- and going to some lengths to do that.

(2) Umm... why should we care about the rotation of phaser barrels? IIRC, we never saw the phaser emitters on the TOS model.

(3) Yes, but not significantly. It was basically uppitched and time-compressed -- clearly based on the original, much more closely than TNG torps were based on TOS ones.

Regarding canon... I still don't see how the destruction of Vulcan in 2258 violates TOS canon. At least, not anymore than the destruction of Qo'nos's entire biosphere in 2293 violates TNG+ canon. They relocated and rebuilt on a new world with the same name. Not really all that difficult.

Actually, I've thought about it long and hard, and I don't see how any of the events in this movie violated canon. I don't see the need to posit an alternate timeline. This could easily co-exist with the original 'verse with a minimum of imagination and traditional strict constructionist interpretations of existing canon.

EDIT: Heck, long as I'm at it, let's go through all of Nate's objections, now that spoiler season has long past. I do this not out of a personal hate for Nate, but simply because I have five minutes to kill and nothing better to do than argue canon, which is one of my favorite bits of life.

Originally Posted by Nate the Great

1. I have yet to watch, but I have read/watched ConfusedMatthew, The Spoony One, and a few others. I respect these guys and take their opinions seriously.
2. So Nero going back in time has created an alternate timeline. PNQs...
2a. Why is an alternate timeline necessary? I have two theories: The creators assume that the people are so indoctrinated in Star Trek=Kirk and Spock that having Kirk automatically equals more viewers, and if they attempted Kirk and Spock in the regular universe and made the slightest mistake, hordes of fans would swoop down on them (correct assumption) and nitpick to death.
2b. Why couldn't they have advertised FROM THE START that this was basically Star Trek's version of Ultimate Marvel? I have no problem with Ultimate Marvel because they don't pretend to be Marvel 616. Likewise, had they said FROM THE START, years ago, that they were going to split off an alternate timeline, there would've been a lot less bashing. But no, they said over and over that they were gonna be loyal to canon. But the first thing Nero does upon arrival is kill Kirk's dad? Suuuurrrrrrreeeee, THAT'S loyal to canon.
3. Vulcan is now gone? This is somehow okay? We're going to continue a timeline where Vulcan no longer exists?
4. The Magnificent Seven are NOT the same age! In the first season of TOS, Kirk is 35, Spock is 37, and McCoy is 39. Sulu and Uhura are late twenties, Chekov is early twenties. Rewind everybody ten years and they would have no reason to be in the same place at the same time.
5. You do NOT redesign the Enterprise! Whatever that ship in the movie is, it is not Constitution-class. And we are supposed to believe that this is the NCC-1701 (no bloody A, B, C, or D). I know the NCC-1701, the NCC-1701 is a good friend of mine, and you are not the NCC-1701. And don't say that the altered timeline altered the ship. The Enterprise existed in it's original form for almost twenty years before Kirk took command. A five-year mission with April, and two missions with Pike, with internal refits in between.

1. I do watch them but don't respect them very much, but to each his own. My favorite review: W. Joseph Thomas

2a. I think the box office returns on Star Trek prove that, in the popular imagination, Star Trek in fact still does = Kirk + Spock, or at most Picard + Data. On this count, they were right. Plus, great excuse to see the characters again. The reason for the alternate timeline was, indeed, to avoid nitpicking.

2b. I think you weren't reading the pre-movie discussions very closely, since Orci came out about six months before the movie arrived and said, straight-up, to the fandom: "So, we're solving the potential continuity problems using an alternate timeline. Here's my take on the Many Worlds Interpretation, which is the basis for the entire movie. Discuss. And then we did, for six months. No one (except apparently you) went into this expecting anything but an alternate timeline of some kind. As mentioned above, I question the existence of said alternate timeline, but I wasn't surprised by it.

Also, what on Earth is wrong with Kirk's dad being killed at his birth? We never heard anything about Kirk's dad in canon until this movie. For all we know, he always died aboard the Kelvin at Kirk's birth. So that's just a weird objection.

3. Yep. If you'll check your DVD's, however, you'll find that it has not been erased from them.

4. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, and... well, actually, you're right about Chekov. He's too old. Kirk was always canonically born in 2233, so he's exactly the right age here. No one else's age was given in the new movie, so it can't contradict previous canon. More importantly, several of their ages were never given in previous canon (often showing up in online articles as a result of speculation by the Chronology rather than hard canon), so it would quite impossible to contradict the old canon. (And, in fact, Memory Alpha is assuming that the new timeline characters have the same D-O-B as the old timeline characters unless explicitly contradicted.) Chekov is the exception: he's 17 in new movie's 2358 and 22 in prime timeline's 2257. It's an alteration, but certainly one of the least important ones in the history of Trek. I mean, somebody's gone and contradicted "Who Mourns For Adonias?" It's not like they're changing the dates of the Eugenics Wars or the "supply problem" that was supposed to be a fundamental part of the series premise of Voyager or any crazily unacceptable thing like that.

As for them not having a reason to be together... I can't imagine why not. They're all Starfleet officers responding to a serious crisis, and all end up on the Enterprise, whether posted there or begging to get on there or kidnapped there or smuggling themselves there. The only meeting in the movie that doesn't add up is the one between Kirk and Spock Prime, which a deleted scene apparently attributed to "fate," which is a stretch at best.

5. Alright, no Enterprise redesigns. A shame. I thought the first four Star Trek movies were pretty good. Particularly TWOK. But they redesigned the Enterprise (with Gene Roddenberry's express encouragement), so to the scrap heap with them!

The alternate timeline explanation actually makes fine sense here. The timeline supposedly diverged in 2233. The Enterprise under April launched in the original timeline sometime in the mid-2240's. That means that the Enterprise construction was definitely during the affected area of timeline alteration.

Moreover, this isn't the first time a film creator changed the Enterprise's launch date -- and the last time they did it, they did it with far less excuse and for far more pointless reasons. That would be when Leonard Nimoy and Harve Bennett arbitrarily changed the launch date from the 2240's to 2265 in Star Trek III for the sole purpose of selling more 20th Anniversary merchandise.

However, I would agree that the Ryan Church redesign is ugly. I don't like it. But canon-wise and production-decision-wise, I have no objections. I wouldn't have a leg to stand on if I did.

That was fun.