Would you guys really say in hindsight that you would prefer to see the threads for Iron Man, Benjamin Button, and other movies from last year all mixed together with that gigantic Dark Knight thread?  Say I just caught Benjamin Button on DVD last night and I want to contribute to a topic or reply to a comment I remember from the forums - it's a lot easier to scan through the topic page for "Benjamin Button" than, for example, it is to search for all the mentions of Star Trek (which I finally saw last weekend) in this long and still expanding thread.

I thought J.J did a bang up job.  If you really want to get the full experience I definitely recommend reading the 4 issue Countdown pre-movie comic that sets up Nero's character and motivation, because you barely get any of that in the film.  Pine's Kirk is way sexed up, Zachary Quinto does a great job as Spock.  Everyone else (Sulu, Chekhov, Scotty, Uhura) has their moments in the film too, so everything rounds out quite nicely (although Anton Yelchin's portrayal of Chekhov is a little on the meh side for me).  I'll definitely be picking this one up on Blu-ray.

I think Paramount will probably want to make more movies off this base, but they'll have to be up to the caliber of this movie... another movie like Insurrection or Nemesis just won't cut it now anymore.

Really loved how the coming together of the USS Enterprise was handled; the entire cast was terrific, and they all had pivotal roles that really sparked that necessary group dynamic.   Quinto's Spock and Urban's McCoy were particularly great; Urban seems to have gotten Bones down to a tee.  Also, I liked how..... Nimoy's role wasn't simply cameo fodder, but instead served to further along a crucial plot point.

I was especially surprised (and delighted) at how much humor was imbued into the movie, resulting in a more lively script.  It definitely smacks of that witty-banter Abrams touch.  And the music.  Damn, the music.  As Wanderer states, it probably won't ever happen, but I'd love for them to release a complete score.  If I wasn't smitten with Giacchino's new main theme before, I certainly am now; there are some really nice reprisals that didn't make the soundtrack release, and its contextual use overall borders on pure epic.  Nero's theme is deliciously villainous, too, and has creeped up on me exponentially.

If there's a negative in the film, it's as James said: Nero's backstory and his motivated conflict with Spock doesn't come across as well as it should.  I'll be picking up the Countdown comic series to gain some more insight, but it's a shame they couldn't flesh it out a little more in the film.  One more thing that felt slightly out of place was the implied relationship between Spock and Uhura.  I know they were aiming to strengthen the idea of Vulcan/Human relations, but were they ever an item in the original series? 

The film definitely went over well with my audience. (Heh, there was an isolated incident where the movie stopped short for a good eight second, and some guy in the audience yelled out, "Captain, we've lost transmission!", eliciting laughter from everyone.)   I'll likely see Trek again before its theatrical run is up.  It's a hell of a lot of fun, and really makes for fine cinematic viewing.

I watched my third movie of the year - Star Trek. This is the best so far, since my familiarity and thus emotional involvement are more relevant. For instance, I knew nothing of the characters in Watchmen, and only slightly more about the characters in Wolverine. But I've known the Star Trek characters for more than 20 years.

What I found most interesting about Star Trek was the interior of the Enterprise, both the bridge and the engine room. The bridge did not surprise me, but the engine room did. Although expansive, it reminded me of the inside of a submarine, in which everything is exposed (the opposite of a commercial airliner). That is very much unlike what we have previously seen (the engine rooms looked similar to the bridge). (I've never watched Deep Space 9 or the newest Star Trek TV show, so I don't know how their engine rooms looked.)

I thought it was a lot of fun. Not perfect by any means, though. The movie is so quickly paced that a lot of details get passed by. And certain characters suffer, like Eric Bana's Nero (underwritten). I wasn't thrilled with Chekov either. Underwritten *and* too broad. Of the main cast, only Kirk and Spock come across as fully formed characters. The rest simply don't have enough to do.

Still, where it matters, the film delivered. The production values were sky-high, with effective visuals, sets and music. Aside from a slightly sluggish mid-half (on the ice planet), I was never bored.

As a fan of classic Star Trek, this film had a lot of work to do to win me over, simply even to justify its existence. And, mostly, it did. It's a great sci-fi action movie with (thankfully) plenty of humour.

The main characters work great together. They really managed to put together a varied group of characters who played off each other well, even when some were just given pretty small roles. The small roles weren't a problem for me - after all, there are a lot of characters, a limited running time and many seem to forget that the main characters of the original show were Kirk, Spock and McCoy and the rest were supporting characters.

They weren't the Trek characters I know. In many ways, it wasn't Star Trek as I know it. Well, except for Karl Urban as McCoy.  But I don't think it would have been any better a film had they all tried to be exactly like the originals. As a new group of characters, these guys worked.

As others have mentioned, Nero was the problem here. Their main adversary was weak, underwritten and yet still managed to have his paper-thin back story chew up two lengthy exposition sequences. His story was weak and how it was told was even weaker. He wanted to kill Spock for failing to stop something that would have happened anyway had he not tried. Didn't quite add up.  That, for me, dragged the film a step down from 'fantastic' because the result was that huge events that should have had weight just didn't because I didn't care a damn for or about the villain.

Aside from Nero, there were a huge bunch of contrivances we were asked to look past but none of which spoiled the movie for me. Though it did take me out of it at once point as I wondered why a black hole managed to suck in not one but two ships through time completely unscathed and yet seemingly destroys everything else in the movie. Not a dealbreaker.

Overall, a very enjoyable movie and a new start to a universe which, let's face it, had been kicked to the ground and stomped all over. Star Trek was completely dead. It is now very much alive.

In case you haven't heard the news, a couple of weeks ago Varese Sarabande released a 2-CD Deluxe Edition of Giacchino's amazingly awesome score.  It's limited to 5000 copies and already down to fewer than 1500 units remaining.  I'm super excited and can't wait to hear all the cues that weren't included on the first release.

My only concern is that a number of folks who've already heard the soundtrack are saying the choir sections were removed.  Apparently, this may have been due to Varese not wanting to pay the royalty fees required to include them.  I'm hoping that's not the case, as it would be a shame to continue being deprived of the full choral treatment in "Nero Fiddles, Narada Burns."