Okay, before I start on this, please understand this is not meant hostile, if it's taken such, contact me and i'll reword whatever you want but as opinions are being thrown around and we're fighting again, I want to use the lack of credibility I have to.. Something. Pointless perhaps, but maybe there'll be something in here that may help people find a means to balance everything out, accept that we're not on the same path that shredded Trek to the point that there's not even talk of a new series even after the last one was canned.
Gonna start from here:
iBridge?
It's white, it's sleek, it's practical. Are you basing this off of what you've seen in iPod commercials? Numerous movies before XI have used this pristine look (The Matrix for one, remember Zion's Control Tower? Yeah.). No offense, but... I just don't see the iPod reference.
Star Wars weapons/Science-fact?
I'm sorry, I thought I was watching a fictuous movie, not Apollo 13. Star Trek isn't real, and we are nowhere near anything on such a scale. But could you possibly please elaborate on why you felt they were cartoony/kiddy? From what I gathered we had Point Defense bursts, phasers, torpedoes, burst phasers and a giant mining laser, seems pretty uniform to various shiptypes in Trek. I'm not quite sure what you mean on this topic though.
Direction
Spock felt he was a failure because he couldn't accomplish his mission. The Romulans aboard the Narada felt the same (Hell, why else would you chase one guy around? For laughs? Well... Maybe...) There is a fine difference between being a failure and feeling like one. This portion (for me at least) gave a little extra depth to show that even Spock can make a mistake (And illustrating to new Trekkies this too), and that not everything goes according to plan, allowing one man to save the entire galaxy, pointy ears or not.
The space battle cameras? You've gotta be kidding me man. If you have the camera like they did in TNG, the "action" doesn't feel very active at all. There were plenty of chances to get a good look at the ship (And there's plenty more on the website, the interactive tour and so on), but the fact is, say you're trying to record a fight or a drag race or something, you're not going to have a perfectly centered object at all times, and really, giving us shots of the ships upside down, or on angles and the like (to me, again) made it feel more spacey, and made the ships actually feel huge. For that brief viewing of the movie, it made me feel like I was watching something with more than a forward/backward direction.
Shatner
Easy one. "He's dead, Jim." Remember Generations? A movie containing a certain iconic figure, the Captain a lot of Trek fans grew up watching and a certain Lost Boys actor? Kirk is long gone, whether we like it or not. If Kirk had been in the movie this thread would be up in flames over how JJ destroyed established canon by bringing him back.
No mention of TNG
What purpose would it serve Young Kirk and the others for Spock to ramble on about how he met someone so distant from the actual voyages of the USS Enterprise? Spock did the logical thing, told Kirk what he needed to. The movie wasn't about TNG, it was about a problem occuring in that timeline that wound up altering the past dramatically (Hell, we have two Spocks now) because some jerky Romulan who cut his ear off and our dear friend Spock wound up in a time that should've been familiar to the latter.
As for what you like, I can't argue, except that that is the Connie class.
Sorry mate, but I just had to express on my end, and I'm sure you'll take it as maturely as I have, and I am genuinely curious as to how you feel they are cartoony weapons, because they seemed rather Trek to me...
Limey, you mentioned the whole Red Matter thing? Antimatter isn't very sciency sounding either if you boil it down to that. Just because it's deadly doesn't mean it needs a complicated name.. (Nuclear Warhead).
The technology, yes, was rather different, but then we have no idea what exactly happens in those 25 years, it could be that one guy in R&D thought "Hey, breaking it down into several portions allows for much easier maintenance, if one is faulty or going to explode we can just eject it and throw in a new one, or travel back to a starbase running on the remaining cells." If you think about it, as it's been stated before, it's far more logical than one gigantic tube with no replacement.
The car stunt is simple again, it's science fiction, I don't understand why people complain about parts like this when we know the main character won't die. We were given snippets of Kirks life as a troublesome child, something we've not seen before, which also gave JJ the ability to add in a little something for people who crave action scenes and the like. It doesn't have to be 100% realistic, otherwise it wouldn't be scifi.
There's a load of conjecture about the size of Engineering being thrown back and forth, and really all I can say on the matter is that I noticed the ships were bigger in general. If you compare the size of the shuttle to in previous shows, and actually have a look into the hangar bay, you can see that the whole ship is far, far bigger. They don't call it the Engineering section because it sounds cool, why wouldn't main engineering be larger anyway? And why would you make it look as sleek and sexy as the rest of the ship when the only people who will see it are those who are authorized? Would you really want your crew who are meant to be keeping the ship running struck in awe of the curves around the catwalk or the fancy lighting? Felt pretty practical to me.
By technology Limey I assume you mean the engineering section and the personal phasers? I can't quite argue there but then, JJ didn't write Enterprise.
Really, the only thing that's been changed in the established canon is that Spock is now no longer there, and Romulus is gone. The entire movie was establishing (As newman and the movie itself said) a forked timeline, Vulcan still exists in the timeline we're familiar with, Shatner was still Kirk in the timeline we're familiar with. Everything but Spock and Romulus has changed. Heck, maybe this would be a good point to pick up on for the Prime timeline. A broken empire with no home. We have the possibility for new blood, a second timeline of Trek and even possibly an extension of Roddenberry's universe. Gentlemen, Trek is still alive and with great potential, JJ just helped out.
While I never said the movie was without flaws, I can't say I myself saw the shakey camera unless we're talking about things blazing past it or when it seemed like it should be there (I for one couldn't see the "dust" on the lens or the shakiness after the brawl, or if I did see the dust would've passed it off as being something wrong with the cinema), but what is being asked for seems a little unreasonable... We can't have Roddenberry to talk to JJ and say "Well maybe this could be changed a little", which is unfortunate, but at the same time is a good thing, as we have a chance to see someone elses vision of Trek, with what seems to be the same result as the shows father (Reaching out to everyone, or at least a majority from all walks of life, teaching a moral story on terms the new generation can better understand than the jargon we all grew up understanding, or learning to at least. ;) )
"What is, is." I quite like that, and agree whole heartedly. It's fine if you didn't like the movie, a little depressing but it's fine, if it were possible to cater to everyone then the world would be a very lopsided place. But surely we can all stand here and say "Trek isn't dead", right? An imaginary world so many of us love or aspire to see, still kicking even after this long... It's an amazing accomplishment either way.
