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.

First Post!

Howdy! For this premier post I am going to rank and briefly criticize each Star Trek series.

4. Voyager: By sci fi Tv standards Voyager is not a horrible tv series. It is not a particularly great one either. This show did have a good premise and a promising cast of characters, but it largely failed to live up to its potential. All too often this series felt like a weaker rehash of TNG which is unfortunate, because It could been a much more memorable series if it moved away from the TNG type storytelling (not to mention Q and the Borg!).

3. Enterprise: Its somewhat challenging to judge this series because it changed radically three times during its four season run. Therefore I'll breakdown this show into three distinct sections:

Seasons 1-2: ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.....Despite the change of setting to the 22nd century these two seasons for the most part felt like rehashes of previous Berman Trek Series. The show was also handy caped by a fairly boring cast of the characters, the ill conceived temporal cold war arc, and a lack of truly great episodes and a surplus of episodes that were either just god awful or boring.

Season 3: I am not a huge fan of the Xindi war as I think Deep Space Nine's Klingon and Dominion War story lines were much better war arcs. That said, this season was a definite improvement over what came before.

Season 4: This is for me where Enterprise gets really good. The fan service could be a little much at times, but in general the various mini arcs from this season were good entertainment and it was great to see the show finally living up to its premise of a being a prequel. If the rest of Enterprise was this good than the show would be up higher on this list.

2.(Tie) The Original Series: Here it is, the one that started it all and boy is it a good show! It certainly looks good when paired with other old space operas like Lost in Space or the original Battlestar Galactica and a lot of these episodes really do stand the test of time. There is also a lot of crap that is only watchable for camp value.

2.(Tie) The Next Generation: If your from my generation than the Next Generation was Star Trek. It was an enormous success and for good or ill, it set the template that all subsequent series were to follow. Was the show any good? Yes, after a couple of shaky seasons it became a pretty good scifi series. The main problems with this show is that it has a pretty boring cast of characters (With the exceptions of Picard, Worf, and Data) and it could be pretty formulaic sometimes. Because the characters themselves were boring the show usually needed anomalies or aliens of the week to generate most of the drama or tension. This worked for a while due to some good writing, but the continuation of this storytelling into later series proved pretty deadly. I also must say that the Trek universe of TNG seems kinda bland compared to the more colorful universe of TOS. It is also TNG that started the horrible sonic wallpaper soundtracks that would infest every following Trek series(Rick Berman must have hated Star Wars simply for the wonderful music!).

1. Deep Space Nine: This series will never be as well known as TNG, which is a bit of shame as it was a much more entertaining show. After a couple of akward seasons where it was it finding its legs, this show developed into the best Trek of all time. It had great characters and utilized them far better than any other modern trek. It also had mostly good storytelling, relying more on its characters and continuing plot lines rather than random alien/anomaly of the weeks to drive the series. It also has Captain Sisco, which is probably the closest we will ever get to having Samuel L. Jackson pilot a Federation Star ship ;).