star trek reboot: intial thoughts and randomness

You know, any review I do at this point is kind of the equivalent of guh, yes, this, guh. As one does when one falls on top of awesome and just grovels in it.

Thsi is written in one fell swoop. I know I missed a ton of stuff, but you know, I can totally meta on this for weeks.

Most of this is subject to change. In about a week, after I've read more, I'll probably have some caveats.



Kelvin

The timeline changes by the Kelvin that reverberate through the timeline alone are breathtaking, because I do think, after watching and reading teh novelization, that this is something the writers actually thought about hard before pursuing. It's not just the people are different; you can trace a lot of the differences in personality that occurred.

There's also an indecent amount of parallelism: Spock's mother, Kirk's dad; Spock and Kirk's arguments; the change in upbringing that made Spock repress instead of controlling his emotions and anger expressed in violence while Kirk's upbringing had him searching out ways to express his anger in violence; the fact that both men go for the throat in a fight and do not pussyfoot around it.





The Boring Preface: Timespace

Okay, so I follow two schools of general time-travel thought:

a.) a universe cannot be destroyed or altered [see c.], but it can be forked. In terms of what little physics I get (and years of sci-fi fandoms) it makes sense if Time comes in with a built-in failsafe to avoid destroying itself.

b.) timestreams try to correct themselves in general to match their parent as closely as possible. I submit TNG for evaluation in an Enterprise that was exactly the same crew complement and all after the time-disturbance that sent the Federation to war with the Klingons. For that matter, checking out any of the canon AUs and there's a suspicious amount of similarity when there shouldn't be by any normal stretch of the imagination.

[a.) You can also blame Dr. Who for this one, as the Timelords were once protectors of time, to avoid getting paradoxes and snafus occurring regularly. I've brooded on for a while--Tasha Yar was like, a huge deal for me in sci-fi, because those eps were just plain cool. Dr. Who finally gave it the right voice; destiny is another word for Time trying to correct itself toward its parent universe.]

[b.) This may or may not count timespace changes that were natural to the universe, but I'd have to go and re-read a lot to get the specifics of that down; sometimes, things were supposed to happen in a universe and required time travel to make them happen--see Voyager season Seven and goddamn Seven of Nine.]

[c.) It probably helps to think of timespace as not necessarily sentient, but has a script it wants to follow and dislikes having to switch things up. Like growing crystals, the crystals have a pattern and they do not like being fucked with.]

This gives several possibilities on why, no matter the universe, there are constants that have to occur. It was described once, somewhere, that an alteration in timespace is like throwing a rock into a pool; the big changes occur at impact, forward and backward, with the ripples becoming smaller and smaller until until they reach a rippleless state that will match the parent universe. Sure, that could actually end up being the practical end of the universe, but you know, they still match at the end. Kelvin was hit by the rock. That's the big change that reset the universe. And it changed things going forward (and potentially, backward as well. You see how this really works to explain what can't be explained by the destruction of the Kelvin).

So. In a universe where Timespace has method to madness, a lot of Trek makes an odd amount of sense.

Right. Now the movie.





The destrution of the Kelvin--which was basically Nero throwing a pointless temper tantrum that would later come and bite him in the ass--lead to the birth of Kirk in space, which to point out, unless I'm missing some deeply buried canon, should not have even been possible in Prime Universe, as from what I can tell, she was in labour before the Narada showed up and I don't see them zooming back just to make sure Jimmy was born on terra firma. Hence my thought on time change like a rock rippling forward and backward.

That said, that was an awesome space battle.

Parallelism

Spock and Kirk, interestingly, get on a parallel track they didn't have in Prime Universe; Spock and his temper have a stronger bonding experience due to (speculative) Vulcan xenophobia getting a kick in the ass at the appearance of Romulans thirty years too early and probably only a few years after his birth. Instead of just being a hybrid with a (lesser) human mother, he's a hybrid who is the son of a traitor to racial purity. That's two very, very different mindsets. It's kind of the difference between being British circa teh nineteenth century with the noble savage nonsense and the Ku Klux Klan [alter deed in light of Vulcan's pacificm; the lynchings are all verbal]. Spock was written off as not Vulcan enough--the entire scene in the Vulcan Science Academy was a long and torturous way for Vulcans to remind Spock he's not accepted for himself, but as a consolation prize, he can pretend in the Academy on the strength of being Sarek's--a Vulcan--son.

