I finally got the chance to see Star Trek. Once on Saturday in 35mm and then again on Monday in IMAX.
Let me start this off by saying how much I have loved Star Trek growing up. As I said in my previous post, I grew up on The Next Generation. I watched it every week and I’ll still watch it if its on. I own every special edition of every Star Trek movie. I have been to two Star Trek conventions here in Nashville where I got to meet James Doohan and George Takei. I think I know my Star Trek history. When I visited Las Vegas back in 2002, I and two buddies made it a priority to go to the Star Trek Experience at the Las Vegas Hilton.(very cool,btw) So, yes I would consider myself to be a trekkie/trekker to some degree.
When I heard about J.J. Abrams directing a new Star Trek movie centered around the TOS(the original series) cast, I was very very nervous. I remember having conversations with others that also loved Star Trek, about how scary of an idea this was. To most of us, this idea was either succeed or fail. There was no real in between. Either it works or it becomes a bigger joke than the humpback whales. I wanted to have faith in J.J. based on how much I loved LOST, Alias, Cloverfield, and even Mission Impossible III, but I also remembered reading about his draft of Superman he had written a few years back. To make a long story short, he had written a first draft of a potential script for a new Superman movie that was crazy. He had supposedly written a draft with all sorts of wild over the top action and story lines that were never part of the Superman mythos. For example, in his draft Krypton never exploded and Lex Luthor was eventually revealed to be a second son of Krypton aka. an alien. It was all of course a first draft and sure enough it leaked out on the interwebs. Abrams has since come out and said that because it was a first draft, he wanted to make it so over the top just to see how far they could take it. After this, you can see why someone might have some fears about him “rebooting” a franchise.
I tried to keep a positive attitude about it. When I heard that they delayed the film for around 6 months due to the writers strike, I started to have more hope. Apparently they didn’t want to rush any of it because of the strike, which I agree with. As pictures and trailers were released over the last couple of months my fears receded even more. I actually tried hard not to read any spoilers about it. I wanted to go into the film knowing only what I had really learned from the trailers and maybe a few interviews I had seen on tv or online. In today’s online world, thats almost an impossible task. Well, all the waiting paid off and the worrying turned out to be for nothing other than just not wanting to see something I loved go down the toilet.
J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek is wonderful. It’s magnificent. It’s joy. It’s everything I wanted it to be and more. I am just so thrilled to know that Paramount didn’t just throw it out there to any ole director to try make a few more bucks off of a franchise that had somewhat of a life threatening wound. No, they handed it over to a group of guys that wanted to make something special and boy did they succeed.
The movie is so beautiful to look at. Every scene whether it be on a ship or an a planet is beautiful to look at. The colors used in the movie are so vibrant. It doesn’t have the dark colors that TNG and the other shows used. The ship is so nice to look at. They gave it an updated yet still classic look. I loved seeing engineering look like engineering. It was just a bunch of touch screen pads. The bridge had a classic and simple yet updated look. I do agree with those that have said the bridge kind of looks like Apple designed it. Just about everything in the film you see in the movie is nice to look at and gives you a good feeling. It gives you this overall feeling of hope that I think Gene Roddenberry was going for when he created the series back in the 60′s.
The actors are great. Who ever was in charge of casting did an amazing job. Most of the cast were able to take traits from the original characters that everyone knows and loves and then make them their own. Everyone does a great job of getting you to love their character again. When I heard Karl Urban was playing Dr. McCoy, I thought “WHAT?”. I didn’t think he couldn’t do it, but I just couldn’t imagine him doing it. After seeing the movie, I am just blown away at how well he did it. It wasn’t just him though. Zachary Quinto as Spock, Chris Pine as Kirk, Simon Pegg as Scotty,etc…they all just nailed the parts. Granted, they’re not doing impressions of the original actors but they nailed the characters and aspects of the characters that we all grew to love. Chris Pine is in no way William Shatner but he has that swagger and confidence that Kirk has. Zachary Quinto does a great job as Spock. He really brings new elements to the character that is different than the way we’ve seen Leonard Nimoy portray Spock. Considering he had to be in the same movie as Nimoy, he did a great job overall portraying the character that has become as much of an icon as Kirk. Eric Bana as the villain Nero is good. Nero isn’t your typical Star Trek movie villain. He’s not the smartest or the most over the top, but he is sincere in what he wants. He doesn’t kill everyone in sight unless they’re in the way of his overall objective. I won’t go into main details about the plot mainly because I don’t want to ruin the experience for anyone.
The story overall worked well. One of the biggest questions on every fans mind going into this has been, “How will this work in the continuity of the Star Trek universe?” Well, thanks to a very clever time travel storyline, they managed to go back and basically start from scratch. The beginning of the movie basically tells the audience that the timeline they know has changed. We still have the same characters but now everyone’s destinys have changed. Overall, the story works. Abrams and his crew of writers have managed to give themselves a clean slate in the Star Trek universe in which to work. In this timeline, Kirk has yet to go up against Khan. They haven’t made their peace treaties with the Klingons. Now, they might not have to go back in time to bring back humpback whales. You get my drift.
I am kind of torn about this. I would love to see what kind of movie these guys can make with a new Khan storyline(btw,the writers have been quoted as not ruling Khan out for the sequel). At the same time, this movie was so good that I don’t want them to make a great movie that might tarnish the image of the original Khan movie. Its kind of like Batman in a way. Until last year, Jack Nicholson was THE Joker to many people. Then Heath Ledger came along and threw that character on its head and he is now THE Joker to many people. As of now, Ricardo Montalban is Khan. To a lot of Star Trek fans, The Wrath of Khan is their favorite Star Trek movie. I guess I’m just a sucker for originals. I honestly feel that these new Batman movies are making people forget about how classic the ’89 Batman movie truly was. I just don’t want to possibly tarnish the image of an already classic movie like Khan. Then again…most fans didn’t think that replacing Shatner and Nimoy would work out well and well, we were wrong.
Overall, Abrams’ Star Trek is a breath of fresh air to sci-fi films. I think I enjoyed more in these screenings than I did in any of the Star Wars prequels and I would consider myself to be a big Star Wars fan too. I honestly think I enjoyed this movie more than any movie in the past year since The Dark Knight came out. It all JUST.WORKS. I’m really excited to see where they take this franchise now and I do have faith overall that whatever direction they go in, it will work.
By the way, if you get a chance to see it in IMAX, then do yourself a favor and see it. Seeing the ships and space battles on that big of a screen and hearing the sound in a large theatre is so very cool. Definitely the way to go!
p.s. I’m already jonesing for the blu-ray version of this movie. It’s going to look beautiful!
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