Film/TV May 7, 2009 at 4:00 am

Star Trek: Almost as Good as Wrath of Khan!

Comments

1
glad to hear that it isn't a piece of shit. The trailer looked great (even with the lens flare BS) but it's a whole lot easier to make a nice trailer than it is to make a good movie. Looks like i'll have to check it out.
2
Yeah, I admit I'm pretty excited. Zachary Quinto is an inspired choice, as is Simon Pegg (does he get much time?).

I haven't been all that thrilled with the Kirk choice, but then, I'm not a Kirk guy. And like all homely actors, I disdain any actors who are too pretty (unless they balance it with irreconcilable weirdness, a la Johnny Depp). :)
3
I've been wanting to see this since Karl Urban was announced as Bones.
4
@2: I'm usually with you on the pretty-boy actors, but Pine really brings it.
5
Forget Winona, why the hell is Tyler Perry in this film?
6
First Contact was awesome. You're insane.
7
So was The Undiscovered Country.
8
The best part of this new movie is that it wipes all the Star Trek spinoffs/wannabes like Next Gen, Voyager and DS9 out of existence
9
Nice that we nerds get one fun movie before the inevitably listless sequel and disastrous third movie. Hollywood is structurally incapable of sustained quality because idiots call the shots. Even competent, lightweight genre seems too much to hope for. Sad. And anger-making.
10
Tyler Perry? What are you talking about #5?
11
@8 - Just for the record, Deep Space 9 was by far the best Star Trek series, better even than the original show.
12
@11, sorry but wrong, there was only the one Star Trek series (and possibly the animated version)

@10, Tyler Perry has a bit part/cameo in the new movie
13
@12 & Article author:

It helps to know what you're talking about before you write off several hundred stories written over the past few decades as banal, some of them written by Roddenberry himself or very much in line with his original message. Of course it's probably not reasonable to expect you to see most/all of them to research one article on the summer's next popcorn flick, but still:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far_Beyond_…)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darmok

Next gen and DS9 definitely had their moments.

It helps to know what you're talking about before you talk shit in order to fuck the new girl.

Then again you get to fuck the new girl...

Then again it's fucking Star Trek.
14
@8: You forgot Enterprise (which I don't care for either). Otherwise, re: all other non-existent "series", you're loony.
15
Star Trek VI was really really good, right up there with Wrath of Kahn. Though Kahn is STILL the best Sci-Fi villian of all time.

I bought a ticket for tonight and hope I don't walk out of it like I did the last Trek movie I wasted money for to see in the theater and that was Insurrection.
17
Gloria @14, ironically, "Enterprise", out of all the inferior spin/ripoffs is the only one still in the new Trek continuity.
18
ST:TNG has some wonderful eps, like "Darmok" and "The Inner Light." But generally speaking, ST has been inward looking since ST V, which was an incredible piece of shit and for which William Shatner's name will always be sullied (he directed.) ST VI was ok and "First Contact" was like an exceptionally well crafted two hour episode. But none of it tried to bring in a new audience until the current movie.
19
Also, Tyler Perry was the admiral with a stick up his ass.
20
Best Star Trek Ever. Better than Khan. Better than the one where the Klingon moon blows up. Best one ever. And actually a really freaking fun movie on top of that. As good as Coraline. And it comes with a trailer for "Where The Wild Things Are."
21
Dude seriously? Generations was GOOD. And First Contact was enjoyable. The others I could do without, but Generations can't be overlooked.
22
I just saw Star Trek at the IMAX theater, and it was amazing. I've been so disappointed lately by all the prequels and sequels to iconic movies, but this one made me so happy, I'm almost willing to forgive them all. Beautiful and action-packed, and with the heart that makes the 12-year-old fangirl I once was squeal with excitement. Go see it.
23
This one was good. I agree with Paul, the casting was excellent. The action was great and the technobabble was kept to an acceptable level. Good fun

My only disappointment was the villian. So one-dimensional and inexplicably stupid. Bana did fine with what he was given, but he couldn't save it. "ah my wife and world and stuff! I'll get you Spock!!"Then he waits around for 25 (!) years sitting on his ass doing nothing? And his crew goes along with it? He's travelled back through time and could now actually do something to save his planet, but no, he just twiddles his thumbs for a quarter of a century?

