...and it had all the stuff we've come to expect. The action scenes that are setups for the video games and the props that are the setups for the toy lines and the action figures. Robot parts scattered across the bleak desert landscape. Shootouts at point blank range with blasters in crowded hallways. Sets with a larger than life aspect to them as big as the epic figures that plod thru them. Endless techno-tubes that form a dizzying void that you know sooner or later somebody is going to fall into. Alien races intertwined in deadly political intrigue as they struggle for control of an Empire. Evil villians with the flesh falling off of them in command of bulky, plodding spaceships that can destroy entire planets, crewed by anonymous minions that are oh so easily fooled by any blabbering robot that comes thru the door. Concerns of saving one's own soul or saving the entire galaxy, in the same scene no less. Jumping into the garbage pit, er, Jeffries Tube. Han, er, Riker proving his manhood. Luke, er, Troi using the Force to hit the target.... Hey, wait a minute...this was supposed to be a Star Trek movie, right? At one point Shin-Zen or whatever his name was says something about the echo replacing the voice or something like that. Pay attention, that's the key point of this movie. It's an echo of what a Star Trek movie should be, which should basically be about a team of heroic astronauts so close they're like family having some kind of adventure in outer space aboard a ship called Enterprise that is their home. This movie is some kind of mess about everybody going off in their own direction intruding on somebody else's adventure on his world and his ship. The Enterprise is reduced to a place that nobody wants to be. You take control of the bridge so I can go off and do my thing...no, YOU take control of the bridge so I can go off and do MY thing...NO, YOU take control of the...thank GOD they cut Wil Wheaton's part to a non-speaking background presence or Wesley would have wound up the ranking officer on the bridge by the time it was over with! The budget went into loving CGI rendering of every tiny piece of metallic debris that gets sheared off and sent flying away in glorious spinning detail. It sure didn't go into any light bulbs for the sets, you'd think even the Enterprise was Mammoth Cave. The Star Wars vs. Star Trek debate is now over in my mind and Star Trek just won. Too bad it took replacing the last shot for a decent Star Trek movie with a Star Wars wanna-be to make the point.

But I liked insurrection as well. So if you hated that film, there's your measurement for whether or not to take my opinion.

Overall, a good Trek. I'd like to see more, but maybe use some of the DS9 crew. I'd like to see some of the 'New DS9' novels that are out post Sisko be made into a movie, I've found those very good and interesting. Who knows.

For me the part that was a bit over the top was the hunt for beta-pieces at the beginning of the movie. I kept thinking "pre-warp civilization, prime directive, KILL EM ALL WITH PHASERS?!" The teststerone-charged away team did all this for a few anomalous signatures on a sensor scan.

At first, I thought that it was the Remans attacking... that they hoped to capture Picard there, but I guess that doesn't really make sense. That scene felt forced, like an excuse to show the dune buggy flying into the ship (which was pretty cool).

Anyway, I liked the movie as a whole, except the ending, which was 10 minutes longer than it needed to be. Also, I seem to remember that the song that Data was whistling in "Encounter at Farpoint" was "Pop Goes the Weasel". Do these two song have the same tune and I missed it, or am I remember incorrectly. I was just confused at the end.

The common complain that I *agree* with was that this seemed to be like several shows strung together and intermixed. But they were good shows... Troi mind rape, the various Data-bot finds, Romulan treachery and counter-treacher. It's clear the writer had a good sense of the characters and they did things we've been waiting 16 years to for them to do.

Of course, they did miss out on a few opportunities. Gates McFadden was criminally underused, per usual. Riker and Troi actually got some real meat to their parts this time. There is a scene with Worf at the wedding that could have been so much more (remember, he was in LOVE with this woman, and has quite recently lost the other love of his life.) Instead, they played it for drunk laughs.

Still, Tom Hardy and Patrick Stewart were nothing short of incredible in this film, throughout the entire thing. In the end, I would rank this showing less than 8, but only barely. It still very much lived up to the even-numbered hype.

Okay, and did anyone else crack-up when Picard said "On screen" towards the end? It was a nice break in the dramatic tension, but very few people in my audience laughed at it.

As for Data flying out of the ship, one quick-minded person shouted "It's a bird, It's a plane" when he did that. It was probably the funniest part of the whole movie.

I saw it twice (that's what happens when you have friends 30 miles apart who won't cross town to see a movie). The second time was on the techie/Intel side of Portland, and it really showed, especially in the first part where there were a lot of in jokes --- the audience there was drowning out parts of the dialogue, and I think they missed Worf's "Irving Berlin" complaint ;-) My favorite line was Worf's lament that "...should be illegal", though Picard's "on screen" was good later too.

The show did manage to surprise me in one major way: I'd seen the extended preview with the briefing room scene between Shinzon and Picard. Combining that with the critics panning it in the way they did had me certain Picard was going to convince Shinzon to leave the Dark Side and turn good.

On of the two lowest points for me was Deanna searching for the bad guy: what, is she telepathically linked to the Enterprise as well as people? How does holding Worf's hand on the control help identify where in space what she's feeling is located?

The other was Data's superman leap; not so much for the leap itself --- it's in character for him to be able to set his aim to get to the other ship, but how very convenient that he's able to aim directly for a handy access panel practically designed to allow an enemy infiltration on a ship no one's ever seen before, even the Romulans.

Overall, however, I have to agree that it was a good, albeit not great, movie, and the special effects are some of the best in the Star Trek series. Immediately in the first shot of the Enterprise, you can see major improvement, and the end battle... Well, that just has to be seen...

. For such an impressively large, technically advanced, and equipped ship the adversary's sure had little crew to defend themselves against the one man boarding parties. Must follow that XWing Fighter thought process.
. For such an great warrior race they sure couldn't hit their targets, our heroes, or find cover. Reminded me of Star Wars storm troopers.
. The bad guy blows out the view screen on the bridge which is really just a window into space?
. Can a telepath really be used to target a ship moving around in the huge void of space?
. Having next to no shields, an emergency shield active the bridge which is the only thing between you and space, and you decide to ram the ship in front of you while remaining on that selfsame bridge?
. Because of one particular hit to the vessel, all 26 disrupter banks cant fire?

I didn't stay until the last credits but I seemed to recognize the Female Romulan Commander as Dina Meyer. If this a fact all you Dina Meyer fans? Gosh, she looked good in that makeup!

Yeah, that's her.