In his review of the new Star Trek film, Jonah Goldberg suggests the less one knows about the original franchise the better. After seeing the film, I must admit that he is correct. The film takes some liberties with various characters, in some cases reshaping them in ways inconsistent with the original series (e.g., a lusty Uhura and a Spock whose human side comes out frequently) and in other cases enhancing familiar characters to almost caricatures (see the new Chekov and Scotty characters). There are some goofy time-travel games and, like too many sci-fi/action films, a passing familiarly with physics and common sense is often a detriment to viewing. Despite these qualms, and the fact that I actually have little good to say about the film, I must say it is a fun enough film that seeing it on the big screen is probably worth your money.
Let's mention the highlights. The special effects are excellent and once some preliminary plot setting is taken care of the film moves with a good pace that keeps the attention. The film is funnier than anticipated, if sometimes the humor seems a bit misplaced within the film's action. Over all the cast is up to the task. While I suggested above that Scotty almost becomes a caricature, Simon Pegg's performance is a scene stealer at every turn. Chris Pine strikes the right tone with Kirk and, despite his relative lack of screen time, I really liked John Cho as Sulu. I am less enamored than some with Zachary Quinto's Spock and Karl Urban as McCoy, but still their performances make the grade.
But perhaps I actually am too familiar with the original series to fully enjoy the film. The new Kirk is more cowboy and anti-authoritarian than even William Shatner's Kirk, who, yes, was something of an anti-authoritarian cowboy. But this Kirk is sometimes flippant, which is a quality one didn't see in the original Kirk and strikes a discordant tone in the film. There is a wildly implausible (by original series standards)love affair broadly hinted at in the film. Again, this is an annoyance.
THIS IS WHERE YOU STOP READING IF YOU DON'T EVEN WANT A HINT OF A SPOILER
In short, this is Star Trek for people who really don't like or care about Star Trek. Without giving away too much, I will say that the time travel gimmick referenced above is used as a device that allows the filmmakers to essentially rework the entire Star Trek world without having to care about discontinuities. For example, there is a character who appears in the original series who dies in this film. But it doesn't matter, because we are on a new time line. I think John Podhoretz is right: when time travel is used in a story, it should present deep conflicts to characters as they struggle with what is destiny versus what might be. But Star Trek uses time travel as a "get out of jail free card" that ignores the tensions created by time travel and trivializes choices characters have to make.
The entire film, in some sense, is a triviality. In a story in which entire planets are destroyed, the overriding conflict driving the plot is whether Kirk and Spock end up as friends. I saw an interview with Elijah Woods regarding the Lord of the Rings films in which he said that the message of LOTR is the power of friendship. Umm, no, actually, that is not the point. That view of LOTR and this version of Trek are similar to many recent war movies in that they divorce the actions of individuals from the monumental circumstances in which they find themselves. Great events become simply devices for illustrating the small effects on individual lives. Nowhere is this more evident than in the execrable Pearl Harbor, the message of which is essentially that WWII was a tragedy because it kept good looking people from hooking up. Or consider The English Patient, which would have us believe that there is a nobility in selling out the free world to the Nazis as long as it is for true love. In Star Trek, there are horrific occurances, a really nasty villian, and billions of lives at risk, but this is all secondary to Spock and Kirk becoming buddies. If I had more time and was more pretentious I'd discuss how this illustrates the decay of public life in favor of concern with private desires. But it is late and this post is long enough, so I will spare the reader.
So these are serious faults. But hey, the film is a fun ride to cultural oblivion.
As an aside, watching the previews before the film leads me to believe that this is going to be a bad summer for movies. Will Ferrell's Land of the Lost looks positively awful. We will also get Terminator IV, Transformers II, and GI Joe, all of which feature giant robot monsters smashing things while heroes fly around on cool transports and lots of explosions occur. Basically the same movie three times. And if you liked the original Night at the Museum (and I did), well get your tickets early because they've made a remake that appears to be the exact same movie but with a crucial plot difference: it take place in a different museum. How original!
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