Star Trek
The early gossip around Star Trek had me very nervous. It was clear that the studio wasn’t interested in doing something that, like the TNG-based films, was basically designed to appeal to fans. Instead, they wanted to turn Trek, which has always been a kind of weird thing, into a mainstream broadly accessible movie.
Given those constraints, I thought they wound up doing an extraordinary job of not doing anything that’s outrageous from a real fanboy perspective. Handling the desire to ditch elements of the established history through the mechanism of a goofy time travel plot is very much in the spirit of a franchise that’s full of goofy time travel plots. And under the circumstances, the use of select snatches of homage (the bug like the bug from Wrath of Khan, Captain Pike in a wheelchair, etc.) served to drive home the idea that we’re watching the same multiverse unfold.
That said, I still think the Trek concept has always been something that best unfolds on television. A quintessential Trek scene, from any of the series, consists of a bunch of people standing around on the bridge of a starship (or DS9 equivalent) talking to one another, followed by a cutaway to a shot of a ship in space, followed by a return to the standing around talking. It’s just not something that particularly requires the big screen. And it’d be nice to see the energy and money and talent that was dedicated to re-imagining the Enterprise just put toward doing something original and new.
76 Responses to “Star Trek”
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May 10th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
multiverse? How about some Simpsons homage — googleverse?
I liked the fact that the closing credits were so TVish cheesy. I agree that TV is adequate for this sort of story telling (visually), and may be better for the long form that one might want to conjure with this kind of thing.
May 10th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
And it’d be nice to see the energy and money and talent that was dedicated to re-imagining the Enterprise just put toward doing something original and new.
Why throw out a well developed and widely known world to spend more time trying to create something out of whole cloth that needs to be explained to everyone and likely won’t be as good? Just so they could spend more time doing it and wind up with an inferior story?
May 10th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
As far as I can tell, the main consequence for fanboys is that Star Trek is now much, much cooler than Star Wars (cf. The Clone Wars). This is a complete inversion of the SF-geek hierarchy I grew up with; my (male) descendants will come of age in a world I find confusing and frightening.
May 10th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
I have to say, as someone who never watched Star Trek before this (and thought Trekkies were kinda lame), the movie KICKED ASS.
May 10th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
Speaking of needing more standing around and talking, you have seen this haven’t you, Matt? I love Trek, and I thought the movie kicked ass. Though it’s pretty obvious to me that we will need another installment with more goofy time travel. As you are someone very much concerned with alliances and geo-political strategy, I’m sure you’ll agree with me that the very existence of the Federation is threatened if Vulcan is allowed to be destroyed.
May 10th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
First rule of screenwriting: show don’t say.
This trek movie does, and that why even with a few weaknesses, it succeeds overall.
(contrast with for example much of the last season of re-imagined BSG, where they got away from this formula, and wound up having entire episodes of clunky exposition, when they could have filmed the same thing in half the time)
May 10th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
(contrast with for example much of the last season of re-imagined BSG, where they got away from this formula, and wound up having entire episodes of clunky exposition, when they could have filmed the same thing in half the time)
Ron Moore – and a few others I believe – gains undeserved laurels from being associated with DS9 and was an absolutely shitty ass writer on the godforsaken Voyager.
What he did was destroy the Borg as a villain. Probably the only decent bad guy on TNG, and frankly, pretty fucking scary when they showed up. But, as TV Tropes explains better than me:
May 10th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
As someone who enjoys the Star Trek “universe” but isn’t particularly emotionally invested in the particulars of who did what and where and when, I thought the movie was fantastic.
A lot of the discussion about the “fidelity” to the source material reminds me of the discussion about the LOTR movies. I’m more into LOTR than ST, but I thought those movies were also fantastic (more so, in fact). But I wonder if you had a sample of fans/fanboys of both series, and looked at their reactions to the respective movies, if there’d be a lot of overlap between those who disliked the LOTR movies and those who dislike the new ST movie. In other words, is hostility to “reimaginings” driven by the particulars of the movie, or some inner character traits of the viewer?
