Just went to see this again yesterday with the boys, since it sometimes takes me a couple of viewings to get a better idea of a movie like this where I have some baggage regarding the book/prior movies, etc. The bottom line for me is that it's a great movie as a movie (regardless of whether you know anything about Trek), an extraordinarily good reboot of the franchise, and it promises even better follow-ons. There are a lot of comparisons to Batman Begins, and I think they are good ones, because this movie was saddling with the origin story of multiple characters, and it's not going to be till the sequel that you seem the franchise really blossom.
The beginning section with Kirk's father George Kirk on the USS Kelvin got to me as it did a lot of other people (mostly dads, to be honest). Never cried in a Trek movie before. Well, aside from the drydock scene in Star Trek: TMP. Well, and when the Enterprise was destroyed in Star Trek III. But that was it. Really. But I challenge any father to sit through that part of the movie and not be blubbering by the time the opening credits get there. You just don't expect a Star Trek movie to punch you in the gut emotionally. But this one does, and right at the outset. (The performances of George Kirk and the Kelvin's captain - who is a badass, by the way, were exceptional).
In no particular order, here are some comments I had. I didn't like the tan shipboard tunics - while I really appreciate the homage to the original uniforms, it just looked like casual Friday on the bridge - that fabric just looks sloppy. (The red and blue did a lot better). A minor point, but it nagged at me. The new uniforms (Pike's gray, cadet) I thought were fine - I was just expecting some sort of jacket on board over the black shirts, and you get this wrinkly pajama thing. The problem is really the color - you'll notice they darkened the others from light blue to royal blue and red to maroon, and when darker, they work okay. The originals looked good because they were velour, which is a heavy fabric that doesn't show wrinkling as the actor moves.
I initially didn't like Leonard Nimoy's performance - for some reason I found the whole Spock Prime section jarring, but it was way better the second time. To be fair I was already really annoyed at how Kirk was escaping being eaten by not one but two creatures by the skin of his teeth on an ice planet, only to run into an ice cave and be saved by the one other person within miles (and one of only two on the whole planet, as far as I know. I think plausibility would have been far better served if he had ben saved because someone saw the situation he was in and intervened, not because he happened to run into them).
On the ship design, I think the interior sets are way too bright and overall I just didn't like them (they may be better, but I'm way too used to the TOS sets, despite their flaws, to be objective). I can live with the exterior, though - it looks a lot better in the movie than in stills, and it'll grow on me. I read that they were consciously trying to make it look more like a hot rod, and I think they did. My boys are playing interchangeably with the TOS, TWOK and STXI Enterprise toys, and each has its good points. But I just this minute (mediating a fight between the twins over the ST toys) looked at the Enterprise toy and realized for the first time that the forward-slung secondary hull - which until now I hated - really looks cool, as it echoes the shape of the nacelles, and gives the ship a comet-shaped look from any angle. Pulling the nacelles in was also a nice touch, I now have to admit. I can already tell that for all its awkwardness from certain angles (something no Enterprise can avoid) I think this will become "the" Enterprise now. On balance, it may really be the best.
The way the characters fall together was really a bit much to swallow, I agree, but that's the problem with a movie that has to handle the origin story of half a dozen people. Chekov's age (he's now 17) actually didn't bother me - had a wunderkind like he been around, it doesn't surprise me that he might be in place at that age. Look at Doogie Howser. What did bother me was the way there were no ranks - no hierarchy on this sparkling new starship. There was a captain, a commander who was first officer - and apparently no one else - and Pike appoints a suspended cadet as first officer, despite a shipload of lieutenants? It makes sense to me that he gives Kirk a battlefield commission at that point as a lieutenant, and he clearly seems to see Kirk's talent, but there have to be a whole herd of not just lieutenants but lt. commanders and commanders on the ship, and we never see them.