Too much to swallow. But that was in the end not enough to ruin a good show.
24
I loved the movie, I really did. There was so much existential delight at spending time with these characters. But am I the only one bothered by the whole let's-start-a-new-timeline, destroy-Vulcan-for-no-reason business? And why is it, when I say I'm bothered by this, people seem to accuse me of being some minutiae-obsessed fanboy?

Case in point: I am not at all bothered that, say, the humans know more about Romulans in the movie than they're supposed to. Or that Kirk was born in space when he was supposed to be born on Earth. (Some fanboys are highly bothered - from what I learn on the imdb message board.) But this is an entire planet, filled with billions of people, where later, crucial events happen in the series. A planet that is destroyed for no reason except to say, "Look how daring we are! Take THAT, established canon!" And because I was expecting some sort of sleight-of-hand reappearance, the emotional gravitas of the event was totally lost on me.

Next Generation is my favorite in the series. This whole new timeline thing feels like they're telling me my love for Picard and his crew doesn't matter, it only matters that they're bringing in new fans, and if I can't accept whatever they throw at me in service to that end, well, I guess what I think doesn't matter a whole lot. And that just makes me feel more conflicted. I think it's terrific that there are going to be more people interested in Star Trek, both for the stories and for the values and the optimism that it inspires. But now, everything I grew up loving about Star Trek is just thrown out like so much recycled plastic.

Maybe Q can appear in the sequel and set things right. Sigh.

Did I mention that I loved the new movie? Because I did.
25
Wow, that was long rant. Sorry. I just really love star trek. Not in an obsessive way. It's more like being one those girls who grew up wishing they lived in an Austen or Brontë novel.
26
I spent almost the whole movie going 'FUCK YEAH', and only two minutes going 'WHAT THE FUCK?' One of those was benign, the other still provokes WTF. But still, that's a pretty good ration.
27
@24 It's sort of the point that things didn't happen the way they did in established continuity. That's where the whole "alternate reality" business comes in. I was startled at first, too, but now I've decided I like it. Where would be the drama in watching events play out and knowing full well that in another thirty years, all these people will be older and paunchier but alive and well, and that everything came out in a certain way? By moving this movie universe into an alternate reality, it opens up the storytelling to let things unfold perhaps quite differently from how they did the first time around.
28
@23: Nero waited 25 years for Future!Spock to show up with the red matter. His plan to save Romulus was to eradicate all the planets in the Federation. And of course, his revenge on Spock was to make him watch.

@24: Star Trek 2009 is to Star Trek what Crisis on Infinite Earths was to DC Comics.

29
This is some good, geeky conversation, everybody.

I'm not so worried about the continuity issues, simply because if Paramount sees that there's money in it, they'll continue Trek along the TNG timeline. This is just a parallel universe. It doesn't diminish any of the older stuff or make the stories irrelevant; they're not gone. If anything, this movie will get more people into the older stuff. Hardcore fans would have been more pissed if there was no explanation as to why their old stories had been changed. This was as good an explanation as they could have managed. Now they just have to make the second one a Dark-Knight caliber movie and we're all set. Simple!

And Generations and First Contact were good Trek movies, but they weren't good movies.
30
i've heard nothing but good things about this movie
31
I'm rather sick of this fast and loose time travel in shows and movies. I would have enjoyed the movie better if I had never seen Heroes (which is even worse with it's time travel.)
32
I loved it! And I was impressed that they had the balls to blow up Vulcan and not somehow go back in time and fix everything.

I would have loved it about twice as much, though, if every single female character (all 3 of them) hadn't been a two-dimensional prop and/or eyecandy. Even Uhura was mostly wasted! So saddening. :(
33
Although I haven't seen much of Abrams' work, I understand he does have a tendency to kill off characters he's allowed his audience to become attached to, so I suppose the notion of wiping out 6 billion Vulcans in one fell-swoop was just too tempting to resist. Plus, it's a complete and utter skull-fuck to the whole "but it's not canon/continuity!" whine from the fanboys, so that in itself makes it worthwhile, IMO.

