Star Trek: The Abridged Script
By Rod | Jun 18th, 2009 |
72 Comments
| Movie: 
Kirk and Spock refuse to so much as look at the crew's crappy Christmas decorations.
FADE IN:
INT. USS KELVIN – THE FUTURE
CAPTAIN FARAN TAHIR watches as a BROKEN WICKER BASKET MADE OF METAL emerges from a BLACK HOLE.
CHRIS HEMSWORTH
Captain, are you seeing this?
FARAN TAHIR
No, all I can see are fucking lens flares! Did someone just discover Photoshop in 1998 or something?
CHRIS HEMSWORTH
Sir, I think it’s just a trick to make everyone who downloads the movie think it was a bad capture and delete it.
Suddenly, ERIC BANA appears on a screen.
ERIC BANA
I demand that your captain board my random-looking bundling of metal spikes and slightly curved surfaces.
FARAN TAHIR
Seeing as how the only way an in-person discussion differs from what we’re doing now is that the former offers you a way to kill me, I’ll go ahead and comply.
He DOES, and ERIC kills him.
CHRIS HEMSWORTH
Alright, that makes me captain. Someone get my wife to an escape pod while she delivers my son.
CHRIS HEMSWORTH’S WIFE
Chris, no! You have to come with me, a lack of a father figure will surely turn our son into an insufferable douchebag.
CHRIS HEMSWORTH
I can’t. JJ Abrams doesn’t know how to direct anything that isn’t “Lost”, so I have to stay behind and die dramatically as the sound effects are muted in favor of sad-sounding violin music.
CHRIS dies.
EXT. IOWA – UNITED STATES – EARTH – LONG SCENE HEADING
A YOUNG CHRIS PINE speeds down a road in a 280-YEAR-OLD-CAR while listening to 250-YEAR-OLD-MUSIC. A POLICE OFFICER DRESSED AS SNAKE-EYES FROM G.I. JOE chases him.
YOUNG CHRIS PINE drives the car off a cliff and just barely manages to pull himself up from the ledge.
POLICE OFFICER
Citizen! What is your name?
YOUNG CHRIS PINE
My name is Chris Overacting Pine!
POLICE OFFICER
Citizen! What is the point of this scene?
YOUNG CHRIS PINE
I have absolutely no fucking clue!
YOUNG CHRIS PINE eventually grows into CHRIS PINE and he goes to a bar where he meets ZOE SALDANA.
CHRIS PINE
Finally, the first scene introducing me as the new James Kirk to the world! I think it’s only fitting that I come off as a complete dickwad and hit on you. Let’s go back to my place, I think a hull breach is imminent.
ZOE SALDANA
Ack! Holy shit, is my name in caps and centered above this? Why are my thoughts being written down? What’s going on?
CHRIS PINE
That’s dialogue. It means you get to say things out loud in the movie.
ZOE SALDANA
Uhura has actual lines? Oh good Christ, I have no idea what I’m supposed to do here. Can someone rescue me from this?
Suddenly, a fight breaks out between CHRIS PINE, FOUR STARFLEET CADETS, and APPARENTLY THE CAMERA MAN. Once CHRIS finishes getting his ass kicked, BRUCE GREENWOOD talks to him.
BRUCE GREENWOOD
I looked up your file. Your aptitude test scores are off the charts.
CHRIS PINE
Off the charts? Your aptitude test scoring system has a serious design flaw.
BRUCE GREENWOOD
Enlist in Starfleet. Boldly go where no man has gone before! Meet new and interesting alien life forms that look exactly like humans except with one feature difference such as skin color, eye size, or ear shape!
CHRIS PINE
Look, I’m just not Starfleet material. The only thing I’m any good at is hanging off ledges.
BRUCE GREENWOOD
Just think about it. The ship for new recruits leaves tomorrow, and there’s apparently no other way for you to enlist other than boarding it.
CHRIS rides his bike some more and looks contemplatively at a STARSHIP being built.
CHRIS PINE
Wow. It’s so amazing. How the hell are they ever going to launch that thing off the surface of the planet?
CHRIS joins STARFLEET and hops on a ship headed into SPACE even though the ACADEMY is on EARTH. He meets KARL URBAN.
KARL URBAN
Nice to meet you. I’m enlisting because my wife took everything in the divorce. All I’ve got left are my BOOOOONEEESSSS. Eh? Eh? Bones!
CHRIS PINE
So, this movie’s official explanation for your nickname is basically that my character likes to incessantly remind you of your painful divorce. Wow, I really am an insufferable douchebag.
INT. STARFLEET ACADEMY – EARTH
CHRIS smarms his way through school, acting like an obnoxious fratboy in scene after scene. ZACHARY QUINTO accuses him of cheating on a test, since nothing makes compelling drama like ACADEMIC WHINING.
ZACHARY QUINTO
I demand Chris Pine be expelled from the academy, he got Dawson’s Creek in my Star Wars!
CHRIS PINE
Me? You got Star Wars in my Dawson’s Creek!
TYLER PERRY, UGH
I’d love to expel the brash, renegade youth but unfortunately a sudden emergency demands our complete attention, thereby giving him a second chance to prove himself!
CHRIS PINE
How incredibly original!
Everyone that has had a line so far winds up on the USS ENTERPRISE.
BRUCE GREENWOOD
Listen up, we’ve gotten a distress signal from planet Vulcan, which strangely is also the word used to refer to people from it. They have reported what appears to be a metal cactus in space.
