The wait is over…
Star Trek
Directed by J.J. Abrahms
Written by Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman
Starring
Chris Pine as James T. Kirk
Zachary Quinto as Spock
Leonard Nimoy as Spock Prime
Eric Bana as Nero
Bruce Greenwood as Captain Christopher Pike
Karl Urban as Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy
Zoe Saldana as Nyota Uhura
Simon Pegg as Montgomery Scott
John Cho as Hikaru Sulu
Anton Yelchin as Pavel Chehov
Summary
A Romulan captain, Nero, returns from 120 years in the future to exact his revenge on the man he feels is responsible for the future destruction of his homeworld. Meanwhile, Kirk, McCoy, and the rest of the crew, just out of the Academy must crew the newly built USS Enterprise, under Capt. Pike, and try and stop Nero before he destroys the Federation.
Review
Wow. Just…wow.
This movie hits on all cylinders. Even before the main cast takes the stage, you’re emotionally hooked in. Then you’re hit with an epic title reveal that seems to say “We know you’ve missed Star Trek…”
There’s a genuine love of the source material here. The score is completely different, yet sounds like Star Trek. The tech looks like Trek, just slightly modernized. And the characters are the ones we know and love, yet are different…more intense. Like it’s concentrated Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and all the rest. And it’s a very good thing.
Make no mistake, this is a “reboot” of Star Trek, the story is starting over with just a link to the old Trek. But the reboot makes sense (in the universe of Star Trek) and the new direction is good.
High Points
- The reveal of the Enterprise. Hello beautiful.
- Nimoy’s scenes. All of them.
- “So her first name’s Nyota?” “I have no comment on that.”
- Every character gets his (or her) moment to shine.
Low Points
- While his characterization was good, Karl Urban doesn’t quite get that McCoy’s a southerner from Georgia.
- The costumes are just ugly. They were ugly in the 60’s and giving them a little more pattern doesn’t make them any more appealing in 2009.
- Wynona Ryder as Amanda just seemed pointless. It wasn’t that she was bad, it just seemed like it would have been better to cast an age-appropriate actress, rather than age her up to Spock’s mother. Maybe a deleted scene or two will prove me wrong.
- Lens-flare mania!
The Scores
Well, it’s a remake, but not quite, so it only takes a little hit on originality. It’s still creative about how it’s reinventing itself and sets the stage for a new franchise to be born. 4/6
The story was riveting, with a fair number of turns along the way you don’t really see coming. It’s fast paced, but it’s still Star Trek. 5/6
This new cast has done a fantastic job of characterization. They have obviously studied their predecessors, but still breath fresh new life into them. And Mr. Koenig, please pay close attention Mr. Yelchin’s speaking. That’s a Russian accent. 6/6
The production quality is top-notch. About the only thing I’m going to ding it on (and it sounds dumb unless you’ve seen the movie) is to settle down on the freakin’ lens flare J.J! We know the bridge is bright, but damn. You could go blind serving an eight-hour shift in there. And it’s not just the bridge, but that’s where it gets most annoying, since you should be more interested in the subtle details of the actor’s faces and performance. 5/6
This is a beautiful movie and the effects only serve to enhance it (even with too many lens-flares). The new-ish Enterprise is stunning. Also, I love the new warp effect. And I liked the old one. The new one makes warp seem a lot more dangerous. 6/6
I’ll admit to a little fan-boy excitement for this movie, but I still was moved by certain scenes and laughed out loud at all the jokes. Also, the reboot leaves you wondering about the outcome (unlike other prequels), so there is a genuine sense of tension. All told, there is a phenomenal emotional response to this movie. So good, the audience applauded and cheered as the final credits rolled. 5/6
Overall, I had a great time. As a Star Trek fan I am pleased as punch with this film. There are a ton of little gags for just the fans. I think non-fans will enjoy the heck out of this movie as well. You don’t really need a past frame of reference to enjoy the film. 6/6
Total score: 37 out of 42
Well now I have a tough choice ahead of me.
My wife and I are going to have time to see a movie tomorrow and I’m torn between going to see Wolverine and Star Trek. We both want to see both movies, but we only have time for one tomorrow.
