"Star Trek" (2009)

Starring: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, John Cho, Karl Urban, 
Eric Bana, Zoe Saldana, Bruce Greenwood, Anton Yelchin, 
Simon Pegg, Winona Ryder, and Leonard Nimoy


Hi. Welcome to what may very well prove to be a bad idea. A 
little bit of background before we get started. I didn't 
really start watching Star Trek until maybe a decade ago. I 
had fond memories of The Next Generation though because my 
dad watched every series so it was always on a television 
somewhere in the house. I grew to recognize the characters, 
particularly Geordi, who I already knew and loved as the 
Reading Rainbow guy. Also, by the 90s, Trek was deeply 
ingrained in the cultural lexicon. Who doesn't know who 
Spock is regardless of whether you've seen an episode ever? 
But I was too young to really understand and appreciate the 
show at the time and there were other sci-fi shows I was 
far more interested in watching. Then JJ Abrams - the guy 
behind some of my favorite shows like "Lost" and "Fringe" - 
did a reboot movie. I noted the first time I watched it 
that while I was enjoying it I felt like I wasn't getting 
all the references. Which didn't stop me from watching 
"Into Darkness" STILL without actually watching the 
original series. I'm not sure when I decided to start 
watching the shows, but now I wonder why it took me so 
long. At any rate, by the time the third movie came out I 
had a working knowledge of the first two series and my new 
favorite memory of my dad is watching the way his face lit 
up when I started talking to him in a way that showed I 
really was a chip off the old Trekkie block.

Full disclosure: while I saw all of the original series and 
Next Gen episodes and movies (once), I turned to skip 
guides online to skim through Deep Space Nine, Voyager and 
Enterprise, so my knowledge isn't exactly thorough. Also, 
because those first two series took so long to get through 
it's entirely likely I have forgotten key details. 

So. Here goes nothing.

We open with Michael Giacchino's Star Trek theme while the 
title cards are still playing. It devolves into a dark 
screech that anyone familiar with JJ's shows recognizes as 
BAD SHIT IS HAPPENING. This is kind of negated by the 
opening shot of...a spaceship. It looks kind of like the 
Enterprise, but it says "USS Kelvin". We hear some back and 
forth from someone on the ship and "base" about some 
readings and gravitational sensors. Base is confused by the 
crazy readings they're getting about what looks like a 
lightning storm. They say they don't "seem possible".
 
And we're finally inside with a brown-skinned man in a 
Starfleet uniform who is identified as Captain.
   Chrissy: Cue the usual fanboy whining about the series 
    being too "woke" now.
   Diandra: Followed immediately by longtime fans laughing 
    that anyone thinks it's a new thing. 
Other crewmen are discussing whether the signal they are 
getting could be from the Klingons. Somebody points out 
that they are miles away from the nearest Klingons, so... 
The Captain gapes at a monitor showing a big, scary looking 
ship coming through the anomaly which...let's just call it 
a wormhole. It hovers in front of the Kelvin, which is ant-
sized by comparison. 

Someone yells that it has locked weapons on them and the 
Captain responds and suddenly we're focused on Chris 
Hemsworth at one of the stations on the bridge. This was 
JUUUUUUUST before "Thor", if you were wondering. Blasts 
start hitting the ship all over the place and people below 
decks run around frantically to escape fireballs. The 
Captain (whose name nobody has mentioned yet) orders all 
phasers fired. The engineer announces that they lost their 
warp drive and weapons and their power is now at 38%.

The giant ship fires another series of blasts that punch 
several holes and start sucking cadets into space. On the 
bridge, people start yelping that the atmosphere is failing 
and they're losing oxygen and getting reports of casualties 
all over the ship. The Captain transfers all power to 
shields and orders them to start loading escape shuttles.

And then someone appears on the viewscreens to demand "the 
presence of your captain" so their commander can negotiate 
a cease fire. The Captain pulls ensign Chris from his post 
to go with him. 

Once they are out of earshot of everyone else, he tells him 
to evacuate the ship if they don't hear back from him in 
fifteen minutes. 
   Chrissy: Uh...weren't you already doing that? Isn't the 
    ship, like...failing?
   Diandra: I'm sure there's a protocol for at what point 
    just sealing off the damage and attempting repairs is 
    impossible and the ship should be abandoned. Obviously 
    a good chunk of it is still intact, so.
The Captain then turns pointedly to Chris in the general 
direction of the camera and says "you're captain now, Mr. 
Kirk." Yes, as I said "Thor" was immediately after this, so 
I forgot in the intervening years that Kirk's parents were 
Thor and Bella Swan.
   Emilio: Emma Swan. Bella is the chick from "Twilight".
   Diandra: You know, I knew that sounded wrong as it was 
    coming out of my mouth, but I couldn't stop it.

The captain gets into a shuttle and flies into the 
behemoth. The crew back on the Kelvin monitor his vitals, 
noting that his heart rate is elevated as 
some...guards...escort him to the bridge. The security guy 
from the transmission earlier flashes a hologram in front 
of him and asks if he's familiar with the ship in it. The 
Captain is like 'I was told I needed to speak to the 
Commander, which I assume is that guy slouched in the chair 
over there glowering into space.' Since the guy is Eric 
Bana...yes, it's obviously him, but the security guy says 
he speaks for "Captain Nero." Captain NoName asks why they 
are attacking a Federation ship.

Now. The disc this movie is printed on identifies it as 
Star Trek XI. Meaning that even though everyone knows JJ's 
movies are technically separate from the rest of the canon, 
a sort of "reboot", they are still connected to it. I 
mention this because things are about to get confusing. 

Security guy throws up a hologram of Leonard Nimoy and asks 
if Captain NoName knows the location of Ambassador Spock. 
Captain says he doesn't know him.
   Emilio: You mean Sarek? Cause that guy looks kind of 
    like Ambassador Sarek. 
   Diandra: Who might not have been an Ambassador yet, but 
    I'm not going to try to work out that timeline because 
    I'm sure the writers wouldn't have had a clue anyway.
   Chrissy: Okay, for those of us who don't speak 
    Trekkie...
   Diandra: Spock's dad.
   Chrissy: Got it.

Security guy asks what the current stardate is. Captain 
Noname says 2233.04. A quick consult with Nerdopedia tells 
me I don't know how stardates work. But Spock was born on 
2230.06.
   Chrissy: Um...how DO stardates work then? Like, what 
    star are we counting years around?
   Emilio: Nobody knows because the writers of the original 
    series just made shit up.
   Diandra: Yeah, my new favorite quote from Gene 
    Roddenberry involves him giving a long winded 
    explanation of how warp speed affects how time works on 
    the ship to try to explain the randomness of the dates 
    while admitting that it's complete bullshit. Trying to 
    place the dates they give throughout any series on a 
    timeline is an exercise in futility.
Captain Noname asks why they want to know the stardate. 
"Where are you from?" This apparently enrages Nero as he 
turns the staff he's holding into a spear and lunges at 
him.

Back on the Kelvin, the Captain's vitals flatline and 
everyone starts yelping about torpedoes incoming again. 
Kirk Sr. gives commands that may or may not lead to 
anything as they can't move fast enough to get out of the 
way anyway. They take a few more hits and Kirk Sr. gives 
the order to evacuate. As he gets on the speaker to order 
the entire ship to get to the escape pods, we smash to a 
woman obviously in the throws of labor being wheeled out of 
the med bay by a woman expositing that Mrs. Kirk is going 
to just have to deliver the baby in the shuttle. Mrs. Kirk 
opens her communicator that looks like a flip phone to talk 
to her husband...somehow directly. He tells her there's a 
medical shuttle waiting for her. She says yeah, great, 
but...uh...the baby is coming RIGHT NOW. He says he'll be 
there. He tries to set the autopilot, but there's a blast 
on the hull and the computer informs him that it 
specifically took out that system.

Mrs. Kirk gets to the shuttle with her entourage and Kirk 
Sr. calls the pilot to verify that she made it before 
ordering him to take off without him. Then he patches 
through generally to the shuttle to tell her that he has to 
stay behind to cover the escape of the shuttles.
   Chrissy: Clunky dialogue is clunky. Also, apparently 
    coms work by magic?
   Diandra: Yeah, well...exposition is awkward. I'm pretty 
    sure it got better. Also pretty sure the writing on the 
    series wasn't much better. And the magic coms 
    thing...didn't we note Marvel doing that in the last 
    two "Avengers"? Pretty sure that's universal. 

A lady with large alien eyes coaches Mrs. Kirk to push and 
we go to a montage of the shuttles escaping while Kirk Sr. 
fires at the attacking shuttles/torpedoes/whatever from the 
bridge of the Kelvin, things exploding and catching fire 
around him. When every system fails, he just sets the 
entire ship on a collision course with the megaship. As the 
clock counting down time to impact goes under one minute, 
the med staff place the wailing baby in Mrs. Kirk's arms. 
She tells Kirk Sr. that it's a boy. They talk about what 
his name should be. She suggests naming him after Sr's dad. 
He thinks Tiberius is a terrible name (which, yes, it is) 
and they should name him after HER dad Jim.
   Chrissy: How far into the original series did they 
    acknowledge what the "T" he reduced the middle name to 
    stood for?
   Diandra: You're asking me?
   Chrissy: Didn't they introduce a character as his 
    brother on "Strange New Worlds"? Is that one of the 
    things that's different with this timeline?
   Emilio: No, he had a brother in the original series. 
    It's possible they didn't include him in these movies 
    just because they forgot about him.

Sr. tells his wife he loves her as the ship impacts and 
causes massive explosions within the megaship. She cries 
into little Jim's blanket and we smash to the title card 
with Michael Giacchino's brassy spin on the theme song. 
Yes, that's the same guy who does the Marvel title theme 
and all the Spiderman movies in the MCU. The guy who's 
track titles are all dad joke name puns. This was back when 
he was doing the music for literally everything JJ Abrams 
did.

Apparently there were some fans who were upset by the canon 
change that happened in that last scene. Because at some 
point of the original series, it was stated that Kirk was 
born in Iowa. The fans decided to declare a specific town 
in Iowa the future birthplace of their hero, getting Gene 
Roddenberry to approve it as canon and erecting a statue of 
William Shatner in it. So I guess the people of that town 
were understandably upset that JJ Abrams retconned that 
detail away and had Kirk born on a shuttle in space 
somewhere instead. 
   Chrissy: Although at least that gives them something to 
    be mad about BESIDES the fact that they live in Iowa.
Did I mention that we are Minnesotan? Yeah. The rivalry 
isn't just between us and Wisconsin. 

And speaking of Iowa, we go to it some unstated amount of 
time later. A kid is racing a car around on one of the flat 
roads to nowhere that make up a lot of the middle of the 
country. The phone built into the dash rings with the old 
Nokia ringtone and the voice when he answers yells about 
how he thinks he can take an antique for a joy ride just 
because his mother is "off planet". He starts to threaten 
to beat the kid if he scratches his precious car and the 
kid hangs up and disengages the convertible top, sending it 
flying.
   Chrissy: So however many stardates makes Kirk a preteen 
    later?
   Diandra: Presumably. 