ZACHARY QUINTO
Our mission is to find out what’s going on and not in any way risk our lives since you’re just a bunch of students and your parents would fucking kill us if we got you injured on what is basically a field trip.
JOHN CHO
Setting a course for White Castle, er, Vulcan.
CHRIS PINE
Wait a minute, did you say metal cactus in space? IT’S A TRAP!
BRUCE GREENWOOD heeds CHRIS’S advice, stopping the ship at exactly the place it would have stopped anyway. They see all of the other STARSHIPS destroyed by ERIC BANA’S SHIP.
CHRIS PINE
Oh my God. I can’t believe it.
KARL URBAN
What, that you were right about the attack?
CHRIS PINE
No, that the green chick I was about to bone is dead now. Do you have any idea how much dough I sank into her? Shit was an investment, son!
KARL URBAN
Actually, you’re right. Our entire graduating class just got obliterated and nobody seems to give a shit.
BRUCE GREENWOOD
Alright everyone, I’m going to take a transport over to Eric Bana’s ship. Chris, John, and some random guy wearing a red shirt will land on the giant drill that Bana is using on Vulcan which we can’t just shoot for some reason. I’m promoting Zachary to captain.
CHRIS and JOHN land on the DRILL while the REDSHIRT dies.
CHRIS PINE
Look, we’re paying tribute to the original series by conforming to its limitations!
JOHN and CHRIS have a fistfight with some ROMULANS. CHRIS gets his ass kicked yet again.
JOHN CHO
Hmm. I see the comical fistfight and I hear the obnoxious “fistfight with aliens” music, but I don’t see any overweight middle aged men. Is this Star Trek or not?
Meanwhile, ANTON YELCHIN observes that ERIC BANA is creating a BLACK HOLE in the center of VULCAN. ZACHARY decides he must rescue his parents and heads to the BEAMING ROOM to go down to the planet.
CHRIS and JOHN fall off the drill and plummet to the surface. ANTON YELCHIN runs to the BEAMING ROOM and beams them up in midair. ZACHARY arrives and demands to be beamed to the surface.
ANTON YELCHIN
Didn’t we just leave from the same bridge? How did I beat you here?
ZACHARY is beamed to the surface and he finds his parents. Just when they are all being beamed up, the ledge that ZACHARY’S MOTHER, WINONA RYDER, is standing on collapses and she falls.
ANTON YELCHIN
Zachary, I lost the lock on your mother, I can’t beam her up to the ship!
ZACHARY QUINTO
What? You just beamed Chris and John to the ship while they were freefalling.
ANTON YELCHIN
This is different!
ZACHARY QUINTO
How is it different at all?
ANTON YELCHIN
She was in “Mr. Deeds” dude. Fuck her.
The BLACK HOLE finishes consuming VULCAN and ZACHARY assumes control of the ship.
CHRIS PINE
Zachary, we’ve got to rescue Bruce Greenwood.
ZACHARY QUINTO
With him off the ship, our rating in the 18-24 demographic has increased. Rescuing him would be highly illogical.
CHRIS PINE
Zachary, without him this whole movie just looks like a bunch of kids playing Star Trek dress-up in the rich kid’s basement. We have to get him back. Besides, none of us can rent a car without him.
ZACHARY maroons CHRIS on a nearby planet and heads toward EARTH.
EXT. ICE PLANET HOTH
CHRIS wanders around the surface of the ice planet until he runs into a VAGINASAURUS REX. He stumbles down a hillside and into a CAVE, where he meets LEONARD NIMOY!
LEONARD NIMOY
Hello Chris. I am Leonard Nimoy, the future version of Zachary Quinto.
CHRIS PINE
Makes sense, I’ve got the entire surface of a planet to work with and I stumbled into your cave. Please, continue.
LEONARD NIMOY
Many years from now, a star explodes and turns supernova. I tried to create a black hole in its center using red matter, but I was too late. The supernova destroyed Romulus. Eric Bana got all pissy about it, but we got sucked into the black hole that I created, which sent us back in time, 25 years apart for some reason. Conveniently when my younger self was no longer wearing pointy diapers.
CHRIS PINE
Holy crap this is stupid. Are you done?
LEONARD NIMOY
Hardly. Anyway, Eric abducted me when I came through and stranded me here so that I could watch my home planet be destroyed.
CHRIS PINE
He does understand that he went back in time right? And can therefore just stop his home planet from being destroyed altogether?
(pause)
So wait, why does red matter destroy planets but send ships back in time?
LEONARD NIMOY
BLACK HOLES LET US DO ANYTHING!
CHRIS PINE
Apparently, since you’re close enough to Vulcan to see it with the naked eye but not so close as to be sucked into the ensuing black hole.
LEONARD NIMOY
In any case, these events have created an alternate timeline with a much larger budget. You are meant to be captain, we must get you back to the ship.
CHRIS PINE
I’m so glad this movie is rebooting the franchise and avoiding the overused plot contrivances that plagued the originals. Any chance you want to travel back to 1980’s earth to pick up some whales?
They make their way to a FEDERATION OUTPOST and find SIMON PEGG.
SIMON PEGG
Hello. I speak quickly in a thick Scottish accent, which passes for comic relief. Also I’m obsessed with food because the other actor who plays this character was obese, God rest his soul. How can I help you?