Now, he can move the series in pretty much any direction he wants, and not really have to worry about all that continuity stuff. He's shown he's more than willing to use the good elements from the older versions, but he's also not afraid to put his own stamp on things, and conversely let his actors put their own spin on their characters and relationships, taking them in new directions (although I admit, the ONE serious relationship change he's thrown in IS going to take a little getting use to, if you acknowledge my hail, so to speak), something previous directors and producers were too afraid to do, lest they suffer the Wrath of the Fans. So, while it appears he's coming at the material from a position of respect for what's been done before, he's also taking a fresh perspective, which opens up a whole new range of possibilities, and he's shown he's beholden to no one. This is HIS "Star Trek", and if this first film is any indication, he's got one hell of a ride in store for us.

And speaking as someone who's been a fan of the franchise quite literally from Day One, I can't wait for him to show us what else he's got in store.
34
Patrick @ 24: I noted more than a few nods to TWOK in ST'09, including opening with a Kobayashi Maru scenario, and doing something to piss off the fan base (as killing Spock's character did in TWOK), which makes me think that ST'09 may be a direct set-up for the next couple installments, the way TWOK was. Vulcan may somehow be spared, even in the alternate universe. If not, well, then, I agree -- killing off billions like that was pretty freakin' stone cold.

Datajunkie @ 31: Yeah, the extensive time-travel plots bug me, too, but in the ST universe, if figure if I can hang with faster-than-light travel, I can hang with careening back and forth through time.

Oh, and ST'09 rawks. I give it three out of four tubs of buttery popcorn.
35
I can always tell a person's age by which Trek movies/series they consider "the good ones".
36
I really liked the movie. It was big and fast and smart and funny. It was obviously more original series than TNG (ie: less prime directive, more space-ass kicking), but this is really the most action-packed film of them all. That's not necessarily a good or bad thing, but it is different (Wrath of Kahn was "Submarines In Space" for much of the time, of course I like sub movies, so...). I did notice that the audience contained all sorts of people, including teenage girls, who aren't exactly known for their devotion to the Trek. Everybody was into it, too. That means this is a win.

One thing, though. I don't know if I zonked out during this part, but what the fuck is this "red matter"? Did no one feel like they had to explain what it is and why the Vulcans were sitting on some crazy substance known to cause the formation of black holes? Did I just not pay attention? Anyway...
37
I hated it. It was funny and the action scenes were "fun," but it just tried entirely too hard to make everything awesome. It was like the writers hated having to write about young characters who were still in the academy and didn't know everything, so they just wrote them as many year seasoned awesome bionic hybrid starfleet officers who were completely awesome at absolutely everything, but who were also somehow very stupid (hey, let's watch stuff get sucked into that rapidly expanding black hole! this is fun! oh shit!) and erratic (you punched my security guard! now i'm going to maroon you on this frozen planet with crazy looking attack beasts!).

The writing didn't make a ton of sense in parts (after being marooned, kirk was like oh, a cave! oh, hi spock! you're in the cave! oh, we're right next to a star base? why haven't you walked over there yet?) and was ridiculous (destroying the drill take one: let's the three of us parachute down to it, swordfight the guards, and then fire guns at it; destroying the drill take two: hey, we fired the ship's phaser at it and fucking exploded! it took three seconds!). And then there was the bridge of the Romulan ship which consisted of irregular shaped panels suspended dangerously over a mysterious chasm (be careful jumping to the science station or you'll fall to your horrible death!).

It would have been ok if it was a stand alone film, but they were working with many years of (usually) excellent Star Trek episodes and movies, and they should have given the canon, and the intelligence of the audience, a little more respect than that. They had enough money to make a really wonderful movie... it's a shame they didn't devote a little more to writing it.

Oh, and Vulcan being destroyed actually is a problem. They're going to need that at some point.
38
I was suprisingly pleased with the new movie, which I just saw at the Cinerama; there were certainly some hard to keep track of battle scenes and I did enjoy the inevitable useless death of someone in a red shirt but I kept waiting for the alt Enterprise to get sucked into the black hole... You know, like ALL alt Enterprises always do.

