Star Trek review!!

Woo Hoo Star Trek is cool again!

Okay, I admit that's a bit of a stretch. Star Trek probably was never really that cool. Many people were never able to think beyond the plywood sets and some of the silly creatures from original series. The public's acceptance peaked during Star Trek: The Next Generation when the Enterprise took on the Borg back in 1990 (nerd alert: That was the first time Star Trek ever ended a season with a cliffhanger), and has been falling away ever since.

The keepers of the franchise Rick Berman (and later Brannon Braga) did all they could to milk their cash cow, flooding the airwaves with three more series (Voyager, Deep Space Nine and Enterprise) and a run of movies that even Trekkers had trouble defending. As Berman left Star Trek behind he admitted that it would take someone not closely involved in Gene Roddenberry's fantastic universe to re-energize it.

Then came JJ Abrams.

Before I go any further I do have to warn that there are probably going to be a few spoilers in this review. I can't help it. Abrams has changed the Trek Universe so completely that it would take too much energy and too many words to explain it all through obscurities, so for those who want to see the film without knowing exactly what happens, here's a brief review: The new Star Trek is a fantastic sci-fi adventure, even for those who don't know the difference between Kirk and a Klingon.

Now on with the show.

Star Trek has never been a 'big action' series. Star Wars always had fantastic space battles patterned after modern-day dogfights, but in the ST universe, the coolest space fight (I always thought) came during The Wrath Of Khan when Spock noted that the 21st century Khan wasn't thinking in three-dimensions, and Kirk was able to hide the Enterprise by maneuvering below the Reliant. (Too geeky?)

This time the bar is set high as the Federation Starship USS Kelvin is attacked by a ship that is much larger, better armed and piloted by Nero, a Romulan from the future with a thirst for vengeance. Serving as First Officer on the Kelvin is George Kirk, father of the legend-to-be James T. Kirk. When the captain is killed, Pappa Kirk takes over, orders the evacuation of everyone on board including his too-pregnant wife who gives birth on an escape shuttle, and drives the Kelvin is driven head first into the mystery ship.

Cue opening credits. Wow.

The new film tells the origins of the Enterprise crew and how they came together. Chris Pine is James Kirk, a brash farm boy from Iowa with a rebellious streak a light-year wide who never really understood his father's sacrifice. After his birth we see him again at age 13, taking his foster parent's ancient convertible for a joyride and crashing it into a canyon while casually asking, 'Is there a problem officer?' A few years later he's picking fights in bars with Starfleet personnel. That's when he runs into Captain Christopher Pike, who challenges him to be a better man than his father.

At the same time we meet Spock. He's a half-human, half-Vulcan boy who struggles to balance his human emotions that threaten to overwhelm his Vulcan training to block feelings and focus only on what is logical. Not easy when you are being picked on by Vulcan bullies (who knew there were such a thing) who, oddly, seem to derive joy out of trying to get the half-breed to get angry. Spock grows up to become a top student at Starfleet Academy, and the creator of the Kobayashi Maru, the infamous training program that tests how potential captains will react when facing a no-win scenario. The two young men butt-heads after Kirk figures a way to beat the simulation.

Along the way we also meet the rest of the intrepid Enterprise crew and, no matter how crowded the film, each person is given a moment that defines their characters better than in the series or in the films. Zoe Saldana fills the mini-skirt and go-go boot of Uhura, an ambitious linguistics student who dreams of taking her talents into space. John Cho is Sulu, the pilot with combat training in fencing who forgets to take off the ship’s parking brake before trying to go to warp. Chekhov, the navigator, is played by Anton Yelchin, using a Russian accent so thick even the computer’s voice recognition system can’t understand him. The two big standouts are Simon Pegg as engineer-extraordinaire Scotty and Karl Urban as the gruff Dr. Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy, both of whom bring humor to some very real life-or-death situations..

That leads me to the best thing about this reboot. There are consequences and things don’t always work out in the end. When people die, they stay dead. When planets are destroyed they don’t come back. The entire movie is built on the premise that the appearance of Nero at the start of the film has changed the timeline and, essentially, set up an alternate universe where anything can happen. This is what the series needed. Trekkers have been locked into the history of the future for so long that anything that seemed to go against the canon of the Star Trek universe was immediately rejected by the fan base. Look at the outcry made when the writers of Enterprise tried to suggest that the Borg had been buried in the Antarctic more than 100 years before the ‘first contact’ during ST:TNG! As new pictures and plot lines from the new film were being leaked there were protests over everything from the look of the new bridge (apparently designed by Apple), the new Enterprise (the nacelles are too close to the saucer section … AND IT WASN’T BUILT IN IOWA!) and even the appearances of specific characters (Chekhov doesn’t show up until season 2 of the original series!) But alternate universes have always been a part of Star Trek (think of the evil mirror universe where Spock has a goatee!), so the establishment of a new timeline should not be too difficult for long-time fans to accept, and a great way to recruit new ones. Plus, it allows the actors to make the characters their own. While we could imagine Quinto’s Spock growing into Nemoy’s Spock, it’s a little harder to believe that Pine’s Kirk and Shatner’s Kirk are the same man … but that’s okay.

But fear not, die-hards, knowing the fates of a few characters, like Captain Pike, will deepen your appreciation of what happens to him in the film, and there are enough easter eggs throughout (the fate of red-uniformed crew members and a Tribble cameo, but I won’t tell you where) to warrant second and third viewing … or fourth … or fifth …

And JJ Abrams fans will love the big, red, connection between this film and Alias.

But perhaps I have said too much …

Comments

[Nomad]

I dare say this new Capt. James T. Kirk is a more accurate embodiment of all that is Capt. James T. Kirk (better than the original)