However, one thing missing here is the realization that the Nexus in Star Trek Generations still holds the Next Generation crew in its grasp. Kirk and Picard ‘escape’ from the Nexus to fight Soren. But, they ‘escape’ into a reality created within the Nexus, not back into the ‘real-world’. Therefore, everything concerning the Next Generation crew after they enter the Nexus takes place within the Nexus.

First, the Federation’s advanced tech in the film may be a direct result of the Kelvin’s encounter with Nero. The survivors carried back scans of the Nerada. That would also explain why the Enterprise launched later in this timeline…it took the Federation a while to understand and adapt the future tech.

As for the alliance with the Klingons, you left out the importance of the Organians. If events in this timeline unfold such that the Kirk and Kor don’t find themselves on Organia on the brink of war, that would affect the Klingon/Federation relationship as much as the destruction of Vulcan. After all, it was the Organians who prevented a full-blown war in the first place.

In a nutshell: Decent enough movie, decent enough science fiction movie. But it’s not Star Trek.

Star Trek always seemed to have a sense of humor about itself, as if it didn’t take itself too seriously, as if both the actors and the audience were in on the joke, the joke being that this wasn’t real, that it was just an artistic production. And they managed to do this without breaking the fourth wall, even though they came very close at some points, meaning that the underlying humor didn’t take the viewer out of the story. (Examples of their very nearly breaking the fourth wall: McCoy to Spock: “You really *have* gone where no man’s gone before!”* and Zefram Cochrane to Riker, Troi, and LaForge: “And you people — you’re all astronauts… on some kind of star trek.”) I felt that sense of fun was lacking in this movie; the closest they came was when Fake Chekov couldn’t get the computer to recognize the password because he kept saying “Wictor” instead of “Victor.” But it didn’t really work.

My main concern is with the “alternate universe” timeline. People around my age (mid-50s) may remember a Gothic daytime serial called “Dark Shadows” (1966-71) that dealt mostly with the supernatural but dabbled in science fiction concepts from time to time. The last three months of the show took place in a parallel universe, with the same actors we’d been seeing for five years but playing different roles. I didn’t know those characters and I didn’t care about them. It’s the same with Star Trek 2009 — because of the oh-so-clever “alternate timeline” conceit, these aren’t the characters I care about, and that’s not even taking into account the fact that they’re played by an entirely new cast (a necessity, I know).

I understand the inherent narrative impediment to making a true prequel — we already know these characters’ futures, so they can’t be put into life-threatening or -altering situations because we know what will happen. Or won’t happen. For all that I cared (read: didn’t care) about these characters, my preference would have been to “reboot” the movie franchise by using an entirely new set of characters on a different ship. If such a movie were set in the TOS era, you run into a similar problem: You don’t know the ultimate fate of, say, Captain Smith or Yeoman Jones, but you do know about the explosion of Praxis, the rapprochement with the Klingons, and Khitomer; about V’ger; about the whale probe; about the Borg. This wasn’t that big of a problem for “Enterprise” (which had other problems), but if it’s deemed a problem, then set the movie in the post-TNG era.

I don’t think “Enterprise” was as bad as some people say it was, but still I was disappointed that it didn’t start really acknowledging the TOS canon until the last season. What I would have liked for the fifth series would have been a show based loosely on “Trials and Tribble-ations” — a show set in the TOS era, using the TOS-era sets and costumes, on a different ship. I think that would have been pretty cool. And actors from TOS could even have “appeared” on the show, as long as you didn’t actually see them (e.g., their voices on a subspace message or whatever).

