Now that Star Trek has opened, broken some records and delighted an apparent majority of critics and moviegoers, it’s time for the backlash to begin. The complaints are not tremendous, but they have popped up here and there on the web today, and it’s worth taking a look at some of them, especially for those of us who haven’t yet gotten around to watching the thing. I’ve already learned, courtesy of actor/comedian Aziz Ansari that I should be careful in choosing where I see J.J. Abrams’ reboot if I want to see it in IMAX. What else might I be wary of before I go into the movie, in general? Let’s see what negativity is coming out of the blogosphere after the jump:

• Graeme McMillan at i09 got some of the backlash linkage started yesterday (with mostly Tweets) and asked the following in response:
  

  Is this just natural comedown from a movie that’s ideal popcorn fodder but not classically Trek intellectual stimulation, the start of the much-joked-about fan backlash actually beginning, or just internet karma to balance out the comments section here? You be the judge.

• Melissa Silverstein at Women & Hollywood complains that the reboot “missed a huge opportunity with its women.”
  

  Maybe I’m spoiled from Battlestar Galactica and I know TV is different from films, but I think they blew a big opportunity by stereotyping women’s roles. What I loved about Battlestar Galactica was that gender didn’t matter and in this film it clearly did. There were a lot of women in miniskirts just walking around. Star Trek has much inter planetary diversity including Kirk’s relationship with an all green woman, yet still can’t get over the gender stereotypes.

  The three female characters of significance were insignificant — one gave birth, one was a mother, and one was a girlfriend.

• Dawn Taylor at Cinematical loved the reboot, but she agrees that it unfortunately lacks strong women characters:
  

  How nice it would have been if this brand-new Trek for a brand-new generation reflected some of the strides that women have made in society (if not motion pictures) since the series began in 1966. But the Enterprise’s lone named female crew member, Lt. Uhura, is nothing more than The Girl, to be ogled in her miniskirt — and, at one point, in her underwear — and lusted after by both Kirk and Spock, if only to make it clear that these new Starfleet men aren’t nearly as slash-ficcy as their predecessors.

• Charlie Jane Anders at i09 also loved the new film, “numerous plot holes and all,” but she has one major complaint about Chris Pine’s version of Kirk:
  

  I have a few major problems with him: 1) He’s kind of a meh James Dean clone. 2) He has a capital-D Destiny. 3) He’s not as nerdy as Shatner’s Kirk. 4) He gets a totally undeserved promotion, because the people in charge just like him…But I’d say at least 80 percent of my annoyance with the new Kirk just comes from a general dislike for seeing douchebags on screen. And a distaste for the weaselly generation of man-boy heroes represented by Tobey Maguire, Shia LaBoeuf, and now Chris Pine.

• Rob Bricken at Topless Robot addresses a common criticism regarding the young Kirk and then attempts to explain it:
  

  One of the complaints nerds have about the new J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek movie is the very odd use of the Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage” when young Kirk is driving his stepdad’s classic car off a cliff. Although I liked the movie, I did think it was odd to hear such a well-known, popular song in Star Trek. Well, TR commenter PossibleMisnomer has an idea why the song was used, and I think he’s 100% right — it’s because William Shatner has a long history of mispronouncing the word sabotage as “sabo-taj.”

• Christopher Rosen at The New York Observer points out that Abrams’ Star Trek is more like a reboot of the Star Wars franchise:
  

  There’s Kirk–as–Han Solo; Young Spock–as–Luke Skywalker; Future Spock–as–Obi-Wan; Scotty-as-Chewy; Uhura-as-Leia; Bones and Chekov–as–C3PO and R2D2; and while there’s no Darth Vader, Eric Bana’s Nero does fly around in a massive space station that could give the Death Star a run for its money.

• Lane Brown at Vulture doesn’t mind Rosen’s discovery:
  

  Rosen’s completely right, and gives several more examples — but you know what? For as long as contractual barriers — and George Lucas’s stubbornness — prevent Abrams from being handed the keys to the Millennium Falcon and giving us the Star Wars we all want, we’re totally cool with this.

• Jim Emerson at Scanners “came away from the movie feeling frustrated,” for one major fault:
  

  J.J. Abrams’ “Star Trek” reboot movie gets some things right, beginning with fresh and appealing faces as the rookie Enterprise crew on the ship’s maiden voyage. (John Cho as Sulu! Yeah!) But, damn, could this movie use a director. (I know, I said the same thing last summer about “TDK,” and I meant it then, too.) Abrams began as a screenwriter (”Regarding Henry,” “Forever Young,” “Armageddon”) and has become a one-man network television franchise as a series creator and producer (”Felicity,” “Alias,” “Lost”). But if you ever want to see what a movie directed by someone with the soul of a producer looks like, start with the works of Irvin Winkler (”Guilty By Suspicion”) and then catch this one.

• Commenting at The House Next Door, Matt Zoller Seitz “enjoyed the hell out of it,” yet he agrees that Abrams’ directing was a problem:
  

  George Lucas at his worst has more film smarts, and a more elegant sense of composition and cutting, than J.J. Abrams, who doesn’t so much direct the action and dialogue as cover it, Monday Night Football-style…If Abrams would just make up a goddamn shot list for fight scenes and dialogue scenes (or direct as if he actually had one — I’m sure he did have one here, because the film was too expensive to wing it) he’d immediately jump right to the top of my list of juggernaut showmen.

• Brad Brevet at RopeofSilicon offers the “backlash backlash.”
  

  Meaningless, is a perfect way to describe the nitpicks I have read so far against the film, especially considering the folks hating on it actually liked it. Take Sci-Fi Wire’s Thomas Mill for example. His post complaining about 11 things that bothered him about the movie (I agree with the puffy hands bit) comes with a preface saying “[We] love J.J. Abrams’ new Star Trek and reservedly recommend it to all, including longtime fans, those who’ve never heard of Star Trek, and everyone in between.” So why are you complaining?