A police hoverbike comes up behind him and orders him to 
pull over. He takes a hard right down a dirt road and 
through a fence that was obviously protecting people from 
just driving Thelma and Louise style off the cliff it ends 
on. He guns the engine and jumps out before the car goes 
over. He faces the cop, who is apparently some sort of 
robot, and asks "is there a problem, officer?" In case 
anyone in the audience hasn't make the connection yet, the 
officer asks his name so he can recite the full version.

Meanwhile, on Vulcan. Okay, wait, no, why does Spock look 
like a child?
   Emilio: See? Told you this would be frustrating.
   Chrissy: How old is he supposed to be?
   Diandra: Obviously we can't pinpoint anything exactly 
    since we're working with stardates and the only marker 
    we have is Kirk's age (and Wikipedia gives a birth 
    year, not a stardate of 2233). But "Discovery" and 
    "Strange New Worlds" take place about 30 years before 
    the original series so I'm guessing Spock should 
    already look like Zachary Quinto. 
   Emilio: Vulcans live about twice as long as humans, so 
    they age differently.
   Chrissy: Oh.
   Diandra: Humans age differently in Star Trek. Bones made 
    a final appearance in an episode of "Next Generation", 
    which takes place 100 years in the future for the 
    original series, so he was probably just as old as 
    Spock when he died. Come to think of it...maybe the 
    problem is with "Discovery" and "SNW".

Okay, I just did a search specifically looking for both of 
their birthdays in Earth years and Kirk was born in 2233, 
Spock in 2230. So I guess my question is: how the fuck old 
is Kirk supposed to be in the original series? Because now 
I'm thinking whoever said "Discovery" was thirty years 
before it was just full of shit. And "Strange New Worlds" 
has to be, like, a decade before AT MOST.
   Chrissy: Sweetie, you're giving me a headache.
   Diandra: I'm just trying to work out where the 
    continuity error is here. Not with this movie, 
    apparently. 
   Emilio: Who told you "Discovery" was 30 years before the 
    original series exactly?
   Diandra: Some article I was reading that worked out the 
    timelines of all the series. Obviously it was talking 
    about "Discovery" only, which was just starting season 
    three at the time. Hang on...okay, I just found an 
    article that says it's six years before the original 
    series. I'll just assume this is a product of NOBODY 
    understanding how stardates work then.

Anyway. Moving on.

Baby Spock is doing complex math in the weird isolation pod 
schools they have on Vulcan. On a break, some older kids 
come up to bully him in a very robotic manner. Because 
Vulcan. He notes that this is the thirty-fifth time they 
have attempted to "elicit an emotional response" from him. 
One bully explains that it's because he's mixed race and 
therefore doesn't belong anywhere. 
   Chrissy: Oh, they sound like a pleasant race. I can see 
    why the humans formed an alliance with the Vulcans.
   Diandra: I mean...we are very similar. On so many 
    levels.
This being apparently too subtle, the kid pushes Spock and 
calls his father a traitor for marrying a "human whore". 
Spock shoves him into one of the pods with a yell and 
proceeds to beat the shit out of him.

Sometime later, Sarek - played by a different guy yet 
totally recognizable - comes to collect Spock. Spock 
defensively tells him what those little shits said about 
him. Sarek rambles what amounts to the credo of the 
Vulcans. That their race was VERY EMOTIONAL before they 
embraced logic and found "a serenity humans seldom 
experience" in controlling their emotions. Spock questions 
why Sarek married a human if he wanted a purely Vulcan 
child. Sarek says something about studying humans and 
understanding them better to make him a better ambassador.
   Chrissy: Yeah, I see the connection to Sherlock now. If 
    we end up roleplaying, you should definitely be Spock, 
    Dee.
   Diandra: And I suppose you would be Kirk, the man whore.
   Chrissy: Naturally. 
   Emilio: So am I Scotty or Bones?
   Chrissy: You can jump in and play anyone and everyone 
    you want, including the bad guys. 
   Emilio: Cool.
   Chrissy: Ooo, I want to see him play Khan while you 
    fight your instinct to play another character with 
    Benedict's face.
   Diandra: Let's get through THIS movie before we start 
    talking about the next one, shall we?

Sarek says Spock is in control of his destiny and he must 
choose what he will become. This prompts us to leap forward 
in time to him talking to his mother as an adult. 
   Chrissy: Oh dear god, is that Winona Ryder? Are we 
    really this old now?
   Diandra: Since she is only six years older than 
    him...not really. Although considering the Republican 
    party's willingness to force ten year olds to have 
    babies now, it might be a plausible future, assuming 
    we're fudging their ages by a couple years.
She assures him he doesn't need to be anxious. He says he 
isn't. Then he expresses the hope that she will not take it 
personally if he completes the Kolinahr - a Vulcan practice 
that purges all emotions. She promises to be proud of him 
whatever he becomes. 

So he stands before some sort of panel, the head of which 
declares that he has passed all his instructors 
expectations, but what is this about applying to Starfleet? 
Spock thinks applying to several places was logical. The 
judge shrugs and says he didn't need a fallback because he 
is accepted to the Vulcan Science Academy. Then he makes a 
point of noting how much Spock has achieved "despite your 
disadvantage." Spock just stares at him and asks what he 
means by that, exactly. I mean...it's pretty obvious what 
he means, but I assume he wants to hear the guy say it out 
loud. Which he does. Spock looks at Sarek, who is on the 
council that is determining his acceptance apparently, and 
politely tells them where they can stick it.

Back in Iowa, Zoe Saldana walks into what looks like a 
really popular restaurant bar. 
   Emilio: Probably not so much popular as the only one for 
    miles.
   Diandra: Speaking from experience?
   Emilio: Maybe.
She goes to the bar and starts ordering what sounds like a 
whole table worth of drinks that are a combination of alien 
and Earth pedestrian. Kalbanian Fire Tea, Cardassian 
Sunrise and, uh, Budweiser. 
   Chrissy: I mean, I would ask for a Pan Galactic Gargle 
    Blaster, but I doubt some bartender in Nowheresville 
    Iowa would know how to make that.
   Diandra: Although Guinan is probably on Earth SOMEWHERE, 
    assuming she hasn't already gotten on a Federation 
    ship.
   Chrissy: ...........
   Diandra: Although I probably can't assume the joke she 
    makes in the "Family Guy" game about making "a mean Pan 
    Galactic Gargle Blaster" is canon.
   Chrissy: That's not the part I'm having a problem with 
    here.
   Emilio: Guinan is Whoopi Goldberg's character from "Next 
    Generation". She's a bartender and she's hundreds of 
    years old. 
   Chrissy: Okay. Sure.

The bartender suggests she try a Slusho and she agrees. A 
voice down the bar notes that she's ordering a LOT of 
drinks there and Chris Pine sticks his head around the 
alien next to her. She looks at him mildly and adds a shot 
of Jack Daniels. Kirk orders the same thing and says he'll 
pay for hers. She says no, she will pay for her own drink, 
thanks. He asks if she wants to know his name at least.
   Chrissy: So you'll know what you'll be screaming later.
   Diandra: Really? That's a tired pick up NOW. I would 
    hope it's dead and long buried in 200 years.

She says nope, she's fine. He acknowledges this 
respectfully, but still tells her his name, which we know 
already. She does not take the bait to join in this 
exposition dump, so he tells her he'll just make up a name 
if she doesn't tell him what it is. Because there aren't 
many black ladies in the original series, she is, of 
course, Uhura. He asks if they have last names where she 
comes from. She says that IS the last name.
   Chrissy: I just realized it's all last names that the 
    characters in these series are known by, isn't it?
   Diandra: Yep. Starfleetrank Lastname. I don't think they 
    really started using first names at all until "Next 
    Generation".
   Emilio: And then they became really informal and started 
    using nicknames like "old man".
   Chrissy: Is that affectionately used, or...
   Diandra: Yes, because the Trill it was aimed at was a 
    famous general or something in one of her previous 
    bodies.
   Chrissy: ..............I want to ask, but I'm afraid to.
   Diandra: Did you read Stephanie Meyer's non-Twilight 
    book The Host?
   Chrissy: Yes. 
   Diandra: The Trill are like the souls.
   Chrissy: Oh.
   Emilio: But they probably won't be in this series 
    because they weren't introduced until "Next 
    Generation".
   Diandra: I wouldn't take anything for granted because I 
    feel like all of the currently running Treks have to 
    take into account later stuff no matter when they take 
    place. Oh, you're a prequel? Yeah, you're going to do 
    an episode about the Borg full of foreshadowing that 
    fans will recognize.

Anyway. Tangent number one. Sorry.

Kirk sidles up to Uhura and asks what she's studying at 
Starfleet anyway. She says Xenolinguistics, which a dumb 
jock like him wouldn't understand. I'm paraphrasing. Kirk 
maybe starts to impress her by giving the textbook 
definition of alien language studies, but then ruins it by 
staring at her mouth and concluding that she has a 
"talented tongue".
   Emilio: Not that you'll ever know about it first hand.
She smiles and notes that she thought he was just a "dumb 
hick who only has sex with farm animals." A bouncer guy 
shows up to ask if Kirk is bothering her and she says god 
yes, but she can handle it herself. Kirk smarms something 
about handling him and the bouncer snaps at him and points 
out the three other guys behind him who are perfectly 
willing to kick his ass if he doesn't cut this shit out. 
Kirk taunts that they need more guys if they want an even 
fight and the leader punches him. This turns into an all 
out brawl very quickly that Uhura tries to stop for some 
reason even though he TOTALLY DESERVES to get his ass 
kicked. But I guess she can see that he's going to lose 
badly and she's just trying to get them to stop before they 
kill him.

They finally stop beating his stupid ass when Bruce 
Greenwood shows up, in full Starfleet uniform and air of a 
superior officer. He shoos everyone not Kirk out and then 
they apparently sit until closing time at one of the 
tables. Kirk exposits that Bruce is Captain Pike, aka, the 
guy who was originally supposed to be captain of the 
Enterprise until the actor was fired and they had to use 
footage from the pilot later in the series and now we have 
to keep casting guys to play him.
   Chrissy: Is that the guy Anson Mount is playing now?
   Diandra: See, you aren't as clueless about this as you 
    pretend to be.
   Chrissy: I can't be friends with you and NOT know who 
    these characters are. Also, you pointed it out when he 
    was in the last Marvel movie.

Pike says Kirk is DEFINITELY his father's son.
   Chrissy: Yeah, I'll probably follow him to Marvel too. 
    What's that? The other comics franchise? Oh. Okay.
   Diandra: Well, we could get you into Marvelverse if you 
    want to play an animated version of Spiderman.
   Emilio: Yeah, considering a bunch of other people from 
    that got cast in other roles in the MCU, I wouldn't 
    rule out Chris Pine showing up one day.
   Diandra: Also because they seem to be pulling all the DC 
    people to play villains. 

