Star Trek Review

Prologue:

One of my most unforgettable movie watching memories when I first lived in United States was watching the reaction of the audience to the Star Trek: Nemesis teaser trailer - the cheers, claps and hollers at the trailer not only showed me how enthusiastic american audience can be when watching movies, but also how enthusiastic americans are to Star Trek.

Besides seeing a few episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation in the early 90s, a couple of the STNG Movies (Generations and Insurrection) as well as having a certain fondness of the bald Patrick Stewart as Captain Picard, I am hardly a Star Trek fan. In fact, by the time I watched the original Star Wars trilogy and got won over by the spectacles and the drama, I can't see how people could sit through so many episodes of what basically amount to scenes of officers working in a spaceship or stories of alien races resolving their differences diplomatically. Granted, this impression was only created by my limited exposure and I'm surely going to be bludgeoned by the devoted Trekkies who read this. But nevertheless, I am not alone in having that view: Star Trek: Nemesis flopped in 2002 and by the time the last Star Trek TV Series, Enterprise, went off air in 2005, the public no longer cares about Star Trek.

The only party who really miss Star Trek, besides the zealously loyal Trekkies, is Paramount Pictures who own the rights. Unable to just let this cash cow sit idle, Paramount hired the hot mega producer/writer/director of the moment, JJ Abrams (TV's Felicity, Alias and MI:3, Cloverfield), to revitalize the series. In order to revive the franchise, JJ Abrams and co decided to reboot the series and tell the story of Star Trek right from the very beginning - a prequel on how the original crew from the original 1969 series got together - with a fresh, modern approach and casting new, upcoming actors in the iconic roles that many original fans worship (and to appease them, Leonard Nimoy, the original Spock, also appears).

Review:

The result of JJ Abram's take, on the surface, appears to echo the reboot of James Bond franchise in Casino Royale: a bold, new, more action, more kick ass fresh take on an aging franchise. One of the biggest complains about the old Star Trek films are that they look like TV movies that with a higher budget. This film definitely has no such syndrome: JJ Abrams and co have spared no effort to make this film as slick and exciting as a modern summer movie can be. It has much more spaceship battles than its predecessors that would give the recent Star Wars prequel trilogy, the cast are young and definitely sexier and even the command center receives a white, slick, almost-sterile makeover. However, unlike Casino Royale, the new Star Trek movie does not have a compelling or original story that matches its ambitious intent and the worst outcome of this is we never really know or care about the characters*.

The acting and depiction of the iconic roles have been widely praised but that's because many praises come from the loyal fans who know these characters by heart and compares them on how faithful they are to their original counterparts. Unfortunately for those unfamiliar, the results can be underwhelming. This reboot feels just like as if JJ Abrams has given a fresh paint onto a cracking wall, but whatever praises you can give to the paint, the wall is still cracking.

Star Trek opens in the year 2233. A Federation starship USS Kelvin encounters a hostile Romulan ship commanded by Nero (played by Eric Bana), and the temporary Captain George Kirk had to sacrifice himself along with the ship to rescue everyone, including his newly born son, James T Kirk (adult played by Chris Pine). While Kirk grows up as a fatherless and rebellious kid on earth, a half vulcan and half human boy on another planet called Vulcan named Spock (adult played by Zachary Quinto) struggles to fit in with his fellow vulcans who values logic above emotion. 25 years later both of them would end up on the same Starship USS Enterprise together with familar faces like medical officer Bones (Karl Urban), communications officer Uhura, lieutenant Hikari Sulu (John Cho) and ensign Pavel Chekov (Anton Yelchin). On their fateous first mission, they encounter Nero again who still harbours an unfinished business with the Federation and "Spock" and plans to destroy them. A disagreement caused Spock to eject Kirk from the ship into an unknown planet where he encounters an old Spock (Leonard Nimoy) from the original series who explains to Kirk how a great conflict between him and Nero from the original universe brought them into the current universe and that he has to reunite with the crew to stop Nero. With the help of another familiar faces, engineer Scotty(Simon Pegg), can Kirk get back to the crew and unite with them to save the day?

Perhaps the biggest (and most ironic) problem of the movie is that in order to modernize the story, it borrows so much from Star Wars that it almost becomes another Star Wars clone. This problem does not just extend to the space battles and some of the creature designs (Scotty's best friend embarassingly resembles a Wookie), but to the important character Kirk himself. In the original series, Kirk is depicted as a brash, cocky captain. Here he is depicted as a young, brash, cocky captain whose such nature emerge as a result of daddy problems. In fact, nothing can emphasize it any heavier than in the scene where he meets the old Spock and ask if his father has survived in the original timeline. The similarity is so startling, collegehumor makes a video about it. This, of course, actually emphasize how poor and boring the original concept of officers working in spaceship is. But given the film's success, the audience can't tell the difference and don't mind really.

Other problem include Zachary Quinto's depiction of Spock who channels his famous character from Heroes, Sylar whenever he gets emotional. JJ Abrams directing of action was inept when he made MI:3 and is still inept here by employing a lot of fast cuts that end up more distracting and exciting. The best thing about this film is perhaps the return of Leonard Nimoy as the old spock. Even if I have not watched a single episode or movies of the original crew, I felt it was a great performance filled with dignity and affection. Overall, this is just a cosmetic reboot by JJ Abrams and perhaps best of all, I'm still unconverted to the cause.

Rating: 3 out of 5

* (SPOILERS) - this is especially true when we learn the events that set the plot of the movie in motion. In the original Universe, Spock promised to save planet Romulan from destruction by a supernova but he was too late. A surviving Romulan, Nero sought revenge on him and while they were chasing each other, they got sucked into the black hole where they get thrown back earlier in time. Nero arrived 25 years earlier than Spock and meanwhile he planned to destroy Spock's home planet for him to witness as well as plotting to destroy the Federation. Okay, it's this kind of scifi plot that is grand but possess quite shallow emotional resonance. Losing your planet is a huge deal, but it's not something we see happen everyday and the film fails to convey the scale of the pain to the audience. That's why Nero and his plot are initially interesting but they end up just like another excuse to get the Enterprise crew to save the day. Just like any other Star Trek episode.