My ex-wife got the planet in the divorce. I have nothing left except my bones.
Wow, if I’ve been this conflicted on a move before I don’t remember. In the end I’m positive on it, and would recommend it, but it’s not a perfect film, not by a LOOOONG shot. It’s faults are many, and although none of them are fatal, that’s only due to it’s numerous strengths. These problems would have killed a lesser film, but this one is strong enough to emerge scarred, but alive and kicking. This is a SPOILER INTENSE review, so if you’ve somehow managed to stay spoiler free, turn back now.
|
What did NOT work.
Seriously?
|
|
Scotty’s ……thing: If the opening scene of Abrams Trek II is a Bag Pipe Funeral in space for this guy I’ll be happy as a petted Tribble. We do NOT need mud crusted Ewok comedy relief in a film series already having problems finding the right tonal shifts between action and laughs. |
|
Shrek Orion Slave Girl Roommate: Were they even TRYING to simulate a skin tone, or just the nuclear waste rods on the Simpsons? I swear you could see the back wall of the theatre every time she came on screen she was so bright. |
|
The ‘Bongo’ Vulcan Spacecraft: Did Lucasfilm have to sign off on this? Needlessly silly ship design that they did not even bother to tie in with any other design element by or on Vulcan. |
|
Pavel Andreievich Yakov Smirnoff Chekov: Someone has to make sure this guy is only directed by the ‘A’ crew next time. No more 2nd unit for him. From his manic, almost Robin Williams in space performance to delivering EVERY LINE with the zest of ‘What a STARSHIP!’ he was easily the weakest performance in the film. |
|
Water Boarding – SUBTLE!: It did not occur to me to check the credits as they were rolling, and no, I’m not going over to IMDB just for this, but I wonder if Nero’s assistant, the one with the ‘Duh’ look constantly on his face, was named Cheney? When Captain Pike was being questioned by Nero he was strapped to a board. And what was Nero slogging through, water. Water Boarding, get it? It did not help that the Foley effects for the water seemed to be turned up to 11. Now, before you think I’m being overly picky, I’m not sure the film makers even realized what they were doing. Most likely it was not intentional. But where else in the Romulan ship was water just laying around in puddles? Nero sure did seem intent on getting Star Fleets access codes, if he didn’t have the Ceti Alpha V slugs who knows how soaked Pike would have become. Either a ham fisted commentary on interrogations or all a coincidence. Hard to say, but subtle it’s not. |
|
Apple iStore VS Super Mario Brothers Star Ship Design: The disparity in design aesthetic between the bridge areas and the ‘working’ areas of the ship was ridiculous. I had no care about how close or distant the bridge came to looking like the original, and as they designed it, I think they did a good job. But going from the bridge to the other parts of the craft felt like going from a naval war ship to the guts of a oil tanker from the 1930′s. I get it, these are big complex machines that do WORK. I get it, they are mechanical, not just magic boxes that produce photon torpedo’s or warp speed with technobabble glowing lights. That being said, I fully expected Mr. Wonka to walk on screen and ask an Umpa Lumpa to free little Asgustus…….er…….Scotty. |
|
SOME of the camerawork: Some of the sequences were shot in Battlestar Galactica ~ Cloverfield shaky cam, and by some I mean too many. We get the point, space is three dimensional and combat is chaotic. Next time out, take a few chances to pull back and show the great actions sequences taking place in their entirety. |
|
Overal Plot – or – Nuking Every Continent After Hurricane Katrina:
So Nero is a regular guy. He’s just out on a mining ship digging up rocks, making an honest living, as he’s careful to point out. Just a simple Romulan making some coin for him and his family. Then BLAM – goodbye home. Ok, that sucks, sucks big time. And sure, in grief that deep SOME people lash out for ANYONE to blame. Alright, he’s just angry. So this regular guy convinces the entire crew of this ship to travel the Galaxy exterminating billions and billions of people. This would be like someone on a super-oil-tanker that was crewed out of Louisiana steaming into New York harbor and blowing the ship up, killing hundreds of thousands of people because of the governments response to Hurricane Katrina. EVEN IF one person was angry + kooky enough to do that, try convincing an entire ship to follow you. This guy is no Kahn. He’s no superhuman leader of a fanatically loyal group. He digs rocks, and turns his rock digging ship into a vehicle for genocide. This did not work for me, not at all. |
