Lost Trek (major spoilers)
Written: May 11 '09 (Updated May 12 '09)
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Product Rating:
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| Bang For The Buck |
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Pros: Bones! Chekov! Enterprise redesign pretty good on the outside.
Cons: Unbelievably lame story. Mini-Jar Jar. Lame bridge. "Spock"
The Bottom Line: Abrams relies on magical convenient and unbelievable plot points to move his lame story along. Much of story was plagiarized. Does not deserve to bear the name "Star Trek".
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| Russhoolio's Full Review: Star Trek |
A well written story is one that can stand up to critical discussion. Star Trek, by JJ Abrams is so badly written that it can only stand up to critical discussion so long as viewers cover their ears and eyes and shout “LA LA LA LA”. JJ Abrams relied not on good storytelling, but on plagiarism, shortcuts and convenient effort-saving devices to slap together a 2nd rate summer action flick that doesn’t deserve the name “Star Trek”.
By way of example, the villain Nero was lifted wholesale from Nemesis, while his motives and actions were lifted wholesale from Wrath of Khan, while the time travel scenario to wipe out the Federation was lifted from First Contact.
The premise goes something like this: a bad guy comes back in time in a heavily armed, heavily armored, nearly invincible simple mining ship to wreak havoc on humans, Klingons, and Vulcans all of whom are completely defenseless in the face of such an advanced and utterly invincible mining ship.
The story is simply not believable. We are expected to believe that “a simple mining ship” would be armed to the teeth. It would in fact be well enough armed to defeat in battle scores of heavily armed and armored Klingon and Federation ships of the line while suffering no significant damage itself.
We are also expected to believe that having had his home world destroyed by a natural disaster, and having been accidentally sent back in time 154 years, instead of trying to save his world or at least warn them, he spends the next 25 year plotting revenge against a guy who tried, but failed to save his world.
We are also expected to believe that his ship’s crew would go along with him and hide out in deep space in utter isolation for 25 years instead of mutinying and then going home and saving their civilization.
What about Kirk? How is it that a 3rd year college cadet is promoted to Captain of a Starship before he even graduates and while he is under disciplinary review? Who, aside from J.J. Abrams, could possibly imagine any real life naval force giving a college student, however brilliant and talented, command of their most advanced and potentially destructive ship of the line?
And isn’t part of a ship’s captain’s job administering day to day operations? Young Kirk was amazed at the sight of a Starbase. I can induce from this that he has not spent much time in actual space. He would therefore have no experiential knowledge of Starship operations. Wouldn’t that be kind of an important factor in choosing the permanent commander of a ship?
The list of unbelievable but incredibly convenient and nearly magical plot points goes on and on. And I won’t list them here as they are listed elsewhere in great detail. For other examples see www.erlendaakre.com.
Abrams not only produced a film with a lousy story but he also completely ignored established Star Trek canon both major and minor. And not all of it can be explained away by simply saying “alternate reality! Alternate reality!” as some do.
Here’s a short very incomplete list of examples of Abrams either ignoring or not knowing established Trek canon:
1. Spock being a Vulcan male would only have sex every 7 years during the Pon Farr.
2. Pike and Spock served together for 10 years aboard ship before Pike was horribly burned in a rescue operation.
3. Uhura ordered a “Cardassian Sunrise” while first contact with the Cardassians was still decades away.
4. Chekov didn’t show up till the 2nd season of TOS which took place 10 years after this film.
5. Kirk was promoted to Captain at the age of 34 after many years of exemplary service and after many trials and tribulations (http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/James_T._Kirk)
It’s not hard to follow along established Trek canon for anybody versed in Trek, as anyone producing or directing a Trek film ought to be.
Essentially this movie was Paramount’s way of telling the Star Trek fan base to take a hike. The movie was made to appeal to people who have no love of Star Trek and who go in for mindless action flicks. The film was nothing more than a blatant money grab.
To add insult to injury Leanard Nimoy's part consisted of making lame speeches whose intent was clearly to justify the abandonment of the Star Trek timeline and to short cut any character development that would have required thoughtful writing and creative effort.
This movie demonstrates a lack of creative talent on the part of J.J. Abrams and his team. It is evident that he relies more on convenient magical plot points than on good storytelling. This movie would have been better called “Lost Trek”. Better still it had been made by someone else.
I'm very sorry that I even saw this film.
Recommended:
No
Movie Mood: Teen-Flick
Viewing Method: Other
Film Completeness: A few glitches, but mostly complete.
Worst Part of this Film: Plot
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Epinions.com ID:
Russhoolio
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Reviews written: 80
Trusted by: 8 members
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