And then Terminator comes out the following weekend… Not a good time for people with kids to be without a regular babysitter!
Anyone who has seen both care to chime in? I’m all ears!
I have not seen both, so take this for what it’s worth. My wife and I have one primary criteria for theaters: Is it something that has to be seen on the big screen?
Wolverine, which I do plan on seeing on DVD, seems like an action flick that doesn’t get much from the big screen. Star Trek has a much bigger scale and some of the details may not come across as well on a smaller screen.
Of course, your mileage may vary. Void where prohibited. Activation required. Not available in all areas. Certain restrictions may apply.
I’ve seen both, Wolverine was good, Star Trek is better, wait for the dvd of Wolverine, perhaps they’ll even fix the horrendous CGI effect at the end of the movie for it. *crosses his fingers and hopes*
I have seen both, I was kinda disappointed with Wolverine but still enjoyed it. Star Trek blew me the heck away. 1 million times, GO see Star Trek instead. That movie kicked ass. J.J. Abrams and crew pulled it off. I can’t add much to the review here, but I will say this in spoilers: I kept expecting them to do the typical Star Trek time travel thing and go back and fix the destruction of Vulcan. I am sooo glad they didn’t. It just works, it was a bit of an exclamation point to the alternate timeline comment earlier in the movie. I like that they are diverging this slightly from the other Star Trek timeline, it lets them borrow from the old and create new stuff. I loved that.
This is at least a two timer for me, perhaps 3. Did I mention I loved this movie? :)
I so despise them for not doing it. Can’t even hold out for them to fix it in the next one – because after all, they don’t give a shit about old fans.
Star Trek is really good, Wolverine is okay/good. I recommend Star Trek.
We ended up seeing Star Trek and left very pleased. With the exception of lens-flare retina burn, it was a very enjoyable experience. It wasn’t enough to really hinder the experience though.
I think they did take a lot of very creative license, but I suppose we’ll see where this goes. More movies? Perhaps with all the lesser-known actors they could bring it back to TV, too, but I sort of doubt that.
It was really interesting to see how they made the “old” technology (phasers, etc) look like the old stuff and yet still look “high tech” compared to today. The Enterprise, especially, looked great and yet not too dissimilar to the original.
Heh, that show room bridge was way over the top – and is likely to look very dated very soon.
To be fair to J.J. Abrams, lighting (and thus Lens Flare) is usually the responsibility of the Director of Photography, and by all accounts, Directors of Photography tend to get irritable when the Director Of The Movie steps on their toes – unless the lens flare was J.J.’s idea, in which case he may be duly beaten instead of the DP.
Oh, and I don’t know if this was the same for anyone else – at my local Theater they usually have a short ad before they start with the trailers from Sprint, basically reminding you to turn off your cell phone “The tag line being “it takes a lot of calls to make a movie and only one to ruin it.” Well, at my local theater, the commercial they had for this movie guest starred Dominic Keating (Malcolm Reed from Enterprise) – I don’t know if that was intentional or not, but if it was, than it was a nice touch.
Yes, it’s the DP, but the Director is ultimately responsible for everything that goes up on the screen. It was a minor annoyance, one that didn’t really settle in until the end of the movie when the pacing slows down.
Yes, the same ad aired for me last night. I’m sure it was unintentional, but very fitting.
Come on, nobody has done lensflears for decades unless they are incompetent – and many of the ones here were animated. So clearly they are there because someone thought they were cool.
Didn’t really like it. Felt too Muppet Babies to me. Maybe it should have spent less time on parody-like homage attempts and more time making one care for these new characters, instead of just trusting that them having the same names would lead us to transfer emotions onto them.
Oh, and more camera motion doesn’t equal more interest.
Indeed, perhaps like Star Trek 4 – a lot thought it was funny at the time, but later a lot also realized it was at the expense of the characters.
I liked Galaxy Quest 2, but didn’t think it was the knockout I was hoping for:
* while Yelchin really is Russian, I thought his Chekov was a little over the top
* I can almost believe Sulu having a sword with him, but the Romulan?!?
