Star Trek (2009)

As I’ve watched Star Trek through the years, seen The Original Series (TOS), The Next Generation (TNG), Deep Space Nine (DSN), Voyager and Enterprise, as well as many great and not so great movies, I found it difficult to think how they could reinvigorate the franchise without disrupting the timelines of all the other movies.

I was especially worried when I heard that there was a movie coming out about the early days of Captain Kirk and his stellar crew. So not only was I excited when I realized the franchise hadn’t died with the poorly conceived Enterprise series, but I was also excited at the prospect of trying to work out how they would avoid destroying future generations of Star Trek.

As I watched the opening scenes and watched Kirk being born as his father was dying, I began to wonder if they had decided to rewrite the whole series and not worry about destroying plot lines from the future. As the movie progresses and we see Kirk and Spock meeting at Starfleet Academy as antagonists, with Kirk ‘cheating’ in an unbeatable test set by Spock, we begin to wonder how the writers are going to get out of this tangled skein.

As Kirk meets Bones, and later meets Scotty (after a fight with Spock) we begin to see the signs of how the mess will be sorted out – in a particularly ‘boring’ part, where all the mechanics of the plot are explained, so that us geeks won’t cry ‘paradox’ we realize that we are entering a parallel universe, or alternate future, as events have changed the ‘correct’ future. Now that the writers have cleverly conjured up a way to avoid destroying the future Star Trek series and movies, by creating this alternate reality, we can get back to the blood and guts of the movie.

What ensues (and went before – the initial setting up of the characters and action sequences were fun and true to the Rodenberry universe) is a sprawling epic in the grand traditions of the TOS universe. All the main characters are there, and while they’ll take a while to fill the boots of the original actors, they do have the same feel and ‘pazazz’ of the originals, and you soon find yourself thinking of them as Kirk, Scotty etc, rather than actors playing the parts of young Kirk etc.

The movie itself is one of the better Star Trek Movies; it is action filled, but also focuses on the characters and their lives –there’s a particularly interesting romantic twist that most will not see. The flow of the movie is excellent (aside from the ‘explanation’ part in the middle) and the storyline is well thought out and logical enough. The movie captures a lot of the camaraderie of the original movie and does a very good job of reintroducing us to the new (old) characters.

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed the movie and feel it is good enough for non trekkies too.

My reviews on the new actors follow:

Chris Pine has one of the hardest roles to fulfill. William Shatner was larger than life as Kirk, and Pine instills a little of this into the character, but also adds his own twist to the character. As he battles with Spock, we see his visible frustration and anger on his face, making this Kirk far more visible and obvious – he plays the role really well and by the end makes it his own.

Zachary Quinto looks very much like a young Leonard Nimoy, and somehow captures the essence of Spock very well. While he doesn’t quite have the famous eyebrow lift, he does capture the enigmatic style of Spock very well.

I wasn’t quite sure what to make of Karl Urban. The resemblance to Bones wasn’t great, but he captured the attitude, accent and mannerisms pretty well! While he did a good job to try and recreate the original Bones, I’m still not quite sure about him.

Another character that I wasn’t quite sure of – the accent was excellent, but he didn’t look like the Chekov I knew and loved. I also felt he was a little bit too ‘hyper’ and while he captured something of Checkov, there’s still some work to be done on this character.

John Cho did a very good job of capturing the pent up danger that Sulu always seemed to have – he added his own twinkle to the character, especially with the sword fighting, but overall captured Sulu well.

Uhura was one of my favorite characters from TOS; she was smart, funny and very sensual. Zoe captures all of this and more; the way she deals with Kirk is right from TOS, but somehow her sensuality flows just as well as the original Uhura.

When I heard Pegg was playing Scottie I wondered how well he’d do – it’s such a big role to play, and Peg just didn’t seem to quite fit the bill. It was with pleasure that I watched Pegg grow into this role; he captured the fun side of Scotty, as well as the grit and determination he has – a very good movie for Pegg.

This was a very good movie and as the writers managed to side step problems with following timelines of the futures movies, I can see that there will be many more movies and possibly a spin off series – this movie definitely breathed life into a flagging franchise.

I've watched several movies this summer and this ranks up there with the best of them; it probably ranks as my number three or number four Star Trek Movie.

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