Spock may have some authority issues.

Kirk without his birth father, but more importantly, left in the care of his stepfather [the novel has some interesting bits referring to how much Kirk's stepfather sucked] and without his mother's presence [in space, from what I gather], is left to his own devices to work out what he's supposed to do with his life. So you know, connects with his inner rage at being abandoned pretty much, which no teenage boy can do well. Kirk's rebellion is against those who wrote him off [his father's death, mother's abandonment, his stepfather being very stereotypically steppy]. Even Pike's acceptance isn't acceptance of James Kirk--it's for George Kirk's son.

Kirk may have some authority issues.

Fast forward three years, this first meeting could not go well.

Kobayahsi Maru

Two things on that: I'm surprised they went the academic dishonesty route on this one, sincerely. Kirk had taken the test twice before already, so it wasn't quite the same as going in cheating the first time on a test they were all well aware could not be passed. I do think Spock had a tantrum and pushed to turn it into an academic issue instead of at best vandalism issue and I think Kirk hit it on the head that Spock was Vulcanly pissed that a.) someone hacked the test at all and b.) that they did it well enough that it wasn't caught until after it was run.

And I think Spock brought up Kirk's father in a deliberate attempt to throw Kirk off enough a dispassionate argument and turn it from a judgment on Kirk's point that the test was in itself a cheat, since RL in infinite diversity cannot, by definition, be no-win, and turn it onto Kirk with a reputation for being a hothead.

[Actually, it was kind of brilliant a piece of manipulation if it hadn't been stopped short. There wasn't a logical reason at that point to bring up George Kirk at all in an argument regarding whether or not the simulation was a cheat; George Kirk had no bearing on whether or not something was wrong with the test. It was a direct hit on James Kirk to derail the argument away from "The test is a cheat and here is why" and to "James Kirk is a hothead and does shit like this; see how emotional he is? He can't be trusted. Get rid of him. And live long and prosper, fucker."]

[I tend toward thinking Spock has a scorched earth policy going on.]

Ships in Space

McCoy, for reasons best known to himself (how he could not have foreseen the chain of events to follow is beyond me; I call deliberate blindness) got Kirk aboard the Enterprise, where Kirk overhears the magic words "lightning storm in space" and runs for Uhura (of course) to play connect the dots.

Pike (who is less surprised by the magic of Kirk on his bridge; there was an air of "of course, yeah, this is my life, I recruited you. Of course you'll be annoying me here.") makes the executive decision to pause and consider before going to Vulcan and so misses the slaughter of a lot of ships. Because this is what captains do--ie, run quickly into traps because what the hell, why not?--Pike follows the same pattern that killed the captain of the Kelvin and leaves Spock in charge, then, because maybe he also remembers George Kirk's idea of how to win a no-win, Kirk as his first officer. Because yes, he does have a sick sense of humor like that. And because if this goes pear shape, its probably not the worst idea in history to have someone around who likes to cheat.

[Seriously. Pike was at that damn academic hearing. I have no idea what he was thinking, but my best guess is he was torn between agreeing it was bad to cheat and also seeing Kirk's point. And he did a dissertation on the events of the Kevlin; he might have been less amused by Spock dragging out George Kirk, who was his example to Kirk of someone who didn't accept a no-win, and using that as a weapon proving the no-win.]

Mutiny on the USS Enterprise

Vulcan's destruction was just cool, in a very depressing, very parallel way to the destruction of Romulus in Primeverse (and isn't that something that's hard to fathom; in Prime, Romulus and Remus are gone. Poof. There is no longer a Romulus.

Whilst Pike enjoys Nero's hospitality, Spock goes to get his parents and the Vulcan elders, who are hanging out underground for reasons that I'm sure are important, and gets them back to the ship, sans his mother. Spock, who has had a lousy few days, loses his planet and his mother in one fell swoop. It sucks to be Spock. On his return, he orders them to go to Laurentian system for the rest of the fleet (why is the fleet there anyway?) and Kirk--disagrees.