LEONARD NIMOY
You can beam yourself and Chris onto a ship traveling at light speed!
SIMON PEGG
Sure, why not? Believability pretty much went out the window with the whole red matter black hole thing, eh?
SIMON and CHRIS find themselves on the ENTERPRISE and confront ZACHARY.
CHRIS PINE
Zachary, if I provoke an emotional response out of you then you’ll have to step down as captain.
ZACHARY QUINTO
Do your worst.
CHRIS PINE
Actually, considering that my “asshole dial” has been turned up to eleven since the movie started, there’s really nowhere else for me to go. Uh, yo momma so dead…
ZACHARY QUINTO
How dead is she?
CHRIS PINE
Yo momma so dead, her maggots are being eaten by maggots!
ZACHARY starts beating the hell out of CHRIS PINE, who simply cannot seem to win a fight. ZACHARY stops just short of opening CHRIS’S head and eating his brain to acquire “hanging off ledges” powers, though.
ZACHARY QUINTO
Damn. Since I am unfit as captain, I suppose you will have to take my place. And now that you have arrogantly assumed a title that you have not earned and insulted my mother, I have grown to respect you.
CHRIS PINE
Alright, here’s the plan. We’ll beam onboard Bana’s ship, steal the red matter, ignite it, then beam back.
KARL URBAN
Er, one drop of that stuff is enough to destroy a whole planet, so the whole thing–
CHRIS PINE
BLACK HOLES LET US DO ANYTHING!
KARL URBAN
Dammit Chris, I’m a Matt LeBlanc lookalike contest winner, not a physicist!
ZACHARY QUINTO
Wait, why not use some of the red matter to go back in time a bit further and stop any of this from happening? Then I could save my home planet and my mother.
CHRIS PINE
No! We have to do the thing that ends with a big action scene. An action scene that requires lasers, mind you, no beaming a bomb into Bana’s ship or anything. Let’s get moving, we’ve got sequels to plan.
They execute the dumbest plan of all available options. BANA is destroyed or maybe sent back in time again.
INT. STARFLEET ACADEMY – EARTH
CHRIS PINE is officially given the rank of CAPTAIN and receives a medal.
TYLER PERRY, UGH
Because your ship was pretty much the only one that survived, you win by default. Congratulations.
CHRIS and ZACHARY become friends because LEONARD NIMOY told them they have to be.
LEONARD NIMOY (V.O.)
Space. The final frontier. Unless you count time, of course.
STAR TREK FANS
Waaahhh! They destroyed Vulcan! The Federation knows about Romulans too early! It’s not Gene Roddenberry’s vision! Bwaaahh!
LEONARD NIMOY (V.O.)
Bah, you morons will pay for anything with the word “Trek” in the title. Who gives a shit what any of you think?
END
“Bah, you morons will pay for anything with the word “Trek” in the title. Who gives a shit what any of you think?”
So sad, and true at the same time.
June 18th, 2009 at 7:12 am“ZACHARY stops just short of opening CHRIS’S head and eating his brain to acquire “hanging off ledges” powers, though.”
Epic win.
June 18th, 2009 at 8:08 amThe fact that as I was reading this, iTunes “randomly” loaded up Sabotage -on the exact scene- freaked me out.
That said, this is brilliant.
Black Holes Let Us Do Anything.
June 18th, 2009 at 8:11 amloved this movie, and this script as well. i thought the movie was great, especially compared to other reboots (my only complaint is that kirk could be a real dick, especially as a kid – it’s not the best idea to introduce your protagonist by having him trash his stepdad’s priceless 300+ year old antique for no reason).
now if only they don’t go back in time so spock can talk to whales – that was a terrible movie. although insurrection was probably the worst star trek flick.
any chance of you making a script for the taking of pelham 123? i love it when you rip apart tony scott movies (especially domino).
June 18th, 2009 at 8:36 amHa! Fantastic.
June 18th, 2009 at 8:45 amwait rodriguez are you saying you liked Nemesis? At least the other Next Gen movies tried to stay in the same timeline and plausibility as the show, but Nemesis just turned around to that and said “fuck you I’m different bitches” to it. Also after reading this I am kind of wary on watching this one for the reason that it is all about Kirk and I hate Kirk, Picard is a million times better at everything, much less acting, and they should do a background story on him… seeing as he is at least 30 years older than his entire Enterprise crew.
June 18th, 2009 at 9:06 am“one feature difference such as skin color, eye size, or eat shape!”
Uh … ear shape?
“Do you have any idea how much dough I suck into her?”
sank into her?
I am ashamed.
On the other hand, I liked this script a lot. Definitely one of your better ones. I like the movie, too, probably because it’s one of the more plausible stories of the franchise (ba dum bump). Also, it moves so fast that the problems didn’t really hit me until it was over.
June 18th, 2009 at 9:06 amUhura has actual lines?!?
BLACK HOLES LET US DO ANYTHING!!! Good shit…
And the blatant ALIAS reference with the Red Matter was kinda hard to take too.
June 18th, 2009 at 9:15 amTYLER PERRY, UGH.
I’m glad you and I share the same reaction when we hear that name.
June 18th, 2009 at 9:32 amRob,
June 18th, 2009 at 9:58 amThank you for the script, it was quite funny- although with the incredible amount of stupid in this movie, deciding what to leave out must have been a struggle.
Special thanks for “How the hell are they ever going to launch that thing off the surface of the planet?”, well caught!