But I did think of a caveat last night. The Enterprise was commissioned in a hurry for this trip, and it is at least conceivable that it might have a less established hierarchy, or even a dearth of commanders in the first place, which is why an instructor like Spock gets pulled aboard. (Incidentally, I don't buy that a major warship like this gets commissioned in a hurry with a new crew, but that's a ST evergreen, so I probably shouldn't object too much). But I think the answer is somewhere else, and is related to why I think is is very logical that after this thing happens, they hand Kirk the Enterprise on a platter (which a lot of Trek veterans find hard to swallow).
In the movie Pike is on a sort of crusade to try to get people like Kirk into Starfleet - people with some daring and willingness to take risks, to "leap before looking". That's actually about as canon as canon gets because if you read Kirk's preface to Star Trek: TMP (the book) (yes, I did research for this blog post) he jokes about how his Starfleet class was the first that had lower standards because the existing braniacs they were turning out were turning out to be unsuited for space exploration. The destruction of the Kelvin 12 years prior is at this stage the only change in the Prime universe, so I don't see any reason to not assume this is still the situation here. Pike says he read everything on Kirk, and he knows that this is the guy he wants as a future starship captain. Assume Kirk has been hanging out in bars for a couple or three years since he should have left for college - that makes him one or two years out of college in age when the call-up comes - say 24 or 25. Nineteenth century frigate captains like Nelson and Cochrane (who were the models for Forester's Hornblower who, in turn was the model for Roddenberry's starship captain) were not much older than this when they had their first commands (maybe younger , and the assumption here (magnificently borne out by Chris Pine's performance, I have to say) is that some people are suited for that role, and age and experience may not be the best guides.
While I agree that it is unrealistic to have Starfleet empty its classrooms to populate combat units, there are a couple of caveats worth noting that make me think this isn't so crazy a plot device after all. It is perhaps worth noting that the military did something similar in WW II - training and military academy courses were cut short and students were turned out on an accelerated schedule. (In WW I mobilization like this happened all across Europe, with units calling up civilians with military experience in a well-planned mobilization that took only days to begin and weeks to complete). What I really think happened here was that when the call-in came somebody made the decision to treat this emergency as a giant training opportunity and sent the entire Academy out to essentially intern on Starfleet vessels in a combat mission to get experience. Maybe they helped get ships up to full strength (possibly - neither the movie nor the book is real clear on that). When I was in graduate school we were required to go out and do a internship with a public sector entity for three months as a condition on graduation, so it's possible that given the emergency Starfleet just decided that whatever intern or in the field training program it whad would be supplemented by this. If this really was the Apocalypse, this is what you'd do. And if it isn't, it's an invaluable exercise in training and mobilization. Send everybody out on a real crisis to observe and help out if they can and the survivors come back with invaluable experience - what is what according to the book ended up happening. All the cadets just got commissioned several weeks (or months) early.
Which brings me to Kirk retaining the Enterprise, which makes complete sense to me, and here's why. Pike has been on a crusade to get captains like Kirk, and the only thing we know about the aftermath of the Nero incident is that Pike is now an admiral, and the only thing he did during the entire incident was to hand everything to Kirk. Despite knowing Kirk was suspended, he (1) listened to and followed Kirk's warning about what was happening (2) made Kirk first officer (3) gave Kirk the assignment of taking out the drill, and (4) left him in command of the Enterprise after Kirk rescued him. The result was that Kirk saved the Federation, completely vindicating Pike's belief, despite his utter lack of experience. Now, I assume that there would have been an attempt to put Kirk into a different job - maybe first officer on another ship - based on concerns about age and experience - but I think we all know Pine's Kirk well enough to know what he would have said, knowing full well that politically there was no way in hell Starfleet could say no to him. He would have said he wanted to keep the Enterprise, and the crew he had, and given what he had accomplished, I don't think he could have been refused. Take into account also the brilliant political stroke of offering the Narada assistance right after it had tried to kill him fourteen different ways. That displayed a a gift for logic that demonstrably out-Vulcan'ed the Vulcans and showed he had the judgment that the job required - in the heat of the moment he could still see the geopolitical (galactipolitical?) implications of what he was doing, and make a record that the politicians back home could work with. That one action could well have resulted in a order from on high that this guy gets whatever he asks for. The more I think about it, that exchange was the high point of the movie for me - it was the best character moment for Kirk because it showed him working on multiple levels, and the best relationship moment for Kirk and Spock - my boys keep repeating it around the house because they thought it was so funny.