Pike tells a probably drunk and definitely cranky Kirk that 
he was posted to the Kelvin and he always admired his dad's 
insistence on NOT believing in no-win scenarios.
   Emilio: Otherwise known as the Kobayashi Maru.
   Diandra: Yes, we will get to that.
Anyway, Kirk Sr. also had a thing for leaping before 
looking, which he thinks might be a good thing for 
Starfleet because they've become TOO cautious. Long story 
short: he looked up Kirk's file and he's wondering what a 
genius like him is doing in middle America. He should 
enlist. Kirk snorts that they must be "way down in your 
recruiting quota for the month". Pike thinks he could be an 
officer within four years and a captain within eight. Then 
he describes the Federation for the audience as a 
"peacekeeping and humanitarian armada". That often gets 
into space battles because the audience loves those.
   Chrissy: Gotta hook those Star Wars fans somehow.
   Diandra: Yeah, that actually might be one of the 
    defining differences. Other than that "Star Wars" is 
    technically fantasy and not sci-fi. It's a big war 
    between good and evil. Whereas Gene Roddenberry fought 
    to make sure there was never any internal conflicts at 
    all until he died and that's why "Deep Space Nine" with 
    its big religious war looks more like "Star Wars" than 
    any other Trek.
   Chrissy: ...............
   Emilio: That was just because it was the first series 
    that was really serialized instead of telling a 
    different story every week. The Star Wars franchise is 
    telling different parts of one big, epic story. The 
    Star Trek franchise is telling several stories that all 
    fit into some part of the same universe.
   Chrissy: Oh god, I just realized I might have to act as 
    a buffer between a Star Wars fan and a Trekkie.
   Emilio: No, we're good. I'm also a Trekkie, so I can 
    argue both sides.
   Diandra: And we can each appreciate the other's...I 
    would say fandom, but that would imply that I embrace 
    the toxicity that seems to make up a large part of the 
    Star Wars fanbase.
   Emilio: Star Trek has those too. 
   Diandra: Not nearly as many. The worst elements of 
    fandom all seem to hover around the comics franchises, 
    "Star Wars", video games, basically all the fandoms 
    whose primary makeup is male. Trekkie fandom is at 
    least half female. And that's an objective statement, 
    by the way. Somebody did surveys that show Wars fans 
    are mostly male and Trek's are mostly female. We're 
    usually a different sort of toxic that resembles "Mean 
    Girls" and I can go into ALL SORTS OF DETAILS about how 
    shitty that made the "Sherlock" fandom and why I have 
    little fondness for it, but I think we've been on this 
    tangent long enough now. 

Now that we've all forgotten how this conversation 
started...Kirk cuts Pike off to ask if they're done. Pike 
says yes, but before he leaves, he tells Kirk that there's 
a ship for new recruits leaving tomorrow and adds that his 
dad was only captain of the ship for 12 minutes, but he 
saved 800 people.

So sometime the next morning, I guess, Kirk rides a 
motorcycle up to the ship still being constructed in a 
field. We can't see the marking on the top, but it is 
obviously the Enterprise. He goes INTO the shipyard and 
immediately finds Pike, bragging that he can make the 
career trajectory Pike claimed he could in less time. He 
gets on the ship and goes right past the guys who beat him 
up and sits a few seats down from Uhura, who is probably 
regretting her life choices now. A voice starts yelling 
about suffering from aviaphobia and he's a DOCTOR. And then 
Billy Butcher sits next to Kirk and straps himself in 
angrily.
   Chrissy: I love how you were referring to Karl Urban by 
    his "Star Trek" character when he was in a Marvel movie 
    and now that you're doing the "Star Trek" movie you 
    refer to him...by his character in a different comic 
    book franchise.
   Emilio: I bet if she recapped "The Boys", she'd refer to 
    him as his character in "Lord of the Rings".
   Diandra: He was in "Lord of the Rings"?
   Chrissy: Don't answer that, Emilio. Just...don't.

Pike is the captain of this ship and announces that they're 
ready for takeoff. Leonard "Bones" McCoy (because us 
Trekkies would know a guy yelling "I'M A DOCTOR" anywhere) 
warns Kirk that he might throw up on him.
   Chrissy: Meh. It wouldn't be the first time.
   Diandra: ........I can't tell if you're being Kirk or 
    yourself.
   Chrissy: Good.
Kirk thinks they're totally safe in the ship, but McCoy is 
one of those people who focuses on all the tiny parts of a 
ship that could go wrong and KILL THEM ALL. Specifically, 
he says their blood would boil in seconds at the smallest 
crack in the hull. Presumably he means while they are 
travelling through the atmosphere fast enough to fireball. 
Then you have things like solar flares and "Andorian 
shingles" to worry about because "space is disease and 
danger wrapped up in darkness and silence." And then we get 
this weird establishment of a nickname: "my ex-wife took 
the whole damn planet in the divorce. All I've got left is 
my bones." They introduce themselves to each other, but we 
know they will forever refer to each other as Bones and 
DAMNIT JIM.

And we just fast forward to three years later, which was 
Kirk's goal for getting his own ship. Except we're zooming 
in on Captain Nero's big ugly ship. We zoom in on his face 
while he glowers or looks constipated and a voice calls him 
to the bridge because "it's time". He is greeted by a 
lackey who exposits that they arrived at the coordinates he 
gave them, but there's nothing here. He says good, now they 
just have to "wait for the one who allowed our home to be 
destroyed." This not providing quite enough exposition, he 
adds that they have been doing this for the past 25 years. 
Lackey asks what they will do after they've finally killed 
him. Nero says he doesn't plan to KILL him. He wants to 
"make him watch". 
   Chrissy: Well, why didn't you just say so? I have 
    different rates depending on how many participants and 
    props you need.
   Diandra: Oh dear god, NO.
A wormhole opens outside the window and a ship comes 
spinning through it. Nero orders the men to capture it and 
snarls "welcome back, Spock."

Earth. Starfleet headquarters/academy in San Francisco. 
Kirk and Bones emerge from a building chatting about a test 
Kirk is planning to take for a third time and how he wants 
Bones to be there. Bones is like 'so I can watch you fail 
again? Why?' He shoehorns in one "I'm a DOCTOR, Jim." Keep 
track of those, I'm sure there will be plenty. So yes, the 
test they are talking about is the Kobayashi Maru, which is 
designed to be impossible to pass because it's about 
gauging the tester's responses under extreme circumstance, 
not getting the right answer. But this bothers Kirk 
because, you know...no-win scenarios.

They part ways and then the next scene is Kirk getting it 
on with a green skinned woman, which has been a whole thing 
since the 60s. I have a book on fanfiction that talks about 
the problematic nature of a species that Star Trek 
basically treated like sex slaves originally and only more 
recently kind of tried to correct that. Or maybe it's a 
Cracked article. Apparently they are on Starfleet campus 
somewhere because she makes him hide under the bed when she 
hears her roommate coming back since she promised she'd 
stop bringing guys back to the room. He starts to ask just 
how many times this has happened, but has to duck just 
before...Uhura comes in the room. Uhura sits on her bed 
chatting about this emergency transmission she picked up 
from a Klingon prison planet about FORTY SEVEN SHIPS being 
destroyed (thank you, JJ). She starts getting undressed as 
she talks, oblivious to Kirk eyeballing her from under her 
roommate's bed. The roommate - Gaila, apparently - says 
so...you're not going back to the lab then? And Uhura 
realizes there's a guy in the room and asks who the "mouth 
breather hiding under your bed" is. Kirk jumps up 
indignantly at the mouth breather comment. She grabs his 
clothes and shoves him out the door while he babbles 
something about doing the test again tomorrow and she 
wishes him failure.

So we're going to walk through this legendary no-win 
scenario with Uhura and Bones acting as Kirk's crew. Uhura 
announces the distress call from the USS Kobayashi Maru. 
They've lost power and Starfleet has ordered they rescue 
them. Kirk snottily notes that she didn't call him Captain. 
An alarm blares and Bones announces the arrival of Klingon 
vessels preparing to shoot them. Kirk just smirks and tells 
them not to worry about it. The guys watching the 
simulation ask each other if this idiot is not taking the 
test seriously or something. Kirk just smiles at them as 
Bones announces three more Klingon ships. An extra says 
they're firing now. Kirk says they should alert the med bay 
about the incoming patients from the damaged ship. Uhura is 
like 'uh...okay...and how are we supposed to collect those 
survivors when we have Klingons on our asses?' He tells her 
to just do it. 

Sirens whoop and Bones notes that they are being hit and 
shields are already down to 60%. Kirk is like 'yeah, cool' 
and pulls an apple from somewhere. Bones asks if maybe they 
should consider...oh...RETURNING FIRE? Kirk says no around 
a mouthful of apple. Bones turns back to his monitor, which 
starts glitching. All the other monitors follow and the 
entire simulation seems to shut down for a second, then 
come back online. Kirk orders everyone to arm photons and 
get ready to fire at the Klingons now. Bones protests that 
the Klingons are shielded. Kirk asks if he's sure about 
that. Bones looks back at the monitor and realizes that 
changed. They fire, destroying all of the enemy ships, and 
Kirk says they can get back to rescuing the Kobayashi Maru 
now. He looks pointedly at the test observer, who is 
confused because that should NOT have been possible. He 
turns to the test designer - Spock - for an explanation.

So the entire school is called to an assembly so a council 
can publicly demand to know how he "violated the ethical 
code of conduct pursuant to regulation 17.43 of the 
Starfleet code."
   Chrissy: Dude. Just say I cheated.
Kirk demands to face whoever is accusing him of this, so 
they call Spock down to the floor too, identifying him as a 
commander and "one of our most distinguished graduates." 
Spock says Kirk sabotaged his Kobayashi Maru program 
somehow via subroutine that altered the test conditions. 
The head of the council finally translates this as "you 
cheated."
   Chrissy: There. Was that so hard?
Kirk asks if it's fair that the test was designed so that 
it COULDN'T be passed. Spock snorts that he's arguing 
against the idea of a no win scenario. Kirk says yes, 
because he doesn't believe in them. Spock says then he 
cheated AND failed to understand the point of creating a 
scenario that can't be won in the first place. He alludes 
to Kirk Sr. by saying that Kirk OF ALL PEOPLE should 
understand that he isn't invincible. Kirk blinks at him 
like 'really? You want to go there?' Spock mistakes this as 
him not understanding what he means and he needs to make it 
clear that he's talking about his father dying while he was 
captain of his ship.

While Kirk grinds his teeth and probably resists the urge 
to just punch Spock, Spock continues that the POINT of the 
test is to inspire fear of certain death and "maintain 
control" in spite of it because that's what they expect of 
their captains. Before Kirk can say anything else, someone 
runs to give the council head a message that the Vulcans 
are sending a distress call. And since the Federation's 
main line of defense is in another star system, that means 
their cadets are going to have to answer it. As everyone 
disperses, Kirk asks Bones who that "pointy eared bastard" 
is anyway. Bones says he kind of likes the guy already.
   Chrissy: Well, I hate him. There's NO WAY we're going to 
    become so close that we will launch millions of fanfics 
    about how much we love each other.
   Diandra: Resistance is futile, dear.

In the ship hangar, a guy yells out ship assignments to all 
the cadets, including Bones going to the Enterprise, but 
fails to call Kirk's name. He goes to yell at the commander 
about that. The commander says that's because he's on 
academic suspension until that board decides on a ruling 
about the conduct thing. Bones consoles him that the board 
will definitely rule in his favor. Eventually. Probably. 
Maybe. But he really has to go now, so...bye. He gets all 
of two yards before he stops, mutters "damnit" and goes 
back for Kirk. They pass Uhura going to yell at Spock for 
ignoring her student ranking and clearly expressed desire 
to be assigned to the Enterprise. He claims he was trying 
to avoid looking like he was favoring her. She says fuck 
that, he's assigning her to the Enterprise. He looks at the 
tablet in his hand and is like 'yes, ma'am.'