Then I realized "OOOOOOOH, now I get it, its a polite way of freeing the francise of the strict Star Trek Canon"

Nice idea and I look forward to more of these. plus, Zoe Saldana is hot and seeing her and Spock make out was strangely arousing.
39
@37 Thank you! I saw it last night and hated it too. The lavish praise it is getting everywhere is making me feel that much more alienated from humanity. I mean, really people?! Is THIS what passes for excellence these days? It was just a lot of bullshit CGI and caricatures of the old characters.
40
Wait, the funniest thing? the movie trailer with the guys in military gear doing all sorts of bang-bang, blow things up.....

the explosion of laughter when the name of the movie came up "GI-Joe" was probably NOT what the producers of said film are looking for.
41
Oh, I forgot the bendy water tube that Scotty got stuck in. What the hell is that supposed to be for? And the guy hanging out for 25(!) years waiting for Spock instead of saving his planet (WTF?!)
42
hated it. hackneyed dialogue, opaque plot and villain, obvious bones thrown to existing fans with little purpose other than to check off a list, forgettable score, ZERO SOUL.

someone adroitly made the observation that the film contains an unintentional metaphor: the Corvette represents all the greatness of Star Trek that came before. and it's driven off a cliff by a little snot who wanted to take it for a spin.

that's about right.
43
Kids will like it. The whole thing is Star Wars reconstitued into a single 2 hour movie. Kirk is a farm boy, they destroy Vulcan/Alderaan, off to Hoth, Kirk/Spock =Skywalker/Solo, final mano a mano among catwalks in darkened ship, etc. etc. Oh and Uhura = Leia. It's all there. Doesn't bode well for the future (more derivative drivel).
44
Kids will like it. The whole thing is Star Wars reconstitued into a single 2 hour movie. Kirk is a farm boy, they destroy Vulcan/Alderaan, off to Hoth, Kirk/Spock =Skywalker/Solo, final mano a mano among catwalks in darkened ship, etc. etc. Oh and Uhura = Leia. It's all there. Doesn't bode well for the future (more derivative drivel).
45
I am surprised by the good reviews this is getting. The spirit of the show--which was utopian, big-hearted--was totally absent. The was just another Will Smith "ha-ha your personality is so outrageous" shoot-'em up movie. It had no story to tell other than, let's wink at each other endlessly about character traits. The original was very humane, and treated even the enemies with respect. This one mocks Chekov's accent for laughs. Har-fucking-har. You see, 'cause he's Russian! Hilarious. Then let's blow up a planet and kill billions, so as Spock and Uhuru have a pretext to kiss. Because we all know chicks get hot when your family and race gets wiped out! Yeah! And don't mind Kirk: he's a rule-breaker! Probably eats at Burger King, has it his own way.-- There was a collective ethos to Star Trek, completely missing here. And of course, it's making lots more money than the old version, so we can expect more of this to come. I'm not bothered by "continuity" problems so much as gross changes and exxagerations in character. This Spock is so reactive and emotional--what was cool about Spock was his stoneniness, and this guy seems to be on the verge of losing his cool all the time. The old Spock didn't show emotion 99% of the time--so when he did, it meant something. The new guy seemed angry so much, about to lose his cool, like he was the cool-headed cop in a police-buddy movie. The old Kirk was level-headed and rational 90% of the time--so that when he overstepped boundaries or regulations, it showed his courage. Here he's just a hot-head with no discipline, and you can't make out why anybody on board would respect him. And is anyone bugged by the lack of acknowledgement of the post-capitalist era that Star Trek represented? Here, the car phone Kirk uses as a boy is from Nokia (so I guess corporations still exist, even after money disappears?), and then he gets chased down by some awful Robocop who looks like he just came from busting heads at some WTO protest.--Star Trek is supposed to embody progress and hope for mankind and the universe--this was just another soul-sucking Independence Day with different catchphrases but the same pointless CGI destruction.
46
May it never be said that the Stranger can't bring the haters. Suppose it was just a matter of time.
47
If you guys hated the entire run of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and Star Trek VI (which was a good Star Trek movie AND a good movie), then why do you even care what happens to the Star Trek franchise? You aren't a Star Trek fan! That's not a super-nerdy diss; it's just a fact. (I mean, I don't get excited/exerted about what happens to the X-Men franchise, because I'm not that interested in it, or in comic books generally.)

