Ten coincidences to resurrect a franchise... (big STAR TREK spoilers)

I didn't hate it, unlike Mi3, but this film's story hovers dangerously around a few singularities in itself. I couldn't care less about the continuity - all I wanted was something that worked completely on its own terms. And it's entertaining, up to a point.

Beware: key plot spoilers.

ALL IT TAKES IS 10 COINCIDENCES TO RESURRECT A FRANCHISE

Unravelling the plot, the coincidences are:

1. That moments after Spock and Nero encountered each other for the first time, both would be conveniently sucked into a black hole leading to a time vortex etc, leading to Nero emerging moments before the birth of Captain Kirk, just in time for the film's first act.

2. ... that Nero would just happen to be in the right place at the right time 25 years later when Spock arrived back in the timestream, just in time for the film's second act. Even if it was the exact same spot he had emerged from years before, how did he know when Spock would come out? Clearly he'd been moving around in the time in between.

3. That Nero would just happen to have a bloody big planetary drill on his ship that, combined with the red matter on Spock's ship, could destroy planets. Very convenient. Pretty good thinking for a professional miner to put two-and-two together there.

4. That Kirk would - overhearing a reference to a lightning storm (or whatever the macguffin was) - would assume within seconds that it had something to do with the lightning storm that coincided (there we go again!) with birth. Are lightning storms in space that uncommon?

5. (not a coincidence, but rather unlikely) That Nero would strand Spock on a planet called Delta Vega IV (suggesting that the planet was the fourth orbiting the a star called Delta Vega), which would nonetheless have a view of the planet Vulcan - with the latter looming larger in the Delta Vega IV sky than the moon does on our planet earth. Why is he there? Why wouldn't Nero keep his accidental enemy close in proximity so he could relish the pain he inflicted on him? So the script writers could get Spock to meet Kirk.

6. That despite the fact that the Enterprise was making tracks away from the remnants of Vulcan at the time that Kirk was jettisoned (so at to not be destroyed by Nero's bloody big ship), they still hadn't gotten further away than a planet with an excellent sky view of the destruction of Vulcan.

7. That Kirk would actually be jettisoned by the Enterprise onto an ice planet, where he would be chased by some obligatory snow monsters into the exact cave... wherein resides Leonard Nimoy.

8. That the inventor of transwarp technology - a certain Scot - would also be found on this incredible icy planet. (Leading to much of the fast learning curve tech advancement that makes the film's last act possible, including warp acceleration and transwarp transport.)

9. That the Captain, Chief Engineer, Chief Medical Officer and Translator would all be made incapable of performing their duties in the initial Nero attack... leading to the promotion of everyone into their familiar places. I could have lived with this, but I needed to make the list of ten.

10. (meta) The film revolves around a rogue Romulan with a bloody big ship out to destroy planets, ultimately Earth. Was that not also the plot of the last Star Trek film? Coincidence? (At least we can put to the test a theory about ST:Nemesis - that the reason it failed to pull in audiences was not because it was an under-budgeted, terrible film - even though it was - but because it was happening to Picard&Co, not Kirk&Co.)

Don't get me wrong - I enjoyed the characters and all that. Of course, most scripts are structured by convenient coincidences, and there are many more in the film. The problem here, is that they're not hard to see. Most films get away with them because they only occur to you long after the fact, not while you're watching it.

Three more moments of - 'huh? wah?'

1. Kirk and Sulu spend 5 minutes saving the planet Vulcan from Nero's bloody big drill. But it doesn't matter. Obligatory action scene much?

2. Kirk is physically jettisoned onto the first passing planet? Do all people get put in that 'brig'?

3. Despite being close enough to Vulcan - a largely desert planet - to have a great sky view of its destruction, Delta Vega IV is completely covered ... in ice. Hmmm...

4. Nero didn't kill Kirk when he had the chance. He left him in the hands of an underling who was fated to fail, as underlings always are. Couldn't they come up with anything better?

The Missing Theme

Early on, it seems as though the film will revolve around the issue of being able to live with fear in the face of certain death. The death of Kirk's father, the Kobayashi Maru, Spock's speech re: the purpose of the Maru. But the idea goes AWOL in the second half of the film, and in a film like this, where every big idea gets talked about in such obvious dialogue, I'm inclined not to attribute that to a subtle intent. ;-)