Bones take Kirk to a lab and prepares a "vaccine" against 
"Melvaran mud flea" viral infection. He shoots it in Kirk's 
neck before he can protest. Kirk asks what he needs that 
for. Bones says it will give him the symptoms of the 
infection. Like loss of sight in one eye, a headache and 
going all sweaty. Kirk starts swooning as these go into 
effect and questions what the fuck he did to piss Bones 
off. Bones half carries him to the shuttle, which the guy 
checking the boarding list notes that Kirk is NOT cleared 
to be on. Bones says he's a patient and the rules say the 
doctor determines where he gets treated. Unless he wants to 
explain to Pike why the Enterprise is missing its chief 
medical officer. The guy reluctantly lets them on. 

The camera pans lovingly over the Enterprise as the 
shuttles fly into it and the brass section really hammers 
the main fanfare. 

Somewhere in the bowels of the ship, Kirk yelps that he 
thinks he's "leaking" while Bones tries to direct him to 
sick bay. Bones mutters something about the "pointy eared 
bastard" and yanks Kirk in a different direction as Spock 
walks past.
   Chrissy: For a second there, I thought Spock's presence 
    was an explanation for the leakage.
   Diandra: Yeah, you would think that wouldn't you? 

We follow Spock into an elevator and back out onto the 
bridge, which is swoopier and more neutral toned than the 
one in the original series, but otherwise pretty similar. 
Like an updated version. He goes to his station and tells 
Captain Pike that they are ready for launch. Pike gives a 
speech about how this ship deserves more "pomp and 
circumstance" for its maiden voyage, but since they can't 
take the time for that now, they'll just have to make do 
and christen it later. Sulu, at what will become his usual 
station, talks them through the launch. On Pike's command, 
he throws the switch to send them into warp speed headed 
for Vulcan, but the ship just sits there while all the 
other ships around it zip off. The crew all look at each 
other nervously and Pike asks where McKenna is. Sulu says 
he's the replacement that was sent because McKenna is out 
sick with lungworms. This is probably just an excuse to 
officially introduce him by name. Pike asks if he's a 
pilot. Sulu says yes and he's not sure what just happened. 
Pike asks if the parking brake is on.
   Chrissy: Oh, please. As if we would have one of those. 
   [coughs nervously] [mimes pulling a lever]

Spock asks if he disengaged the "external inertial 
dampener". Sulu pushes a few buttons and mutters that 
they're ready for warp now. 
   Emilio: So yes, the space parking brake was on.
   Diandra: Lucky for you, Kirk isn't here yet because he 
    would NEVER let you hear the end of that one.

Kirk moans that this wasn't worth it as Bones drags him 
into medical. Bones says suffering is "good for the soul". 
Kirk just keeps complaining and expressing the wish to go 
back in time and ensure he never met Bones while Bones gets 
a sedative, which he stabs Kirk with immediately. "How 
long's it supposed to..." Kirk asks before his face goes 
slack and he falls over onto the cot.
   Emilio: Not fast enough, apparently.
   Chrissy: Oh, you obviously love me if you went to all 
    that trouble to sneak me on the ship.

Pike realizes the audience hasn't been introduced to the 
entire crew yet and prompts the Russian kid for his name. 
Chekov, played by Anton Yelchin with an almost comically 
thick accent, obliges and Pike orders him to give a 
shipwide address. He goes to do this, reciting an 
authorization code of "nayn fife wicktor wicktor two", 
which...the computer being a computer cheerfully announces 
it does not understand. He says it slower, straining to get 
the v sound and the computer pings like 'well, why didn't 
you say so?' Once he has the intercom, he says an anomaly 
was detected in the neutral zone at 2200 hours 
which...wasn't it daytime a couple minutes ago? Anyway. It 
looked like a lightning storm, but Wulcan High Command sent 
a distress signal about seismic activity over the whole 
planet soon after it, so. So they're checking that out. And 
possibly evacuating people if needed. So yes, they did need 
the doctor on board the ship.

In the med bay, Kirk sits bolt upright and gasps "lightning 
storm!" Bones comes over to ask how he's doing and then 
gasps in horror and looks at something in the vicinity of 
his lap, which is off camera. 
   Chrissy: Yes, I often have that effect on people.
Kirk brings his hands into view and they are puffed up to 
at least twice their size. Bones says it must be a reaction 
to the vaccine and scrambles to find some cortisone. Kirk 
stumbles over to a viewscreen to rewind the broadcast to 
the part about the lightning storm and grabs Bones as he 
returns, yelping that they need to stop the ship.

He runs through the halls while Bones chases him yelping 
about his heart rate. He orders another computer panel to 
find Uhura then runs off in another direction while Bones 
yells at him to slow down. Bones manages to get another 
injection in him and Kirk snaps at him to knock it off with 
the needles already before running to Uhura. She yelps 
about him a) having Staypuft Marshmallow Man hands and b) 
being on the ship in the first place. Kirk is focused on 
asking her about that Klingon prison transmission she 
intercepted. Who was responsible for the attack? And was 
the ship wazhhhhmffflllluhhhh yeah, his tongue just went 
numb. Bones rushes to get something for that now while Kirk 
just skips to the most important word: Romulan? She says 
yes before Bones injects him again.

I just realized that I completely failed to recognize Eric 
Bana's character as Romulan. And, of course, forgot about 
that detail from the first two times I saw this movie. No, 
I will not be going back to correct my mistakes. 

Vulcan, presumably. Spock's mom watches in horror as...a 
ship takes off? Or comes down to the surface from Nero's 
ship hovering in the atmosphere. Nero's head guard informs 
him that Federation ships are on the way.

Enterprise. Kirk runs all the way to the bridge with Bones 
and Uhura in tow to yelp that Pike has to stop the ship. 
Bones starts to apologize for the weird allergic reaction 
to a vaccine that this man is having that is probably 
affecting his mind. Kirk snaps at him to shut up and says 
the seismic activity they picked up is a Romulan attack on 
Vulcan. Pike snaps that Kirk has "had enough attention for 
one day" because that's crazy. Kirk keeps yelling about the 
anomaly as Spock tries to interject about rules and Kirk 
belonging in the brig for stowing away. When they're all 
listening again, Kirk says the lightning storm is the same 
phenomenon that happened the day he was born. It preceded a 
Romulan attack on the Kelvin. Which he knows because he 
read Pike's dissertation on it. The Romulan ship was 
massive and had superior tech to beat the shit out of them 
and then disappear, never to be heard from again. He starts 
to connect the dots by saying that attack happened at the 
edge of Klingon space and now Klingons are reporting an 
attack from a giant Romulan ship. Uhura verifies this was 
the message she heard and Kirk says this all adds up to a 
trap.

Spock dispassionately agrees that this all sounds logical 
and he trusts Uhura's accuracy in reading. Pike orders the 
guy at the communications post to check for Romulan 
broadcasts and the guy whimpers that he can't tell Romulan 
from Vulcan languages. So he is replaced with Uhura. A lady 
at another post announces that all the other ships are 
already at the location they set out for, but they've lost 
contact with them. So Sulu forgetting to disengage the 
space brake is what saves them. Uhura says she's not 
picking up any transmissions at all. Kirk thinks that's 
because they're too busy being attacked. Pike sends them to 
red alert and sits in his seat. 

The ship drops out of warp right in the middle of a debris 
field. They spend a couple minutes dodging the broken 
remains of all the other ships and shouting before finding 
the apparently Romulan megaship.

One of Nero's guys yelps that another Federation ship has 
appeared suddenly and they start firing torpedoes. 

Pike orders power diverted to the shields, but they take a 
couple hits anyway. Sulu yells that the shields are down to 
32% and it would only take one more hit to finish them. 
Spock announces that the Romulans have dropped some sort 
of...device into the atmosphere of Vulcan. It's 
transmitting a pulse that's blocking communications and 
transporters. 

Nero's men go to fire again, but he yells at them to stop 
and magnify the image of the ship's hull. Upon seeing the 
Enterprise designation, he opens a communication channel 
and appears on their viewscreen. Pike warns that he has 
declared war on the Federation and if he withdraws now they 
can arrange a meeting... Nero is like 'pffftttt, I'm not 
doing this on behalf of the Romulan Empire. Spock on 
board?' Spock wanders over to say 'uh...I don't know you.' 
Nero agrees that he doesn't...yet. But he has something he 
wants...someone...to see and since transporters are jammed 
the captain will have to take a shuttle over to the ship he 
finally identifies as the Narada to "negotiate". He cuts 
off the feed before anyone can respond. 

Kirk and Spock find something they can agree on: this is a 
bad idea and Pike should definitely not do it. Also, Nero 
will kill him. And no, we know this is not how Pike dies, 
but I'm pretty sure the part about him seeing his own 
future death is more recent than this movie, so only the 
audience who remembers the original series would know that. 
   Emilio: Also, this is an alternate timeline. His death 
    is totally different and I think in the next movie.
   Diandra: Right. This won't be confusing at all.
   Chrissy: Oh, you love it. Alt universe is second only to 
    time travel in your ranking of sci-fi tropes and this 
    series has BOTH. Honestly, it's amazing you never tried 
    to recap them before.
Pike agrees, but is obviously going to do it anyway. He 
asks if any officers have "advanced hand to hand combat" 
training. Sulu raises his hand.
   Emilio: Also fencing if you happen to have any swords 
   handy.
Pike takes him, Spock and Kirk since he wasn't even 
supposed to be here (sound reasoning, that) and leaves 
Chekov in charge.

The camera spins artistically around the ship with a lot of 
lens flares because THIS IS A JJ ABRAMS MOVIE IN CASE YOU 
DIDN'T NOTICE. On the Narada, Nero orders his head goon to 
"prepare the red matter". The goon nods and goes into a lab 
where there's a big red ball suspended in a tank and now 
I'm having major déjà vu. DAMNIT JJ. I guess it's something 
like antimatter because a tech extracts a drop of it and 
puts it in a cylinder suspended in fluid, which is placed 
in some sort of...weapon?
   Chrissy: How do you not have any memory of the plot of 
    this at all?
   Diandra: I watch a lot of movies. I'm not going to 
    remember details of the ones I haven't seen in years. 
    Unless I recap them. Which is why I recap them.

Pike gives them the plan. Kirk, Sulu and a random red shirt 
from engineering will space jump to that thing they planted 
on Vulcan that's fucking with their equipment and disable 
it.
   Chrissy: One of you will die in the process and 
    everybody can guess which one.
   Diandra: Yeah, I know it was a running joke that red 
    shirt = sacrificial lamb, but this actually highlights 
    why that always seemed to happen. Most of the important 
    main characters were either command (yellow) or science 
    (blue) officers. Extras were usually from the lower 
    decks where they are rarely seen and wear red. 
    Apparently despite this, red shirts were only 
    *slightly* more likely to die than any other color, but 
    the breakdown probably changed when they got tired of 
    the joke and switched red and yellow from "Next 
    Generation" on.
   Emilio: The other shows probably also didn't kill as 
    many characters.
   Diandra: Yeah. Kirk was really a shitty captain.