AK
i thought this movie was amazing, but of course, i find faults with anything and i loved your script. made me burst out laughing several times. even with its flaws, i think this movie is the best i’ve seen in a while.
June 18th, 2009 at 10:47 amHa, Wynona Ryder really deserved this.
June 18th, 2009 at 10:50 amLens Flares drove me mad throughout the movie…and, as much as I hate them they probably look better on a big screen theater, I can’t imagine how shitty it’s going to look on DVD.
June 18th, 2009 at 11:33 amANTON YELCHIN
Zachary, I lost the lock on your mother, I can’t beam her up to the ship!
ZACHARY QUINTO
What? You just beamed Chris and John to the ship while they were freefalling.
ANTON YELCHIN
This is different!
ZACHARY QUINTO
How is it different at all?
ANTON YELCHIN
She was in “Mr. Deeds” dude. Fuck her.
That’s the best exchange of dialogue you’ve ever done Rod.
Do Koyaanisquatsi next. ;-)
June 18th, 2009 at 11:34 amHILARIOUS. Thank you! (And for the record, I still love the movie. I am one of the morons to which Mr. Nimoy refers.)
June 18th, 2009 at 2:17 pmAnd WHY WERE the letters of transit so important?
June 18th, 2009 at 2:37 pmIs it just me or did the Kelvin’s captain get royally dicked over by history? He went over to the Romulan ship/art deco sculpture in order to buy his crew extra time, the “evacuate the crew in shuttlecrafts and ram the Kelvin down Nero’s ass” plan came from him… and yet everyone ends up going on about what a great hero Kirk Sr. was for staying at the helm for about 30 seconds and getting himself blown up with the ship!
June 18th, 2009 at 2:46 pm[...] lastly, Rod Hilton has finally gotten around to writing his abridged script of Star Trek, making the ten thousandth lens flare joke since the movie was released. Possibly related posts: [...]
June 18th, 2009 at 7:07 pmSemi disappointed that my biggest gripe wasn’t mentioned…and that is? TOO MANY CLOSE-UPS!
WAY worse than lens flare, there was a giant face on the giant screen for at least a forth of the movie. I feel bad for the Imax viewers.
In any case, good script otherwise, pretty much everything else was dead on.
June 18th, 2009 at 8:22 pmI’ve been waiting to see what you think of this. Another funny one like your pint on aptitude tests.
June 19th, 2009 at 7:13 amI quite liked the film here’s my take on it.
http://www.purpleslinky.com/Humor/Satire/Star-Trek-First-Draft-Parody-Script.715587
Did anyone find the whole Delta Vega thing to be rather stupid? I mean, Delta Vega is Delta Vega. Don’t go slapping the name on some other planet just to be “cool.” Also, case could be made that the disperity in firepower wasn’t as huge as the movie made it out to be given the two time periods and past trek stuff. Anyway, I should get back to life now.
June 19th, 2009 at 8:35 amFantastic, funny script! And you pretty much captured most of the illogical aspects of the film.
You might want to correct a typo:
Look, we’re paying tribute to the original series by conforming to it’s limitations! ..it should be its …just saying…
June 19th, 2009 at 5:14 pmactually, aces high, i never bothered with nemesis.
June 19th, 2009 at 5:45 pmGreat script! I didn’t start to realize how ridiculous most of the logic was until after the movie ended.
You left out one thing that really bugged me, why did they have to drill a hole in the planet for the red matter? Isn’t a black hole just as destructive on the planet’s surface?
Figures, Star Trek was written by the same nitwits that wrote Transformers: Orci and Kurtzman. Those guys suck!
June 19th, 2009 at 6:32 pmHate to nitpick, but the going into space to go from a place on Earth to another place on Earth does make sense, if they’re making a sub-orbital trip. Sub-orbital flight is very fast; experiments suggest that a passenger sub-orbital flight could go from America to Europe in less than one hour.
Having said that, I did enjoy the script. I liked the movie as well. Not the plot, the plot was terrible (though that’s appropriate, as most of the plots to the original Star Trek were pretty feeble as well).
There are two things that drove me nuts about the movie that you didn’t mention. There’s one scene where Eric Bana puts something into Bruce Greenwood’s head as part of his interrogation. He does this, and then it’s never mentioned again! I mean, what the hell? Did the writers forget about that part when they were working on Act 3? And, when Eric Bana is talking to Bruce Greenwood on board the ship, why the hell is he knee deep in water? I can’t think of any good reason for it. It doesn’t heighten the drama or the mood, there’s no good reason why a Romulan would be sloshing about in a foot and a half of water. Why the hell is Bruce Greenwood being held captive in the middle of a pond?
June 20th, 2009 at 2:19 amHm, so 30-year olds are kids that wouldn’t be allowed to rent a car, but 35-year olds are obese middle-aged men? Sounds very illogical to me. But I guess that’s just because I’ve actually seen TOS rather than just TOS movies. Yeah, TOS did not feel like Trek either, I guess, more like Dawson’s Creek – because the actors were young, slim (including Kirk and Scotty) and mostly good-looking. Also, it was full of adventure and action, so that makes it more of a Star Wars series, I guess. Oh wait, Star Wars came later. Damn it. But TOS movies had plenty of explosions and action, too, I guess they were also Star Wars. Although, without Dawson’s Creek, I guess, since the actors were 50+. See, I got it: actors over 50 = credible SF movie. Actors between the ages 28 and 39 = Dawson’s Creek/90210. It’s simple, really.
