May 12th, 2009
Star Trek
Finally got a chance to the see the new Star Trek movie and I really liked it. It was great to finally see a no holds barred kick ass Star Trek without all the over-intellectualizing that the TNG movies were prone to. The action and humor really does bring the franchise back to its TOS roots. But there were some things I had issues with:
- Everything I knew about Star Trek no longer applies. All those years of filling my head with Star Trek history and trivial is now thrown out the window. I can no longer feel superior to casual Trek fans, but I can learn to get over it as long as Paramount continues to deliver good sequels. So I look forward to refilling my head with new Trek history.
- Kirk making Captain of the Federation flagship without even really trying? Come on, give me a break. So I guess it really does matter who your father is and who you know, and you can be an over-cocky ass to boot. This is even worse than Harry Potter being special for no reason at all other than being born to the right parents.
- Time travel and alternate universe …. not again, come on, we need new plot devices.
- Whats up with Nero? His character development and motivation were almost non-existent. He was reduced to a generic bad dude out to destroy the universe for almost no apparent reason. I read the comic book prequels to the movie which does go into detail about his motivation, but the movie on its own doesn’t do a great job explaining this.
- Uhura and Spock, where did that come from? She gets into the turbo lift and is suddenly all over Spock, who starts kissing her back. No internal conflict or anything. I don’t have a problem with the concept, just wished the filmmakers took more time to develop the relationship.
- I like seeing Leonard Nimoy again, but if you’re gonna reboot the franchise, lets really re-boot it without any ties to the past. I found future Spock’s presence to be un-necessary and distracting to the plot. The comic book prequels were even worse. Future Spock was actually helped out by Picard, Data and Geordi before he was sent back in time. Come on, in a massive universe, there’s only a few people that must be involved in every crisis?
- What’s up with Winona Ryder getting above the line credit for only 2 seconds of screen time? She actually did better than I thought she would, even in those 2 seconds. Although no one is gonna beat Christian Slater’s 2 seconds in a Trek movie. Slater and Ryder were both in Heathers, so I look forward to seeing Shannon Doherty in the next movie.
Despite all this nitpicking (yes, I am a nerd), the movie was great. Zachary Quinto was amazing as Spock and I look forward to seeing what he does with the character in the future. I just need to stop going, “what is Sylar doing in Star Trek?”, every time I see him.