Now, I assumed there that Nero was saying he wanted Spock, 
not Pike, but I guess I was wrong. Pike says Spock will be 
in charge of the Enterprise and he will contact Starfleet 
once they get everything back up. He's also promoting Kirk 
to first officer so they will briefly have the exact 
opposite roles we know them for.
   Chrissy: Hopefully it's temporary. I don't work well 
    under people. I always prefer being on top.
   Emilio: [opens mouth]
   Diandra: DO NOT RESPOND TO THAT.
Spock is like 'forgive me, but human humor tends to elude 
me. What?' Pike isn't going to take no for an answer though 
and finishes the plan with the assumption that they will 
have to come retrieve him once they're done disabling the 
device.

Spock returns to the bridge and tries to call a Dr. Puri. 
Bones answers that Puri is on another deck and very dead. 
Spock congratulates him on being promoted to CHIEF medical 
officer then. He snaps that he knows and goes back to the 
chaos that is the bombed out med bay. Yeah, this one is all 
about getting the characters we know into their positions 
for the rest of the series. 

Pike flies the shuttle out of the bay and this is when Kirk 
asks Sulu just what kind of training he has and Sulu 
confirms what we already pointed out: fencing. They put on 
their helmets and Pike exposits that they only have one 
shot at landing on that platform below and the Romulans 
might have some sort of defense so...they should deploy 
chutes as late as possible. Also reminder that the 
Enterprise can't get them back until they disable the 
device. Good luck! He throws the bay door switch and they 
sky dive down toward the planet from space, somehow 
entering the atmosphere without catching fire. At two 
thousand meters, Kirk and Sulu deploy their chutes, which 
are the same color as their uniforms so they are easily 
recognized. Kirk yells at redshirt to deploy his. Because 
he is apparently an idiot, Redshirt waits until he's at one 
thousand and hits the platform hard, bouncing off it and 
getting sucked into the laser beam below it.
   Chrissy: And even those of us who were Star Trek noobes 
    when they first saw this movie got the reference.
   Diandra: Yeah. Me included.

Kirk hits the platform next and the chute ALMOST drags him 
over the edge into the laser as well, but since he's an 
actual important character with top billing he manages to 
push the button to suck the chute back into the pack just 
in time. He takes off his helmet and lunges at the Romulan 
that comes out of a hatch in the device, deflecting his gun 
and accidentally blowing holes in Sulu's chute. Another guy 
comes out of the hatch and Kirk fights them both while Sulu 
ALMOST gets sucked into the beam.
   Emilio: One of the things about this being an alternate 
    timeline is: nothing has to happen like it did in the 
    series. They could totally kill any of them if they 
    wanted.
   Diandra: I mean...yes, but obviously they won't.

Sulu saves himself by pulling out a retractable sword and 
slicing the cords of the chute. So it turns out his sword 
skills did come in handy after all. The next Romulan out of 
the hatch looks at this Asian guy brandishing a sword and 
apparently decides 'yeah, I can do that.' He pulls a blade 
and they fight. This goes on for a while until Sulu kicks 
the Romulan onto a platform with a periodically blasting 
jet. Then he runs through the guy threatening to send Kirk 
over the edge and pulls Kirk back up. Except apparently 
some brilliant person decided to give the important 
equipment they planned to use to disable the device to the 
redshirt. So Kirk just picks up one of the Romulan's 
weapons and starts blasting at the core of the device. 

Somehow, this works. The beam dissolves and Uhura announces 
that the communications are unblocked. Chekov says the 
transporters are back online too. Spock orders them to run 
scans to figure out what the hell they're trying to do to 
Vulcan.

The audience gets an answer in the form of a guard 
informing Nero that the drill has been sabotaged, but they 
have already reached the core of the planet. They launch 
the device with the "red matter" down into the hole. 

Kirk calls the Enterprise to inform them of this 
development. Chekov tells Spock that his scans say they are 
trying to create a singularity that will suck the entire 
planet into a black hole. Spock asks how much time they 
have. Considering the way black holes work, I would think 
the answer would be "eternity", but this is science fiction 
so Chekov shrugs and says "minutes". Spock jumps up and 
starts giving commands to evacuate the planet, telling 
Uhura that he is going to evacuate the Vulcan High Council 
himself. He gives two details that seem to have equal 
weight: that the council is the keeper of the planet's 
cultural history and that its members include his parents. 
Uhura asks if he can't just beam them out. He says no, they 
would be in the "katric ark" by now, so they're 
unreachable. Once again, Chekov is given command.

Kirk yelps for somebody to beam them out. But this is when 
Nero's crew decide to retract the drill with them still on 
it. The lady in charge of the transporter yells at them to 
stop moving because she can't get a lock and Sulu goes 
sailing right over the edge. Since he cut his chute free, 
this means Kirk has to go skydiving after him. He catches 
him and deploys his chute, which snaps right off after 
about two seconds. Kirk yells for Enterprise to beam them 
up NOW because they're headed for the surface without 
chutes. 
   Chrissy: Oh, sure. She wasn't able to do it when you 
   were on a moving object a thousand feet in the air, but 
   she can do it while you're plummeting toward the ground.
She confirms that she still can't lock on a moving target. 
But from the bridge, Chekov yelps that he thinks he can.

Chekov runs full tilt through the halls and somehow reaches 
the transporter room before the others reach the ground, 
switching the controls to manual and moving a joystick 
around until the two dots on the screen stop moving and the 
screen says "locked". The beam catches them just before 
they hit the ground and they smash into the transporter 
floor. Which, you would think, would prove fatal anyway, 
but what do I know?
   Chrissy: This is why science nerds often hate science 
    fiction.
   Diandra: Yeah, but adhering strictly to what is known to 
    be scientifically possible makes for boring stories and 
    the least fun theory of time travel.

Before they can fully crawl upright, Spock marches in and 
orders them to get off the pad so he can beam down to 
Vulcan. Kirk asks if he has lost his mind, but steps clear 
anyway. Spock squats down and orders whoever has control of 
the transporter now to "energize". He beams down to what 
looks like the middle of the same canyon Kirk and Sulu just 
beamed away from, glances at the crumbling rock faces all 
around and runs into a cave, which looks like one of the 
underground cities in Europe. 

The council is standing around what looks like an altar. 
Spock tells them the planet is going to be destroyed within 
seconds and they need to get out. Being a practical 
species, they go along without any argument, dodging 
falling statues. Or failing to in the case of a couple 
guys. Once they are outside, Spock calls the Enterprise to 
beam them up. The transporter beams surround them, but 
before they can beam up, the ground under Spock's mother 
crumbles and she drops. Spock reaches for her helplessly 
and is still like that when he and he rest of the group 
beam into the transporter room. Everyone kind of looks away 
from him awkwardly as he processes that she just died.

Exterior shot of the entire planet getting sucked into a 
black hole while the Enterprise flies away. Spock voice 
overs an "acting captain's log" (stardate 2258.42). He says 
they are assuming Pike is a hostage because he hasn't 
contacted them since he left. We montage over Sarek 
checking on the survivors while Spock rambles about the war 
criminal who killed the majority of Vulcan's six billion 
inhabitants. He figures there are less than 10,000 Vulcans 
now, making them basically an endangered species. Which 
yes, is a marked distinction from the original canon where 
they and the planet still exist centuries into the future.  

Uhura corners him in the main elevator and stops it so she 
can offer condolences and kiss him. He awkwardly returns 
her hug and makes pained faces, but of course mostly 
remains stoic. She asks what he needs her to do. He 
restarts the elevator and says he needs everyone to get 
back to work where they will "continue performing 
admirably". She accepts this and kisses him again. And if 
you're wondering how the hell this relationship became a 
thing...rest assured that fans of the series were just as 
confused. 
   Chrissy: Weren't she and Kirk a thing?
   Diandra and Emilio: No.
   Diandra: I'm sure anyone who only had basic cultural 
    knowledge of the show would draw that conclusion from 
    the fact that Shatner and Nichols are always cited as 
    the first interracial kiss, but that was not at all in 
    
    the context of a relationship. In fact, it wasn't even 
    consensual for either of them. You know the fanfiction 
    trope "aliens made them do it"? It's basically that.
   Emilio: The only romantic subplots of the original 
    series generally involved Kirk hooking up with aliens.
   Diandra: And maybe Bones a couple times with a dead 
    girlfriend of the week. Yeah.

Narada. Nero has Pike strapped to a gurney somewhere in the 
bowels of the ship. He says he just needs one thing from 
Pike: the "subspace frequencies of Starfleet's border 
protection grids. Specifically those surrounding Earth." 
Pike is like 'you really think I'm going to cooperate with 
a guy who just wiped out an entire planet?' Nero argues 
that he was actually PREVENTING genocide by doing that. And 
you might want to settle in because he's about to go into 
the standard bad guy soliloquy while sloshing around the 
gurney in hip-deep water. Apparently this ship is a mining 
vessel. And he worked on it so he could provide for his 
wife and unborn child. A holographic image of that wife 
appears near the gurney. Which is where he was 
when...something happened to their planet. It's not really 
clear if it was an attack and who by, but he blames the 
Federation for not doing anything. Specifically Spock for 
"betraying" them. Pike argues that he must be confused 
because Romulus hasn't been destroyed. Nero yells that it 
DEFINITELY HAS BEEN and he has spent the past quarter 
century plotting his revenge on the Federation. And now all 
the remaining Vulcans share his pain.

In a nutshell, he believes that he is not just saving 
Romulus, he is ensuring that Romulus will not become part 
of the Federation. I am not sure where Romulans stood at 
this point in the franchise. Each series seemed to neuter 
the threat of the biggest enemies of the last. Klingons 
were the enemy until Worf. Borg were the enemy until Seven 
of Nine (sort of). Cardassians were...okay bad example. 
Maybe it's just that individual members of each group broke 
away and became sympathetic major players. But the 
Romulans...I don't know when they ever became sympathetic.
   Emilio: Eh. They're not so much evil as they are 
    xenophobic assholes who think they're better than 
    everyone else.
   Chrissy: So American?
   Emilio: Pretty much.
   Diandra: Yeah, they're kind of the other side of the 
    Vulcan coin. 

Oh, and he's not stopping with Vulcan, which is why he was 
asking about Earth. He wants to destroy ALL the planets in 
the Federation. Which...how many billions of people is 
that? Yeesh. Typical bad guy logic going to the most 
extreme answer. Pike says they're done talking then. Nero 
holds up a twitching, squealing bug and exposits that it is 
a Centaurian slug and they burrow into the brain and 
release a toxin that works like truth serum. He holds the 
slug in front of Pike's face and says he can either give 
the frequencies to Earth's defense system willingly, or...
   Chrissy: Nope. I'm out.

Pike just recites his name, rank and serial number and some 
burly guys grab his head and hold his mouth open so Nero 
can drop the slug in. 
   Chrissy: [fingers in ears] LALALALALALALALALALALA
   Diandra: [shakes Chrissy] You can stop that. It's over 
    now.
   Chrissy: Thank god. A warning might have been nice.
   Diandra: Sorry, this is another thing I forgot about. 
    Although in this case I think that might have been an 
    act of self preservation.

