Regarding Kirk's arrival, Not sure if you've looked at this already but i would strongly suggest trimming down this seqence...It seems a little jarring, the focus is on things that are irrelevant and the shuttles seem to appear out of nowhere...

I would suggest losing 1,3,4.

Just tinkering away after work...

Here's an opening concept.

And here's my idea re: the mattes. As you can see the results are less than stunning.

For some shots it's a lot easier to hide simply by adjusting the contrast, which I see they did on the Bluray realease...