I went to double check, even though the movie's fairly fresh in my memory; Kirk says argue the point, and Spock has him arrested. When Kirk starts fighting, he has him thrown off the ship.

[Like I said, this isn't reaction in moderation; this is scorched fucking earth. Mess with a test; get thrown out of the Academy. Rebel against ship authority, exile from the ship. For some reason, the perfectly servicable brig wasn't quite enough. No. Put them in a pod and onto an ice planet.]

Spock Prime

This is going to need like, an essay on everything that hurt about that meeting; everything that was sweet and everything that was bittersweet, and everything that hurt to watch and feel and wonder about. Spock never knew this Kirk, period, but he also never knew this Kirk at this age, which is a very long five to six years of not only maturity, but service on a starship. Even if Kirk had been a perfect parallel, the difference would have been huge. He remembers the man he served with that was already a captain, an officer, who'd done a lot more and seen so much more and been tempered in ways that this Kirk simply isn't. With the further changes in the timeline, this is a Kirk that has the potential to be the Kirk he knows, but with edge in him that's pure thug; Kirk Prime fought when he had to and enjoyed it. Kirk Mark II grew up to learn how to like it, and to choose it even when it wasn't necessary.

I really just--did not expect my own reaction to watching them.

Mutiny on the Enterprise, Part II

I'd kill to work out what changes caused Scotty to be tossed into exile. I mean, I know why in this timeline, but what specifically would set off a chain of events that lead to him being exiled instead of on a starship.

Right. After getting the transwarp, Kirk and Scotty beam to teh Enterprise, where Spock looks with emotionless shock at Kirk reappearing impossibly and upon showing up on the bridge, begins the next round of "you see this is all circular" with Kirk using Spock's mother against him as a weapon ot prove emotional fitness.

Or you could say it like this: "Spock is being a hothead; see how emotional he is? He can't be trusted. Get rid of him. And live long and prosper, fucker."

Unfortunately for Spock, there was no sudden attack to catch his attention and stop proceedings. After attacking Kirk, he relieves himself of duty and wanders off to commune with his loss and his father. Kirk, Sulu reminds everyone, was appointed first officer of the ship, and they take off to save Earth from Nero.

Okay, Plan, Sure

After Spock returns after finding emotional equilibrium (or accepting there cant' be any yet), tehy work out a plan to go rescue Pike and stop Nero from destroying Earth and then the rest of the Federation. It's--fighting. It's fun to watch.

It's interesting that Kirk manages to convey "Mindrape the Romulan" without ever mentioning how the hell he knew about mind melds and not actually ever referring to it. Spock, being--well, scorched earth Spock of lore, jumps all over that shit, and they split to carry out their plan of getting Pike and destroying Nero's ship. There's more fighting. They, you know, succeed. I mean, it was fun! But lots of action.

After returning to the ship, Kirk, in a stunning display of newfound mercy, offers to help Nero if he turns himself in. Spock, reprising his role as one who likes victory best when all the enemies are in their component parts, would rather skip to the component parts. And Nero refuses anyway, and there is destruction.

Ending

Kirk is captain, the crew is teh crew, and they go off for adventures.

Okay, What?

I could go on a week about this, but while I totally get people saying "HE IS CAPTAIN? WTF?" I will say also, ti's not like the entire damn crew isn't working well above their natural paygrade. As in, Chekov is seventeen?

So, my general and totally wrong yet pleasing assumptions:

1.) They lost six ships totally, all crew and cadets--that's a hell of a lot of people. For that matter, what the hell were they doing calling cadets anyway? Chekov was in a senior position before destruction occurred. Sulu was second senior. I can't tell for sure from Uhura, but I'm going on a limb and saying she was also second most senior since that seems to be a pattern. They were graduating cadets to the second highest positions already. Spock was the one that made the most sense in becoming first officer, but that seems to imply that in seven ships, there was no one with more experience on a ship, period. McCoy was one person from senior. They were already way up the food chain before seven ships were lost.

2.) The Laurentian ships crews were not up for transfer.