June 20th, 2009 at 9:06 am@ Maxfield: “There’s one scene where Eric Bana puts something into Bruce Greenwood’s head as part of his interrogation. He does this, and then it’s never mentioned again! I mean, what the hell?”
I am pretty sure that the animal he put is his head (hommage to TWOK) was the reason why Pike was in the wheelchair at the end of the movie.
@ wootRodriguez “(my only complaint is that kirk could be a real dick, especially as a kid – it’s not the best idea to introduce your protagonist by having him trash his stepdad’s priceless 300+ year old antique for no reason).”
It would have been better if they had not deleted the scene between Kirk and his stepdad that shows that the stepdad was going to sell the car, which had belonged to Kirk’s read dad.
But anyway, Kirk being a bit of a dick was the point. Frankly, I always thought he was a bit of a dick in Shatner’s version – at least this time they were open about it. ;)
re: the article: Chris Pine overacting? Especially compared to Shatner? LMAO Pine was actually excellent. I ended up liking him much better than Shatner’s Kirk. Shatner’s Kirk was meant to be the perfect captain and manly adventurer, basically a macho stereotype… maybe that is why I didn’t really care about him. Or it was Shatner’s personality coming through. I only really liked him in some of the movies, where he was more realistic, vulnerable and human (II and III, and VI). Pine’s Kirk is meant to be a dick because he grew up without a father and all that, and they make no bones (no pun intended) about his dickishness, but ironically he comes off more likeable for that very reason. He is not meant to be perfect. He gets repeatedly beaten up, he screams when the monster is chasing him, and he does not get the girl. And somehow Pine plays him with a childlike spontaneity and good-naturedness and a certain vulnerability behind the cockiness, which all makes him more less of a pompous ass that TOS Kirk so often was.
June 20th, 2009 at 9:20 am@Matfield
I remember reading about it in the imdb forums … I think it’s a specific form of torture, involving some sort of worm like creatures, and ..I guess the water is necessary ..somehow …could also be a nod to some classic Star Trek episode ..but I’m not a trekkie, so I wouldn’t know..
Bottom line, I think the torture pond scheme makes sense for a trekkie …not for the casual viewer…feel free to correct me if you have better info..
June 20th, 2009 at 9:54 amI can’t really make any corrections except to say that I am a fan of Star Trek, and I don’t recall anything about bad guys, especially Romulans, walking around in ponds. Bad guys that were vaguely glowing clouds of gas, or three technicolor brains in a glass case, yes, but no hydrophilic Romulans.
June 20th, 2009 at 2:18 pmAs far as the worm, all I could think of for that is the Ceti Eel from Wrath of Khan. And this movie had plenty of Wrath of Khan references in it; the Kobayashi Maru for one. But the Ceti Eel was a mind-control device, people who had it put in their ear became highly suggestible and did whatever Kahn told them. Bruce Greenwood didn’t do any of that.
Actually he did, albeit off-screen. He told Nero the codes he needed to slip into Earth’s orbit undetected. After that, my guess is Nero took the Ceti Eel out, since if they’re left in a body they’ll eventually grow and kill their host, and Nero probably wanted to keep Pike around and milk more information out of him.
June 20th, 2009 at 2:28 pmGood point, I hadn’t considered that. Still, would’a been nice if they’d shown that, rather than putting the thing in him and then forgetting all about it.
June 20th, 2009 at 2:30 pmThis script is like manna from heaven. I hate the new Star Trek movie so much and the biggest reason why is that a man travels back in time and never bothers to directly save his planet. I still don’t understand why Nero hates Spock.
“I’ll blame Spock. Even though he did everything he could to save us.”
What kind of motivation is that?
June 20th, 2009 at 5:17 pmrodriguez I should have followed your advice and never watched Nemesis, it would have been well worth my while, I should have just heeded everyone’s advice saying it sucked, but my curiosity made me watch it D:
June 20th, 2009 at 9:26 pmNero’s motivation sounds a lot like Two-Face’s, if you remember from The Dark Knight’s abridged script.
Now, does anyone think the Order of the Phoenix script will be out before the Half Blood Prince movie?
June 20th, 2009 at 11:42 pmHaha, thanks Rod that was fun!.
Funny thing, you guys seen Ediddie murphy’s stand up “Delirious”? there he mentions that Kirk is alway humping some green-bitch, and whenever there was trouble he would say: “let spock handle it” and continuing humping,
That made me laugh my ass of when I saw this movie in the theater to the point that people started to look at me ;P
June 21st, 2009 at 5:22 amOoooo, that all depends on how badly Rod wants to rip into Angles and Demons before who goes back to the Potter franchise. Although maybe by the time Halfblood Prince comes out then he will be motivated to do Order of the Phoenix first so that they’re all done sequentially. But that might require a lot of effort and probably wouldn’t make a difference either way ;P
June 21st, 2009 at 8:28 amLoved the movie, liked the script. Missed a few things I think should’ve been in there, pounded a bit too hard on things I remember not bothering me at all when I saw the film.
Some plot-hole analysis….
The ship built on the planet: Two words, Artificial Gravity! All the Federation ships have it and if you have the technology to generate and control gravity without needing a metric assload of mass then getting large and cumbersome objects off a planet and into orbit becomes child’s play.