* Uhura as Spock’s love interest made no sense; I liked her strength at the beginning, but this pushed the canon too far.
* The worst part was the Kobiyashi Maru test. That was just plain cheating and not worthy of “a commendation for original thinking”. One way of doing it better would have been to have him add a “deathblossum” weapon that autofired photon torpedos at romulan torpedoes while they (barely) rescued the Maru crew. And while this young Kirk is an arrogant jerk (and that’s the one part of this scene that worked: it was in character), I don’t see it resulting in the admiration given the event in Wrath of Khan.
* I agree about the lighting being way too bright, and in fact, now that I think about it, wonder if that isn’t why the house lights weren’t dimmed all the way in the theater I saw it in.
* I *did* like the new enterprise, but not the popping that went with the warp effect (or with the phasers for that matter)
* There was rather more emotional impact to this Trek than any of the others, especially at the beginning, and that was a big plus in my book
* There were a number of places where they clearly put things in for the fans, including “I’m a doctor not a…” ;-)
* Nimoy blew everyone else away
Like I said at the beginning, a good movie, just not the knockout I hoped for…
Actually, I thought Chris Pine did a standout job too, not that any of them were bad…
I guess I liked just about everything you didn’t like. haha. I loved the movie, and frankly wouldn’t change a thing. I will be going to see it at least one more time.
It’s really important to remember that the events in this movie are not the same events that took place in the history of the original continuity. So it’s silly to complain that they don’t match up – of course they don’t match up, this is a profoundly different Kirk.
I didn’t see any commendation for original thinking in this universe.
I read in an interview that he was directed to go over the top with the accent, to capture the spirit of the character. I was more put off by Chekov even being in the movie; I found this version of him annoying.
I was expecting one of the alien crew to say “can we get this subtitled?”
-Joe
Someone who agrees with me that it wasn’t all that. :)
I thought that the actors did a wonderful job. I have absolutely no problem with them.
I didn’t care for Uhuru’s relationship with Spock either. They made her a stronger character, and then promptly made her a main character’s girlfriend, which took away from that. Also, first he’s worried about putting her on the same ship as him, then he’s openly kissing her? Buh?
Some of the blackhole stuff bugged. Ambassador Spock being the one sent to create a blackhole to suck up Romulus’ sun was flatly unbelievable. An aged ambassador? Really? And then, of course, the idea that a blackhole makes a better neighbor than a supernova.
But, I emphasize that I enjoyed the actors’ performances. I had no problem with most of the new look. Plot had some issues, though.
Of course the idiot writers will tell you that Wrath of Kahn never happened, because they made certain to change reality (so all your DVD sets are now for the crapper)
My low point is the Nokia product placement. I’ve never seen a product placement in Star Trek before, and it jarred me right out of the universe for a bit. In fact, I didn’t like most of that scene. Was that cop an android, or just a jerk who doesn’t take his helmet off to talk to people?
I would have clarified the thing on the costumes – the uniforms they wear on Earth are superb. The shipboard uniforms are weird. I can accept them, but they’re still weird.
Although, at least they’re not pink.
The shipboard uniforms seem to be a problem for some people? What did you not like about them? I liked them a lot. I thought they were a perfect melding of the old uniforms with a more futuristic look.
That on the other hand didn’t annoy me one bit – I assume it was a joke and not product placement, it wasn’t until I heard people bitch about it I thought it might be something else.
[…] The rest is here: Bureau 42 | Movie Review: Star Trek (2009) […]
Great movie! Best special effects I’ve ever seen.
Uhura is hot!
Some of the technical details were bad. They should have been able to do better. Here are the ones that bugged me (generic enough to be spoiler free):
(1) Even if black holes are wormholes, they’ll kill you before you go through them.
(2) Supernovas don’t “destroy the galaxy”. The happen all the time, and they take years and years to move beyond their own solar system. So you’re not going to be taken by surprise if a supernova happens outside your solar system.
(3) From one world you typically can’t get a crystal-clear closeup view of another world getting destroyed–think about how Mars and Venus look from Earth.
