Star Trek (2009) : An "exit poll" review

I am a Trek fan. There, I said it. It’s out there. Grew up on it, learned it, lived it, love it. Trek fan, somewhere between “Trekkie” and “Trekker” I guess, if you want to put it on the Boy Scout merit badge scale.

That being said, when the idea of this “re-imagining” movie came out, all I could think was “OMG… Why don’t the people in Hollywood ever come up with new ideas?” and “Great.. here comes another Battlestar Galactica style reboot, replete with sex-changed characters I’ll bet”.

Clearing that out of my head, and being the fanboy that I am, a friend and I went to see an afternoon matinee today, and I thought I’d share my quick thoughts on immediately leaving the theater, rather than letting it sink in and depress me that they can’t make “real” Star Trek movies any more.

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Storyline
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As other critics have said, “meh…” The storyline in “Star Trek” was your typical “pissed off Romulan going back into the past to exact revenge and change the future” thing. It’s sad that they couldn’t use another type of storyline, but it works out ok. ESPECIALLY when they’re trying to intertwine all these legendary characters that we’ve known and loved for decades… Just don’t expect too many Oscars.

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Special Effects / Sets
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The special effects team did a good job, better than I might have expected, but the problems I had are as follows;

- When there was an action scene, it was often TOO much happening on the screen at once to really get a feel for what was happening.

- This is supposed to be more of a remake of the 60’s era Trek, right? So why did all the ships and sets look like something out of, oh, I dunno, Deep Space 9″?

- The ICONIC bridge of the Enterprise now looks like the bastard stepchild of an 80’s discoteque and an Apple store.

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Actors / Characters
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Bruce Greenwood … Capt. Christopher Pike
A *perfect* choice to play Christopher Pike, and a GREAT way to give us the back story on the history between Pike and Kirk.. Excellent.

Zachary Quinto … Spock
Rumored to be Nimoy’s own choice, Quinto did a 100% phenomenal job at portraying a younger, half-Vulcan, half-Human Spock. I cannot imagine anyone outside of inventing a time machine and kidnapping Leonard Nimoy who could have done a better job at this role.

Karl Urban … Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy
When I first heard Karl Urban in association with this film, my mind immediately went to the near-straight-to-video “Doom” starring Dwight “The Rock” Johnson. ‘Nuff said about that… Of all the “old characters” portrayed by “new actors” in the movie, I have to admit that Urban absolutely 100% NAILED IT and it was a pleasure to watch his portrayal of a younger Dr. McCoy

Zoe Saldana … Nyota Uhura
Unfortunately, not surprised here. According to the IMDB profile, she didn’t even bother to watch the original series before taking on the role. Despite her naivety as an actress, making a character your own is one thing, but ignoring the history of a virtually household name character… that’s simply something you do NOT do. She did ok, but again zero insight into Uhura’s character didn’t help.

Chris Pine … James T. Kirk
Imagine an ego like Shatner’s Kirk growing up without a father figure and subject to a more turbulent childhood, and you get the cocky, arrogant, want-to-kick-his-ass-yourself James T Kirk that Chris Pine portrayed. Accepting the context in this new “re-imagining” that James T Kirk’s past was change, I can accept his portrayal of a bar-brawling Kirk. Decent. Not much else.

Eric Bana … Nero
Seriously, Eric Bana was in this movie? Where? (haha). Good job playing the bad guy, but — aside from being totally unrecognizable throughout the film — I can’t say much else, as the story really didn’t seem to actually go anywhere with his character.

Simon Pegg … Scotty
I am a fan of Simon Pegg. I’ve seen almost every movie he’s done, and own almost every one I’ve ever seen. That being said, I think it’s more a matter of writing that the role of “Scotty” in this film was turned into far more of a comic relief role. I’m sad to report that while Simon got a lot of laughs out of me as “Scotty”, I think Paul McGillion (the doctor on Stargate: Atlantis) would have done a more respectable job at playing the whimsical mechanical genius that is Montgomery Scott.

Leonard Nimoy … Spock Prime
Always an honor to see the master himself. Truly high points in the movie were his sheer presence on screen. Nimoy is literally what pulled the movie together for me, and for that, I say “thank you”.

John Cho .. Hikaru Sulu
Anton Yelchin … Pavel Chekov
Both excellent choices for their respective roles, and I honestly want to see more of them. Sorry to be so short, but you’re getting tired of reading, and we’re almost at the end.

Ben Cross … Sarek
Winona Rider … Amanda Grayson
Spock’s parents. Again, excellent choices, though I somehow feel old watching Winona play the role of Amanda. I’m shutting up now before I spoil it.

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Summary — aka, Thank God he’s finished talking.
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Like the eternal Spock, I am a divided soul on this movie.

On one hand, I openly and weepingly mourn the past that no longer exists. This is not the Trek that we know and love. On the other hand, I sincerely cannot fault Abrams and his team because I think they did a fantastic job with the almost Herculean task of revamping what has always been a legendary TV series.

Yes, I have my misgivings and a few issues with the film (such as the idea that a Fiberglass 1960’s Corvette could survive 200 years) but overall, the only real question I could ask of them is this:

– Did they *really* have to go “where no man’s gone before”?

Then again, as Lee would point out, I actually liked the reimagined Battlestar Galactica series… So there… (pfffft…!)

Category: Movies
Tags: Bruce Greenwood, Chris Pine, Kirk, Legendary, movie, movie review, Pike, review, Spock, Star Trek, TV Series, Zachary Quinto

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