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I saw the movie twice this weekend, which is saying something. The last movie that I paid theater prices for twice was the first Narnia movie, and that was only at the insistence of my wife and kids. I grew up watching re-runs of the original Star Trek series and I remember going over to my friend's house to watch the premier of TNG. I watched much of DS9, but could never really get into Voyager or Enterprise. So there is my fandom background.

Now for the movie (I will not shy away from spoilers as Ric has given permission):
Karl Urban was absolutely brilliant as McCoy. I was thrilled to hear him utter things such as "I'm a doctor, dammit, not a physicist!" and "Are you out of your Vulcan mind?" As was noted previously, Urban IS Bones. It was also nice to have Leonard Nimoy in the film, and I actually got goose bumps when he wished for the young Kirk to "live long and prosper." It's likely that this will be the final time that Nimoy utters that line as Spock. Zachary Quinto did an excellent job as Spock, and Chris Pine made a fine Kirk. I was especially impressed with the scene at the end when Kirk walks onto the bridge, looks around, and says, "Bones" as he walks to his chair. At that moment I could have been watching the final scene of an original series episode.

All of the performances were impressive, and I could easily believe that these people are the same people that were in the original series. There was something that nagged at me about Kirk, though, and it wasn't until the second viewing that I figured it out: his voice sounds like Kirk Cameron!

As to the reboot issue, I can understand how some people feel like this invalidates the whole rest of Star Trek. After all, we have altered the sequence of events and entered into an alternate timeline, so now none of those other stories have necessarily happened. All during the movie, I kept thinking that something would happen to restore the original timeline, and sort of reset everything. I am actually glad that that didn't happen. I think that one weakness of the Star Trek series overall (specifically TOS and TNG) is that the situation was always reset at the end of every episode, and you could watch episodes in almost any order without creating continuity issues. There were very rarely long-term consequences for anything. Here, we have serious long-term consequences. I think that rather than looking at this story as invalidating the entire existing canon, a fan can enjoy it as another reality to be explored as existing simultaneously with the original story. I mean, if there can be a reality out there in which Spock is so savage that he grows a goatee, then there is definitely room for this one alongside it. I also think that it's nice that we can now view the original Star Trek story as complete.

I do have a couple of issues with the movie. The biggest is that I can't make the connection between Nero killing Kirk's dad (that is the event that altered the timeline, correct?) and Spock developing a romance with Uhura. Seems like quite a leap. Also, when Spock conjectures that the the existence of the technology to create a black hole infers that the technology for time travel is also plausible, the message that we are now in an alternate reality is rather heavy-handed. That scene felt like the writer had stepped onto the screen to explain things to the audience rather than a legitimate in-story dialog. And the corvette scene? That could have been cut without altering the story one whit. Of course, now Jimmy Bennett can tell his friends that he has played James Kirk in a movie.

The only Star Trek / Star Wars comparison that I will make is that in Star Wars, sound travels through space.

And as was pointed out in the review at http://www.ericdsnider.com/movies/star-trek/ , we prefer to be called "Trekkie-Americans."

OK, here is my attempt at rebuttal to your complaints, toolmanohmi:

1) A 250-ish-year-old corvette that still runs? Why not? Aren't there some 100-year-old cars still around that still run? I'd say that the only reason we don't have 250-year-old cars now that still run is that they had not been invented that long ago. Also, people build replicas of classic cars from kits (my last manager at work built and drove a Shelby Cobra). Who's to say that the Corvette in question was more than 20 years old? Or one? As for the gasoline, why could the car not have been retrofitted with a modern whatever-they-use-now? People currently retrofit classic cars with amenities like air conditioning and FM radio.

2) A quarry/gorge that deep in Iowa? Well, if it were discovered that there was a large deposit of di-lithium a mere mile or so below the surface of Nowhere, IA, would it not be mined extensively to provide fuel to a fleet of starships?

3) 200+ year old rock music being actively played? Come on, now. Next you'll be complaining that they hired actors who will be long dead of old age by the time this story takes place. I mean, really, what were they supposed to do? Play music that will be popular with teenagers in 200 years?