1) Wormhole != black hole – variations of both are proposed that one could survive in. In fact, at least one theory is that we already live in a black hole.
2) While supernovae do in fact happen fairly frequently (once a century or so per galaxy, I think is the current estimate), and will not destroy the entire galaxy, they “leave their own system” at significant fractions of the speed of light. In fact, the radiation wave *does* leave at the speed of light, and therefore would take a bit over 12 hours to pass Pluto, a few days to pass the farthest known kuiper belt object, and about 6 months to pass beyond the Oort Cloud, out into interstellar space.
3) We could, in fact, get a crystal clear view of planets around another star, from this star, depending on the size of the collector. A number of large scopes, say aluminized mylar solar sails a couple of miles in diameter, with image data relayed to a central location for integration (with wave-front information, interferometry can be used to get even more information from the photons), and you could easily get meter or so resolution, I think, from Earth to Epsilon Eridani (according to ST:TOS fanon, the star of Vulcan).
Nope. In #3 the planet I’m referring to was clearly visible in the sky, larger than the moon appears in ours.
I just figured it was meant to be one of planet’s moons myself. Even if continuity (and where they actually said he was) says otherwise.
As far as the nokia placement I didn’t mind it as much as Sabotage being played. Even if I love that song it seemed a bit out of place in the movie.
Yeah, thanks for deleting numerous stories from history.
@2
A supernova does not threaten a galaxy
Did anyone else notice that, on the away team, the unknown guy in the red shirt (okay, the red sky diving outfit) died? Such attention to detail!
As soon as I saw that very eager red-clad gent saddle up with the away team, I leaned to my wife and said “yep. he’s as good as dead”.
This line was not in my version of the film. Did you by any chance see a digital version? And did it happen in the transporter area, after Spock spoke with Uhura?
I did not see the digital version, it was the standard version. It is in the transporter after their “goodbye.”
Wow, how did I miss that? I was actually waiting for it once I heard Spock say her name.
This reboot of the Star Trek universe is totally ridiculous. I could spend the rest of my life pointing out the HUNDREDS of idiotic aspects of this film. Not just canon continuity errors, which they sort of side stepped but not really, since even the starting points of their diverging timelines don’t even come close to matching. Not just the storytelling liberties and cliche plot devices and just plain stupid portrayals of both physics and people in a Bugs Bunny cartoon universe instead of a future version of our own. Not even the main flaw of all, which is that no Starfleet that I could respect would EVER give a control of the Enterprise to a rebellious mid-20s UNGRADUATED CADET as opposed to a youngest-ever 39-year-old who had worked his way up thru the ranks of a professional military organization to EARN the rank of CAPTAIN.
But none of this matters. Star Trek is totally ridiculous but also ridiculously fun. Like the commercial says, this isn’t your father’s Star Trek. It is the perfect reboot for an Internet generation that believes that anybody with a keyboard is the equal of anybody else who has one, in a time where rebellious mid-20s males routinely start up multi-billion dollar companies in only a year.
Welcome to the future. Star Trek has been successfully reborn. May this iteration live long and prosper.
I do have one issue with your comment, how could there be any canon continuity errors in this movie since the divergence to an alternate universe happend at the VERY beginning? I loved aspect of it by the way, since it unshackled them from having to deal with the “canon lawyers” out there. I am really beginning to despise that term.
Um, the official TOS canon is that Kirk wsa born in Riverside, Iowa – a real town that today is the site of numerous annual Trek functions (the next being this coming June 26) and a site that never expects to have (a) construction drydocks for ships like the Enterprise that can only be flown in space and never an atmosphere, or (b) Grand-Canyon-sized rock quarries that swallow antique Corvettes whole. Plus, Kirk had an older brother Sam (George Sauel Kirk Jr.) that was killed in the TOS episode “Operation: Annihilate!”. Plus James T. Kirk’s first trip into space was as a young child to visit Tarsus IV where he witnessed war crimes that were the topic of the TOS episode “Conscience of the King”. Plus….plus…plus…
Don’t get me started about how this movie made absolutely no sense whatsoever at any point from beginning to end, either from a canon or an internal consistency or even a physical reality standpoint. As far as I’m concerned, its ONLY redeeming quality is that it was fun.
