So I did manage to see Star Trek three times in the theater this Summer. And yes Trek brothers and sisters - that means I've been slacking. But when and if you do see this film a few more times than the premiere viewing you do notice things about the movie that are just there with little or no explanation as to how or why they got there. Most of the gripes about the film involve Eric Bana's villain Nero. I even brought it up in my review of the new movie:
"I had a difficult time swallowing that his 20+ year stint in the past while he waited for future Spock to arrive wasn't more noticed or reported upon. There's this colossal flying weapon from the future drifting in Federation space and nobody discovers its presence? For 20 years?? That didn't work for me."
Check out the photo of Nero that I've posted in this article for some physical evidence that Nero's time spent in the Alpha Quadrant wasn't unnoticed - or that it was a total Romulan birthday party either. He's missing half an ear here. When he arrived he had two glamorous, fully-functional, Romulan ears aside his handsome head. Now one of them has been chewed off. And it's not just his ear that's gone missing - he's also carrying a big "bite" scar on his head. So what the hell went down between George Kirk's run-in with the Narada and Jim Kirk's run-in with the Narada 20+ years later?
Entertainment site TNMC managed to get their paws on the shooting script of the film, and they've discovered an entire bible of scenes that didn't make it into the shooting schedule - or were left out of the final cut of the movie altogether. There are rumors, (on the internet there are always rumors - that's how this monster sleeps. breathes and eats...) that some of this stuff will be released as "deleted scenes" in the Star Trek DVD/Blu-Ray release scheduled to hit retail shelves this October.
So what got left out? Here's what: (from TNMC)
Right off the bat, we have a scene where Spock is born. The thrust of the scene is Spock's mother Amanda expressing her displeasure with Sarek when he isn't present for the birth and then doesn't understand the emotional implications of this. One gets the feeling that this probably happened an awful lot in this relationship. The script then jumps to the scene where Kirk is born, which is where the movie opened.
The opening sequence, which sees the destruction of the USS Kelvin at the hands of Nero and his mining ship the Narada, has an extra bit we didn't see. While the Narada is trying to recover from being rammed by the Kelvin, bunches of Klingon warbirds decloak and surround it. This leads to a major subplot entirely removed from the final film. More on that later.
We get a couple of scenes that precede the part of the movie where young Kirk takes a Corvette for a fateful joyride. One shows his older brother storming out of the home of their Uncle Frank, who is clearly not meant to be a nice guy. Mom is apparently in Africa and not expected back for months. Older brother George leaves home, implying along the way that Jim is too much of a rule follower. The next scene shows Jim washing that Corvette under orders from his Uncle. I'd say this section was wisely cut as it adds nothing truly important to the story that isn't conveyed in the joyriding sequence.
Next we go the Rura Penthe Klingon Prison Asteroid where Nero and his crew are being held. The Klingons catch someone trying to smuggle Federation maps to him. The Klingons begin to interrogate Nero, during which we learn that he has been there for ten years and hasn't said a word that whole time. The Klingons have a notebook of his that is full of drawings and calculations relating to Spock and his Jellyfish ship. They decide to use that slug thing we saw Nero using on Captain Pike in the finished film. Apparently they hate being in the dark and will claw their way out of any dark place they're put, which makes them kind of bad to have in your gut. Nero tries to deal with this torture by focusing on memories of his late pregnant wife. A few scenes later, we see that Nero is so bad ass that he put up with torture just because he had time to kill until Spock finally arrived in the Jellyfish ship. When the time is right Nero busts out with ease. It's possible this subplot was cut for plausibility issues.
There is a scene as the Narada approaches Earth in which Nero's second in command, Ayel, threatens mutiny. He intimates that the crew feels destroying Vulcan has gotten them revenge and they now want to simply return to Romulus, which at this point in time still remains. Nero understands the crew's desire. But he will not return until everyone involved in the destruction of Romulus is punished. He kills Ayel and orders the drilling into Earth's crust begin. This is pretty major since in the final film, Ayel doesn't die and continues to be involved in events during the climax. It's a nice moment that gives Nero more depth.
Some of this is pretty tragic that it was left out of the film - especially the Klingon prison stuff. And it's nice to know that George Kirk's kamikaze dive into the Narada did have an impact instead of just the "pop-fizzle" of how it plays out in the flick.
Nero's a fairly thin villain even after repeat viewings I would hope that we'll be seeing a bigger cut of the film on Blu-Ray in the next few years - after, of course, Paramount purse-snatches our 25$ for the original cut of the film on disc next October. There is a comic book series devoted to Nero being released this August that will fill in his twenty year stint with the Klingons - but I'm a movie fan first - I'd like this stuff back in the film please. The real pisser here though is that the theatrical cut of Transformers Revenge of the Fallen runs FORTY GAWDAMN MINUTES LONGER than the theatrical cut of Star Trek. So go ahead Trek fans: Feel. Real. Cheated.http://www.examiner.com/x-488-Movie-Examiner~y2009m7d1-Did-Star-Trek-feel-like-it-was-mssing-some-scenes-Heres-what-Abrams-left-out-of-the-hit-movie
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