Finally, “Star Trek” is worth watching again
By Michael Knox, mknox@modernfilmzine.com
Finally, “Star Trek” is worth watching again.
J.J. Abrams‘ re-imagining of the franchise is not a perfect movie by any means, with a cliched meeting of old Spock and young Kirk that takes, “suspension of disbelief” to whole new heights. But other than that I really enjoyed this film.
The story of a young Captain James T. Kirk forming an uneasy alliance with the alien Spock, who is trying to define himself, being half human and half Vulcan, was a lot of fun to watch, especially as the two met the rest of the crew.
From the get go this movie starts off with a great action sequence with James T. Kirk’s father forced to take command of a star ship during a battle. And if you know anything about “Trek” history, you know in the “established” history Kirk’s father lives, and never saw the battle that is displayed in the movie. This is not your daddy’s “Star Trek,” but an alternate reality series.
The movie takes advantage of using time traveling Romulan villain, Nero, to set up the story as to why the Trek characters are not exactly as we remember them from the series. Because, in point of fact, they are indeed not the characters we met in the classic Trek series or movie franchise.
The gist of the story is a very angry Nero travels through time, hunting down the old version of Spock that lives in his time period. During that trip he has a battle with a star ship that is currently commanded by Kirk’s father, who dies in battle.
The death of Kirk’s father creates a totally different version of James T. Kirk than the one we are used to, and allows Abrams to have some breathing room to draw on new ideas and build on the established characters.
The actors are spot on for this film, capturing the look and feel of the original cast, but adding their own little touches. One of my favorite characters was Dr. Leonard McCoy as portrayed by Karl Urban.
There were some nice surprise guest appearances including Spock’s father Sarek, portrayed by Ben Cross, who played Barnabas Collins on the short lived 1991 remake of the classic “Dark Shadows” series.
Winona Ryder also pops up as Spock’s human mother, although I didn’t even recognize Ryder in the role.
My only major complaint of this film was that I would have liked the Nero villain to have been fleshed out a bit more. He wants to blow up planets and is very angry, but other than being a genocidal maniac you really don’t have much of a villain. He drives the story, but his character is flat.
That said, it was great seeing Simon Pegg as Scotty. He was a fun character who captured the best elements of James Doohan, who played Scotty on the T.V. show.
And if you ever told me John Cho would have made a bad ass Sulu with a fun hand to hand combat sequence, complete with killer flips, I would never have believed you. But he pulls it off and made me jump up in my seat, excited to see the fight.
The great thing about this movie is that it starts “Star Trek” all over again. The timeline that people grew up watching is gone. There are characters from the third film, “Star Trek: The Search for Spock” who die in this movie long before the established “classic” Trek history.
So, purists may be a bit pissed, but it makes it where you are not sure who will live or die. Oh sure, you know there is no way in Hell they will finish of Kirk, Spock, McCoy or the other regulars. But the classic secondary characters that we remember are gone.
Plus the ripple effect of this movie is so huge that there could be serious revamps of the other Trek franchises, including “Star Trek: The Next Generation.”
The status quo of the whole franchise is up for grabs because of Abrams revamp.
And better for it.
