Star Trek: Retribution/YMMV

• Crowning Music of Awesome:
  • The blaring tones of "A Tall Ship" when we get our first glimpse of the Fitzgerald, and again when the runabout shuttlecraft goes in for a landing and the camera swoops over the saucer section to show us the registry.
  • The music during the battle sequence over New Romulus, a mix of "39.1 Degrees Celsius," "Team Work," and "The Scorpion".
  • The music during the montage sequence as the crew readies Prentice's plan, a brilliant use of "International Code".
• Fan Dumb: Early on in the production, many viewers complained about the "[alleged] human leading the Romulan fleet" aspect of the storyline, citing the events of Star Trek: Nemesis and questioning why the Romulans would be willing to become involved with a human again, much less take orders from one.
  • On the same day as the thread was first posted, a Troll at Scifi-Meshes.com said that the early preview clips sounded dumb with the producer's temporary voice tracks; the same user later said he felt the producer was too lazy to recruit a voice cast and that the clips seemed "amateurish" as they were.
  • The final straw came when the same individual made this post: "your episodes suck all it is is talking talkng talking the caracters hardly have any action there is no fighting its dull and just chatter boringggggggg."
    • Fans of Specter (as well as the site moderators) were...not amused.
• Fetish Fuel: In a scene near the end of the movie, the Kristie android is shown wearing what looks like a black leather combat jumpsuit.
• Growing the Beard: Whereas Specter was largely a Coming of Age Story for the cast (and at times seemed to have the same flavor to it as the first season of Star Trek the Next Generation), this time everyone's grown up and has experience, and behaves more like the Starfleet crews to which we've grown accustomed.
• Hate Dumb: On the same day as the thread was first posted, a Troll at Scifi-Meshes.com said that the early preview clips sounded dumb with the producer's temporary voice tracks; the same user later said he felt the producer was too lazy to recruit a voice cast and that the clips seemed "amateurish" as they were.
  • The final straw came when the same individual made this post: "your episodes suck all it is is talking talkng talking the caracters hardly have any action there is no fighting its dull and just chatter boringggggggg."
    • Fans of Specter (as well as the site moderators) were... not amused.
• Ho Yay/Les Yay: Commander Renee Mitchell and Lieutenant Commander Lesley Kal.
  • Revealed in a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming, with Mitchell faithfully waiting by Kal's beside until she wakes up. And the Crowning Music Of Heartwarming that plays sure doesn't hurt.
  • At the same time, the version of this scene that uses the male producer's temp tracks was pure Uncanny Valley and borderline Nightmare Fuel.
• Pandering to the Base: Surprisingly, the creator has taken regular note of fan reactions to early preview clips, and several lines of dialogue are known to be the direct result of fan interaction in one way or another.
  • After Prentice reaches the bridge, his line about Federation starships with Romulan upgrades being wacky was inspired by a fan making an almost identical comment.
  • Later, after Garr appears, Prentice's line about the maniacal laughter was added at the urging of a viewer.
• Sequelitis: Averted; the style of writing and direction, as well as the tone, of Retribution is very different than its predecessor, and in many ways superior. (This is a case of Real Life Writes the Plot, as the producer had gained experience with writing during Specter.) Invoked, however, in that many fans find the concept of a pending Romulan invasion as a primary plot to be less engaging than the high personal stakes that served as the primary plot driver in Specter.
• Special Effects Failure: Due to a glitch with the uniforms, when the characters make certain motions, rank pips and combadges disappear.
  • When the Fitzgerald finds the Romulan Warbird Vaxis adrift at the edge of the Neutral Zone, the crew reacts as if the ship has been savagely attacked...yet when we see it on the viewscreen, it looks like the only thing that's happened is that it lost power.
  • In several exterior shots, the USS Fitzgerald has no visible registry number or name.
  • When the Fitzgerald enters battle over New Romulus, the first shots of it firing the main disruptor canon show the energy beam appearing from a place we shouldn't be able to see from our vantage point.
  • The surface texture of the New Romulan moon the Fitzgerald slingshots around changes several times, from a "splotchy" look to a more "striped" appearance similar to Jupiter.
  • Word of God designates most of the asteroid field chase as one of these.
  • When the Fitzgerald goes to red alert, one of the wall displays behind Reyf very clearly shows a schematic of the Enterprise-E.
• Uncanny Valley: Like Star Trek Specter before it, the majority of the main cast are played by old Poser 4 figures...but once again, the mysterious Kristie android is played by the ultra-lifelike Victoria 3. This time, since the android is said to have been completed, and to avoid the Uncanny Valley effect from the first film with the ponytail prop, shots with the Kristie android are rendered at different settings from the other shots. The android looks great...but any other characters in the shots look noticeably different than they do in other shots rendered at normal settings. The effect is particularly jarring in the cargo bay scene where she first appears--we've been seeing Garr throughout the scene, looking just like the other cast members, but then suddenly when she appears he suddenly looks a little more lifelike.
  • Ironically, this was meant to reduce the awkwardness of having the android appear alongside the other cast, but if anything it makes the jarring effect even worse.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: The shots of the interior of Starbase 54's docking bay most definitely qualify, especially during the departure sequence.
  • Those are nothing next to the battle sequences at New Romulus.
  • How about the scene where the cloaking device fails and our heroes run for their lives through an asteroid field???
  • The flight through the minefield.
  • Several scenes late in the movie feature genuine, honest-to-Prophets BATTLE SEQUENCES. Even though they are for the most part recreations (darned good ones) of shots from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager, they're still nothing short of AWESOME.
    • Did we mention they were AWESOME?