May 10th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
Although I absolutely disagree with the tropers next statement:
May 10th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
You have to look at what you’re sacrificing when you do something like this. Sure, J.J. Abrams’s version is successful in the short term, and there’ll probably be a few sequels, but will people still be talking about it in forty years? That’s a lot of cultural-historic capital to throw away for a very short-term profit. More thoughts along these lines here, including a rhetoric to the idea Matt discussed earlier that Star Trek is a progressive future. To the extent that we can draw a firm line between progressives and neoliberals, neoliberal is the better word.
May 10th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
Someone with a similar take to Matt’s pointed out to me recently how talk-based the old ST:TOS episodes are — you can actually listen to them without the video and basically hear and understand what’s going on, almost like a radio show. Trek has always been the most earnestly intellectual of mainstream science fiction — not that their take was all that sophisticated, but they did clearly aim to be taking on Big Questions. (BSG was similar in that regard, with a darker overall take on the answers.) That kind of thing does work much, much better on television — you really have to have people taking in the big-picture story and ideas at a pretty slow pace for it not to seem ridiculous and preachy (imagine making a movie that turned on some big ethical dilemma about the Prime Directive…how annoying would that movie be).
So, whatever, I haven’t seen the new movie yet, but if they just tell a good story, and if the characters ring true as some believable and interesting take on the ones we know, then I’m going to be satisfied, without demanding some kind of misguided fealty to the formal qualities of a television series from forty years ago.
May 10th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
Well, it tells a good story and the characters are mostly the same, but this one doesn’t tackle “big questions” in quite the same way aside some plot points that make explicit the usually more understated allegorical connection between Vulcans and Jews. It’s mostly just an action yarn.
May 10th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
To defend Ron Moore’s honor, he was only involved very briefly in Voyager.
May 10th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
To besmirch his honor, he also very loudly promised everyone that BSG wouldn’t turn out like Voyager, and it kind of totally did.
May 10th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
BSG turned out like Voyager? What? Are you insane?
May 10th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
BSG started out very promising but ended poorly plotted and poorly planned out, with a deus ex machina ending that cheapened the whole premise. It was still better than Voyager, but not by all that much.
May 10th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
couldn’t they get any grown-ups to do this? They all look so young
May 10th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
Ah. So you think “BSG didn’t end how I wanted” translates into “turned out like Voyager”.
You’re an idiot.
May 10th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
G C, I owe you a drink (wish I didn’t though, painful memories of Janeway)
May 10th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
couldn’t they get any grown-ups to do this? They all look so young
They are supposed to be young. They are recent graduates of the academy.
May 10th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
DamnYankees, it’s just a show, you should really just relax. And I stand by my assertion that a show that had to take a vote on who should be the final Cylon — one of the centerpieces of its whole mythology — was “poorly plotted and poorly planned out.” Your mileage may vary.
May 10th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
The median age of the real life (US) military is around 24. If anything, Bruce Greenwood is about 10 years too old to be a ship’s captain who are typically right around 40. (although Pine is about 10 years too young but that’s part of the point; and Quinto is around the right age to play an executive officer, but would generally be 2 or 3 years older)
May 10th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
It’s the last refuge of a poorly thought ouf cynic to tell his critics to “relax”. You don’t just say stupid things and then act like the people who react to it are going wild.
You’re comparison was dumb and cynical, an attempt to sound above it all. Voyager stinks. Even if you think BSG didn’t work, it is clearly more dramatically and artistically interesting than Voyager, a show which didn’t even try. You are free to dislike both, but to say “they both stink and are both the same” is just cheap vacuousness passing itself off as objectivity.
May 10th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
The median age of the real life (US) military is around 24. If anything, Bruce Greenwood is about 10 years too old to be a ship’s captain who are typically right around 40. (although Pine is about 10 years too young but that’s part of the point; and Quinto is around the right age to play an executive officer, but would generally be 2 or 3 years older)
I always took Kirk to be something of a George Custer figure, someone who through a combination of natural gifts and random contingency managed to achieve a high military rank at an absurdly young age. The idea that Kirk would be a captain so soon is sort of ridiculous, but that’s part of the point. It’s ridiculous to think a 23 year old would ever be a General in the US Army, but Custer was.
May 10th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
I don’t often agree with Matt on cultural issues, but I do here. I really don’t quite understand the great hullabaloo about this not being your father’s Star Trek, a Star Trek for everyone, etc. Aside from being the first time that the original characters were portrayed by a new cast, this seemed pretty much like a Star Trek movie to me. A pretty good Star Trek movie, but still a Star Trek movie. Granted, not nearly as good as The Wrath of Khan, but still probably better than the remainder. As Matt says, what’s geekier, or Trekkier, than yet another time travel plot?