Yes, but the event that changed the timeline takes place at the time of Kirk’s birth. Father dead– Kirk’s life changes. Romulons were the aggressors? Increased contact with the Romulans, and therefore this version of the Federation has already seen them and know about their connection with Vulcan. Et cetera.
Why a hundred other Trek trips to the past haven’t changed the timeline is another question. At least the discussions of this film prompt
fan wankerysome actual thinking, even if the film itself doesn’t.It begins even earlier than that. The very fact the ship was dispatched to check out the “lightning storm” is what initially altered the timeline.
If the ship had not been dispatched, perhaps the whole Kirk family would have been in Iowa for the birth. And as far as I recall, in the movie it just said “Iowa”, it didn’t give a city. So a single mom and baby Kirk may have moved to another location in the same state after the loss of the father.
The character I liked best here? Christopher Pike. Bruce Greenwood did a great job playing him, and he was the very model of what a Starfleet Captain should be.
In the original Star Trek, the Captain would come up with a brilliant plan, and the music would tell us that something really brilliant was going on. In this Star Trek, Pike had his plan to take out the drill and instead of being all dramatic about it, he just gave his orders.
It was that easy comfort and confidence in command that actually made me believe the amount of power and responsibility he handed Kirk.
It was a nice nod to end with him in a wheelchair, too.
I liked the ending too. Seeing Pike in the wheelchair was both sad yet fulfilling. The movie was still sufficiently grounded for me (in ridiculous pie in the sky pseudo-science and mock history) that the changes (in ridiculous pie in the sky pseudo-science and mock history) didn’t spoil it. :)
In our own alternate time-line we could be bemoaning the first Enterprise-based Berman-helmed Trek feature film, with the Captain’s insipid beagle talking in complete sentences and T’Its at her station in a silver bikini. :)
-Joe
It had a lot of nice nods. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy were well done. Scotty was very funny. Abrams and company came up with an interesting way to reboot the series. It had some fun action. Yeah, okay.
I still would have preferred a Star Trek with a little less action (all action becomes tedious. Seriously, I can’t be the only one who thinks this, can I?) and a few
moreideas.And a writer who knows that a supernova can’t threaten the galaxy.
“And a writer who knows that a supernova can’t threaten the galaxy.”
Well, that isn’t ENTIRELY true. What if said supernova emitted a gamma ray burst? From what I remember those can cause extinction on planets light years away. I think they are directional, but if the star in question were spinning very rapidly and it could spray gamma rays all over the place, causing untold havoc! Or, maybe he meant by causing extinction on the Romulan homeworld, it would drive the remaining living Romulans into an insane killing spree, intent upon taking the entire federation down with them! So, from that perspective, the supernova would be indirectly responsible for widespread death and destruction. Or… maybe the writer just reads too much science fiction and not enough science fact.
Well, there are two things wrong with the gamma ray idea. First, the movie showed a wall of fire destroying the planet, and not invisible gamma rays. Second, even gamma rays would take years to get from one star system to the next (the closest star to Earth is something like 4 light years away), so there would be lots of time to prepare.
The only way I can see it working is if it was the world’s sun that went supernova, and that they knew it was going to happen, but that it occurred sooner than expected. But this does not fit with the description of events given by Spock.
Oh I wasn’t answering the movie dilemma per se, I was more answering the “supernova can’t threaten the galaxy” statement, generally. Mostly joking though, since it was obvious that the writers were talking about the out flowing material being the big threat.
You have hit the nail on the head about what is the Achilles heel for this iteration of Star Trek and what was the bedrock of why we endured cheesy sets and cheesier acting in TOS. This new approach is going to make Paramount a mountain of money in the coming sequels. But if JJ&Co. ever actually promulgate an actual IDEA to think about, I will be dumbfounded in slack-jawed amazement.
Oh, and you guys trying to logically puzzle out the supernova bit? Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha….. don’t waste your time.