On the Enterprise, Spock and Uhura have figured out that 
the Narada is headed toward Earth. Kirk, slouching in the 
captain's chair, says they should assume Earth is just the 
next target and Nero is going after the whole Federation.
   Chrissy: See? I'm more than just a pretty face.
Spock mildly orders him to get out of that chair. Chekov 
asks why Nero didn't just attack the Enterprise then if he 
wants to go after the Federation in general. Sulu notes 
that that would be wasting a weapon on something that isn't 
a threat to them. Spock doesn't think it's that simple 
because Nero said something about wanting him to "see" 
before destroying his home planet. Bones wants to know how 
they even got the technology to do that. Spock goes full 
sci-fi and says that sort of technology could 
"theoretically" be used to create a "tunnel" through time 
and space.  

Bones takes this opportunity to say a very Bones line: 
"damnit man, I'm a doctor, not a physicist! Are you 
actually suggesting they're from the future?" To which 
Spock responds with a line from the Original Series: "when 
you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however 
improbable must be the truth."
   Chrissy: So as I was saying about it making sense that 
    you would play Spock...
   Diandra: Yeah, yeah...I'm Sherlock in every universe. 
    But that's interesting that they did that without the 
    context of him quoting a distant ancestor, implying 
    either that Sherlock Holmes was a real person in the 
    Star Trek universe (as the writer probably intended 
    since he bought into the theory of Sherlock hooking up 
    with Irene Adler) or he is a descendant of Arthur Conan 
    Doyle, the original author of the line.
   Emilio: Which is why John's response of "okay, Spock" 
    nearly broke your brain when you were recapping 
    "Sherlock".
   Diandra: Were you helping with that recap?
   Emilio: "Hounds of Baskerville"? No.
   Diandra: So you read it.
   Emilio: Probably.
   Chrissy: Dude, I seriously worry about your mental 
    health.

Kirk asks what an angry Romulan from the future would want 
Captain Pike for then. Sulu notes that a captain would know 
a lot about Starfleet's defense systems. Kirk concludes 
that they need to capture that ship and get Pike back. 
Spock notes that that would be a ridiculous plan to attempt 
seeing as they are outmatched in every technological way by 
people who are FROM THE FUTURE. Chekov says besides: the 
Narada would have to stop warping for them to catch up. 
Kirk focuses on this: how can they increase warp? Spock 
says engineering is too busy PATCHING HOLES IN THE SHIP to 
worry about trying to go faster. He continues about damaged 
communications meaning they can't contact Starfleet while 
Kirk yelps about there being SOME WAY. Spock says they need 
to go back to Starfleet and "balance the terms of the next 
engagement." Kirk is like 'seriously, dude? You're going to 
try to call a meeting to discuss how to respond to the 
IMMEDIATE THREAT OF MULTIPLANET DESTRUCTION?' He tries to 
appeal to Spock's logic by suggesting they act 
unpredictably to avoid the future Nero comes from. And 
thereby possibly walk right into it. Have you even seen "12 
Monkeys"?
   Chrissy: Which theory of time travel are we doing here?
   Diandra: I don't know. Probably not that one. Most 
    franchises ("Terminator", "Back to the Future") are a 
    mix of theories though, so I don't know if we can 
    declare anything for certain.

Spock says Nero probably doesn't know exactly what will 
happen in the future because his presence has already 
changed the future he knows. And that started all the way 
back with his attack on the Kelvin. Hence why the altered 
trajectory of events in these particular movies are known 
as the Kelvin Timeline. 
   Emilio: So the future can be changed, but also these 
    movies exist in a separate parallel reality that 
    doesn't affect continuing canon on the shows. What 
    theory is that?
   Diandra: Dynamic AND Multiverse. So yeah, everything but 
    the one in "12 Monkeys" (which is Fixed). 
Spock summarizes that their destinies have been altered. 
And considering this started thirty some years ago, that 
can encompass pretty much the entire lives of the major 
characters, which could have been used to explain Sulu's 
sexuality being changed, but I don't think Simon Pegg 
realizes this because he sciencewanked a much more 
complicated answer.

Spock orders Sulu to plot a course for the system where 
Starfleet is. Kirk yells that he's wasting time trying to 
call a conference right now. Spock says he's following 
Pike's orders. Kirk points out that he also said something 
about going back for him, which they aren't doing. They 
argue about whether this course of action makes any sense 
at all until Spock orders security to remove Kirk from the 
bridge. A couple guards go to do that and Kirk starts 
fighting them. So Spock does a Vulcan neck pinch on him and 
orders whoever is still upright to take him off the ship.

This is apparently accomplished by ejecting a pod 
containing him at a planet. He wakes up when it plants in 
the ground and asks the computer navigation where he is. 
The computer cheerfully notes that Delta Vega is a class M 
planet, but is still "unsafe". It tells him where the 
nearest Starfleet outpost is, but orders him to stay put 
until somebody comes to get him. He grumbles and climbs 
from the pod and up the wall of the hole it made in the 
snow. There is nothing around for miles but tundra. So he 
starts walking aimlessly through it while recording a log 
about how the acting captain MAROOONED him on a this 
wasteland, which he's pretty sure is some sort of code 
violation. He stops when some sort of creature in the 
distance howls and lumbers toward him. It turns out to be 
what looks like a cross between a monkey and a hellbeast 
that is VERY unfriendly and probably explains the "unsafe" 
warning. 

He runs until an even larger and uglier creature bursts 
from underground to kill the first one. It tosses the 
carcass aside and turns to him, hissing out of its 
mouthhole past about a million teeth. He runs again until 
he falls over the side of a gentle cliff, rolling downhill 
and onto a patch of ice. The creature tumbles after him. He 
runs into an opening in the side of the next mountain, 
winding through caves of ice until it catches him with some 
sort of whip like appendage. It starts sucking him into its 
mouth, but then SOMEBODY appears suddenly to rescue him, 
waving a torch in its face until it backs right out of the 
cave. The someone turns around and...it's Leonard Nimoy.

Original Recipe Spock identifies Kirk and asks how he found 
him here. Kirk is like 'uh...who are you and how do you 
know me?' OR Spock repeats his line from "Wrath of Khan": 
"I have been and shall always be your friend." Fans of the 
original series probably get all the feels because he said 
that as he was DYING. To further confuse Kirk - and because 
he's obviously not getting with the program here - he says 
he is Spock. 
   Chrissy: Okay, FIRST OF ALL...friend? Really? Dude just 
   abandoned me to die here.

So we skip ahead past whatever exposition they needed to 
catch up on and go right to OR Spock saying he's glad to 
see his friend again while they sit by a fire. Kirk 
politely thanks him for saving his life, but thinks if he 
really were Spock he'd know that they hate each other and 
he was marooned here for trying to mutiny his ass. OR Spock 
is like 'I did what now?' "You are not the captain?" Since 
he has no reason to think HE would be captain under any 
circumstances, Kirk laughs and says Spock was appointed 
when Pike was taken hostage. "By Nero," OR Spock says, 
catching on. Kirk does a double take and asks what OR Spock 
knows about Nero. OR Spock moves to do a mind meld because 
"it will be easier" and Kirk starts to skitter away, then 
warily allows OR Spock to position his hand on his face. OR 
Spock says "one hundred twenty-nine years from now a star 
will explode and threaten to destroy the galaxy. That is 
where I'm from, Jim. The future." And we dive into the 
images he projects through the mind meld...I guess...while 
he continues to voiceover about a star going supernova, 
threatening Romulus. He promised the Romulans he could save 
them. They built a ship and planned to use red matter to 
suck the star into a black hole. But he was still on the 
way to enact the plan when Romulus was destroyed. He 
followed through and shot the red matter into the 
supernova, but on his way back he was intercepted by Nero, 
a guy who claimed to represent the last of the Romulans. 
They were both sucked into the black hole he created. 
Because wormholes and time travel are a bitch, Nero somehow 
arrived both a few seconds and twenty five years depending 
on perspective before OR Spock and after attacking the 
Kelvin they waited patiently for him. He blames Spock for 
the destruction of his planet. Y'know, since he failed to 
save it. So think of him as a Bernie Bro blaming Biden for 
all the shit Trump put in motion really.
   Chrissy: Okay, this is the second time you've brought up 
    current events, so I'm going to have to issue a 
    warning. These things are supposed to be an ESCAPE INTO 
    A SOCIALIST UTOPIA. 
   Diandra: I know. Sorry.

So yes, he wanted Spock to watch his own planet be 
destroyed. THIS Spock. Not the Zachary Quinto version. 
Because Vulcan was visible from this planet they are 
currently on, this is where he stranded him. The fact that 
it's also where Kelvin Spock ditched his Kirk is pure 
coincidence, apparently. OR Spock lets go of Kirk's face 
and Kirk gasps and looks traumatized. OR Spock apologizes 
that emotional transfer is a side effect of mind melding. 
Kirk staggers away from him and tries to blink back tears, 
noting that Spock DOES actually have feelings then. Because 
I guess he doesn't understand yet that Vulcans haven't 
purged all emotion, just learned how to control them and 
let them out once every seven years.
   Chrissy: Is that what Pon Farr is? I thought it was a 
    mating ritual. 
   Diandra: It is. 
   Emilio: Actually the important marker is that they lose 
    the ability to control emotions as they get older. 
   Diandra: Right. Which is why they did a whole arc with 
    his dad becoming irrational and emotional like it was 
    the Vulcan equivalent of Alzheimer's. 

Kirk summarizes the most relevant plot point here: by going 
back in time, they changed everybody's lives. OR Spock says 
they should go to that Starfleet outpost. Kirk wants to 
know about this other version of him: did OR Kirk know his 
dad? OR Spock says yes, he spoke often about him being the 
inspiration to join Starfleet and he lived long enough to 
see him become captain of the Enterprise. Speaking of 
which, they need to get him back to that ship.

The Enterprise is going at warp speed through space. Spock 
calls Bones to the bridge so he can "acknowledge" how 
difficult it must have been for him to back up Spock in 
that argument with Kirk being that they are friends and 
all. Bones asks for permission to speak freely and, upon 
getting it, asks if Spock has lost his goddamn mind. 
Because while sending Kirk away might have been a "logical" 
choice, it sure as hell wasn't the "right" one. He cites a 
saying his family has back home: "if you're gonna ride in 
the Kentucky Derby, you don't leave your prize stallion in 
the stable." Oh, don't call Kirk a prized stallion. That 
can only go to his head. Spock thinks it's an odd 
expression anyway since a stallion has to be broken before 
it can "reach its potential." Bones splutters that he has 
no compunctions about ditching Kirk then and Spock repeats 
that he is in the process of trying to contact Starfleet 
and asks if the crew morale would be improved if he were 
more emotional. 
   Chrissy: I mean...maybe if you at least acknowledged 
   that the majority of your PLANET just died including 
   your mother right in front of you...

Kirk and OR Spock walk to the station that looks like it's 
in the middle of nowhere on an Antarctica-like continent. 
One lone gremlin-like creature runs to greet them and 
brings them into the facility where Simon Pegg is sleeping 
in front of a monitor station. He snaps in a thick Scottish 
accent that this is "unacceptable" that he's been here for 
SIX MONTHS and they're just now coming for him. Obviously 
Starfleet is punishing him, but come on now. It was an 
accident! OR Spock laughs and says he's Montgomery Scott, 
right? Scotty is like 'uh...yeah, granddad. Who're you?' OR 
Spock says he's the same Mr. Scott who "postulated the 
theory of transwarp beaming." Scotty says yeah, and he 
ended up here because he argued with his Starfleet 
instructor about it and relative physics and subspace 
travel yadda yadda.
   Chrissy: I was wondering why Scotty wasn't doing the 
    beaming.
   Diandra: Yep. Still building the crew.