I’ve loved Star Trek for almost 43 years, though I’ve never attended a Trek convention or dressed up in gold, blue, or red pajamas (I can do the Vulcan salute, of course). I’ve been a science fiction fan since I achieved literacy. After an anxious summer of waiting for Wagon Train to the stars, I had my eager, not quite 13-year old nose pressed up against our B&W TV to watch The Man Trap in early September 1966 (in retrospect, a rather below average Season 1 episode; the Kirk pilot, Where No Man Has Gone Before which aired a few weeks later, was far better). Although generally a purist concerning works close to my heart (may jaw dropped to the floor of the theater when Faramir attempted to bring the Ring to Minas Tirith in The Two Towers, and I’m still pissed), I had little trouble with this movie. Sure, there were plenty of factual and personality inconsistencies that are not really explained by the alternate time line. Sure, I’d rather see (if time were less strict in its arrest) Shatner, (young) Nimoy, Kelley, Doohan, etc. in the roles. And Mark Lenard and Jane Wyatt as Spock’s parents. But the athmosphere of the new movie was undeniably that of Trek, and though Abrams and the writers claim not to have been fans, they were affectionately respectfully of the original series.
Besides, all of this talk of “canon” is pretty much post ipso facto fanboy invention. Nothing was more inconsistent than the three seasons of the original series which, in the fashion of ’60s/’70s series, had little dramatic continuity from episode to episode. Anyone remember that Kirk’s tombstone in the pilot read James R. Kirk? (The R did become a T soon after.) Even now iconic terms like the Federation and Starfleet were initially absent (and did not appear until late season one or season two). Various terms, such as star service, were used early on. I’m currently rewatching season one on the newly issued Blu-ray, and neither term has appeared through the first two-thirds of the season. BTW, the new Blu-ray release is just dazzling, even better than the pretty good DVDs released earlier this decade. The non-special effects material, shot on 35mm film, look far better than anyone could expect for ’60s TV. The effects shots have been replaced with new CGI (though you have the option to watch the original shots) and, surprisingly, I recommend them. They are done in an intelligent and restrained manner quite in keeping with the tone of the show. Indeed, since the original effects shots (for technical reasons) are jarringly inferior to the video quality of the rest of the show, the new CGI effects are actually more immersive.
May 10th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
@DamnYankees
Agreed
You want a nitpick? What the frack was a licensed medical doctor learning at an undergraduate service academy for three years?
May 10th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
Also, there’s no real point in complaining about the age of Zach Quinto – Vulcans live much longer. More than double, IIRC. So even if Spock only ‘looks’ 25 in this movie, he’s probably closer to 50.
May 10th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
What I thought was most fun about the original series was the low budget campy-ness—the poster board with Christmas tree lights, the monster that looks like something that’s been sitting in someone’s garage for thirty years, the scene where Spock’s boots appear to be two sizes too small, William Shatner… No blockbuster movie is going to have the charm of a styrofoam space age.
May 10th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
I agree that Star Trek is, ultimately, really a TV property, and that’s what’s made me so sad about its evolution; two terrible shows, helmed by the unworthy inheritors of Rodenberry’s estate, and then years lying fallow.
Based on everything I hear about it (haven’t seen it yet) the new Star Trek sounds like if you watch it in a vacuum, it’s an excellent film, but I really miss the opportunity lost to reinvent Star Trek for television and do what the show was always so good at: delivering that hopeful vision of the future, and using the thin veil of sci-fi to address issues no one would take on elsewhere. The idea of an apolitical Star Trek just doesn’t sound right to me at all.
May 10th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
The movie isn’t wholly apolitical; for example, there are a couple of scenes that address prejudice, both personal and institutional. (which was the key and really only consistent ‘political’ aspect of TOS).
May 10th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
BSG started out very promising but ended poorly plotted and poorly planned out, with a deus ex machina ending that cheapened the whole premise.