For what it’s worth, here is my favorite alternate reality aspect of the new Star Trek movie.
Saw it with the wife in IMAX yesterday and enjoyed every minute.
I thought the whole ice planet sidetrack was unecessary and somewhat stupid though. Future Spock’s narration of the back-story was a bit hamfisted and cheesy. I would have also expected a bit more skepticism for people claiming to be from the future.
All the new actors did a great job reprising the roles. I immediately liked this Kirk a lot more than Shatner’s.
I guess I can sum it up with this: When the movie ended I was dissapointed I couldn’t tune in next week to find out what new adventure this crew was going to get into.
This was better then the last 3 movies combined.
I liked the way the characters were introduced (minus Kirk).
I liked the story line.
I liked the character development.
I loved the fanboy nods.
I hated everything else. The lens-flare was so horrible (in my theatre) that there were entire scenes in the film that I could not see due to the film being completely white-washed. I was tempted to leave within the first 15 minutes due to the lens flare.
The bridge: I have seen the future; and it is an Apple iMac inspired hell. The translucent glass was everywhere and it looked like ass.
The engine room: the scale was completely wrong, and was jarring. I liked the idea of having a ‘mechanical’ engine room, this looked more like a Detroit Big-3 factory then a nuclear sub.
In summary: The story was decent, the film was distracting. This is the last Trek for me.
But why have fan boy nods when you are going to crap on the whole canon anyway?
I’m personally pretending that this movie takes place in an alternate timeline that includes {i]Enterprise[/i]. TOS, TNG, DS9 and Voyager are all in another, completely separate (and in my opinion, more awesome) timeline.
One other high point:
Did anyone else notice the background sounds when we first met Mr. Scott? I heard the unmistakable trill of tribbles. Are we to assume the Mr. Scott and his small companion were eating tribbles? :)
No wonder he wanted a sandwich so badly. :)
-Joe
There is a tribble in the cage on the table (but yes, i heard the sound as well)
I kind of felt that this is the first Trek that got time travel right. It might be small consolation for you, but I got the strong impression that Nero and Spock didn’t travel back into their own pasts. Their actions created an alternate time line. As Kirk says to Old Spock “in your time line I knew my father?” Nero says “James Kirk was a great man, but that was another life.”
What happened before still happened.
-Joe
I just realized that Nero could have done a lot more to alter the timeline. Is it explained in any of the back story comics why he didn’t? In the 25 years he was stranded in the timeline he could have made the Romulans an extremely advanced race with his ship’s technology.
Not to mention basically setting them up to take over the whole galaxy.
The comic prequel doesn’t follow Spock or Nero through the time warp. We only see their future selves. There is no “overlap” in terms of scenes presented in the comic and movie, aside from Spock’s rapid recap being told in detail.
Yeah, that bothered me – why wait 25 years to go wreak vengeance when you could instead spend 25 years fixing the damn mistake / getting everything in place to fix the damn mistake.
“Guys, in 145 years this planet’s going to be gone – but we can stop it right now if you listen to me and my big bad ship (also Spock’s little twitchy one too)”
This isn’t the only Star Trek movie in which that type of thing has happened. Remember the one where Kirk died? Kirk and Picard were in that other world and had the ability to leave it and go to any place and time in the real world. So they could have gone a year back in time to San Francisco and contacted Star Fleet to send an armada to stop the bad guy. But no… It was just the two of them, all alone, to stop the bad guy, shortly before the world was going to be destroyed. It was more dramatic that way, for sure, but script writers don’t seem to understand time travel.
I’m not the only one that found the lens flare too much.
http://ow.ly/6HVo
Here’s a link to a good review from the bad astronomer that specifically covers the super nova everyone’s discussing.
Basically they used the wrong type of star, it would only be nasty within about 50 light years, to actually destroy Romulous it would have to be Romulous’s sun (which was my impression though others haven’t shared it), and making a black hole wouldn’t really help as supernovas tend to do that already.
Elsewhere on the Net, someone suggests that worse versions are possible.
I nearly did a spit-take at that. You visit some interesting sites Timeshredder.