When I saw this movie during opening weekend, I when with Mike and Jon, two friends from elementary school. Mike and I were Star Trek fans. Jon wasn’t anti-Trek, but didn’t really watch the show. After it ended, I excitedly said “Let’s stay and watch it again!”
Mike said “Yeah!”
Jon said “What? Why? No!”
Can you believe he was bored by the movie? The philistine!
When I watched again today I thought “Man, how could he not be bored by this?” It’s a fan service movie. There are ten minutes of gliding around the Enterprise so you can see the new design! No dialogue, no action, no plot development- just Kirk and Scotty slowly flying around the ship in a pod that looks like the eraser end of a pencil. Characters show up like you should already know them. And then: more slow flying, looking at stuff!
There’s a lot I enjoy in this. It gives us the theme, the new look (and accidentally the language) of Klingons, and some fun ship designs. It also easily could have been a single episode of a Trek show.
One more thing. This is the original poster for the movie:
Q: How is this poster like a chicken nugget?
A: It has no Bones!
DeForest Kelley must have been thrilled to be replaced by a newcomer.