Exactly. Unlike Joss Whedon and his five year plans, Moore readily admitted in commentaries that BSG was making it up as they went along. And it showed by the end. The show managed to keep a very high quality through most of the first three seasons (possibly even hitting a high with the New Caprica arc that began season three), but it had jumped the shark by the time the final four of five did the All Along the Watchtower boogaloo. Pretty much the entire final season, and the conclusion in particular, was pretty much crap. Stanley Kubrick could get away with ambiguous metaphysics in 2001, Ron Moore can’t. Especially when its really just a convenient, and dramatically unsatisfying, way to get out of the corners into which he’d painted himself by sloppy writing.
I always took Kirk to be something of a George Custer figure, someone who through a combination of natural gifts and random contingency managed to achieve a high military rank at an absurdly young age.
IIRC, Kirk was described at some point in TOS (or is that now The Original Timeline?) as the youngest captain in the history of Starfleet.
May 10th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
What did people think of the Uhura-Spock storyline? I at first was a bit shocked but it really adds depth to the film.
May 10th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
What did people think of the Uhura-Spock storyline? I at first was a bit shocked but it really adds depth to the film.
I really liked it. I was a little surprised by it, but then I actualy thought about it in terms of the characters in the movie. Spock is a logical Vulcan who has to struggle with his emotions. Uhura is a type-A personality who always wants to be the best. It seems like they would find each other mutually attractive – he would like her brain, and she would be interesting in his emotional distance. (My best friends in college were almost exactly like this, so maybe I’m pre-disposed to find this type of relationship natural.) If you look at the people in the movie and sort of ignore what happens in the TV series, the two work well together.
May 10th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
!!!!!
May 10th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
My main objection to this movie (which I haven’t yet seen) was always that Trek really belongs on TV rather than feature films. On TV, it could do a variety of story types, which could be small stories or large, standalones or part of big arcs, and it wasn’t the end of the world if a particular episode wasn’t spectacular.
By contrast, feature films require big dramatic set pieces and expensive effects, and you have to get it done perfectly in the allotted hour-and-a-half or you’ve blown the franchise. The worst of the Trek movies were the ones that tried too hard (Off to MEET GOD!!, or, Picard goes up against HIS OWN YOUNGER SELF!!! (played by a guy who doesn’t really look like his younger self).
Plus you have to bring in the non-fanboys if you want to make a profit, so movies have to have more generic story ideas so as to be intelligible to those who haven’t invested in paying attention to the series.
Trek managed some good movies, especially early on, but tellingly, the more times they tried to put it on the big screen the weaker it got.
On TV you can get by with OK effects if they had good writing/acting/directing, and good writing/acting/directing is always much more interesting than good effects.
Braga and Berman did too much TV trek, by the end lapsing into routine, but I imagine that given a few years off and some new talent, it could have been relaunched successfully on TV, much the way Russell T. Davies brought back the hoary old Doctor Who in a very fresh way.
May 10th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
I too liked the Uhura-Spock connection, and think DanmYankees is accurate on why the pairing resonates. I’m very glad the typical movie thread of “initial friction, subsequent passion or rutting” that a Uhura-Kirk pairing would have followed was not pursued. I also liked that Uhura and Spock were emoting all over one another with Kirk and everybody (well, Scotty, anyway) looking on. (I thought Pegg was very good as Scotty, tho I’m glad they didn’t use a lot of him).
Enough time has lapsed between what’s doing in the movie and the types of relationships shown in the original TV show for it all to be quite plausible (even allowing for some sustained intimacy between the two during the intervening years). Of course, with the wacky time travel stuff, who’s to say what’s what.
May 10th, 2009 at 5:21 pm
What did people think of the Uhura-Spock storyline?
I didn’t care for it. If they absolutely had to give Spock a romantic interest, which was unnecessary IMO, they should have resurrected the Jill Ireland character from This Side of Paradise (one of the greatest orignal episodes) or at least Nurse Chapel. Speaking of which–did anyone else hear McCoy give an order to (an unseen) Nurse Chapel at one point in the Enterprise sickbay? Pampered by home video, it was one of those theater moments when I reached for my remote to rewind for a fraction of a second.
BTW, my number one gripe with the movie, worse than any canon tampering, was shooting off Kirk to copycat Hoth. What were they–the Black Pearl marooning Captain Jack Sparrow? Confinement to quarters? Yes. Throwing him in the brig? Makes sense. Marooning, even with the pod computer noting that there was a nearby Starfleet facility? No. This was clearly a particularly sloppy bit of writing to streamline the meeting of Kirk and Spock Prime
May 10th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
Time Travel plots are so lame.