|
Kobayashi Maru: Everything about this was a mess, and a huge lost opportunity. I was most afraid during this scene of the film. Up to now I’d mostly been along for the story, enjoying the setup’s, the character moments, the introductions. But man oh man. Things went so wrong here I feared they’d never recover. Kirk’s Kobayashi Maru reprogramming is one of the conical touchstones for his tactical thinking, individuality and rouge nature. What should have been one of the sequences that established Kirk’s, well, Kirk-ness for every level of audience member does nothing but show him to be a sore looser out of touch with reality. His legendary action of reprogramming the simulator is shown to be so obviously a tampering with the test that it’s meaningless. What possible good does it do to cheat when you swagger and contradict every possible component of the scenario to only end up with the situation suddenly turning around for no reason? It had all the character development and intelligence of Kirk being pissed because someone always comes over and beats him at HALO 27 on his XBOX 9600. So one day he puts gum under the buttons of controller number two and invites his opponent back for a rematch. The game ends with Kirk brimming with self satisfaction and Spock just looking at a broken controller with a ‘Christ – you are such a tool…‘ look on his face. And then there is that damn apple. I get it, really I do , ‘Look – Kirk is eating an Apple, just like in Wrath Of Kahn!‘ Actually, eating is not the right term. Kirk assaults the apple with the ferocity of a man fixated upon slaughtering anything produce. It’s almost like he’s a frustrated lumberjack who having forgot his ax curses the tree swearing to wipe it’s children from the face of the earth. No, the apple did not make him look casual. It did not make him look carefree either. All it did was place an exclamation point onto a sequence that fails on every level. |
|
The Spock 1.0 House Of Intergalactic Platitudes, Plot Points & Cliche’s: As bad as the Kobayashi Maru sequence was, it was not quite the lost opportunity that their use of ‘Classic’ Spock was. From his first scene, he goes from a non-stop blathering of ‘Spocks greatest dialog hits’ to Warp Factor 7 plot exposition then back again. Every scene with Leonard Nemoy in it was dreadful, and none of it was his fault, but that of the writers. On the whole, the creative forces behind STAR TREK did a good job of being familiar, but also original. Of honoring the copious Trek cannon without feeling the need to be constricted by it. But things just fell off the rail with ‘Classic’ Spock, here on known as Spock 1.0. With his first scene, Spock 1.0 has his ‘I am now and shall always be your friend.’ line force fed into it you know they were at a lost on how to use him. From the point in the ice cave then to Scotty’s winter wonderland all Spock 1.0 does is quote old school and spout back story like a leaking warp core. This is the greatest crime committed by the film makers, as it robs what is most likely Spock 1.0′s last film appearance of any impact. There was so much they could have done with the 1.0 and 2.0 meeting. How much better could it have been if 1.0 would have just casually bumped into 2.0 something like this: 1.0 – I believe your name is Spock, is that correct?
2.0 – Yes. I do not know you, do I?
1.0 – I am someone who knew your mother.
2.0 – You knew my mother, for how long?
1.0 – All my life. I’m leaving on a shuttle to Planet X to help start a new Vulcan colony. Before I go I want to tell you that your mother often spoke of her pride in you, and as a human did not miss an opportunity to say how much she loved you. Or *SOMETHING* along those lines, rather than the quaint nudge – nudge – wink – wink – hey – look – I’m OLD YOU, ain’t it cool! |
|
What DID work.
