11 – Star Trek (2009)

Last month we reported that Paramount launched an Easter egg contest to find the hidden R2D2 in the new Star Trek movie. Now they have revealed where to find the Star Wars droid, details below plus we list many of the other easter eggs in the Star Trek movie.
– Location of R2-D2 Easter Egg Revealed + More Star Trek Easter Eggs | TrekMovie.com

Yet another reason to hate this most recent Star Trek Movie?  Trekmovie.com lists at least 40 cameos and ‘easter eggs’ that were in it.  Want to know why the subbasement shutin was giggling like a schoolgirl through the whole movie?  It’s because he noticed :

• Sulu tells Kirk his combat training is in fencing, in the TOS episode “The Naked Time” Sulu shows off his fencing abilities

which by the way I found hilarious because immediately after he says he has fencing abilities, he pulls out a collapsable katana.

As I troll the internet’s depths for people that didn’t like the most recent Star Trek movie, I’ve found several misconceptions that lead to confusion by some people, leading them to hate Star Trek (2009), let me address two of them here in this post. Mind you, there are plenty of reasons to hate this film, I’d rather people hate it for reasons that make sense.

There are going to be spoilers here.

1.) The Truth Bug:

Many people are concerned and/or confused with this truth bug, thinking that it’s somehow related to the ear bug from Star Trek 2.  While I can understand the confusion, in reality the Truth Bug in this movie bares much more of a resemblance to the bug in the penultimate episode of TNG Season one.  Could be a related species, or could be the same species, just not sentient.

2.) The Red Matter:

Couldn’t help wondering about it. If a drop of a certain material can destroy an entire planet, why would you want to amass 300 gallons of it? Did I miss something?--Hank Fox

Yep, a single drop is all it takes to turn a planet into a black hole.  This misconception is easily cleared up though with the realization that the red matter was for use on a sun, and was a last ditch effort to save Romulous from a galaxy wide supernova (yeah, ok, that’s wtf worthy still).  Here in our local star system, the sun is massive compared to the earth, able to fit over 1,000,000 earths inside of it.  So, first and foremost, you’re going to want to bring as much of the red matter as possible, becuase you might only get one shot at saving the entire galaxy from this galactic supernova.  Secondly, you’re going to need a LOT of it if a drop of it will only effect something as relatively small as a planet.

3.) The Star Fleet shipyards:

And who the hell builds a starship ON THE GROUND, for FSMsakes?–Randomfactor

Are you honestly telling me that you’re watching a Star Trek movie and you’re unaware that they have anti-gravity?  Why launch everything into space and build it there when you can build it closer to the materials, test and build it in a safer environment, and then send it on it’s merry way when you’re done!

Image via Wikipedia

But here’s the problem: the plot was crap. The plot was mostly irrelevant to the movie, but even there, it was a series of semi-random events strung together by a need to reassemble the Trek cast of characters. The bad guy was just a madman with a great big spaceship and a doomsday weapon out to demolish the Federation of Planets because he thought he’d been wronged, and the starship Enterprise ping-pongs about chasing him down, picking up members of the cast, getting fresh Star Fleet Academy graduate James T. Kirk promoted, etc., etc., etc. Beating the evil villain seemed secondary to showing how Kirk met Spock, how Scotty got his job as engineer, and how uncannily Karl Urban channels the ghost of DeForest Kelley.
– Star Trek gets retconned : Pharyngula

Man, this was such a cool idea, but when alias / cloverfield / lost did it. now it’s just boring and seems repetitive.

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Chris Pine’s Capt. Kirk channels not Shatner, but Tom Cruise’s patented cocky lead from “Top Gun” and “Days of Thunder,” while Zachary Quinto conveys a much angrier Mr. Spock, who lacks any of the wry wit and gentleness of Leonard Nimoy’s
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original. Worst of all is Simon Pegg as chief engineer Scott, who simply plays him for lanky comic relief without a hint of the character’s engineering brilliance.
– Commentary: New movie not the ‘Star Trek’ I know – Salt Lake Tribune

Image via Wikipedia

LENS FLARES: THE MOVIE

Why on Earth did JJ Abrams turn Star Trek into a two-hour commercial for lens flare plugins? I have to admit, upon my second viewing of the film I found this visual motif to be highly distracting and irritating. Flares, reflections and luminous ghosts simply appear everywhere, even without any obvious sources. The reason? JJ wanted a visual metaphor that stated “we have a bright future ahead of us.” No, I’m not making this up.
– Trek scribes speak, complaints addressed « Darth Mojo

William Shatner (via last.fm)

Quinto, 31, admitted he found it impossible to form his fingers into the distinctive V-shaped gesture, saying: “It’s much harder than it looks. Seriously.”

One on-set insider said: “Zach could do the salute some of the time but only after he’d positioned his fingers the right way off-camera.

“In some scenes he has to do the salute while speaking his lines so they ended up using skin-protective superglue, like they use in hospitals, to stick his fingers together.”

William Shatner, who played Captain Kirk in the long-running TV show and the first seven Star Trek films, was also unable to do the salute, so he used fishing line to tie his fingers together. [news.com.au]
– ZACHARY QUINTO CAN’T DO THE VULCAN SALUTE | FilmDrunk.com – Movie News for Brilliant Simpletons

How the hell did they find (and hire!) the only two people in the entire world that can’t move their fingers in the correct way?