The new Star Trek is surprisingly good. I've communicated my distaste for "reboots" in a previous entry, but as Wil Wheaton said on his blog, "if all reboots were done this well, we geeks would never worry about reboots again." The new Star Trek is not just a new director's crack at telling the Star Trek story with hip, young actors but is a complete resetting of the basic storyline. This is done in comics all the time, but it has been historically disastrous in movies (at least in my opinion).
While the luster of JJ Abrams has started to pale for me (I've stopped watching LOST but still watch Fringe), he did an excellent job of resetting the Trek storyline with a believable plot line (as far as sci-fi goes) while still maintaining a solid link to the past and former storyline. I'm not going to get into details and spoilers here on the front page, but I really enjoyed the film and think that it's a worthwhile one to see and it's as good a reset as you're likely to see from all the nostalgia films this summer (including the cringe-worthy GI Joe). It was nice to see Karl Urban finally playing a role that doesn't require him to wear full body armor (e.g. the Lord of the Rings series and The Chronicles of Riddick) and also explores his acting ability as he aped Deforrest Kelley as the venerable Bones McCoy. My particular favorite, though, and the complete scene stealer of the movie was Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) as Scotty - the red-shirted, wise-cracking, Scottish accent never provided so much comic relief. For me, it was funny without being lame and I really liked Pegg's performance - in a cast full of young upstarts trying to fill huge shoes, Pegg seemed to fit his role the most naturally in my opinion and it felt to me as if it was a role that he was born to play (all deference to the late James Doohan). So, go see it.
Now, if you want my real review complete with spoilers, head on to the rest of the article after the jump. Otherwise, come no further.
***** SPOILER ALERT: Don't jump if you want to keep the surprise! *****
Let's start off with the few things I didn't like, just to get them out of the way. The relationship between Uhura and Spock: other than providing some sort of bizarre justification on how Tuvok could exist in Voyager (the black vulcan), it was just a weird relationship - for a dude that was supposed to be devoid of all emotion, he sure was displaying a hell of a lot of it in this movie. Having Kirk chasing after her only to find that she somehow ended up with Spock, well...it was just weird.
And then, and I know this is nitpicky and weird, but what was up with the giant see-through tubes of water and all the super-cramped struts in cargo holds that was all over the Enterprise, or the vast empty spaces with multi-level platforms sans railings in the alien ship that looked straight out of a Metroid level? Clearly the tubes existed merely as a vehicle for more Scotty comedy relief as he went for his water-slide ride, but what the heck were they there for? Since when are the dilithium crystals and warp cores cooled by water in gigantic tubes? It just seemed really odd and out of place for a series that had a lot of ships that thrived on minimalist aesthetics and design.
Finally, if they're going to go so far as to revamp the entire story, I wish they would have spent a little more time on the characters, particularly the supporting characters. The Kirk, Uhura, and Spock characters seemed to be good looks at the younger versions of the classics, but the Chekov and Bones characters seemed to be the same curmudgeonly campy versions of the oldsters they were trying to reinvent. Having Chekov speak in the same weak "v's become w's" cheeseball accent was kind of lame - this is a new age, a new version of the story, give him a real slavic accent. Bones is now a twenty-something doctor - quit having him whip out the "dammit Jim, I'm a doctor, not a ..." line every time he speaks. Young people don't say that; exasperated old people say that. The jury's still out on the Sulu character, as I could think of nothing but Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle every time he came on screen.
For the most part, those were minor things - now on to the things I liked. I was thrilled with the fact that even though there was time travel, it was taken care of elegantly and thoughtfully enough to not only tie up the loose ends but also to explain how the alternate time line and story could exist. I wasn't left with a bunch of plot hole or scientific questions at the end of the film, and the meeting of the two Spocks was done in such a way that the geek in me wasn't baffled with the apparent time paradoxes or implications of the two Spock selves meeting and wondering what it would do to the continuity of the universe. Thus, the new flick isn't invalidating the old story, it is just considering it an alternate reality - you had the Star Trek universe that you know and love and now you have a "what if" universe where Vulcan is destroyed, Kirk and Spock don't start out as friends, and there seems to be a darker tinge to the utopian Trek universe of yore. It will be weird considering a universe where Vulcans are an "endangered species" as Spock puts it and where Romulus and Vulcan no longer exist. Having those things change the timeline is, in my opinion, a brilliant way to explain an alternate version of the story without causing the fan to throw out everything they already know.
I also really enjoy what they did with the Kirk character, making him out to be more rebellious than genius initially. It's clear from the classic series that he never was one for the rules, but seeing him as a young person who hated authority and yet knew what decision to make when the time came was very interesting. Seeing all of the cast members unsure of themselves on their first big mission was interesting, but especially so for the Kirk character. Plus, it was nice to see Kirk without the terrible acting and line delivery - the young Kirk seems much more charismatic and worthy of commanding respect once the discipline kicks in.
I really liked the fact that the special effects seemed much more grown-up in this movie, more mature. Some people complained that they were too Star Wars-like, but they were done by ILM so what would one expect? The skydiving scene onto the drilling platform was really cool and so was the opening battle sequence when Kirk's pops bit the big one while saving the rest of the crew.
So, all in all, the good in this film outweighed the bad and I really enjoyed the movie. The younger characters were well cast, the action was top notch, the story line was interesting, and there's room for the cast to grow in future films. There's a lot that can be done with this new franchise and if a former Trek cast member like Wil Wheaton can be happy with it, I think I can be too. I don't know if I'll continue to see the movies on this new timeline if there are more (and I can only assume that there will be), but this one is definitely worth your time and I'd say to go see it so that you can make your own determination on what you're going to do with the story.
My favorite line from the movie, spoken from old Spock to young Spock: "My usual greeting seems rather self-serving here, so I will only say 'Good luck'."
For you non-Trekkies out there, his usual salutation is "Live long and prosper".
