The Servant's Quarters

A friend of mine asked me to share my thoughts about the new Star Trek movie either here or in private e-mail. Since I obviously never want to miss an opportunity to share my incredible brilliance with the world, I'm opting to make it a blog entry. (In case you didn't realize it, this particular entry is already dealing with the fantastic and the fictional!)



First, a little background on me for the uninitiated: I am a huge Star Trek fan. I've watched the various TV shows going back to the late 60's/early 70's. I own the entire original series and most of The Next Generation on DVD. I have thousands of incredibly useless Trek trivia facts taking up valuable space in my brain. If knowledge of Star Trek was a saleable skill in the job market, I could not only make a living at Star Trek, I'm sure it would make me a millionaire many times over. The least used game at my house is a Star Trek card set that's compatible with Trivial Pursuit. No one will play with me because I am unbeatable.

As you may guess, I have more than a passing familiarity with Star Trek. I know it, and I like it a lot. Anyone who wants to "relaunch the franchise" and re-tell the origins of Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock is going to find an interested but highly skeptical fan in me. I love the continuity of the series, and a movie that admits up front that it is rewriting the history of what has gone before is, in my opinion, already in trouble.

A couple of weeks ago, a dear friend of mine (a fellow Trek fan) and I each brought several of our kids to the theater to see the latest Star Trek movie. Rita couldn't make it, and her heart wasn't broken by that. She had already decided that this new movie looked "lame." We found our seats, passed out the popcorn and drinks, and waited for the lights to go down. When they did, the wild ride began.

Let me bottom line it for you before I do into my extended (mostly spoiler free) review: Star Trek was the most fun I've had in a movie theater in a long, long time. At just over 2 hours, it was a nonstop thrill ride that never let up. It was a funny, exciting, tense, smart, well acted, stunning film. When we walked out of the theater, EVERYONE was smiling. We eagerly compared notes about how good the movie was. No one had anything bad to say about it. At all.

James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) is a troubled young man. Born on the day of his father's death, he's rebellious, rude, irreverent, and a trouble-maker. On the planet Vulcan, young Spock (Zachary Quinto) is having problems of his own. Half human, he is the object of endless taunting by his peers. He tries to control his emotions, but his tormentors are relentless.

On the cusp of manhood, each of them reaches a crisis and makes a decision that will change their lives forever - they decide to enlist in Starfleet. And they do so just in time to face a dark, sinister menace from the future.

And therein hangs the tale....

The movie is outstanding in every way. The special effects are breathtaking. The script is witty and fresh. The casting is excellent. I admit that it took me a bit of time to get used to these new faces on characters that I've been familiar with for about 40 years. Chekov and Scotty were two who took a while to get comfortable with. What's really amazing is how well some of the actors slid into their parts. Pine is perfect as Kirk, and I dare say, I think he may even be an improvement on the original. He's every bit Jim Kirk without William Shatner's troubled acting style. Quinto could hardly improve upon Leonard Nimoy's Spock, but he's more than adequate to portray everyone's favorite Vulcan. And speaking of Nimoy, he's outstanding here. I was wondering how the elder Spock would fit in with all these young, fresh faces. The answer is... not bad at all. In fact, it took me a few minutes to happily realize that a scene between Pine and Nimoy was the first original Kirk/Spock scene I've witnessed in years. (Aside from the Pine/Quinto scenes, that is.) And it came off great.

The new Enterprise is beautiful. A marvelous update to the old girl. Yes, it looks a lot better than the cheesey sets from the original series, and we can overlook this. What???? Did I type that? Mr. I Love The Continuity Of The Old Series is actually being generous with changes that this movie makes to my beloved canon? That's right. You see, thanks to a pretty lame but beautifully executed plot device, the creators of this flick actually manage to not rewrite any Trek history. All the episodes on my DVDs at home are still just as valid in Trek continuity as ever. This movie just..... puts them on the shelf for a while.

Were there any negatives? Sure. There were a few. The plot at times STRAINS believeability too much with its reliance on coincidence and chance. Things sometimes just fall into place a bit too easily for our heroes. The movie is rated PG-13, which means that it does stray into dangerous territory at times. There's some language, although most of it is the kind of stuff you could expect from one of the later TV series. There's really only one scene where the boundaries are truly strained. It's a somewhat humorous send up to Kirk's lengendary habit of bedding alien women of various colors. I wish my kids hadn't seen it, but as there's no nudity and things get interrupted before they get too hot and heavy, I'd say it's fine for the older crowd.

So, this one gets a huge thumbs up. As a matter of fact, I'm looking for a free weekend to take my beautiful wife on a date to the theater. I can't wait to see it again!!!