Scotty rambles about being able to transport an object the 
size of a grapefruit further than 100 miles, like from one 
planet to another, and proving that he could do it with a 
life form by teleporting "Admiral Archer's prize beagle". 
Hold the phone there. What?
   Emilio: Still think the they haven't messed up some 
    stuff?
   Diandra: Unless Admiral Archer is over 100 and has owned 
    a very LONG series of beagles, somebody obviously 
    screwed up. Because "Enterprise" was supposed to be 100 
    years before the original series.
This triggers a memory in Kirk, who asks what ever happened 
to that dog anyway. Scotty mutters that he'll let him know 
when he finds it.
   Emilio: I mean, you could probably fanwank that it went 
   back in time and finished its life while Archer was 
   Captain of the Enterprise, I guess.

OR Spock asks what Scotty would say if he told him his 
transwarp theory is correct and it is possible to beam onto 
a ship that's traveling at warp, but he hasn't heard about 
the technology because he hasn't invented it yet. Scotty 
wrinkles his nose and asks if he's from the future or 
something. Kirk says yes. But HE isn't. 

Scotty shows them a janky looking shuttle and notes that 
the Enterprise is already on its maiden voyage then. "She 
is one well endowed lady. I'd like to get my hands on her 
nacelles if you'll pardon the engineering parlance."
   Emilio: And don't even get me started on her warp core.
   Diandra: And I think we found Emilio's character match.
OR Spock is working at a panel and Scotty plops next to him 
and rambles about how he doesn't really believe he's from 
the future and all, but even if he did he's not sure about 
this plan to beam onto a ship traveling faster than the 
speed of light without a "proper receiving pad" because 
transwarp beaming is like "trying to hit a bullet with a 
smaller bullet whilst wearing a blindfold and riding a 
horse." OR Spock has pulled up the equation he used to do 
it, which I guess he remembers. In the future on another 
timeline. This must be violating the Prime Directive 
somehow. Scotty blinks at it and realizes the key is to 
think of SPACE as the thing that's moving, not the SHIP.

Kirk asks if OR Spock is coming with them. He says no. Kirk 
says the other him is DEFINITELY not going to believe any 
of this unless he hears it from his own wrinkly mouth. OR 
Spock says the other Spock can't even know he exists and he 
needs Kirk to swear he won't tell him. Kirk concludes that 
he can't tell Spock he's following Spock's orders. 
   Chrissy: Yeah. Time travel is a bitch.
OR Spock says the only way they can stop Nero is if Kirk 
takes command of the Enterprise. "How," Kirk asks. "Over 
your dead body?" OR Spock hopes it won't come to that.
   Chrissy: I'm afraid to ask and start a whole thing, 
    but...would that affect HIM if that happened?
   Diandra: No, this timeline is branched off. Anything 
    that happens doesn't affect the prime timeline. 
   Chrissy: So we are in the multiverse theory like 
    "Endgame"?
   Diandra: I think there's a difference between parallel 
    universes and alternate timelines, but no two people 
    can ever agree on that. 

OR Spock tells Kirk about a Starfleet regulation that says 
command officers who are "emotionally compromised" by a 
mission can be forced to step down. Kirk asks if he's 
suggesting he "emotionally compromise" Spock. 
   Chrissy: And keep in mind what "compromised" is likely 
    to mean in my experience.
   Diandra: You want to test my ability to kill you without 
    breaking a sweat?
OR Spock says no, he already is because he watched his 
whole planet die. Kirk just needs to break the control he 
has over his emotions right now and prove to everybody that 
he is compromised.

Scotty calls Kirk over to the transporter things he's 
created. Kirk goes, but turns back to OR Spock to say that 
going back in time and changing things is "cheating". OR 
Spock smirks and says he learned from the best. He gives 
Kirk the Vulcan salute and "live long and prosper" greeting 
and pushes the button to transport. 

Kirk materializes in the bowels of the Enterprise. Scotty 
unfortunately materializes a couple feet to his left inside 
a water tank. Kirk follows him as he is shot along some 
tubes toward a turbine with spinning blades. He spots a big 
panel marked "release valve" right before the turbine and 
gets the nearest computer panel to open it so that Scotty 
splatters half-drowned onto the deck.
   Emilio: Well. At least it wasn't a solid piece of 
   machinery or the other side of the hull or something.

Chekov notices someone accessing the water turbines from 
the bridge. Spock has him bring up a video of Kirk and 
Scotty and orders security to the engineering deck. "Set 
phasers to stun."

Security catches up to them fairly quickly and brings them 
to the bridge. Spock demands to know who this new guy is 
and how the HELL they managed to get aboard a ship going at 
warp. Scotty just says "I'm with him" and Kirk snots that 
he's such a genius, he should be able to figure out the 
second question himself because he's not helping. He asks 
if not cooperating is "frustrating" for Spock. Spock asks 
Scotty if he's a member of Starfleet. Scotty says yes. So 
Spock threatens to court martial him if he doesn't answer 
the question. Kirk tells Scotty not to answer. Scotty looks 
back and forth and says he's not going to take sides in 
this catfight, actually, thanks. Kirk gets in Spock's face 
and asks what the deal is with him that he can watch his 
planet get destroyed and his mother murdered and be so 
COLD. Spock snarls that this in no way hampers his ability 
to command. Kirk reminds him of what he said about fear 
being necessary for command, so...he saw what Nero did. 
Isn't he afraid? Spock starts getting angry and orders Kirk 
to knock this shit off. Kirk invites Spock to just try and 
stop him. "What is it like not to feel anger," Kirk taunts. 
"Heartbreak. Or the need to stop at nothing to avenge the 
death of the woman who gave birth to you?" Spock's face 
twitches while Kirk keeps needling until he suggests Spock 
must never have even loved her since he doesn't care. Spock 
yells and takes a swing at him. They fight until Spock gets 
Kirk pinned to an instrument panel with a hand around his 
throat. 

Everyone stares at them in shock and looks around like 
'should we do something?' Sarek finally barks Spock's name 
and, after a couple seconds, Spock registers what he's 
doing and backs away. He tells Bones he is no longer "fit 
for duty" given that he is "emotionally compromised" and is 
giving up command of the ship and they should enter it in 
the ship's log. He leaves the bridge and everyone looks 
somber until Scotty loudly declares that he loves this ship 
because they know how to do excitement. Bones grumbles that 
Kirk just successfully got rid of both the captain AND the 
first officer and they haven't thought to designate a chain 
of command beyond that yet, apparently, so they don't know 
who is in charge. Kirk sits in the captain's chair and 
Bones is like 'are you kidding me?' 
   Emilio: Pretty sure both Sulu and Chekov would be in 
    line in front of you. 
   Diandra: Uhura would be in line in front of him. Being 
    that she was actually assigned to the ship and recently 
    promoted to the bridge.
   Chrissy: Yeah, normal rules would probably say everyone 
    on the actual crew would have to be dead or 
    incapacitated before they would consider Kirk and then 
    Scotty, but...whatever. Dibbs.

Uhura sneers that she hopes he knows what he's doing and 
goes back to her station. Kirk gets on the intercom and 
announces that Spock has resigned his command and left him 
as acting captain, which...pretty sure he didn't, but sure. 
So first order of business is that they're abandoning 
Spock's plans to go back to Starfleet in favor of chasing 
after the enemy ship, which is on its way to Earth. So they 
should all take battlestations because this will probably 
be a doozy.

Sarek finds Spock in the transporter room. Spock admits 
that he is as "conflicted" now as he was that one time when 
he was a child. Sarek says he is a "child of two worlds", 
which is one way of saying mixed race. Spock says he's 
angry at the people who killed his mother and he cannot 
control that anger. Sarek says she would probably tell him 
not to try to control it. "You asked me once why I married 
your mother. I married her because I loved her." And then 
he just walks away because I guess that's enough of a 
statement coming from a member of a race that believes all 
emotions must be carefully contained. 

Back on the bridge, Kirk is saying they need to get on 
Nero's ship undetected. Bones says they can't "just go in 
there, guns blazing" given that they have significantly 
better technology that could crush them instantly. Checkov 
crashes their little debate to tell Kirk that Nero's 
trajectory is taking him past Saturn, so they could drop 
out of warp behind one of its moons and use the magnetic 
distortion from the rings of the planet to hide from the 
Narada's sensors. He says they can beam onto the ship from 
there as long as they're not using the drill. Scotty, 
freshly outfitted with a red Starfleet uniform, says that 
might work. Bones is skeptical, as is his usual state. 

Spock returns to the bridge just then to confirm that 
Checkov's math checks out and offer to beam over himself to 
steal the "black hole device" and maybe rescue Pike. 
Kirk says he can't let him do that. Spock points out the 
common ancestry of Romulans and Vulcans as evidence that he 
will have an easier time hacking into their computer 
system. He belatedly adds that since he is half human, 
Earth is his home too. And he would like to try to save 
this one. Kirk nods and says he's going with him then. 
   Chrissy: You jump, I jump.
   Diandra: I applaud your entirely appropriate use of that 
    quote.
Spock says regulation would contradict that, but he's 
pretty sure Kirk doesn't give a shit about regulations, 
so...sure. Kirk smirks and says they're getting to know 
each other already. 
   Chrissy: You'll learn to love me.
   Diandra: Let's see how I do with tolerating you first.
Kirk slaps Spock on the arm and walks away while Spock 
tries to figure out what THAT was for.

The Narada has arrived at Earth and determined a location 
for implanting the red matter. The drill starts lowering 
toward the coast of...somewhere.

The Enterprise drops out of warp in the middle of a red 
cloud of space dust and Sulu and Chekov navigate it into 
position "above Titan". Kirk, Spock and Uhura enter the 
transporter room. Kirk bends over Scotty so the others 
can't hear and in a private connection to Sulu orders him 
to fire at the ship if it becomes a "tactical advantage" to 
regardless of whether they are still on it. Otherwise, wait 
for them to signal they are ready to beam back. 

Whether Spock and Uhura would have heard any of that anyway 
is debatable because they are too busy sucking each other's 
faces off. Kirk steps onto the transporter pad and blinks 
at them like '.....really?' 
   Chrissy: I am NOT jealous!
   Diandra: Nobody said you were.
   Emilio: But as long as you're bringing it up...which one 
    are you not jealous of?
Spock promises Uhura he's coming back. He also calls her by 
her first name: Nyota. Kirk makes a face at that, but still 
pretends to ignore them. Uhura says she'll keep watch on 
Spock's "frequency", gives Kirk a pointed look and swaggers 
out of the room. Scotty says he SHOULD be sending them to 
the cargo bay of the Narada assuming the ship is designed 
in a way that makes sense. Which means they should be all 
alone and no one should be alerted for a while. He hits the 
energizer and...

