Written by Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman
Directed by J.J. Abrams
“You will always be a child of two worlds, and fully capable of deciding your own destiny. The question you face is: which path will you choose?”
Oh god…where do I begin? Well, I belive some subtitles are called for…and a SPOILER warning…
(1) THE GOOD
STAR TREK, taken on its own merits, is absolutely wonderful. Frentic, colourful, epic, grandiose…but it never outstays its welcome. It’s a brisk two hours of action, adventure, emotion, and plot…and as a explosion of new-style Trekishness, it succeeds brilliantly.
The cast is completely pitch-perfect. Chris Pine IS Kirk: the swagger, the twinkle in the eye, the humour & heroism, and the steel…it’s all there, just younger and more dangerous. It’s in no way an imitation of William Shatner, but it captures perfectly all the quirks and characteristics that will develop and mature into the much more seasoned captain we all know. The rest of the cast aquit themselves equally well, with Zacharay Quinto putting an interesting new spin on Spock, possessing a much more tightly-wound internal conflict, beneath a more serene-yet-wry exterior. But the breakout award goes to Karl Urban as Dr. McCoy — a man with irritation that could fuel a forest fire, glumness from a bitter divorce, and wonderful lashings of loyalty & sarcasm. He’s a joy to watch every time he’s on the screen.
The visuals are powerful and rich on a scale unseen in previous Trek films. The effects teams have gone to town to give us breathtaking images that will leave you spent. The space battles are especially deadly and visceral. In fact, I was almost in tears after the 10 minute pre-credits sequence featuring the fate of the USS Kelvin…which effectively sets the tone for the remainder of the film.
Budget doesn’t always dictate quality (if you want proof, watch — if you can stomach it — Attack of the Clones), but in this case, the resources of the film are marshalled for full emotional AND visual effect.
(2) THE IFFY
First of all…I wasn’t a big fan of the music. It does it job well on many occasions (including the lovely Chinese-influenced theme for the Vulcans), but there’s a sweeping grandeur that’s missing (as in Jerry Goldsmith’s scores for Trek’s I & V to X). Fine, you don’t want sweeping grandeur? Well, it’s also lacking the Horatio Hornblower, swashbuckling, spirit-soaring arias of the James Horner scores (Trek’s II & III). As for the new theme…it isn’t exactly reaching for iconic status. I think they need to go back to the drawing board — or find a new composer — for the next film.
Then there’s Nero, the future-Romulan villain. He suffers from being either all style and no substance (there’s nowhere NEAR enough background development…Khan he is not), or he’s simply throwing around mixed messages all over the film. Sometimes he’s screaming in fury, other times he says nothing at all…and in between he’s either behaving idiosyncratically with Captain Pike, or stiff-lipped from his stoic, years-long quest. Only Eric Bana’s sheer joy at playing this character keeps him watchable…but it doesn’t help enough to actually get a proper HANDLE on the character.
Finally, while the effects work is beautiful, it threatens to fall into the same trap as Transformers did: too much going on, too closely to the camera. I’ve seen it twice (as of this review), and I still can’t make out ALL the details or events going on in the battle scenes. Frentic can be good…but never to the point where it falls into chaos & confusion. Someone should sit back and take some notes about why the space battles between capital ships in The Wrath of Khan, The Undiscovered Country & First Contact were so successful…and THEN adapt it to modern techniques.
(3) FILE UNDER “What the f-ck?!?”
History has been irrevocably changed…or has it?
Kirk’s birth and backstory completely messed up…Vulcan destroyed (and Spock’s mother murdered)…Captain Pike becoming the FIRST (short-lived) commander of the Enterprise…Spock & Uhura in a relationship (pause to wipe at my bleeding eyes)…and now TWO Spocks living simultaneously in the 23rd century?
That’s just a taste of what could well be the most audacious re-writing of continuity in history. Does Star Trek now exist in an alternate timeline…or is this a completely NEW timeline?
There are many ways to have your cake and eat it too…and Star Trek tries VERY hard to reward everyone in this respect. It is more than easy enough to believe that this universe now exists as an alternate to the reality we have know for 40+ years, which is still safe and sound for us on video, DVD, re-runs, and our imaginations…
…but rationalizations aside, the sense the movie gives is that there really IS no going back…this is the way things are NOW, and we’re all going to have to suck it up and deal with it. Does that mean that the TNG/DS9/VOYAGER futures will not happen…or happen completely differently? Any interpretation is welcome…and there’s more than enough room for multiple explanations…
…but I’m still a bit…sad.
If we take what the movie implies as our new canon…does that completely invalidate Pike’s history and bittersweet tragedy on Talos IV? Does this mean Spock’s mother is no longer present to receive the message from her son that “he feels fine”? Does this invalidate the entire conclusion of The Search for Spock…and even if it doesn’t…would that ending work on some NEW planet that doesn’t have the same ressonance…and certainly doesn’t have the same Mount Seleya?
That’s just a small taste of the questions buzzing through my head…and the heads of millions of other fans around the world. Is this the kind of re-boot we want? Is this respecting 40 years of Star Trek, or throwing it in the dustbin of history? As I said, the audacity of the alterations is unbelievable and astonishing, and done with (suitably) cataclysmic, hand-of-god sensibility. But is it right…? I must say, there’s a large part of me that is conflicted between my enjoyment of the film and my discomfort with what it did to a rich & established universe. Can you imagine what Tolkein fans would make of such a re-boot to their Middle-Earth? Hmmm…
We’ll have to see…as with most things, the future is constantly in flux…old, well-worn futures, and new, unknown futures. For what I watched on screen, this was a hell of a ride…but for the questions it leaves behind…I’m going to have to leave it to the judgement of history…
…or, at the very least, the plot of the NEXT Star Trek film (and rest assured, after this successful outing, there WILL be a nex film).
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