They are the Ewoks of the Star Trek universe.
A good movie that could have been great with a better plot.
May 10th, 2009 at 6:05 pm
I agree. Time travel should be a rare occurance, yet some franchises (Star Trek, Heroes) just keep going to that well.
May 10th, 2009 at 6:58 pm
BTW, my number one gripe with the movie, worse than any canon tampering, was shooting off Kirk to copycat Hoth. What were they–the Black Pearl marooning Captain Jack Sparrow? Confinement to quarters? Yes. Throwing him in the brig? Makes sense. Marooning, even with the pod computer noting that there was a nearby Starfleet facility? No. This was clearly a particularly sloppy bit of writing to streamline the meeting of Kirk and Spock Prime
That was absolutely my thought at the time. I mean, even the first beast he runs into looks like a cross between one of those kangaroos they ride and the big snowman that captures Luke.
Time Travel plots are so lame.
They are the Ewoks of the Star Trek universe.
A good movie that could have been great with a better plot.
Absolutely. They’ve now done that for like half the movies?
We’ve got the one with the whales, First Contact (which was still awesome), and this one.
Plus the godawful Generations with the Nexus.
May 10th, 2009 at 7:03 pm
I’ve been a fan since the broadcast of the original series (I was just barely old enough), and used to lobby on Usenet et al. for the “Academy Days” concept for a new series, as well as the “Captain Sulu” concept. Neither was greenlighted, of course.
I was nervous about the Abrams reboot, but it turned out to be very satisfying. It worked as a movie, and reviews and random comments from non-Trekkers/non-Trekkies seem to agree. I’ve always been willing to accept a little tweaking in the interest of dramatic license (tho the Faramir lapse above did bug me too!), and there were a few things here I’m not entirely sure about. This will be a different crew than the one sent on the five-year mission, that’s for sure. But they got so many small and big things exactly right, with the Kirk and Spock characters in particular, that the whole thing gels in a way I did not really expect.
Yeah, I too like the talky philosophical scenes in e.g. Undiscovered Country (”Only Nixon could go to China” is such a classic line. Original, true, and ponderable.) I missed something remotely as meaty here. I think one of the major slip-ups was forgetting that the “main character” should be the Enterprise itself, but most of the time they could be on any old ship. I hope they nail that stuff better now that they have a successful franchise again.
May 10th, 2009 at 7:18 pm
alphie #38: Time Travel plots are so lame.
They are the Ewoks of the Star Trek universe.
Except for:
City on the Edge of Forever
Yesterday’s Enterprise
Trials and Tribble-ations
Timeless
Each arguably (though in some cases, inarguably) the best episodes of their respective series.
May 10th, 2009 at 7:20 pm
[...] UPDATE #4: Matt Y [...]
May 10th, 2009 at 7:20 pm
One thing I liked about the new movie was the inflation of Uhura’s importance and role. In the original series, she was little more than a receptionist with a pretty face and a nice body. In the new film she’s a highly intelligent and ambitious language expert. It just goes to show that for all the progressive values the original Star Trek is supposed to have represented, there are still a lot of ways we’ve moved beyond it. Sex roles is just one.
May 10th, 2009 at 7:50 pm
From the moment Vulcan imploded right up to but not including the award ceremony at the end, I was convinced they were going to hit the reset button. Mad about it, but certain they couldn’t erase the entire existing continuity. But they didn’t, and they did.
Now my inside-joke for Trek is that Captain Archer and Enterprise hit the reset button so many times, it finally just broke.
I personally was thrilled to see it move to a more ensemble format. The irrelevance of the second tier bridge officers and even Scotty (who Spock regularly showed up whenever the plot demanded dramatic Science!), has been replaced by something more interesting and respectful. Uhura has unmatched signal recognition skills and well above average linguistics skills. Sulu can fight, and got to save Kirk. Chekov’s gunnery skills were emphasized when he hit an accelerating target with a transporter beam. Scotty revolutionized transporter physics (or would have, given time). Spock may have been in some ways diminished by this sharing of the wealth, but he’s got a lot of other issues going on in this movie.
