Star Trek 2009: Not Your Big Brother's Star Trek But Still "Fascinating"
Written: May 12 '09
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Product Rating:
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| Bang For The Buck |
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Pros: Daring creativity; score; pacing; Quinto, Pine, Urban and the whole crew
Cons: Not enough time with Bones (my only nitpick)
The Bottom Line: A film that manages to boldly go where we thought we'd been before...only to discover that familiar place in new and exciting ways!
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| befus's Full Review: Star Trek |
Heading into the theater to see the new J.J. Abrams directed Star Trek, I found myself assailed by memories of a bygone age. That age was my childhood, and the memories kept flickering like a television screen in a dark room. Sitting in front of the television was a little girl who loved the over-dramatic, brightly colored space drama that was the original Star Trek television series. Thanks to my cool big brother, an ardent Trekkie, Spock, Bones, Kirk, Scotty and the rest were all part of my childhood, and their catch phrases, from "beam me up" to "fascinating" (said with lifted eyebrow) to "I'm givin' her all she's got!" (uttered with the thickest Scottish brogue possible!) were part of childhood's vocabulary.
Perhaps one of the most wonderful things about this newly "rebooted" version of Star Trek, as it's quickly come to be described, is that it did a wonderful job of harking me back to the past. Despite the fact that we were entering the Star Trek universe at a point we'd never been before, a creative choice that gave the filmmakers a chance to provide us with prequel-glimpses of our favorite characters' childhoods and young adulthoods, the terrain felt familiar. Some of it was due to familiar sights and sounds: the swishing swoosh of opening doors on board the Enterprise, the brightly colored Federation uniforms, the eerie wailing of the Red Alert signal.
But it wasn't just the setting that felt familiar. So did the characters, which frankly surprised me. I expected to be constantly mentally comparing the young main trio of Spock (Zachary Quinto), Kirk (Chris Pine), and Dr. McCoy (Karl Urban) to their original, older counterparts, but it just didn't happen. All three actors managed the feat of paying respect to the original actors/roles but didn't get hung up on trying to slavishly imitate them or, what would have been worse, parody them.
I think Quinto did the best job of walking that old/new line, but then much of the film's emotional arc belongs to Spock. And then the fact that they were providing the audience with those aforementioned glimpses of beloved characters' mostly undeveloped pasts helped a lot. I mean, we could talk forever about what we think Spock might have been like as a ten year old half-human/half-Vulcan genius, but heretofore such speculations were firmly in the realm of individual imaginations. Now Abrams and company, still fresh in the public imagination because of their hit television series LOST, have given us a screen version.
The story starts with the birth of the boy who would grow up to become Captain James T. Kirk, on a night that was anything but ordinary. Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised to discover that Kirk was born in the midst of a space battle, since such battles will become the defining mark of his career. I was surprised at how quickly the film pitched us into the action and gave us a deep emotional entrance into Kirk's back story. The battle, which pits the U.S.S. Kelvin (helmed by Kirk's father) against a vengeful Romulan named Nero (Eric Bana) also sets up the film's villain and its main conflict, which will take place 25 years after the opening sequence when the U.S.S. Enterprise makes its maiden voyage.
And yes, James Kirk will be on board the Enterprise for that voyage, but probably not in the way you expect. Before we get that far, we spend some time alternating between Kirk's rebellious childhood on Earth (in Iowa, to be precise) and Spock's more sedate but still conflicted childhood on Vulcan. The human/Vulcan conflict within Spock has always been a major part of the Star Trek universe, and it's mined here with considerable depth and sensitivity.
We move quickly into the young adulthoods of our main characters. We're not surprised to find that Kirk and Spock are both headed for Starfleet, but again, how they get there and the way in which they finally meet provide some excellent surprises. I thoroughly enjoyed the way the filmmakers introduce and weave in other regular characters we've come to know and love. By the time the story reaches its ultimate conflict, the whole crew is in place, including Uhura (Zoe Zaldana), Sulu (John Cho), Chekhov (Anton Yelchin), and Scotty (Simon Pegg). They each get character defining moments, with Uhura's role considerably expanded.
Each of their gifts is called upon in the course of the perilous and angst-filled plot. As you might expect, the Enterprise's maiden voyage does not go smoothly, and Captain Pike (Peter Greenwood) is taken hostage early on, leaving the younger, less tried members of the crew to work out solutions together. It is, in a sense, a double coming-of-age tale, with our focus split between Spock and Kirk, a focus that begins to come together as their contentious relationship begins to grow toward something resembling respect and finally friendship.
Quinto almost steals the show in his excellent portrayal of Spock, a portrayal whose excellence is only highlighted when we get a cameo from the original and still wonderful Spock, Leonard Nimoy. However, Pine did grow on me as Kirk. His brash, womanizing ways have always been the most over-the-top and easy to lampoon. Pine, to his credit, plays the character in a fairly straightforward fashion; in some ways it's easier to swallow that kind of emotional immaturity in a college-age student than a middle-age man. In spite of his immaturity, he gives us the glimpses we need of the young Kirk's great potential as a battle commander. My biggest disappointment was the lack of screen time for Dr. "Bones" McCoy. What's there is terrific, and I enjoyed Karl Urban's almost perfect capturing of the good doctor's vocal and physical mannerisms, but I suspect there's lots more to explore in his back story.
There are some heavy-duty plot twists, including the mother of all plot twists, which might cause some members of the audience a bit of a headache. But given what Abrams was setting out to do, I think the twist works in creative and startling ways, as long as the filmmakers don't try to rely too heavily on similar twists in what I'm guessing (and hoping!) will be subsequent sequels.
Michael Giacchino's energetic and exciting score drives much of the fast-paced action, and also gives us all the appropriate emotional pegs on which to hang our hats. I hadn't been this impressed by a film score in a long time.
Star Trek managed to do something not many movies I can recall have done well: satisfy my nostalgia quotient while giving me a fresh, exciting story that makes me eager for the stories still to come. I'm not sure we can call this story of the early days of our Star Trek heroes "the" definitive version...part of Abrams' odd postmodern genius being a certain...shall we say flexibility?...with definitive story lines, but this film has now entered the realm of Star Trek canon. In its brilliant, creative and slightly off-beat way, it's provided us with a whole new way of looking at our old heroes. And it's winning a new generation of fans to these beloved characters, including those who never sat in front of a small, flickering screen thrilling to the words "beam me up."
~befus, 2009
Recommended:
Yes
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