I really like what you have to say about story and plot … which then causes me to think a bit about Lost. Gods … how do you even explain that.

I tried the other day, to the security guard who recently caught me watching the show in the apartment gym. (I have no cable.)

And … I strongly encouraged him to rent season 1.

To Mr. Will: Life is full of weak dialog. Er, dialogue(?). Personally, with all the potential of painful scientific cabbage head crap filling the movie, Star Trek was purty darn snappy. Witty, I dare say! And funny.

And I think the script problem you are referring to is seen in some of the lines on Delta Vega.

(Spoiler Alert, maybe, if that’s possible in this movie. Was it a surprising twist?)

A trip through a singularity can’t be both accidental and cheating.

Also, fwiw, the worst plot problem could just be chalked up to: an angry and stupid mining shift-leader failing to see the big picture upside of exactly *when* he is.

You should enjoy debate less, and like yourself more. There. I’ve given you homework. Go do it.

But I like a good egg sandwich.

Shrug. I liked the dialogue. That’s about as much as I can muster after today’s write-a-palooza.

For example, in the bar-brawl scene (our favorite!), Kirk is given a rote exchange in a pre-fab encounter with cadet thugs and townies — the set up of “Five of us” and wit of “Get some more guys” is Hercules: The Legendary Journeys-worthy stuff — but we do not care because Abrams and the cast knows better than to ask that exchange to carry any real weight. It gets that shit over and done ASAP so that we can get to Pike’s little speech, which I think is actually pretty good (though saying the Federation is an armada is like saying the UN is a navy).

I’m actually eager to see the movie again, in part to compare dialog against performance. I know this script was interrupted and/or rushed by the strike (I can’t find a link to cite now), but beyond that I can only speculate at where the seams in the drafts are.

What I think makes the movie work is not the story (what is the story of Star Trek, actually?), it’s simply that every scene is energetic, with pretty clear stakes. Every scene reveals something. The camera won’t sit still, so we always feel like we’re headed somewhere. Something is always just about to happen, even if it gets interrupted, from sex with a green girl to the Enterprise leaving without Kirk. A lot of stuff happens in this movie.

– c.