Black-hole Time Warp: Things like Gravity, Time, and the speed of light all start acting real funky when you push at them a bit too hard.. like, perhaps, when warp-capable vessels slam into a black-hole.. though I think they did mention that what happened to Nero and Spock was more a one-time fluke.. (though it doesn’t explain why Spock didn’t tell his younger self the calculations needed for a warp-slingshot time-travel maneuver if he was willing to tell Scotty about warp/transporter physics theories Scotty hadn’t invented yet.)
Alas, poor Mrs. Sarek: Kirk and Sulu fell from almost a mile up, plenty of time for Checkov to figure out how to snatch them up while they were moving at terminal velocity. Spock’s Mom fell from a much shorter distance but still far enough up to go splat.
What happened to the head-eel?: In the medal-award scene we see Captain Pike in a Wheelchair (another shout-out), I just assumed this was an unfortunate side-effect of pulling the head-eel out of his.. you know.. head.
On Romulan Pond: The Narada is supposed to be a Mining ship (which is Awesome! I can totally buy a work-ship from the future being so far up the tech-scale it poses a serious threat to warships of the time period, and this was totally ruined by the prequel comic-book making up some crap about the Narada pulling Borg tech out of it’s ass somehow… seriously, remember when the Borg were intimidating, and not the galaxy’s uber-tech rummage sale? I miss those days.) I guess it makes sense that on a working-class ship the crew wouldn’t be so tidy with the bilges or whatever, just don’t ask where the water comes from (I’m serious, you don’t wanna go down that path.)
Why doesn’t Nero…: He probably already did, he had plenty of time, “Hello, Romulan High-Command? There’s a star gonna go super-nova in a hundred years or so, just thought I’d give you a heads up.” but he still was on his revenge kick because that would still mean dick to him personally, he’s just J. Random Romulan in this timeline as far as the Empire is concerend, his home and his wife are still vapor.
Now, for the big bit that bugged the hell out of me.. Why, if only a teaspoon of the stuff is needed to generate a useful black hole, does Spock go tooling around with what looks like 55-gallons of Red Matter?
June 21st, 2009 at 10:05 am“Vaginasorous Rex.” Can’t… stop… laughingg….
Ow.
June 21st, 2009 at 5:08 pmActually now that I think about it, Rod you’re kind of wrong about people giving a shit about what Trekkies think. Enterprise was canceled BECAUSE the Trekkies bitched too much about it not being “Gene Roddenberry’s Vision” and a lot of the prequel stuff being thrown in despite it not making sense with the timeline blah blah blah who gives a fuck it’s a good show shut the fuck up and let us enjoy it, which I guess is the attitude of JJ Abrams here with “introducing the Romulans too early” he probably just figured that since the Romulans get sooooo much coverage in the series’ that people would just get it because the Romulans are just the villains of this generation and we don’t give a fuck what the hardcore Trekkies think.
June 21st, 2009 at 10:25 pmI myself am a huge trek fan, and I’m all for the new continuity. (when they blew-up Vulcan And It Stayed Blown-Up! I had a geek-gasm, “ZOMG No Moar Friggin’ Reset-Button!”) Enterprise was pretty-much doomed from the start with Trek’s core fanbase, it was just a monumentally bad idea to begin with given the massive ammounts of canon-kruft the franchise had accumulated at the time which was making even NEW installments have problems.. much less a prequel-series that’d have to get wedged into the deepest parts of it.
Much better now I think since they finally took Trek’s huge continuity-snarl and gave it the Gordian-Knot treatment.
June 21st, 2009 at 10:41 pmLes,
regarding your plot-hole discussion, there’s basically two options: a) assume, despite the ample evidence to the contrary, that the people who wrote the movie attempted a coherent story, and talk about the gazillion inconsistencies and blunders, or b) accept that the film’s script was a piece of unimaginative crap and leave it at that. Of course, being Trek fans, we’ll likely opt for c) accept that the script was crap AND talk about the gazillion inconsistencies and blunders.
I mean, there’s no way even an unexceptional scriptwriter would come up with a Vulcan society that has basically intitutionalised racism and yet accepts an Earthling (even if she is married to one of their own) in the cave where the culture’s “core” is kept. Or that Spock, when a madman bent upon destroying his homeworld puts him on a planet containing a federation outpost, will just hole up in a cave and wait.
I do agree that the “new timeline” idea was good, but personally I’d like it even more if this alternate Trek-verse wasn’t populated by idiots.
Quinto was very, very good, though.
AK
June 22nd, 2009 at 5:45 amI love how they throw the captain’s chair around like it’s a used hanky. This is a gazillion dollar piece of equipment, and they give away the leadership position like they give away free car wash coupons with $20 purchase at the local Gas-N-Go.
“I gotta take a crap, you be the Captain.”
“No. You be the captain”
“I was captain last week, you be the captain.”
“I cried during Sex & The City, making me emotionally unstable, and a little emasculated, you be the captain.”
“I know, let’s give to the punching-bag stow-away!”
June 22nd, 2009 at 7:16 amWow, this was possibly your worst script ever (possibly tied with M:i:III). It wasn’t even funny, and didn’t even tease my only complaints with the film, like Spock and Uhura.
I think I’ll go read your Terminator Salvation one again, though.
June 22nd, 2009 at 8:00 amAnother 10 bucks kept in my pocket thanks to The Editing Room! Rod, you rock!