Okay, unprovable, but here we go--this is after like, several nights of talking with niqaeli:

AT best, teh Federation was always at cold war levels with Klingons and later the Romulans. When a Romulan ship destroyed the Kelvin, the Federation fleet stopped being Explore in Peace first and became Protect the Federation first, with exploration being a secondary objective. It took the Enterprise three years after Kirk started at the Academy to be completed. If exploration was of lower priority, it would make sense that the half-finished ship would take that long to get commissioned. And explain why it, along with the other six ships, being lower priority and therefore less in danger, be where you trained cadets before sending them to the important ships.

According to Memory Alpha, the Fleet was doing training maneuvers there. Granted, there are a dozen reasons to send your entire fleet minus seven to hang out in a particular system to train. I just wonder what kind of training exercises really require an entire fleet of ships all at once.

If you thought you were going to war really soon? That could be a reason. Just saying.

Spock and Uhura

News to me, TOS had some background for this one; there are two or three eps that were mentioned on a messageboard with some canon background, which made it so much easier for me personally to go, "Ooh, yeah. That's workable." So my initial "Er, really?" is more "Huh, that's kind of neat." I like continuity. It makes me happy. And I do want to see them with a Vulcan lyre a lot. And I'd love to hear Uhura sing.

Spock and Kirk

In TOS, Spock was a restraining and cooling influence on the much more emotional Kirk. Their relationship was adversarial but not personally so; I find it unbelievably awesome that this is going to be the opposite. If Pike had searched the galaxy in this universe to find the one person who will do the same job without the same results, he could not have done better. This is two people who can compare and contrast their juvenile arrest records. This is two people who already have a habit of fighting personally and escalate each other to violence. Their intial reactions to being challenged by each other is already set in the habit of going for the throat first.

It's like they were looking all their lives for the one person they can't break, and lookie here, there you go. Jim Kirk, who doesn't know how to lose, and Spock, who burns down the village and salts the earth when he goes to war.

They are going to have some epic fights, and some epic angry sex.

Actually, it's a neat symmetry. Despite appearances, Uhura keeps Spock grounded in what makes him Vulcan, in a way; Kirk's what connects him to humanity's unrestrained passion. Spock makes Kirk fight for every inch, explain himself, wear himself out against something; McCoy keeps Kirk from just wallowing in his own tendencies to leap and scream without thought.

McCoy and Uhura are going to bond, I can feel it.

Right. That's my intial thoughts.

I'm ridiculously in love with Spock. I mean, Kirk owned me from the start, but in TOS, Spock was awesome but he did not really--do it for me. Who knows why. Then this Spock is--wow. Just. I did not see that coming. Dear God.

Comments

[tevere]

this Spock is--wow. Just. I did not see that coming. Dear God.

Holy motherfucking WORD. I'd barely been aware there was a new Trek movie, and I watched it the other day on a whim (it having been 15 years since I was a Trek fangirl), and: WHOA. Actually, I couldn't really figure out why he hit me so hard (and in all the right places), but you've distilled it nicely. This Spock is ANGRY. He doesn't lose. He's the stubbornest son of a bitch of a Vulcan you've ever seen. I LOVE IT. (I particularly loved the massive overreaction to Kirk's -- admittedly insubordinate -- episode on the bridge. Exile Kirk to an ice planet! BUT OF COURSE.)

[cesare]

Kobayashi Maru
Two things on that: I'm surprised they went the academic dishonesty route on this one, sincerely.

I was a huge TOS fan as a teen and read many, many Trek novels. Iirc, in canon, it's never revealed how Kirk solved the Kobayashi Maru test, and in various novels, several possibilities are offered. I remember at least twice, the explanation was that Kirk redefined the parameters of the test by changing the simulation, ie, he cheated. So there's precedent!

In fact, I seem to remember in one instance, Kirk reprogrammed the simulation so that the captains of the enemy ships recognized his name and backed down because of Captain James T. Kirk's awesome reputation-- now that's some ballsy cheating from a cadet!

[queenbarwench]

Wow! I think you managed to articulate my squee. And I love your 'ripples in a pond' analogy. Lots to think about here... Do you have the links for the discussion on the canon basis for Spock and Uhura? I think I'd like to follow that up.