Now he should have followed orders and taken another job - and I think Shatner's Kirk would have - but Pine's wouldn't. He knows now that what Pike said three years ago was right - this is what he was made for, (and this is the job Spock said his father saw him get in the Prime universe). So it makes complete sense to me that at the end they let him have the Enterprise as his first command, even though he's about four years younger than he was in the Prime universe when he got his first command, and maybe eight from when he got the Enterprise. (Probably two thirds of Starfleet hopes he falls flat on his face, and will have it out for him, like Finney in "Court Martial" but that's for a sequel).
Here's what I though about the characters. One overall comment. In the original, I never considered anyone except Spock a prodigy, and Kirk as an example of what FDR was once described as - a second rate intellect but a first-rate temperament. In this movie, Kirk is genius-level as well. In the original series, as well as here this is a crew of highly competent but fairly ordinary humans with this wunderkind Vulcan, and I think this is different in this way. Kirk's intellectual ability isn't limited to a talent in making decisions - he also has the intellectual chops to evaluate the information directly.
Kirk: magnificent. Pine's performance was good until Kirk took command and spectacular after that, showing the character's talent for command. With respect to his missing experiences (Kodos, Farragut) I guess we'll just have to speculate how they compare to getting your ass kicked in Iowa bar fights (and I doubt the one on screen was the first, given how cocky he was!) But I really enjoyed watching him play the character.
Spock: very good. No complaints. He was pretty emotionally constipated most of the movie (which was his job), but after he realized that Kirk really was the counterpart he needed, he relaxed visibly (of course it's possible there may have been something inducing that in the elevator scene that got cut, hmmm?) The interplay towards the end was as good as I have ever seen it between these two, and I can't wait to see more. He has just the right touch of dry wit that Spock needs.
Pike: Great. Holds the whole movie together. Are you going to tell this guy he doesn't know what he's doing? I didn't think so.
McCoy: very good. I look forward to seeing the relationship with Kirk, as I can see him leaning on McCoy a lot now that I know their background together.
Sulu: good. One of my favorite parts was where he said "I need five seconds of one quarter impulse power - I'll do the rest with thrusters" which got across in a way that 40 years of TV and movies never did that this guy is a wizard at ship handling. I also enjoyed seeing him kick some Romulan ass, and get pissed off at things. Gave him some personality.
Uhura: very good. Again, the writers persuaded me not just that she has a talent for communications, but what that is and why it's crucial. Previously it was never clear what was so special about what she was doing. Now I think she's a critical part of the team - she's the ears. In addition to being obviously command-level talent when the need arises.
Jar Jar, uh, Scotty: good but different. This is a completely different character, and he's pretty obviously going to be the comic relief. The old Scotty was career military, and this guy is a slacker genius. I think of Doohan as this guy's dad. Presents lots of opportunities, but I prophesy that sooner or later (and I'd say before the next movie is halfway over) he's have to sub in as captain when Kirk and Spock run off, and he'll get serious and do a letter-perfect Doohan Scotty telling somebody off. (Also, is there really that much difference between this guy and Scotty when he's hit the Scotch in the drunk scenes from TOS?)
Chekov: again, totally different character. The originalwas comic relief and generally a doofus. This one is 17 years old, a whiz at some things, and chief tactical officer (as an ensign?) It'll be interesting to see what they do with him.
But the really important thing to me is that although it took 25 years, the destruction of the "original" Enterprise in ST III has now been canonically reversed. No more NCC-1701-A, and Star Trek V: The Final Frontier now actually never happened. How cool is that? This is better than bringing Spock back in III.
Bottom line for me is that this movie set the stage for a really extraordinary second act in the next movie. I can't wait.