Rock Out With Your Spock Out! |
|
The Casting: With Chekov the only stand out, this is a phenomenal cast. Aside from Kirk and Spock, precious little screen time is able to be spent on each character, but every actor nails the bit of time they have. What you may have heard about Karl Urban as McCoy is correct. Somehow he channels the perfect embodiment of the old performances without ever once coming off as a impression. Pine shows us a young Kirk full of bravado and guts, but also intelligent and a thinking man’s fighter. Quinto as Spock has the look down pat of course, but he works the mannerisms, down to eyebrow raises, to a tee. Zoe as Uhura delivers on the promise of sexiness that could only be hinted at in the original TV series, and was sadly past her prime for come the movie series. ( #5 fan dancing scene, the horror…..the horror…..) She also gets to help the plot along in a few small points, as many as they could squeeze in this time I think. Hopefully the relationship with Spock will grant more screen time in the future. Pegg as Scotty falls the furthest in the physical appearance department, but does a great job with the whimsical and playful side Scotty had. Hopefully they let him do more in the future than give bursts of more power and fretting over his precious crystals. I want to give a complement to Bruce as Pike as well. He’s a necessary predecessor to Kirk, being the place holder that Kirk must ultimately supplant, but I hope we’ve not seen the last of him. He does great work, with the early bar scene being the best. Even though he’s in his (beepless) chair, I hope he has a role shaping the future of these characters. |
|
Doing the impossible: Iconic gets overused a lot, but that’s what the original series characters are. Kirk, Spock, Bones. Just show someone the shirts, the ears, say the word phaser. People who never liked the old, the new, the newer, the films, they still KNOW who these characters are. To a large degree, this film ends with us embracing these new characters as they exist on their own. The old characters do not matter. It’s not that these new versions diminished the older versions, but just the new ones are so interesting on their own you don’t feel guilty for liking BOTH. Somehow J.J. & crew managed to make a good movie that does not feel like a Star Trek movie. You don’t feel the need to compare this to Wrath Of Kahn, or any of the others. In an explosive way that the Next Generation films could only have dreamed of, this movie stands on it’s own. Being able to excite the casual, hardcore and never-seen-it Trek audience is a feat I did not think they would be able to do, but they did. |
I know my list of Positives is shorter than the Negative, but that’s just the way I saw it. The QUANTITY of bad outweighed the good, but the POWER of the good outweighed the bad, if you follow. Again, I do recommend seeing this, up on the big bright screen if at all possible. It’s not the best movie ever made, but I really, really like these characters and I’m really curious to see where they take things now that the ‘origin’ movie is out of the way.
UPDATE: Marc has some ideas on the possible future of JJ Abrams Trek HERE
It seems the things I liked about this movie you enjoyed as well, and the only real problem I had was also the “Overal Plot – or – Nuking Every Continent After Hurricane Katrina”. It was far fetched and if more time had been spent explaining the why’s of all those situations it would have MURDERED the brilliant pacing of the movie. I was ok with turning a blind eye to the motivation behind the Romulan’s and I found Bana’s performance to be enigmatic enough (agreed, not even close to Khan, but nonetheless)that it seemed ok for me.
I’m just used to Abram’s weird way of shooting. I’m hearing other people say it was awkward for them as well, but it really didn’t bother me at all.
I disagree about Spock 1.0 though. I loved his performance and didn’t mind for a second that he was repeating those old lines. Saying them to the “new” Kirk brought the old and new together. It had a great feel of nostalgia rather than a mimic to me. Perhaps they could have done MORE with him but I was ok with what the DID do with him. Again, I think a lot of these choices had to do with the films pacing.
Nice point on the Waterboarding part though. It had been totally lost on me when I saw it, but am curious to take a second glance.
I’m glad to hear you say the many bad complaints you had didn’t outweigh the fewer positives. I have the feeling you may watch it again and find yourself ignoring some of those annoying aspects. It’s not like the Ewok guy had a Jar Jar sized role here. He was in the movie for a grand total of five minutes.
*le sigh*
~Heather
I honestly have never been as conflicted about a movie as I was with the new Trek. Like Marc, I could throw down for quite a while the inconsistencies with plot (god knows my feelings toward “time travel/alternate reality” BS and I’m nowhere near a hardcore trekkie. This all being said, Star Trek was the most fun i’ve had watching a movie in a long time. The whole thing just flippin clicked. It was exciting, The actors did pretty darn well in filling some pretty big shoes, yet making each character their own; with exception to Checkov and his “nuclear whistles”.
Walking out of the theatre, I was completely clueless on how to process what I had just seen. If I was to stick with the lineage of the series and movies, it would stink up the place as bad as having to go back in time to steal a couple of whales to save the Earth. Yet if you strip it down to the bare elements of an okay story with good flow, coupled with decent acting and working chemistry between actors and story; THE MOVIE IS JUST TOO DARN FUN NOT TO LIKE.