WRT the fleet being in the Laurentian system, my memory (which may be faulty) tells me they were there in some sort of face-off with the Klingon Fleet. I don't recall the training exercise (see comment above re state of my memory). They sent all the cadets to Vulcan because they thought it was an aid mission for a natural disaster.

re: ST: Reboot thoughts

[ratcreature]

lead to the birth of Kirk in space, which to point out, unless I'm missing some deeply buried canon, should not have even been possible in Prime Universe, as from what I can tell, she was in labour before the Narada showed up and I don't see them zooming back just to make sure Jimmy was born on terra firma.

I've only seen the movie once (when I wanted to watch it again it turned out they weren't showing the English version anymore in any cinema here, and I'm not about to pay to watch a mangled dubbed version -- I'm quite bitter about that, they could have shown it at least for two weeks in the original *grumble*), but anyway I thought the change with the circumstances of Kirk's birth might have been because the space-time disruption showed signs a bit earlier than Nero's actual arrival so the Kelvin was deployed to investigate whatever showed pre-black hole or something, but the branching would be some time before the ship shows, and thus before Winona's labor.

For some reason, the perfectly servicable brig wasn't quite enough. No. Put them in a pod and onto an ice planet.

Considering that Kirk already got onto the ship without authorization, it's not that unreasonable to assume the same friends might continue to help him do subversive things, especially if he's good at defeating security systems what with his prior hacking record. In the brig he'd still have a chance to sabotage and incite further mutiny, which he would try because he's sure he's right and very determined, and that is risky especially if he's more charismatic and maybe better connected among the predominantly human crew than then newly promoted half-Vulcan.

[wyomingnot]

As in, Chekov is seventeen?

Every Enterprise needs a Wesley Crusher at some point...

[treewishes]

Yes, that's it! Except a cute one. :)

[battlestarbean]

It's like they were looking all their lives for the one person they can't break, and lookie here, there you go. Jim Kirk, who doesn't know how to lose, and Spock, who burns down the village and salts the earth when he goes to war.

They are going to have some epic fights, and some epic angry sex.


Truer words were never spoken. I can't freaking wait.

[rheanna]

Ooooh, excellent thoughts.

I love your idea about changes to the timeline rippling *backwards* as well as forwards. I can't quite wrap my brain around how that could be possible, but I'm willing to accept that there's a version of physics where it IS possible, because when I first heard about relativity, I couldn't wrap my head around that either, but it's real. And, within this fictional universe, it's the only way to explain all the changes between the prime and new timelines, because there are a lot of changes (like Scotty) that can't be obviously traced back to the Kelvin's destruction.

I struggled a bit initially with the idea of Spock/Uhura, in an "eh?" kind of way, but it's growing on me a lot -- the stumbling block, for me, was the different characterisation of this Spock. I think you hit the nail on the head by characterising his relationship with his emotional side as 'repression' rather than 'control'.

Also, I very much want an icon of Spock which says, "Live long and prosper, fucker."

[neotoma]

Spock, reprising his role as one who likes victory best when all the enemies are in their component parts,

Now that you've said this, I find I am in complete agreement with you. This Spock is *ruthless*, in ways that Spock Prime isn't and never was.

to Laurentian system for the rest of the fleet (why is the fleet there anyway?)

I've seen the movie twice, and I *think* that the rest of fleet is there to deal with the Klingons, who have to be hopping mad after losing *forty-seven* warbirds to the Naruda, and aren't that particular about who they attack at the best of times.

That's my interpretation of why Starfleet filled seven ships with the cadet classes -- they had only skeleton crews otherwise, and a humanitarian mission (which is what they thought Vulcan was going to *be*) was an appropriate exercise for cadets.

That's also my interpretation of why Kirk et al get the Enterprise in the end. Starfleet has just lost six-sevenths of its current Academy classes (upperclassmen for sure, possibly all four years) and who knows how many officers and enlisted in the Laurentian system as well. They are *strapped* for people, and the situation is volatile.

Uhura keeps Spock grounded in what makes him Vulcan, in a way

Ooo, that's a neat thought indeed.

