Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Obligatory Star Trek Post


Obviously going by my first post and some of the listed links I am a Star Trek fan. So what did I think of the new movie? Basically, I liked it. One plus of this film is that it is obviously the biggest budget Trek film since probably the first one, but what really makes the movie work is the casting and the focus on the characters of Kirk and Spock. This film really does a pretty good job of exploring the dynamic between these two iconic characters, while also being an exciting action flick.

Things I'm less pleased with are the plot and the villains. Nero was pretty lacking as a villain. He lacked the kind of villainous presence that Kahn exuded in Star Trek II and frankly I think even some pretty weak villains from past films like Krugg from Star Trek III were better than Nero. His motivation also seemed kind of weak. So he is mad at Spock for trying to save Romulus from destruction and failing? So if Spock did jack shit would Nero be cool with him even though his planet was space dust?

Also the science of the whole scenario made no sense. I'm not in any remote sense a scientist, and even I know that a star going nova would not threaten an entire galaxy. Also when you get down to it, the plot is full of Star Trek movie cliches (time travel, villain seeking to destroy the earth, the Enterprise being more or less invincible while the rest of Star Fleet gets taken down by Nero in two minutes or something, etc). There are also some minor things like the engine room design and the product placement for Nokia and Budweiser, but I can't say these things really affect the overall quality of the film.

How does this movie stack up in the gran scheme of Trek? Well, I still like Wrath of Kahn, The Undiscovered Country, and First Contact more than this movie. Therefore I would rank this movie #4 out of 11 Trek films. Overall, I think Star Trek is lucky that it got this reboot because while it is flawed, things could have been far worse. I just hope that next time Abrams and Orci come up with a more original and interesting plot.

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