I like the idea of turning what was a heroic duo show (Kirk and Spock, with sidekicks) into a team. If they do a new original series, which I assume they’re considering, it’ll be interesting to see how the changes in people’s tastes and expectations shape the reimagining.
May 10th, 2009 at 7:57 pm
They destroyed Vulcan? That sucks (
May 10th, 2009 at 8:05 pm
Good catch on the Star Trek/Star Wars flip–the SWers are the geek now!
Standing ’round talking===it served it’s purpose very well was I was an undergrad circa 1969-70, catching Trek on Midnight reruns in New Orleans–after having laughed off the series in its original run while I was a high schooler.
Maybe the cannabis made it seem more engrossing.
May 10th, 2009 at 8:11 pm
Three things that made this movie better than any of the recent Trek movies or TV shows and made it much more in tune with the original series:
1) It avoided the trap that sucked the life out of the NextGen and all of it’s clones – relying on technology to fix any and every problem. I stopped watching them years ago because it seemed as if the resolution to every peril was a tachyon beam this or an inverted phase inhibiting that. blah blah scientific drivel blah. The best Trek scenes were always about the people or humanity, not about the machines.
2) I liked the fact that the enterprise set went back to it’s roots somewhat and had more of a spartan military feel rather than the NextGen’s Carnival cruise ship ambiance.
3) Out with the unisex unitard uniforms (say that ten times fast!) and in with the original series retro boots and miniskirts! Best thing about the film: Uhura is hot!
May 10th, 2009 at 8:34 pm
Blowing up Vulcan is not outrageous?
May 10th, 2009 at 8:36 pm
[...] including Matt Ygelsias, contend that the Star Trek premise is best on television, because of its preponderance of [...]
May 10th, 2009 at 9:16 pm
Star Trek is racist, sexist, and homophobic.
May 10th, 2009 at 10:30 pm
The cast are contracted for three films, so I think another television series unlikely. Given that Heroes is still running, it would have to wait in any event.
There’s a pretty strong economic issue to work through to see if anything goes forward. While the opening grosses look to be tops among Trek films (even adjusting for inflation), the budget was also much larger at ~$150 million. How this film continues to perform, as Angels and Demons and the next Terminator film roll out, will contribute to whether or not a twelfth film comes about.
While Kirk likely entered the Academy later this time around (Sulu and Chekov were already officers), he managed to be an even younger captain. As for Spock and Uhura, check out the crew lounge scene in “Charlie X” and tell me how Uhura’s not flirting with him.
May 10th, 2009 at 10:58 pm
I really liked the LoTR movies and have been a longtime fan of the books. There are some things I think could have been done better but we (the fans) had a lot of input and feedback from Jackson.
As for Star Trek, the only thing that bothers me is that Ebert (who is an idiot) said the movie tossed the science out the window and just went with the fiction. Ebert is a moron, and if even HE can see it, then how dumb is it? That’s my only concern. I don’t expect brilliance, but I do expect at least a little thought provoking social commentary. Ah well.
May 10th, 2009 at 11:28 pm
The reason we have Kirk rushed into being captain at approximately 28 (he’s 25 at the time he enters the academy, I believe) is that the movie had to waste time exploring Kirk’s childhood and time at the academy. Personally, I’m not clear all that setup was necessary. Trying to get all of the crew of the enterprise all in the academy at the same time doesn’t make sense unless you radically shift your idea of what Starfleet Academy is (kind of a combination of OCS / Naval Postgraduate school / Defense Language Institute all rolled into one rather than an undergraduate service academy).
But look: they ripped off that band-aid of doing a reboot. After a brief jolt of pain, we can go on with the rest of the movies. So I wasn’t expecting much social observation in the first movie. Even trying to make the subsequent movies reflect some of the social messaging of the TV series sounds like a bad idea– we will find ourselves bashed over the with the message movie.
May 11th, 2009 at 12:21 am
My only objection to the new movie is the cluttered look inside the Enterprise. The original ’sleak’ future, as imagined by Roddenberry, might be unrealistic, but it had the advantage that the characters were the center of attention.
@Jake, interestingly, Roddenberry’s original pilot had an emotionless woman first officer, but the (studio/network?) insisted it be changed.
May 11th, 2009 at 1:02 am
I always thought “Number 1″ had the potential to be a very interesting character, and its such a shame she was axed.