June 22nd, 2009 at 9:19 amThanks for the laugh Rod. Although, you didn’t make fun of the fact that Spock threw Kirk off the ship. Come on, how can you not make fun of a Vulcan who doesn’t realize what a brig on a ship is used for. Get him off my ship…..seriously. WTF. This movie was such a piece of crap. The worst part is that everyone I know loved it.
June 22nd, 2009 at 9:49 amAris:
Or, “Repeat to yourself ‘it’s just a show’, and you should really just re-lax.” :D
Seriously, other than the whole ‘I need a thimble-full of the phlebotinum-of-the-week to make a black-hole capable of going Red Adair on a supernova, so I’ll just bring along enough to end a significant chunk of the galaxy’ thing to me the rest of the movie’s failings could be easily swept aside and drowned in the wake of Awesome the movie left behind itself… but maybe that’s just me, and Rod, who gave the movie itself a 4 out of 5 star rating. :D
June 22nd, 2009 at 11:15 amTraveling at the speed of light, it would take about 5 and a half hours to get from Earth to Pluto. 4 and a half years to get to the nearest star. So how exactly is `Red Matter` any less logical than a `warp drive` that can fly around the galaxy in minutes? 99% percent of all science fiction is retarded. But the retarded science makes the movie entertaining. If you want to watch something based on real, logical science; go outside and stare at a plant. Enjoy yourselves. I think the author of script, just not a lot of the commenters, understands my point. Hence the 4 out of 5 stars.
June 22nd, 2009 at 6:17 pmIt’s been about 3 years, but I actually saw a movie before Rod Hilton did a script on it! Amazing!
Frankly, I thought the entire beginning scene was taken from a badly written soap opera. I seriously thought I was in the wrong theatre!
I think Rod should have mentioned Uhura and Spock making out on the teleporter platform, too! I cracked up about 3 rows in the theatre I was in when I said out loud in my best, exasperated tone of voice, “Geez you two! Get a room!”
Aside from the time travel ridiculousness (which Rod has pointed out before that once you bring it in, you have the world’s best Deus Ex Machina possible for use at any time), I thought that having the crew go from Star Fleet graduates (the equivalent of Ensigns/First Lieutenants in RL armed forces) to the head of their respective departments after a single mission was really just a poorly thought out plot.
I did enjoy the movie on an action-movie level, but not as a Star Trek type of offering and definitely as a fairly typical, incredibly lousy science fiction movie. But oh well. Most folks don’t really like science fiction and prefer the science fantasy genre much better. Leastwise that’s all that’s ever offered any more.
June 23rd, 2009 at 11:12 amCommenting loudly during a movie is nothing to be proud of. I sincerely hope somebody shoots you next time you do it.
June 23rd, 2009 at 12:57 pmHaha! Awesome. I didn’t even notice all of the plot holes and general fridge logic. Also, VAGINASAURUS REX.
June 23rd, 2009 at 1:03 pm[...] 2) It’s been a while since Star Trek came out, but hopefully you can conjure up your memories of the summers first big hit, and read this hilarious take on the J.J. Abrams flick: Star Trek: The Abridged Script. [...]
June 23rd, 2009 at 2:51 pmLes,
it would be a boring ol’ world if we all agreed on something as subjective as movies…and we wouldn’t be browsing this site if we weren’t prepared to have our views challenged, would we? The box office suggests you and Rod are with the majority on this :-) .
Science Truth,
I don’t neccessarily want to watch a movie that follows the same physics as the world outside my window- or even the same physics as previous Trek installments. A movie can be set in a Universe with its peculiar own rules, but I expect it to follow those rules- or, better said, the writers to make the effort to comply with the Universe they’ve created. When their attitude is “well, this is sci-fi, so anything goes” and they just pull stuff out of…well, whatever orifice they have handy, with no regard to what happened before IN THE SAME MOVIE (sorry for shouting), it ruins it for me. This by way of explanation- not trying to undo your two hours of fun watching the film or anything.
AK
June 24th, 2009 at 5:00 am“The box office suggests you and Rod are with the majority on this :-) .”
Aris, unless you are claiming Titanic to be the greatest film ever made, I think it’s fair to say Box Office success does not prove how good a movie is. It proves that the studio made the right bet on financing the film and making money. But it’s a far off indicator as to how good a movie is.
As for Star Trek, I watched the film in the theater twice. I had a great time both times.(The second time was because my mother is a trekie and I wanted to see it with her).
So was it a fun film, absolutely. I had a blast and laughed and enjoyed the ‘tip of the hat’ references to the original series.
Was it a Star Trek film? Not at all. This was a film of cheap jokes, stupid comedy and weak plotting. I expect more from Star Trek.
But as a stand alone scifi film. It has a horrible plot, but lots of okay special effects and laughs. I had a great time. I don’t know what that says about me, but it can’t be good.
June 24th, 2009 at 5:14 pm@ Science Truth
You’re right. Serious discussions regarding physics and probability in Star Trek break down at the “Roddenberry horizon” and should not be crossed. Otherwise we’d have scenes like…
KIRK
“All ahead, warp 5″
SPOCK (2 seconds later)
“Captain, I’m detecting a ship in our wake.”
KIRK
“All stop. On screen.”
CHEKOV
“Captain, it’s…it’s us!”
KIRK
“Oh shit, that’s right, we’re going faster than light and that’s just our previous image catching up to us.”
CHEKOV
“Yes, but..but Captain..LOOK!”
