Star Trek: A Review

I must admit I didn't go to the theater to see the new Star Trek movie when it came out. This is not uncommon for me though as I don't often see movies when they are first released. Since then I have had the opportunity to view it on DVD. I have my share of complaints but first I'll speak to the good stuff that was done.

The special effects are way over the top. You get the impression you are watching Star Wars rather than Star Trek. However, this is not a bad thing. It keeps one visually interested in the movie as Star Trek's new feel is supposed to be an action packed trek through the stars. The pace is fast and quite right for the movie. Anyone expecting long psuedo-scientific explanations of how temporal physics works is going to be sorely disappointed.

For many years I have wondered how ships in the Star Trek universe get by armed with only one or two phasers and a torpedo tube. Finally, someone fixed the inconsistency of these giant ships only having/firing one beam at a time. Despite the overly artistic sweep of the nacelles and curves of the ship itself the new Enterprise actually looks more realistic in combat than any Star Trek ship before it. My feeling is that if anyone says the new ship looks too unrealistic 'why not?' If your civilization is advanced enough to build something like that then surely it can take the time to make it look cool not just functional.

Aside from all that is new and good the movie still has plot holes you could fit a borg cube through. Just like the franchise since the beginning of Voyager and a few of the previous films there is a distinct lack of thought put into the writing. For those who haven't seen the film yet turn back now. I give you spoilers!

For as nicely designed the exterior of the Enterprise is its engineering section looks like a plumber's nightmare. Industrial pipes are everywhere and the entire area is so cluttered with industrial backdrop one can't even identify where the reactor powering the ship is. While the industrial look is an interesting take on the engineering section and visually stimulating it clashes horribly with the sterile white environment of the rest of the ship as well as its sleek exterior. The set designers should have hired someone to put up dry wall to hide the plumbing.

Due to a change in the time stream Kirk grows up without a father and ends up as a punk kid. What is horrible about the way they introduce this aspect in the film is he doesn't even appear to be an exceptional punk kid. The scene I refer to is when the young Kirk steals his uncle's car to go joy riding. He speeds down a long flat road in Iowa before encountering a highway patrolman who resembles robo cop. After a short chase sequence he is captured. This scene is completely pointless because one gets the intended idea that Kirk in this new universe is nothing more than a punk in the very next scene Kirk has at the cliche bar fight. The makers of this film would have been much better served by showing the real Kirk shining through allowing him to ditch the cop at the end of the chase scene. I personally expected him to pull a quick breaking move and watch the cop on his hover bike go sailing into a nearby canyon unharmed but unable to get back up the cliff to continue the pursuit. Unfortunately, this Kirk appears far too common an individual for such clever tactics.

Another blip on the plot hole radar is the Enterprise being assembled in Iowa. This does serve a useful purpose in allowing Kirk to see and connect with "his ship" which inevitably leads him to take Captain Pike's advice and join Starfleet. It unfortunately does so at the expense of believability. How is one going to get that gigantic thing into space? Did anyone stop to think that's why we have the shipyards at Utopia Planetia? The writers/director could have just had Kirk spend the scene gazing up at the stars in contemplation since one would surmise the adventure they offered would be attractive to someone of his character.

Rather than a Kirk who is successful with the ladies we get a Kirk who strikes out with Uhura and gets beaten in the race for her affections by Spock! The only redemption Kirk has in the love department is a slutty Orion girl. The romance scenes between Spock and Uhura come out of the blue and are paced the same as the action sequences. This doesn't really give you the sense of how the romance developed or the time one would want in revealing those deeply hidden Vulcan emotions. The whole idea reads as an attempt to throw Spock fans a bone. Hey Trekkies, you can be a logic geek and lucky with the ladies too!

Poorly developed romances aside the most glaring problem with the plot is how it all wraps up. Kirk and Spock fail to fix everything that changed and the old Spock didn't even return to his own time. This is a glaring problem because Spock is a master of time travel. It should have been easy for Spock and Kirk to use the time traveling ship with its red matter to go back, head off the Romulans before they could change anything, and put things back pretty much as they were before. They could have even had the young Kirk returning to the future with Spock with an explanation that his universe that branched off no longer existed when things were put right but he was protected from the change by being in the time ship when it happened. This would have allowed the reuse of a great character for future movies and left the time stream relatively intact.

Unfortunately, it appears to me Paramount wants to break from cannon so they can have an easier time writing scripts. They seem to view all the depth and history that makes Star Trek such a rich universe as baggage dragging down the franchise rather than their poor writing and ideas. I think if one wants to change cannon then one should do it on meaningless stuff like how many weapons a starship has or what it looks like rather than destroying entire planets and changing major characters into that which they aren't.

Despite all the things which could be better with the plot Star Trek makes a wonderful film as a remake loosely based on the concept of Star Trek by Gene Roddenberry. Watch it, enjoy the action, and if you are familiar with Star Trek try to suspend disbelief when the plot defies all logic.