May 11th, 2009 at 5:16 am
I just saw the flick, and i agree that time travel is done to death. I’m tired of it! Causality makes my head hurt!
Ok, so if vulcan is deystroyed, how can the future spock regain his katra from Mcoy and come back to life to grow old and go back in time to watch his own future end? wouldn’t he just dissapear or something?
May 11th, 2009 at 6:40 am
Can we go meta now and discuss how the endless extension of Copyright made this possible?
Ok, ok, I’ve not seen it yet. I will. Boycotted the last few ST movies (saw no point after “Generations”), but when if first came on, I was 12, sneaking to watch (my parents were strict, and thought Star Trek would give me ‘weird ideas’), and it was an eyeopener. Like nothing else on tv, talky sometimes yes, but shocking in a vision of an nonracist and tacitly socialist future. It suffered from the vices of it’s time…
And I’m getting bloody sick of Hollywood endless recycling ‘properties’ and ‘franchises’. Creativity? piffle.
May 11th, 2009 at 7:17 am
Star Trek is racist, sexist, and homophobic.
I’m not sure why you think it’s homophobic. Millions of slash fiction writers would disagree.
As for racism and sexism, I’ll appeal to the authority of Dr. Martin Luther King, who was apparently a big fan of Lt. Uhura.
“I [actress Nichelle Nichols] met Dr. King at a fundraiser and he told me that I was one of the most important people in his family. That they watched Star Trek and that I was a role model and their hero. And I said I said I was very proud of that and that was very nice, and then I told him that I was [considering] leaving the show, and he said abruptly – ‘You can not! You absolutely must not. Do you know that you have the first non-stereotypical role on television? You’re a first. This is not a female role. This is not a black role. This is a quality role, and this is an equal role, and it is in a command position. You have to carry on, because not only do little black children and do women see you and aspire and do you have meaning for them, but everyone else sees us for the first time the way we are supposed to be – on an equal basis, and on a level of dignity and authority and with the highest of qualifications.’”
May 11th, 2009 at 8:32 am
I liked the movie and I like the Star Trek series, but I would have liked the movie better if once they used the goofy time travel plot, they used an even goofier time travel plot to going back in time and making everything the way it would have to be for the canonical Star Trek universe to unfold.
It’s nice to see that at least one liberal actually appreciates creativity on a level other than novelty, self-indulgence, or scolding egalitarianism.
May 11th, 2009 at 8:40 am
a good story has good characters and this prequel did a better job than i expected introducing younger versions of all the lovable characters. (chechov was to die for)
the time travel was unnecessary but forced the viewer to concentrate on plot….
a very good tv movie. fun. forgotten. move on to wolverine.
May 11th, 2009 at 9:55 am
Stik wrote:
Ok, so if vulcan is deystroyed, how can the future spock regain his katra from Mcoy and come back to life to grow old and go back in time to watch his own future end? wouldn’t he just dissapear or something?
I think the movie was going with the “changing the past causes history to fork into two parallel universes” theory of time travel, so the original history that Nimoy’s Spock came from hasn’t been erased.
May 11th, 2009 at 10:29 am
I thought that this violated the concept of Spock’s charater.
Spock should be married at this point. Nothing in the time-travelling gimmick would change this. I can see Spock momentarily tempted by longings for a relationship like the humans around him have. I think Uhura is probably the best choice for a paramour. However, the transporter scene was all wrong. The earlier scene, where he obviously wants to be with her and shuts her out made sense. In the transporter scene, they were just too comfortable. They should have had a constant tension with an emotional eruption, rather than an ongoing relationship that gets dramatically revealed.
May 11th, 2009 at 10:48 am
It’s nice to see I’m not the only one who noticed that while it’s a pretty good sci-fi action movie, the new STAR TREK isn’t really much of a Star Trek story. If this one is as successful as the box office as it seems, I doubt they’ll ever try to do anything smarter.
Mike
May 11th, 2009 at 10:58 am
GC:
More thoughts along these lines here, including a rhetoric to the idea Matt discussed earlier that Star Trek is a progressive future. To the extent that we can draw a firm line between progressives and neoliberals, neoliberal is the better word.
Let me guess, because the Federation has a military wing with photon torpedoes and lasers it’s “neoliberal”?
