Star Trek Movie Review

Star Trek Movie Review - Plot
In the year 2387, the galaxy is threatened by a supernova. Ambassador Spock pilots a Vulcan-commissioned ship carrying red matter that can create a gravitational singularity, drawing the supernova into a black hole. Spock succeeds, but not before Romulus, the Romulan homeworld, is destroyed. Captain Nero of the Romulan mining ship Narada attempts to exact revenge on Spock for letting Romulus be destroyed, but both ships are caught in the black holes event horizon, traveling to different points into the past and creating an alternate reality from the originalStar Trek series. The Narada arrives first, 154 years before the supernova, and attacks a nearby Federation starship, the USS Kelvin. As theKelvin is evacuated, acting-Captain George Kirk stays behind to provide cover for the fleeing shuttlecraft, dying moments after his son, James Tiberius Kirk, is born. When Ambassador Spock arrives 25 years later, Nero captures his ship and the remaining red matter. Spock is left marooned on the planet Delta Veganear Vulcanso that he may witness the destruction of his homeworld.

Growing up without his father, Kirk becomes an intelligent, reckless, and cynical young man. Captain Christopher Pike, dismayed that Kirk is wasting his life, tells him of his fathers heroic efforts and convinces him to join Starfleet. At Starfleet Academy, Kirk befriends fellow cadets Dr. Leonard Bones McCoy and Uhura. In his third year at the Academy, Kirk is accused of cheating on the Kobayashi Maru test by its programmer, Commander Spock. During the ensuing hearing, during which Kirk is placed on academic suspension, Starfleet receives a distress signal from Vulcan, and the cadets are mobilized to help man the ships in orbit. Acting as his attending physician, Dr. McCoy smuggles Kirk on board theUSS Enterprise, to which both Spock and Uhura have been assigned under Pikes command.

Kirk, recognizing similarities between the distress call from Vulcan and the encounter that destroyed the Kelvin, warns Pike that the fleet is heading into a trap. The Enterprise arrives late, by which time the fleet has been destroyed. While the Narada is drilling into Vulcans core, Nero orders Pike to surrender himself via shuttlecraft, using his clear tactical advantage as leverage. Pike agrees, leaving Spock in command and Kirk as first officer. En route to the Narada, Pike arranges for Kirk, Hikaru Sulu, and Chief Engineer Olsen to perform an orbital skydive onto the drilling platform and destroy it; Olsen is killed, but Kirk and Sulu stop the drill. However, it has already reached the planets core, and Nero launches red matter into the core, collapsing the planet into a black hole. Spock rescues most of the planets elders, including his father, but his mother dies, along with nearly six billion Vulcans; Spock estimates only ten thousand Vulcans are left. Nero intends to destroy Earth, and tortures Pike for the command codes to Earths perimeter defenses.

Kirk attempts to convince Spock to travel to Earth to stop Nero, but Spock maroons him on the nearby Delta Vega and orders the ship to rendezvous with the rest of the fleet. On Delta Vega, Kirk encounters the elderly Ambassador Spock, who relays the futures events through a mind meld and insists that Kirk must become captain of the Enterprise. The two travel to a nearby Starfleet outpost where they meet the talented Montgomery Scott. Spock helps Scott refine his equations for transwarp transportation to allow Kirk and Scott to beam aboard theEnterprise. There, Kirk manages to anger Spock, forcing him to cede command due to being emotionally compromised. Spock, Scott, and Pavel Chekov devise a plan to bring the Enterpriseto Titan and take advantage of Saturns magnetosphere to disguise their presence, allowing them to beam Kirk and Spock aboard the Narada unnoticed. While Kirk rescues Pike, Spock retakes the future Spocks ship, using it to destroy the drill and lure the Narada away from Earth before piloting a collision course. The Enterprise arrives and beams Kirk, Pike, and Spock away before the collision, which releases the remaining red matter and creates a black hole within the Naradas superstructure. Though Kirk offers to help rescue Nero and his crew, the Romulan refuses and the Narada is torn apart. The Enterprise narrowly escapes the same fate by ejecting and igniting the ships warp drive reactor cores, the resulting explosion pushing them clear.

Kirk is promoted to captain of the Enterprise, relieving the newly promoted but wheelchair-bound Admiral Pike. While searching for his father, Spock encounters his older self in a hangar; Ambassador Spock is departing to help found a new colony for the remaining Vulcans. Spock informs his older self of his intention to leave Starfleet to help in the rebuilding. Ambassador Spock tells his younger self that he and Kirk need each other and that he should remain in Starfleet. Taking his older selfs advice, Spock does so, becoming first officer under Kirks command. As the Enterprise warps away, Leonard Nimoy recites a version of the Where no man has gone before monologue