[ranalore]

Very nifty thoughts. I've been pondering the ripple effect as well, because there's another huge difference between this universe and the Prime Universe that can't be explained going forward from the Kelvin, and that is Spock and Kirk's relative ages. Spock Prime was, if I remember my canon right, somewhere around fifty to seventy years older than Kirk. This movie implies that this Spock is maybe a decade or two older, so either Kirk was born decades early (which, even with the attack throwing Winona into early labor, not so much), or Spock was born decades late (perhaps the admittedly odd casting of Amanda was meant to hint at this idea). I'm inclined to go with Spock born late, because nearly everybody else's ages line up properly (Chekhov really shouldn't even be around, since he was nineteen--per my mother the Chekhov lover--in first season TOS, but I'm good with fudging to get the crew aboard). That means by implication, though, that Amanda was also born later than in Prime, and Sarek married her later, and what happened to cause that, since it was prior to Nero coming through the rift?

Also, somewhat tangential to the points you've raised here, I've been giving thought to what Kirk's scene with Gaila was meant to convey, because I don't think that "I love you" was merely meant to highlight the writers' issues with female stereotypes and characterization. I think the thing is, Kirk's reaction is meant to illustrate a main difference between this version of him and Kirk Prime. Kirk Prime would have smirked and kissed her, or maybe even said a smarmy, "I know," because Kirk Prime would have taken it for granted that a woman might fall in love with him after a one night stand. This Kirk reacts with, "That's weird," because he may believe himself desirable and useful, but I don't think he's particularly convinced he's lovable. Authority and abandonment issues, and Spock has fed into both by the end of the movie. That's, um, gonna leave a mark.

[swordage]

Did you notice, in the whole fighting part, when Kirk is saving Pike and Spock is about to crash his ship into the Narada - Kirk is the one that makes the call to beam them up. Spock didn't. Spock was, in fact, about to die heroically with a possible side of rationalization. What was up with that. Honestly, I cannot figure it out, and your explanation of Spock here is making total sense and having me go OH YEAH THAT MAKES SO MUCH MORE SENSE THAN WHAT I WAS THINKING.

[aurora]

This is a fantastic review!!

(I'm still stuck on 'holy God, how is Spock so hot??')

[akacat]

I think another reason Spock is more in touch with his anger -- and in touch with Uhura at all -- is because he *isn't* repressed. Which is most likely because he has a closer relationship with his father in the new timeline. At least, he didn't seem to have any daddy issues like he had in the original timeline.

I just couldn't figure out why he had a better relationship with his father. But I think it has something to do with what you said -- in this timeline, his father is a traitor to racial purity. It may have made Saren more aware that Spock needed to know that Saren accepted the human part of him.


I just wonder what kind of training exercises really require an entire fleet of ships all at once.

The kind that involve flexing your muscles in front of your enemy, to discourage him from attacking? Or possibly the kind that's so classified, you even tell your cadets that it's a training exercise.

[slybrarian]

One of the interesting things to consider is that, if the future timeline is now changed, all of those other time travel episodes never happened. The Sisko was not there for the Bell Riots. Kirk and company did not end up in the seventies (twice!) nor confront Gary Seven. Those whales don't go missing. The Ent-D crew does not end up in 1800s San Francisco to stop those aliens who were... doing something. Cue ripple effects.

One impression I got was that because of the Kelvin, and possibly other reasons, Starfleet was now expanding faster and with bigger ships than originally. Pike was promising Kirk a command within four years of graduating. I think that Starfleet had more ships than it had crews, which was how the Academy's graduating class ended up in flying off to relieve Vulcan. As for the rest of the fleet - if I'm remembering correctly, it's not that long after the Four Years War between the Federation and the Kligons, and chances are the Klingons are a wee bit pissed right now. That may be why most of the fleet was at the Laurentian system - making sure they don't decide to just kill everyone in sight and let their (dead) gods sort out who was actually responsible.

Regarding Kirk's promotion: pure politics. Kirk, his crew, and the Enterprise are now a symbol, and right now Starfleet Command and the political leaders want them out there looking good. Vulcan has been destroyed along with a dozen or more ships and almost the entire graduating class of Starfleet Academy. I imagine there will be a lot of public relations tours and diplomat-escorting in their future, possibly with close supervision from an admiral (maybe Pike). Starfleet has always been a lot more about personal influence than straight-up by the book bureaucracy when it comes to this sort of thing. Just look at how Kirk and co got punished for all the crazy shenanigans they pulled in ST III (see also: sabotage, grand theft starship, assault on various officers, violation of restricted space, shooting Klingons): Starfleet gave them a brand new ship, because they saved the planet.

