Time to get my geek on. Yes, this is a review of Star Trek the movie. JJ Abrams reboot of the franchise is a success. Whether you are a long time fan of Star Trek or ask why that dude has pointy ears, you'll be entertained by the movie. You'll also be entertained by the follow up movies that I'm sure are coming. I was disappointed that no one was dressed up for the movie. But one of the people I was watching with the movie said "Those people probably caught it last night (Thursday)". She's right. The full review and some spoilers can be found once you jump to the whole entry. If you don't want to be spoiled, stop here.
This movie is a reboot of storyline that started the Star Trek series, where we find out how Kirk, Spock, and the rest of the original series gang met. Well not exactly. For those who are tied to the Star Trek canon or history, your world has been turned upside down. A time traveling Romulan ship alters the timeline in at least two specific instances that throw out many of the known factors of the Star Trek history.
The first instance is when we see the U.S.S. Kelvin, a Federation starship confronted by a "thunderstorm in space". The storm is actually the Romulan ship commanded by Nero. The ship, from over a hundred years in the future, is far superior to the Kelvin and disables the Kelvin very quickly. Nero requests that the Kelvin's captain transport by shuttle to the Romulan ship. The captain leaves a Lt. Kirk in charge. By design or not, some of the audience might believe this is James T Kirk, because the actor playing him now is a relative unknown. The captain is killed on the Romulan ship and Lt Kirk orders the Kelvin evacuated. Kirk's wife, who is in labor, is taken to a shuttle with a medical crew. Kirk tries to set the auto-pilot, but it is damaged. He orders the shuttles to depart, including the one with his wife. Kirk guides the Kelvin to collide with the Romulan ship. As it is about to crash in, he hears that his son is born and they name him Jim.
Then come scenes showing young James Kirk's rebellious side. Joy riding cars as a pre-teen, getting into bar fights. In particular, the bar fight is with Starfleet cadets, where Kirk is not a cadet. The fight is stopped by a Starfleet officer, who we find out is Captain Pike. Pike has a sit down with Kirk and asks him to join the incoming cadets on a transport the next morning. Kirk shows up and meets Dr Leonard McCoy, who is joining Starfleet because "The ex-wife got half the planet".
Jump three years forward, Kirk is attempting to beat an unbeatable test. He does so by altering the programming and is brought up on charges. During the hearing, an emergency call comes in from Vulcan. Starfleet is shorthanded, so cadets are ordered to starships in dock above Earth. Spock, McCoy, Uhura, Sulu, and Chekov are on the Enterprise. Kirk is held back pending his hearing status, but McCoy gets him on board.
Captain Pike is in charge of the Enterprise, and Kirk and Uhura figure out the real reasons behind the distress call. A trap set by the Romulan ship to destroy the fleet and gain security details. Pine and Spock, as first officer, agree. They encounter the Romulans and the destroyed fleet. The Enterprise is out-gunned and Pike is ordered to go to the Romulan ship, similar to the orders given to the captain of the Kelvin. As Pike heads to the shuttle bay, he puts a plan in place. Spock is now captain, Kirk his first officer.
After Pike is on the Romulan ship, the Nero gets "red matter" into the core of Vulcan, setting imminent destruction of the planet, by way of creating a black hole. Spock, upon hearing of this, rushes down to the planet to save the Vulcan elders including his father and his mother. As the Enterprise beams them up, Spock's mother falls into the crumbling planet. Kirk disagrees with Spock's next move, so Spock has him kicked off the ship onto a nearby planet. Kirk encounters the elder version of Spock on the planet and they find Montgomery Scott at a Starfleet base on the planet. Scott and Kirk beam to the Enterprise, where Kirk takes command after confronting Spock to spark an emotional response.
Nero has made it to Earth and begins the same procedures to destroy it like Vulcan. We find the reasons behind Nero's actions. Romulus was destroyed in supernova that elder Spock could have possibly prevented. Kirk and younger Spock beam aboard the Romulan ship, save Pike, and prevent the destruction of Earth. The Romulan ship is destroyed. Elder Spock gets to Earth and meets with young Spock. He urges him to stay with Starfleet and forge friendship with Kirk.
We now see graduation at Starfleet Academy. Kirk is promoted to captain and is assigned the Enterprise, taking over for the now Admiral Pike. On board the Enterprise, as he takes command, Spock comes on the bridge and requests to join as his first officer. Kirk agrees and off they go with narration by elder Spock with the lines from the opening of the original series.
Again very good movie with faults. In virtually every time travel storyline put forth by Star Trek, attempts were made to "right" the timeline. No effort was done here. Elder Spock mentioned that they were in an alternate reality. While I don't expect everything to be fixed, the destruction of Vulcan is a pretty strong thing to leave in the timeline. Still it was a great reboot. The future movies, if they follow this path, should put this franchise in great shape for many years to come. As a movie fan, this was great. As a Star Trek fan, I'm split between disappointment in the changed canon and the excitement from the new storyline.
I don't know -- alternate realities are pretty common in Star Trek - the Mirror universe, of course, but I'm also thinking of that TNG episode where Worf keeps shifting from universe to universe until, finally, you've got 50,000 Enterprise Ds flying about at the end.
I think it was a clever way to reboot Trek without compromising the established canon (not that Trek needs any help violating its own canon), and Vulcan's demise, in particular, enough to illustrate that you can't go into one of these films without wondering who might just actually die.
True about the alternate realities. However, none of them became the "new" storyline. I'll get past it. It's just my initial reaction.
It's important to remember that this doesn't invalidate TOS/TNG/DS9 ... it just moves the action to a different timeline.
Right, it does not, except that it does in this version of Star Trek. TNG & DS9 overlapped in time so there was relative acknowledgement of each other. This movie doesn't exactly allow that.
I absolutely loved all the characters except for the new Spock -- i liked the original stoic version more than the new condescending version
True. I hadn't really seen him like that until you mention it now. However, I think Zachary Quinto really captured Leonard Nimoy's essence. I would imagine it waa extremely hard to reproduce that. Thanks!
I only watched the Next Generation growing up, but I still loved every second of it. Seeing it again with my pops when I go home in a couple weeks, in fact. :-)