My main problem with the conceit of the “alternate universe” gimmick of Star Trek 2009 is that the writers may have doomed all life on Earth. As I understand it, history didn’t diverge until the attack on the Kelvin. Therefore, humpback whales have still been extinct since the twenty-first century. It doesn’t seem likely (to me, at least) that anything about Nero’s attack on the Kelvin would prevent the probe from coming by just as it did in the “normal” timeline and destroying life on Earth because it can’t find any whales to talk to. Kirk and his crew saved Earth from the probe, and it was an unusual, if not unique, set of circumstances that allowed them to do so — they happened to be off-planet at the time of the probe’s visit, they knew how to do the slingshot-around-the-sun gag for traveling backward in time (as a result of having done so during their encounter with Captain Christopher in “Tomorrow Is Yesterday”), and Spock had very recently been reeducated as a result of his regenerated body’s being rejoined with his mind and therefore (apparently) was familiar with cetacean species — much of which, it seems to me, is extremely unlikely to occur in the same way in this new timeline. Apparently it is Spock’s fate in the “normal” timeline to disappear into a black hole eight years after the events of “Nemesis” and, unknown to the denizens of the “normal” timeline, to live out the rest of his life in the past of an alternate timeline. Does he impart his wisdom about the Doomsday Machine, about V’ger, about the whale probe? Or does his having mind-melded with the Fake Kirk mean that Fake Kirk now knows what Old Spock knows, thereby obviating the need for Leonard Nimoy to appear as a specter in the inevitable sequels urging Fake Kirk to “use the Force”?

*McCoy’s saying, “You really *have* gone where no man’s gone before!” was a (near-) breaking of the fourth wall at the time ST:IV was released. Subsequent (not necessarily chronologically subsequent) additions to the Star Trek canon have made this no longer the case. I believe it was in ST:V that we first saw a plaque in the Enterprise-A’s observation lounge (or whatever) bearing the words “To boldly go where no man has gone before,” and we learned (if I’m remembering correctly) in the first episode of “Enterprise” that Zefram Cochrane coined that particular phrase at the launching of the Warp Five Complex. So within the Star Trek universe it made sense for McCoy to know that phrase, but at the time of ST:IV’s release, we didn’t have canon proof of that. On the other hand, when William Shatner did the TOS voiceover, was he in character? Was that supposed to be a generic excerpt from Captain Kirk’s log, or was it supposed to be William Shatner telling the viewers what the show was about?

I just watched those episodes, and there was very significant interaction – the mirror universe’s Terran Empire acquires the USS Defiant (NCC-1764, a Constition class ship) from “about 100″ years into the future, most likely enabling them to crush the rebellion they faced at the time (2150s). The boring possibility now is that the mirror universe Tholians still grab the Defiant from the Prime universe, and the mirror timeline is unaffected.

But what fun is that? Let’s assume that the Tholians do instead lure ships from the Alt universe (or that there is an Alt mirror universe to go with the regular Alt universe :). Keeping in mind that the Alt Constitition class is significantly larger and more powerful, but that it’s construction schedule was different from the Prime Constitution class, several possibilities suggest themselves:

1) The Tholians never manage to lure a ship of such power across universes/time to the mirror universe and capture it. The Terran Empire, without the boost of 23rd century tech, falls to the rebellion of the 2150s.

2) The Tholians do manage to lure a ship of significant power – possibly even the better-Constituted Defiant – but not in 2154. The Terran Empire falls to the rebellion. The Tholians (or whoever ends up owning the advanced tech) emerge rapidly as a major power in the late 22nd century Alpha Quadrant.

3) The Tholians capture a ship of power analagous to the Prime universe’s Defiant to the mirror universe, in 2154 (i.e., not an Alt Constitution class ship). This ship is captured by the Terran Empire, which crushes the rebellion, and things continue to proceed much as they did in the mirror universe timeline we know.

4) The Tholians capture the Alt universe Defiant (or another ship of significantly more power than the one they got in the mirror universe we know). With this more powerful boost to their war tech, the Terran Empire not only crushes the rebellion, but increases the pace and scope of its expansion, perhaps even defeating the Klingon/Cardassian Alliance.

5) The Tholians lure a ship of power but don’t manage to capture it. Wild card possiblities galore.