I liked Uhuru and Chekov and Sulu and McCoy, but wouldn’t they have known that the Romulun sun was going supernova for a long time beforehand and why would Eric Bana’s Romulun blame Spock? Because he took his time getting there?
May 11th, 2009 at 11:20 am
And it’d be nice to see the energy and money and talent that was dedicated to re-imagining the Enterprise just put toward doing something original and new.
Joss Whedon did a GREAT job of producing something original and new with his quickly-canceled TV series “Firefly” and the movie sequel “Serenity.” But without a pre-sold brand name like Star Trek, his efforts were largely unrewarded.
May 11th, 2009 at 11:28 am
There’s apparently a comic book that came out recently with back story to the new movie. Sounds like Spock Prime and the Eric Bana character were working together to save Romulus but after Spock failed Bana went nuts.
May 11th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
If you’re going to re-do Star Trek like this, go all the way and make a porno out of it. Don’t stop at the Spock/Uhura/Kirk three-way. Have a full-on gropefest on the bridge of the Enterprise. Make the enemy vessel look like a marital aid.
May 11th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
the only thing that bothers me is that Ebert (who is an idiot) said the movie tossed the science out the window and just went with the fiction
I like Roger Ebert, but he misses the point here: “Scotty can beam people into another ship in outer space, but they have to physically parachute to land on a platform in the air from which the Romulans are drilling a hole to the Earth’s core.” The reason they had to parachute onto the platform was because the platform had a device that prevented beaming onto it. (I don’t remember the details and don’t claim they make sense, but the movie did explain this.)
And it was Vulcan, not Earth.
May 11th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
Something that no one has brought up yet… I was surprised by how much I liked this strange anomaly from the movie: Every time Kirk gets into a fight, he gets PASTED AND WASTED.
Was I subconsciously taking out some smoldering resentment of the smug Shatner on his new avatar? More importantly, was Abrams?
Discuss.
May 11th, 2009 at 6:33 pm
Thank you, Grumpy. An excellent point.
My biggest complaint about the film, apart from the hokey and complicated time travel stuff, is that Abrams is way to fond of close-ups, and not just any close-ups, but extreme close-ups for the majority of the scenes. That might work on television, but in the movie theater it’s uncomfortable, and unnecessary.
May 11th, 2009 at 9:48 pm
[...] he was being true to Star Trek by using a plot device which was often used on the television shows. Matthew Yglasias accepted this writing, “Handling the desire to ditch elements of the established history [...]
May 11th, 2009 at 10:30 pm
Trek has always been the most earnestly intellectual of mainstream science fiction
Are you saying that Babylon 5 is less intellectual or that it is not mainstream?
May 11th, 2009 at 11:47 pm
Well, it could have been better. I loved the cast but the plot was ridiculous, and overblown. Star Trek ideally, to my mind, should be “Master and Commander” set in space. The original series sometimes managed to convey that idea – men and women boldly adventuring off to seek adventure in strange lands, dwarfed by the unfathomable strangeness of the universe. None of the subsequent series have ever really caught that.
May 12th, 2009 at 4:14 am
Well, tonight I saw it – and I give it two thumbs up.
It was well done, although I thought Kirk was perhaps a bit too loose in his behavior early on, and Spock perhaps a bit too emotional later on (not counting the deliberate provocation Kirk gave him).
And I’ll never figure who designs these whacked out villain starships that look like they have no rational design to them at all.
Nice to see Noni as Spock’s mother, too. She’s one of my favorites.
And Zoe Saldana is seriously hot.
While it doesn’t have quite the emotional impact of the first Star Trek movie, which I saw in the theater – no one can forget the LOOOONGGG loving pan over the Enterprise – but the pace was much better than that one, if a bit more frenetic than Wrath of Khan.
I even think the time travel stuff was fairly well done, since it wasn’t overdone and no explanations were attempted – which is the best way to deal with time travel lest one fall afoul of logic – like the Terminator TV series did.
I loved Spock’s explanation that changing the past results in unpredictable results. Somebody should have told Josh Friedman that before he screwed up Terminator. I’ve been saying it all along in season 2.
All in all, very enjoyable, well worth seeing, very well done.
May 13th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
[...] Trek movie was immeasurably better than the Wolverine discussed here a few posts ago. As Yglesias points out, it’s particularly apt that Star Trek would use a time travel device for this movie, since [...]