Star Trek

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve heard both the controversy and the rave reviews surrounding the latest movie in the Star Trek franchise. This outing is helmed by none other than J. J. Abrams, the creator of such diverse television fare as Felicity, Alias, Lost, and movies such as Mission Impossible 3 and Cloverfield. 

Abrams returns to the oldest characters of the franchise in a slickly packaged reboot in the tradition of Batman Begins. In order to tell a story with a uniquely Abrams-style spin, the script writers have taken serious liberties with the original universe, glossing over their backstory re-writes in the guise of a time-traveling Romulan gone awry.

Simply put, this Romulan baddie, played lifelessly by Eric Bana, goes back in time chasing old Spock (Leonard Nimoy). An accident in going through a singularity places the Romulan 25 years too early, but just in time to blow the hell out of George Kirk (you guessed it, Jim Kirk’s father) and his ship. His young wife and son barely escape. The time line is irreversibly altered when young James Kirk no longer has a strong role model. 

He’s discovered in a bar by none other then Christopher Pike after receiving a beat-down from a group of Starfleet Cadets. An inspirational talk convinces him to enlist in Starfleet. Fast forward three years; Kirk is about to graduate, but he is accused of cheating on an exam that was unwinnable. At this moment, Eric Bana’s Romulan character appears in Vulcan space, captures a time-travelling old Spock, wipes out a Federation fleet and blows Vulcan up.

That’s right, Trekkies. In this timeline Vulcan is destroyed.

The cadets are assigned to ships still in spacedock without crews; it so happens that the motley collection of Star Trek characters is all assigned to the Enterprise (with Kirk sneaking on since he’s on academic suspension). Pike discovers Kirk, makes him First Officer after giving the Captaincy to Spock, and then agrees to go negotiate with the Romulan.  Kirk, by making Spock show emotion, gets himself into the Captain’s chair. They go on a merry adventure, violate Starfleet regulations, and win the day. Roll credits.

Plot

I have a number of problems with the movie. First off, everyone knows that a time traveling bad guy hell-bent on re-writing the course of the Federation’s history gets an Enterprise-shaped hole blown in his plans. It happened in several episodes, and occurred most notably with the Next Generation crew in Star Trek: First Contact. To think that some two-bit mining junky could waylay old Spock and commit virtual genocide is ludicrous. Secondly, the destruction of Vulcan is huge. It’s the other cornerstone of the Federation and Starfleet. This is an incredibly cheeky move on the part of the script writers.

The way in which promotions are carried out in this saga seems incredibly fast and loose. At the end of the movie, Kirk graduates the academy and is commissioned as a captain..and given the flagship of the fleet? Come on! He might, might skip the rank of Ensign. All I can say is that they must have lost a lot of ships over Vulcan.

There’s a little bit of deus ex machina in the technology. Abrams doesn’t use technobabble, but he instead skews the other way and offers no explanation on how some things work. He just presents them as facts. It worked for Robert A. Heinlein, but it does not work in a visual medium with someone familiar with the universe.

Actors

I like Karl Urban; I thought he was brilliant as Eomer in the Lord of the Rings, but he just doesn’t cut it as Dr. McCoy. He has some of the mannerisms down, but he overacts worse than William Shatner, and my believability was unavoidably shattered any time he opened his mouth. 

Eric Bana is completely under-utilized. He has limited screen time, almost zero character development, and is not believable as the Romulan who beat old Spock to re-write history. I think the writers were going for someone like Ricardo Montaban’s Khan character, but they pretty much missed the boat. The only thing that drove home his evil for me was the genocide of the Vulcan people. Aside from that, he could have been played by a cardboard cutout and an iPod.

Pretty much everyone else nails their characters. The big surprise was Zoe Saldana as Uhura. She was unbelievably sexy (much more so than the previous incarnation). You could feel the temperature rise in the room anytime she entered. The same could be said for Chris Pine. I saw this movie on a triple date, and all of the ladies would swoon when he had lines on the screen. He definitely has more animal magnetism than a young William Shatner, and he delivers his lines with sincerity and believability–a welcome relief from over-acting.

The Recommendation

For all my complaints, you should see this movie. I say in my teaser text that it was put together for the masses, and it is. There’s nothing incredibly deep about it, but it is a fun ride. Star Trek purists will probably be infuriated with the nonchalant treatment of the source material and the casual rewriting of the timeline, but my gut feel is that Abrams has successfully relaunched a franchise.