I suspect this is because Starfleet grew out of a primarily exploratory service that got the military tacked on, and because of non-human influence. I could see Andorians looking at Kirk's stunts and thinking, "This guy is awesome."

Oh - and you're completely right about how Kirk and Spock are definitely more cutthroat and scorched Earth. Spock Prime also got taunted for not being pure Vulcan, but wow, this one reacts differently. I get the feeling there's going to be a few more literally scorched planet this time around. (See also: Eminar VI, where even Kirk Prime ordered Scotty to glass the place for just threatening the landing party.)

[jmtorres]

should not have even been possible in Prime Universe, as from what I can tell, she was in labour before the Narada showed up and I don't see them zooming back just to make sure Jimmy was born on terra firma.

I was actually wondering if she went into labor prematurely as a response to the stress of OH NO WHAT CRAZY LIGHTNING IN SPACE ANOMALY IS THIS. I doubt they were close enough to the anomaly to get to it in less than a few hours (I'm going to laugh like a crazy person at how briefly they were in warp to get the sixteen light-years from Earth to Vulcan because maximum warp in that era is just not that awesome--hell, maximum warp in TNG era is not that awesome--ergo that was totally movie time compression, yes it was). This seems to me like it might have been enough time for Winona to freak out and go into labor. Does the movie actually confirm new Kirk is born on the same day, or have we merely assumed that?

I dislike the notion of the timeline correcting itself and submit that the mirror universe is not a proper alternate universe. It's more like the regular universe's id. ENT claims divergence as far back as Zefram Cochrane; book canon claims divergence back as far as Rome; and yet up to DS9 time all our players are there. This is absurd. Id universe, I tell you. It explains so much really.

Vulcan xenophobia getting a kick in the ass at the appearance of Romulans thirty years too early and probably only a few years after his birth.

YES TOTALLY. (You've been talking to niqaeli, haven't you.) *G*

I do think Spock had a tantrum and pushed to turn it into an academic issue instead of at best vandalism issue and I think Kirk hit it on the head that Spock was Vulcanly pissed that a.) someone hacked the test at all and b.) that they did it well enough that it wasn't caught until after it was run.

It's also noteworthy that Kirk got punished at all in new universe--I think it was because he was already the Academy bad boy. Back in Prime where Kirk was the golden boy, he received a commendation for original thinking.

(Relatedly, we've been trying to work out whether Spock Prime could have programmed Kirk Prime's Kobayashi Maru. Spock Prime should have been serving on the Enterprise under Pike four years prior--but Kirk Prime, having gone into the Academy at seventeen instead of twenty-two, should have been taking the test five years prior. So it's possible.)

makes the executive decision to pause and consider before going to Vulcan and so misses the slaughter of a lot of ships.

I thought they were behind because Sulu left the parking brake on didn't turn off the external inertial dampeners.

who are hanging out underground for reasons that I'm sure are important,

He said he was going to retrieve them from the katric arc: apparently the council's response to imminent destruction was to go download as many souls as possible. I think this interpretation of that line is borne out by Spock's later note in his log that Vulcan culture is preserved in the elders now aboard the ship (them specifically, as separate from the projected 10K survivors on other ships).

It's interesting that Kirk manages to convey "Mindrape the Romulan" without ever mentioning how the hell he knew about mind melds and not actually ever referring to it.

Heh heh. I'm sure niqaeli has mentioned we posit some touch telepathy in the stranglehold. What's fucking fascinating for me is that Spock is leaping along Kirk's logic train before that--he understands that the pissing match is about proving he's emotionally compromised before he touches Kirk.

RE: Spock and Uhura, I'm also betting that in the new more xenophobic Vulcan, he didn't get bonded to T'Pring, so he would feel like less of an asshole about hooking up in Starfleet.