KIRK
“Sulu?!…what the?.. Who is that guy?..what the fuu.. I don’t, I don’t underst…OHHH!!! What the hell man?!!”
SULU
June 25th, 2009 at 8:49 pm“But Captain, I was merely “boldly going…”
Hey Rod, I don’t mean to rush you or force you to do anything, but since “Half-Blood Prince” is coming up in a couple of weeks, it’d be really, really good synergy to finally release that “Order of the Phoenix” script that has been “in the works” for some time now.
*hides behind sofa* Don’t hit me please.
June 26th, 2009 at 6:38 pmI thought I already gave a reminder about that
June 26th, 2009 at 7:18 pmI just watched all three seasons of TOS, all eleven movies and I’ve seen enough TNG, Voyager, and Enterprise. They all suck. The plots are silly; the pacing is often boringly slow; the Treknobabble is often a mess of contradictory terms the writers obviously didn’t understand; whoever thought of the engineering of the starships should be in prison for mass murder; everything that’s done in one episode to save the day is magically forgotten forever afterward.
But to hell with it anyhow, it’s still fun. It’s the adult version of a Saturday morning cartoon. I liked the movie and got a kick out of the script. Laugh out loud as usual! :D
June 27th, 2009 at 10:31 amYes you did Ryan, sorry, I don’t normally look through all the comments (unless it’s that wicked “Dark Knight” thread)
June 28th, 2009 at 1:54 pm[...] http://www.the-editing-room.com/star-trek.html [...]
June 29th, 2009 at 12:33 amI did like Chris' commentary to Nemoy about the whole motivation of Bana… on Hoth of course. :D
June 30th, 2009 at 9:06 pmI am liking you more and more each time I read your comments, Sean. This was my thought exactly.
July 5th, 2009 at 5:45 am[...] is up at The Editing Room: Suddenly, ERIC BANA appears on a screen. [...]
July 15th, 2009 at 5:27 amYou know there actually is a parody of Star Trek called Star Wreck?
July 24th, 2009 at 9:54 pmI think Nero did go back in time again, but then Captain Murphy knocked him out and threw him in the brig for being an evil doppelganger.
July 28th, 2009 at 2:34 pm[...] Revenge of the Fallen, Twilight, Star Trek, Angels and [...]
August 6th, 2009 at 11:51 pmAnother thing about losing Wynona was that THEY HAD A LOCK ON HER. If you have a solid lock on someone, WHICH THEY DID, there is no possible way you can kill them from the "beamed from" side. (Wow, I'm a total nerd). This is proven in almost every episode in every Star Trek series ever. You can't shoot them, you can't asplode them, or nothin'. Well, I guess it adds to the authenticity of a Star Trek incarnation having all the gaping continuity errors and whatnot.
September 12th, 2009 at 5:18 amI waited until I'd seen the movie to read this one. Finally dropped into a 5-dollar theater with my girlfriend on a whim last night to see this beast. Had a really good time, but your script was better. Your magnum opus, I think; every line drips with funny. I can't believe I waited this long to read it. Bravo, Roddy!
September 23rd, 2009 at 5:21 amJust watched this movie on bluray and absolutley loved it, i still found your script funny though since i can admit the film had faults, but man..what a movie this was, by far the best of the summer movies this yaer
November 23rd, 2009 at 8:39 amI really liked this one but as has been commented before, need to have some comment about how stupid the Uhuru/Spock love interest is. Old Trek Uhuru was not so desperate to throw herself at emotionally vulnerable men and had a lot more dignity as a professional female. Zoe Saldana is completely stereotypical Lolita/teacher’s pet who goes on to screw the teacher and nobody says a word about it. And the red matter plot device is the stupidest ever. Of course:
BLACK HOLES LET YOU DO ANYTHING!!!!!
Quite possibly the best parody line ever. Can’t wait for the New Moon parody! Bella Swan the cock-tease-from-hell who runs around begging Edward for sex through three and a half books ia probably the weakest and most ridiculous heroine in modern young adult fiction. Feminism takes two steps backward. Skewer the dumb bitch please!
November 29th, 2009 at 7:00 pmI did enjoy the script. I think a lot of people are looking at this like it should correspond to the original series and books, and there’s really no reason: They’re rebooting the series. I loved the movie. Granted, Kirk is way, way too dickish for anybody to go “So, buddy, you should be captain.” Kirk in the original series wasn’t a dick just to be a dick. In this one, he was. Pine’s Kirk wouldn’t have ever been able to go through Starfleet Academy because he was just that much of a dick. Sure, youthful cadets are a rowdy bunch, but he kinda took the cake. That, and Shatner didn’t lose fights very often. He was something of a badass. :D
January 12th, 2010 at 4:20 am“a fight breaks out between CHRIS PINE, FOUR STARFLEET CADETS, and APPARENTLY THE CAMERA MAN”
i didn’t get any further than this before i posted. i was in TEARS laughing at this. and that was RIGHT after lmao’ing about the whole “..He DOES. Chris KILLS HIM.”
February 19th, 2010 at 11:45 pmI write screenplays–you know for free like 1.5 million other people a year, and it’s pretty obvious that any script could be ripped apart and mocked. After reading this site, I think I have to stop because I won’t be able to even take myself seriously-haha…I enjoy good sarcasm, but I wonder, is it now hard to watch movies, Rod? have a good one!
March 2nd, 2010 at 5:21 pm