The original show was great, but it wasn't so different from TNG. The mediocre shows since then have tarnished the franchise a little -- so did the last two TNG movies -- and the new movie, which I loved, will obviously revitalize the franchise. But snarking on TNG just seems silly. It was a show for fucking nerds, and most Star Trek fans, myself included, are fucking nerds. Please: don't try to turn Star Trek into something cool.

PS to 35: You must be some kind of genius! How did you ever figure out that people tend to be more nostalgic about the stuff they grew up watching than they are about TV shows that went off the air decades before they were born?
48
It’s just not a very good film, Star Trek movie or not. I actually think it is getting good reviews because it’s a Star Trek film. If it wasn’t, such a poorly written film would vanish in a couple of weeks.

More than anything, films like this point out how, as viewers, we demand very little from films anymore. Over the years, as the quality of films dropped, audiences have begun praying for a halfway decent movie when they buy their tickets. But movie executives just make trailers, hoping for a big opening weekend. The art of film making has been lost. Our expectations have been lowered to the point where a film with endless plot holes and hacky character building is considered superb.

It’s really rather sad.
49
I thought it was terribly average, and i'm genuinely confused as to why this film is getting rave reviews. I can only assume standards in summer blockbuster filmmaking have dropped so low over the last few years that people are giving it a pass because it didn;t suck as much as they expected it to.

There is just so much wrong, the most spectacular part of the movie taking place in the opening 10 minutes, the lame screenplay, the instantly forgettable score, zero evidence of any kind of talent for framing and composing a shot - not one memorable cinemascope image, everything shot in close-up (even the space battles), Kirk being jettisoned from the Enterprise and landing on an alien planet, only to run into a cave and discover Leonard Nimoy...what a piece of luck!!!

Star Trek has been many things over the years but never dumb. And this movie was dumb dumb dumb. Step forward screenwriters Kurtzman and Orci, the playwrights of The Island, The Legend of Zorro and Transformers. I miss the literacy and intelligence of the best Trek, City on the Edge of Forever, Darmok, Wrath of Khan etc.

This is Star Trek for the malls, I appreciate its not for me. Sad to see what was groundbreaking in its day being reduced to empty-headed popcorn spectacle.
50
Creating an alternate timeline doesn't wipe out the other timeline.

Well ok, sometimes it does. Star Trek never established how time paradoxes work consistently. :) Certainly there's been an alternate reality since TOS that characters have been transporting in-between (most memorably in DS9 just about every season.)

@48 the plot holes and unexplained plot events (eg the original reality Spock could've been anywhere on the planet, but he happened to be a short walk away from where Kirk was dropped.... and oh yea who the hell throws crew off of a ship?) were annoying. This is part of condensed story telling of a movie though. Long-story arcs like DS9 are the best really...
51
I caught the movie on Saturday with a couple of friends and we liked it but... the time travel scenario confused us. Having Old Spock and Young Spock meet and talk at the end really confused me. Wouldn't that disrupt the space-time contiuum? Oh, well, maybe they'll explain it in the sequel.
What I liked best was the casting, which is excellent. Good to really good acting. Zachary Quinto IS Spock. Really nice to see secondary characters like Uhura, Chekov, Scotty and Sulu treated with the same depth as Kirk, Bones and Spock.
Could have done with a simpler, less hectic plot. A little too fast moving but that gives me a good excuse to see it multiple times to catch everything.
Some very clever winks to the series canon. I especially liked the Kirk/green girl hook-up.
52
click on my name to see my review of the film.
53
Almost as good as wrath of kahn?? fuck that shit man!, and i mean FUCK THAT SHIT MAN! ive had shit fall out of my ass that are more interesting than this movie. Fuck this whole movie!--Except for harold from White Castle, that dudes the shit!

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