4) a 17-year-old at the helm of a ship? Well, I have never been in the Navy, but keep in mind that most of the enlisted men start out at a mere 18 years old, and those who do not stay with it as a career are usually out by the time they are 22. This means that a significant portion of the force is quite young. Also remember that despite his age, Chekov had GRADUATED from the Academy. If things don't change significantly between now and then, most people would not have even entered the academy before turning 18. If he can graduate from the academy by 17 (presumably with some flight training), then why not helm a ship at 17? And yes, it is realistic that someone could graduate that young. I had a college professor who obtained a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering by the time he was 18. Really.

5) the mining ship's weapons - well, keep in mind that the Romulans are more inherently violent than anything you are likely to see on the Great Lakes. Also, a boat built for the Great Lakes is different form a boat built for ocean voyages. Also, it is reasonable to assume that these miners would be venturing into unknown space to look for new sources of minerals. No prospector in the Old West would last long if he did not carry with him the most advanced weapon (handgun) that could be reasonably obtained. To make your 2009/1909 comparison valid, let's pretend that there are parts of the world that are still completely unknown and unexplored. Would even a mining vessel enter those unknown waters without a few missiles of some sort? Perhaps even a couple of nuclear-tipped weapons if they could get their hands on them? And would such weaponry obliterate anything the 1909 US Navy had? Yes. Yes it would.

6) The joking reference to Archer's dog required no historical archiving of the dog's name. If you were paying attention, you would have noticed that Scotty knew Archer PERSONALLY and kidnapped his dog to prove that he was right and Archer was wrong about what could and could not be done with transporters.

Now I am not saying that my rebuttals are iron-clad or anything, but I think they at least show reasonable plausibility for these items, removing them from the realm of "incredibly stupid."

Yes, I'm using made-up "facts," except for the items for which I am using plausible speculation. I think the critical thing is who made up these "facts." I did not make up the inherent violence/hostility of the Romulans - blame that one on Gene Roddenberry. I also did not make up dilithium; I only speculated as to where it might be obtained. Of course, this is only one of several possible reasons for the emergence of a cavern in the middle of Iowa. We could have tested powerful new weapons there. We could have been attacked by aliens with weapons that would waste entire geographical areas. There could have been a major earthquake (there are fault lines in EVERY state). I'm just saying that it's not entirely ridiculous (or "incredibly stupid") to suggest the possibility of such a chasm existing in Iowa in 200 years.

I can't see how any of my other arguments rely on made-up "facts;" Scotty really did say that he argued personally with Archer, and people really do graduate from college by 18.

Your comment about swallowing warp drives and transporters (not literally, of course) but nitpicking more plausible details reminds me of a point that I think many people miss when it comes to science fiction and fantasy. The main thrust of what I want to say was stated much more eloquently by Professor Tolkien in an essay, but it's essentially this:

I can swallow any premise you throw at me, but once you've established that premise and its accompanying rules, you have to stay consistent. Don't break your own rules.

For a non-Trek example of failure to do this: If you tell me that there is an ancient race of giant alien transforming robots who are stranded on Earth, that's fine. If you tell me that they are highly skilled fighters who can be driving 80 mph toward an enemy, transform as they leap up, using their momentum to deliver a precise blow to their enemy with all the grace of Jet Li, fine. If you tell me that these very same robots act like the freakin' three stooges when all they have to do is wait quietly while some kid looks for some old glasses, then what the !$#!@!, movie?

An example of (in my opinion) succeeding: if you tell me that an ordinary high school kid was bitten by a radioactive spider, thus granting him spider-like abilities, then fine. But that kid had better react to the situation the way an ordinary high school kid would really react. The fact that he's an ordinary kid is part of your premise. As I said, I think the Spider-Man movies did this fairly well.

So the next time you tell someone something along the lines of "Clark Kent would never do that," and your buddy responds with "you can accept that he's an alien who flies, but you can't accept that he would steal change from a pay phone?" You can respond confidently, "Yes, because the alien flying thingy does not violate the premise of the story, while the theft does."

So.. was there anything in the Star Trek film that is inconsistent with the premise of Star Trek? My opinion is that there was not.