...they beam to the part of the ship where they took the 
captain of the Kelvin right in front of the entire security 
team. 
   Emilio: I'll work on it.
So they pull phasers and start dodging and shooting 
immediately. One of the Romulans gets to a com to tell Nero 
that one human and one Vulcan Starfleet officer just got on 
board somehow. Nero yells something at his bridge crew and 
starts running somewhere. 

Kirk covers Spock while he tries to determine the location 
of the device from a downed Romulan via mind meld. This 
apparently works AND gets him the location where they're 
holding Pike as well. 

The drill reaches whatever height it needs to be at and 
activates...right near the Golden Gate Bridge and Starfleet 
Academy. Chekov announces as much as Uhura arrives back at 
the bridge and confirms it has knocked out communications 
and transporter again. So they can't beam Kirk and Spock 
back.

Speaking of them, they find what looks a shuttle and go 
inside as Spock grumbles about the design of the ship being 
even more advanced than he anticipated. They find the red 
ball of death chamber inside the ship we saw in OR Spock's 
flashback while the computer announces that it is running 
face and voice recognition and "welcome back, Ambassador 
Spock." Kirk looks squirrelly and escapes deeper into the 
ship. Spock frowns and asks the computer when it was 
manufactured. The computer says Stardate 2387 (not sure how 
that compares to date dates) by the Vulcan Science Academy. 
Spock finds Kirk and accuses him of keeping important 
information secret. Kirk ignores the question completely 
and asks if Spock will be able to fly this ship. Spock says 
yes, but the statistical probability of this mission 
succeeding is "less than 4.3%". 
   Chrissy: Very specific number to say "less than". 
Anyway, the reason he brings it up is because he wants Kirk 
to give Uhura a message if he doesn't make it back. Kirk 
refuses to hear it because he insists the plan will work. 

Kirk jumps off the shuttle and Spock sits in the driver's 
seat and takes off. We follow Kirk through the actually 
abandoned part of the ship that Scotty could have beamed 
them to without alerting EVERYONE until he finds Nero. He 
snarls at him to disable the drill and starts threatening 
what he will do if they don't, but a security guy 
blindsides him with the butt of a weapon. Nero hovers over 
him and says he recognizes him from Earth history. 
   Emilio: No you don't. He doesn't look anything like 
    William Shatner.
   Diandra: No, he's much prettier. 
He starts knocking Kirk around.

Shuttle. Spock shoots his way past a closed hatch and flies 
toward Earth.

Narada. Nero strangles Kirk as he sneers about how James T. 
Kirk was dubbed a "great man" and a great captain of the 
Enterprise, but he's going to stop that from happening 
right now. 

Spock shoots out the tether between the drill and the 
Narada, severing the connection. The Earth side crashes 
into the bay, narrowly missing the bridge. 

Someone alerts Nero of this development over the intercom. 
Nero stops strangling Kirk in favor of shouting Spock's 
name angrily and running to the bridge. Er...wherever he 
can get somebody to open a channel directly to Spock in his 
shuttle. Nero snarls about not killing him when he had the 
chance. Spock orders him to surrender. Nero orders his men 
to take the ship Spock is on out. His second in 
command...er whoever...starts protesting because if they 
destroy all that red matter... Nero doesn't care. He's 
gonna FIDDLE WHILE THE UNIVERSE BURNS DAMNIT.
   Chrissy: [slow clap]
They fire some torpedoes, which Spock dodges before going 
to warp. Nero orders the men to give chase and they go to 
warp behind the shuttle. 

Kirk is left fighting the head of security, who easily 
lifts him into the air by the throat. Kirk struggles to say 
something and the guy stops taunting him about how weak his 
species is long enough to lean in and ask what he's trying 
to say, exactly. "I got your gun," Kirk gasps. He shoots 
the guy in the gut and sends him tumbling off a walkway 
into the bottomless pit that is apparently the center of 
the ship. 

The Narada drops out of warp to find Spock turned around 
and heading right for them. The computer announces they are 
on a collision course and Nero goes into a spitting rage 
(literally), ordering them to fire everything they have. 
Spock's computer informs him that if the incoming missiles 
hit, they will ignite the red matter he's carrying. Spock 
is like 'yeah, I know.'
   Chrissy: Maybe it will detonate this timeline and send 
    us all back to start.
   Diandra: hahahaha. No.

And then one of Nero's crew announces that there's another 
ship appearing on the radar and the Enterprise pops into 
view, already firing, destroying all the missiles mid-way. 

On the Narada, Kirk finds Pike and is undoing the straps 
holding him to the gurney when some Romulans arrive and 
Pike has to grab his phaser and shoot them. 

Spock is still on a collision course and is now inside the 
ship, headed for the core. The Romulans start panicking. 
Kirk shouts "now" and transporter beams start forming 
around all three Enterprise crew members. The shuttle 
smashes into the core of the Narada and explodes and Spock, 
Kirk and Pike all appear in the transporter room a second 
later. Scotty is giddy that that worked because he says 
he's never beamed three people from two locations to the 
same pad before.
   Chrissy: Well, that's good to know. 

Bones arrives to take Pike to the med bay. Kirk and Spock 
go to the bridge, where Chekov announces that the Narada is 
losing power rapidly. We do a little special effects shot 
of red droplets hovering in space among the wreckage at the 
center of the Narada before they all gather in a flash and 
form a black hole. 

The Enterprise contacts Nero as his ship is getting sucked 
into the wormhole. Kirk says the ship will not survive that 
close to a black hole singularity and offers to save 
whoever they can. Spock is like 'we will what now?' Kirk 
says he's showing them compassion. A human trait he 
believes might earn "peace" with the Romulans. Spock isn't 
so sure it is logical to save someone who destroyed an 
entire planet and was about to destroy another. It doesn't 
matter because Nero says he would rather die horribly than 
accept help from them. Kirk is like 'meh. Okay then. We 
tried.' He orders all phasers fired at the Narada. Sulu 
gladly carries out the command.

So we have an artsy little sequence of the Narada getting 
sucked into a black hole while the Enterprise fires 
torpedoes at it and all the Romulans except Nero run around 
frantically. Once it is fully sucked into the hole, Kirk 
orders them to turn around and go "home". Except they are 
too close and are being sucked in so that even with engines 
at full warp they aren't moving. Kirk calls Scotty, who 
yelps that they are caught in a gravity well. Kirk orders 
him to push the engines harder and Scotty yelps that he's 
"givin' her all she's got!" Which I think is also a classic 
line from him. The bridge starts cracking and Kirk says 
obviously that's not good enough.
   Emilio: Well, whose idea was it to fly so close to a 
    BLACK HOLE?
   Chrissy: YOLO, Scotty!
Scotty suggests a go to solution for every series: eject 
the warp core. Although that's usually used to prevent the 
ship from exploding. In this case, he thinks if they 
detonate it near the ship, the blast will propel them clear 
of the gravity pull. Maybe. Since the bridge is still 
cracking apart including the main front window, they don't 
really have another option at this point.

Scotty ejects what looks like a bunch of fuel rods in the 
direction of the black hole and the tense music stops while 
they explode into a bright light and the ship is hit by the 
wave. Alarms blare and everything wobbles, but the ship 
emerges in front of the explosion, finally moving forward. 
Everyone breathes a sigh of relief and Sulu and Kirk laugh.

So yes, by "going home" Kirk meant Earth. Because the next 
thing we see is Starfleet Academy again. Spock finds Sarek 
wandering around the shuttleport. At least he thinks it's 
Sarek, but it turns out it's OR Spock who responds to his 
call with "I am not our father" which I guess answers the 
next question. And before Spock can ask why OR Spock isn't 
avoiding him to prevent any further contamination, he says 
there's no point avoiding each other if there are so few 
Vulcans in existence anymore. Spock asks why he didn't just 
explain things himself then. Why did he need Kirk as a go 
between? OR Spock says they need each other. "I could not 
deprive you of the revelation of all that you could 
accomplish together. Of a friendship that will define you 
both in ways you cannot yet realize."
   Chrissy: You complete me.
   Diandra: I mean...we're assuming that this new reality 
    couldn't possibly offer any alternatives despite the 
    whole Spock/Uhura thing being new, but okay.
   Chrissy: Yeah, no one ever accused you of being a 
    hopeless romantic.

Spock asks how OR Spock convinced Kirk not to say anything. 
OR Spock says it might have been inferred that there would 
be universe-ending consequences to his non compliance. 
Spock is like 'so......you lied.' OR Spock is like 'I 
wouldn't put it quite so bluntly, but yes.' He calls it an 
"act of faith". Spock spews something about having to quit 
Starfleet to help rebuild the Vulcan civilization, 
which...um...you could probably best serve that purpose by 
donating to a sperm bank, but okay. OR Spock says nah, he 
can "be in two places at once" and he should stay in 
Starfleet. OR Spock is already working on finding a new 
planet for the survivors. He leaves Spock with an 
encouragement to forgo logic for once and "just do what 
feels right." And he accompanies his Vulcan salute with a 
"good luck" instead of the usual "live long and prosper" 
because that would just be weird saying that to a variant 
of himself. 

And we go to a ceremony commending Kirk for his "valor" and 
"dedication" in a job he was definitely NOT assigned to. 
The...whatever rank he is...pins a medal to his cadet 
uniform and orders him to relieve Admiral Pike of his 
former duty as captain of the Enterprise. Kirk does this by 
stepping over to Pike, who is sitting in a wheelchair a few 
feet away and I'm not sure if this is foreshadowing or just 
a nod to what would happen to him in the prime universe. 
Pike congratulates him and assures him his dad would be 
proud of him.
   Chrissy: One day maybe our paths will cross again. In 
    another life. Where comic book characters are real. No? 
    Still not? Sigh. Fine. Guess I'll just be Wonder 
    Woman's boyfriend.
   Diandra: Well, you can play Spiderman, but don't expect 
    a call when they do the live version of "Into the 
    Spiderverse". 

We pan away from the ceremony to show OR Spock watching 
from a balcony above. Then we slam to the Enterprise where 
Sulu, Chekov and Uhura announce systems checks preparing 
for takeoff. Kirk is now in his familiar command gold 
uniform. He slaps Bones on the shoulder on the way to the 
captain's chair and calls Scotty in engineering to get his 
all clear. Spock is the last to come on the bridge and asks 
if he can be considered for the still open position of 
first officer. He offers to submit references, but 
pfffffttttttt. Whatever. Sit down, number one.

We do a long shot of everybody officially at their familiar 
posts and then switch to a shot of the exterior of the ship 
as Leonard Nimoy recites the words that accompanied the 
beginning of every episode to the familiar, if updated 
theme. Except instead of a five year mission, it is now an 
"ongoing mission" and we're already finishing with the Next 
Generation's "to boldly go where no ONE has gone before." 
The ship warps off and we smash to credits.
   Chrissy: That wasn't as bad as I was expecting.
   Diandra: You expected it would be bad?
   Emilio: Well...yes.
   Diandra: Hmph. Well, I knew it would be more exposition 
    and therefore less exciting than the two that followed, 
    but other than that...
   Chrissy: So does that mean you are doing the other two?
   Diandra: Well, we should probably get back to the MCU, 
    but...yes, I think we proved with this one that it 
    could be fun.
   Emilio: Either way the next thing you recap will have 
    Cumberbatch in it, right?
   Diandra: ....................damnit.