Re: Chekov, his age is off by four years. But he's younger than Kirk, which means that that's a totally legit change in the timeline--for some reason, his parents had a kid four years earlier, named their son Pavel as they had always planned, and this Chekov is not, actually, genetically indentical to Chekov Prime.

"retrieve them from the katric arc"

[kathmandu]

"apparently the council's response to imminent destruction was to go download as many souls as possible."

Ohhhhhhh, now I get it. Not arc with a c. Katric Ark.

[ranlynn]

I'm ridiculously in love with Spock. I mean, Kirk owned me from the start, but in TOS, Spock was awesome but he did not really--do it for me. Who knows why. Then this Spock is--wow. Just. I did not see that coming. Dear God.

Oh yeah! This Spock makes me believe in a Vulcan race that was once so violently emotional (and in someways still) they almost destroyed themselves.

[sethra2000]

Just a correction here but Winona Rider was Amanda, Spock's mum, not Kirk's. As per IMDB.com

[sethra2000]

Just a correction here but Winona Rider was Amanda, Spock's mum, not Kirk's. As per IMDB.com


Ok, now I can hit myself over the head with the stupid stick... My bad I didn't know that Kirk's Mum's name was Winona *facepalm* talk about embarressing.

[feanna]

I read the post and comments here and on lj and mostly I just want to say word!

Kirk and Spock being totally badass and scaring even the Federation while Pike laughs is such an awesome idea!

Personally I actually buy into the idea of Kirk being made captain more and more the more I think about it. There were some really good arguements for it in the comments too.

Spock Prime totally ships K/S! I think we can't forget that he actually tells us that he's emotially compromised too. He's just lost his eintire UNIVERSE and seen his world destroyed in this new one and he blames himself for this at least at some level.
Then he gets JIM KIRK (scrambling into the cave pursued by a monster, ha) and his first question is: How did you find me? Because that's what they do. And in the face of all those massive losses he gets back this person that meant the world to him that he thought lost long before.
He then sends Kirk back to te Enterprise to new-him. He completely ignores that this Kirk is younger and different that new-him is going to be different. His belief in their friendship and in Jim Kirk is absolute.
Also the mind meld, because he just drops all his emotions and everything onto this person who's never met him before.
But Kirk takes to him too. That's the reverse, he trust this Spock, at that moment in time more than new-Spock.

I actually loved the scene where the two Spocks meet and Prime admits that he practically lied to Kirk to get him to not say anything. I just though it really funny and a nice reference to all those timetravel plots where meeting yourself would have horrible consequenses.
The confirmation that this is a new universe and that we're sticking with it and that Spock Prime although he takes an interest in recreating things he's emotially invested in is willing to use his knowlege (giving Scotty that beaming technolgy, there's no taking that back) also opens up so many possibilities. That whale-detection thing from the movie might still be out there for example, he could tell and, ok, I have no idea and this is a bad example, but you get my drift.

I also agree with Spock/Kirk totally in synch looking at Nero and then Spock turning to talk to Kirk and... TOTALLY HOT!

(Also hot: Those noises Kirk makes after he's finished coughing after Spock choked him. I have absolotuly no asphixiation kink, but if I blend out the context it's pure porn.)

I also love your explanation of Spocks different childhood.

I thought it really neat how they showed Kirk's differences that came out of his different upbringing.
I love the conversations between his parents more every time I see them. How George tells Winona: "I'm not gonna be there." Not I'm not going to make it to the shuttle, but that and also I now we had this whole life planned, but I'm not gonna be there. I also get the idea that Winona wasn't wxactly a bad mother, but that she really just coudn't do it without George. Maybe she didn't get over his death or maybe, while she cared about the baby she just wasn't the mothering type.

Somebody also wrote an absolutely heartbraking story where Kirk was in fact sexually abused by his stepfather, which isn't the vibe I get from the movie (or the parts od the audio-book I've listened to) because while I get the crappy stepfather I wouldn't go that far. But the story is a great exploration, in a way where exaggerating something uncovers issues and consequenses. (And it's got some cool moments. I'll give you the link if you want it, but I didn't want to presume, because not everybody reads those stories. It's absolutely non-explicit, but still.

I have so many more thoughts on this movie! But I think I'll stop now. Thanks again for posting this.

[jadey]

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