As for your question about the overture, I don't have problems with overtures (although having now seen the original version, I find it odd that its fanfare was on a completely blank screen). You're asking me about each element on its own, but it's really not about that. It's about the culmination of such things. Right at this moment, I'm at the interminably long "flying into Vger" scene, and it's made me realize that, this moment, taken on its own, isn't necessarily bad. Having this slow reveal could have built tension and wonder. However, due to the way the movie is, it's nothing more than yet another slow scene. So the overture isn't embarrassing because it's a overture. It's embarrassing because it's the slow, long start before the slow, long Enterprise reveal before the slow, long Vger entrance after the slow, long leaving drydock sequence. None of them are too bad on their own. But they're all together, plodding, plodding, plodding.