The Wait Is Over - Star Trek Day Is Here + Opening Day

You knew that headline was coming. It is finally here. This evening fans across the country (and the world) are finally seeing Star Trek’s big return to the big screen. For today’s tidbits we have some newish photos, box office predictions, more reviews, an interesting Spock video essay, and more.

Reminder: Tickets available online (including IMAX)
As we will begin every tidbits, we remind you that you can now buy advanced tickets (including early shows) for Star Trek at Fandango. You can also get tickets for IMAX at Fandango. And by buying your tickets from Fandango, you are supporting TrekMovie.com. For locations that don’t have tickets available through Fandango, try movietickets.com.

Another Reminder: New Reader Review Page
TrekMovie has more site reviews lined up, but what about the fans? Well we have set up a page for reader reviews, so if you have seen the movie, write your own review.

SEND IN YOUR PREMIERE PHOTOS!
TrekMovie wants to see your premiere experience, so send in any interesting photos to tips [@] trekmovie [dot] com.

New(ish) pictures
We linked to some of these before, but today Paramount made the widely available and we have them in high res. In our Star Trek forum. To view these images click here.

Box Office Predictions
The new guessing game is all about how much the movie will do in its opening weekend. JJ Abrams and Paramount are lowballing, with numbers in the $45-$50Million range. But the Derby at Box Office Mojo has the domestic opening weekend at $74.4M and BoxOffice.com is projecting Star Trek to make $70M. The only real data we have so far is that Fandango tells us that Star Trek is now accounting for 91% of their online sales and it is outpacing where Wolverine was last week. One note of caution is that online sales are not neccesarily reflective of overall sales, plus Wolverine was on about 6% more screens than Star Trek.

Review Watch - Trek a hit with the critics - WaPo issues a prayer
Star Trek remains the highest current wide release film at the two ranking sites: with 85% at Metacritic and 94% at Rotten Tomatoes. The Yahoo Movies critics summary gives the film a B+.

Some of today’s positive reviews from top critics:

• New York Times "The spirit of adventure and embrace of rationality that define the show are in full swing"
  
• LA Times: "sci-fi epic mind-melds Roddenberry’s vision with J.J. Abrams’ sense of entertainment: epic storytelling and ramped-up action"
  
• USA Today: "an energetic sci-fi extravaganza, with spectacular action sequences and nifty visuals. "
  
• NPR: "the point of a reboot isn’t really to tell a tale; it’s to ensure that the underlying enterprise can go on. Abrams has done that, for sure,"
  
• Time: "a real family film, relatively light on the violence and funny without being overly crude" [link includes video interview with JJ Abrams]
  

Really the only major critic was from the New Yorker, which had this (cue the torches and pitchforks) comment:

The New Yorker movie Critic wrote:

This theme of alternative reality is clumsily worked, and not a patch on its tighter, more alluring, and thus much scarier treatment in “Coraline.” Its effect here is to saddle us with two Mr. Spocks, one from the vulnerable present and one from the comforting future, and its main purpose, I suspect, is to drag in Leonard Nimoy, who these days makes Bela Lugosi look like Zac Efron, and thus insure that all the “Star Trek” scholars in the audience will have to hurry home and change their underwear.

But the most interesting review of the day comes from The Washington Post, which had their positive review in the form of a prayer, it starts off thusly:

The Washington Post wrote:

Lord of "Star Trek" and all its spinoffs, we thank thee for a movie that, against all odds, has miraculously resurrected a wheezing but beloved franchise.

We thank thee for an origin story that, unlike such recent downers featuring the Incredible Hulk and Wolverine, pays affectionate respect to its source material but never falls into the trap of slavish worship.

We thank thee for a cast of bright young actors who plunge headlong into the spirit of "Star Trek" at its most goofily straight-faced, saying some of the show’s most familiar catchphrases as if for the very first time, and capturing the gestures and physical habits of their characters.