I just plain enjoyed this movie. This was a film that threw just enough of the old stuff at you that Trekkies got a grin without alienating the generations of newbies that never watched Star Trek before. A lot of it was tongue in cheek, blink and you’ll miss it, but if you caught it, you smiled. I saw the movie with someone who had never seen any Star Trek episodes or movies at all, and he enjoyed it. I did explain some stuff after the movie, not because I had to, but because the facts that the director and writer threw in there made me WANT to talk about it…teach the virgins, if you will. Of course, this earned me the “geek” title, but when it comes to this movie, I will proudly wear that moniker.
Another thing that I liked about the movie was that because Nero changed the future, that leaves a blank canvass for future additions, and no doubt, future debates on whether the radical changes in the movie does the memory of Gene Roddenberry justice or not.
This movie was, in my opinion, very good, and I am looking forward to many sequel.
Signed,
The Chic Geek….
I enjoyed the film as nothing more than a mindless action flick or popcorn movie or whatever you wanna call it. The type where you have to turn your brain off. Like you always end up doing in those Star Wars films.
However, whenever I tried to make sense of what was in the generic plot or in some particular situation in this new Star Trek film… I had some problems.
The whole time traveling over-used plot device, is clearly just a big gigantic clue that the writers were being lazy. They also seem to ignore how real black holes work. If this film was made in the 60′s or before we knew much about them, then I would tolerate such silly arse nonsense. But in the freakin’ 21st century? I guess they knew their target audience a little too well (12 year olds).
The other thing that bugged me is Uhura falling in love with Spock. First of all, they probably violated protocol with that. How unprofessional of them. But the real problem for me was how unconvincing it was handled. They seemed to have fallen in love just like that. And that’s hard to believe if we consider that Spock was suppose to be unable to show emotions much less strong emotions such as love. The fact that he did show that emotion only diminished the impact from a key scene that happened later on in the movie. Where Kirk has to go out of his way to FORCE Spock to show emotions. That whole part was just lazy and weak writing.
I agree that Nero was a lame bad guy. And the whole logic of being followed by all his crew on a wonky crusade is just that, wonky at best.
Scotty could become very annoying if he keeps that comedy relief thing in the sequel. Enough of that crap. And what’s the deal with that Ewok creature?
I wasn’t bothered by Chekov’s accent.
I agree that Nemoy’s scenes were extremely weak. Not his fault. I blame yet again those writers.
Again, the movie was fun and enjoyable. Despite it being pure nonsense. I come to expect that from Star Wars films but not from Star Trek.
I really hope that they work harder in the sequel and produce something that doesn’t insult the intelligence of someone who’s not in 7th grade.
P.S. This is a good film but it’s downright crazy that this film is ranking better on metacritic than some Oscar winning films or just films that had better screenplays/plots and acting. Shows how faulty and unreliable metacritic is to judge films based on scores.
Thanks for the comments folks.
Heather – Agreed on the plot. As far as Spock 1.0 goes, I did not so much mind WHAT he did, only that it was ALL that he did. I’d much rather seen him used in a more organic or thoughtful way than ‘Alien Exposition Announcer’.
Glenn – Scary as it is – I think the plot to number IV is more well rounded and developed, but I get your point. The movie def. came very close to killing it’s self, but swayed clear. Fingers crossed for next one.
Ed – I understand the summer popcorn defense gets used a lot on movies like this, and I understand the rationale behind it. Generally though, I try and react to a movie based simply on what it delivers without having it in a preconceived basket. That said, I think Trek missed a lot of chances along it’s way, falling from what could have been ‘great’ to ‘solidly good’.
Yes – the slow burning black holes ( like an old western with the wick and powder barrel ) was annoying. There would be no slow decay, culminating in a crumbling implosion. I *do* give them a little credit for at least using a partially original ‘dooms day’ device, even if they only half explain it’s origin and ham fist it’s use.
Ditto on Scotty and the Ewok. Let the next film be a tad bit more serious in tone. I’m not looking for an ‘Irreversible’ level of dire pathos, just a tad less wacky at times.
MRL