I saw the movie last night, and thought it was great. Certainly the best of the movie versions (but then they were all hopeless smoking turds).

But I have to underscore, reading these remarks, that the whole Star Trek universe is hopelessly racist and stereotyped. It promotes the American view of the world, immortalized before Star Trek in those Superman comics where everyone in the United Nations is white except their faces are coloured and they wear their national dress. Or, in a similar vein, the way American tourists abroad, not speaking the local language, respond by speaking English louder. The idea is that behind the ridiculous language these people babble away in, behind that is really English. You can hear the exact same racism in 99% of the debates over Iraq and Afghanistan. The same complete blindness to the realities of other cultures, in spite of (or because of) the universalist American rhetoric. The same is true for Star Trek.

yours,

Peter T.