If/when people start telling mirror universe stories in relation to the Alt universe, they have a lot of options…

Beyond that, I’m not sure why all the kudos to JJ Abrams and his two writers, who thought nothing of wiping out more than four decades of Trek history as though it was of little relevance and no real concern to them. They claim, as you also claim here, that the original prime timeline is not affected when the whole purpose of the movie was to change it all, with nothing definitive within the film itself that establishes that the original timeline remains intact. Elder Spock’s actions in this movie were also wholly inconsistent with how we know he would react to a situation such as this, which we’ve actually witnessed on several occasions. He would not have simply stood by and accepted the death of his mother or the destruction of his homeworld the way he did here in ST XI. No, he would have made it his mission to correct those events which he knows were never meant to happen, having lived through the original timeline. You point to “City on the Edge of Forever,” and “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home,” two cases where it became necessary to correct problems in their past in order to set their present straight, yet why does it not disturb you that Spock’s reaction to events as they played out in this movie were completely out of character for him? Why do you take it for granted obviously that the original timeline is not affected when we see it actually get overwritten here?

I’ve had to translate some interviews JJ made some time ago and let me clarify a very obvious point (how Vulcan of me) he doesn’t care that he screwed up the star trek timeline by making a movie that is (even though you guys did a wonderful job) extremely hard to place next to what we all know and love.

He admitted to being more of a Star wars fan and even remarked that he wanted a more SW feel in Star Trek (which might explain the pulse phasers, Nero’s oversized mining ship and other nifty technical weaponry).

TOS seems to be all that he knows (or was briefed about). Calling VOY, Enterprise, DS9 and TNG nothing but spin-offs of a great original.

Sure he took a few cue cards from people he SHOULD have interviewed more extensively. Like ‘Starfleet isn’t militairy’ or ‘Rodenberry wanted a happy future’.

Actually, the non-militairy part gave him the wonderful oportunity to promote a cadet to captain in one lovely movie…. just to see how you can twist stuff around for your own purposes.

The scriptwriters, whoever those idiots are, must have thought the ‘going back in time thing to wipe the slate clean, give us free reign and deflect any questions with: ST physics are different anyway’ was extremely clever, but if you read all the above you know they actually made things worse (because we can’t accept the fact that we might have to let go of the original universe we know)

There are many mistakes, a few examples:
– Nacelles going into warp light up at the sides, not some ‘rocket ship’ like flash at the back. How else can you create the illusion of a warp ‘bubble’???
- The Enterprise has ONE reactor core, not FIVE
- Since when is water used in engineering??? Why on earth is there a massive ‘mixer of death’ sucking in all the water??? (answer: just to create a funny situation with scotty: it has no functionality whatsoever) (and yes people, I thought I could explain it by it being something else then water, but it acually says so on the pipes)
- Transwarp beaming??? Funny idea, wasn’t there an Enterprise episode about the creator of transporter technology telling us the idea of beaming over such long distances is fundementally flaud???
- Vulcan sky is blue …
- Since when are Romulans bald with tribal markings???
- Let’s not start again about why the enterprise is built 12 years later ….

You can try to incorporate all this in the ‘alternate reality’-theory, which would be the only thing that COULD work (seeing as disruption of space-time wouldn’t cause those changes)

But let’s face it. Paramount called JJ one day with the mission: Make a Star Trek movie, make it popular, earn us loads of money. He then proceeded with his ‘clever’ ideas. And now we are are struggling to incorporate this monster into the known universe.

The question is: should we???

After all, many non-trekkers love the movie. Interest in the old series has sparked. (Although I thinkw e can forget about a new ST: serie) And besides. I myself liked it, thought it looked VERY cool (the point on which the movie hinges I’m afraid) but have ordened my mind to ignore its changes.

Like Captain Sisko I’ve just woken up from a lovely dream about an alternate TOS, …. to see the known universe.