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Okay, from the beginning, I feel it's incumbent on me to note that I am not a Trekkie, a Trekker, or a Star Trek fan. You can count on one hand the number of Star Trek episodes I have watched, and that includes part-episodes, scenes caught while channel-surfing, and the collective addition of episode seconds I have glimpsed while passing a TV tuned to the series.
So why the hell did I go to the Star Trek premiere? Mostly because I liked the look of the trailer, I liked the idea of a 're-imaging' of the series, and, let's face it, Zachary Quinto is dreadfully hot for someone who is best-known for playing an over-eyebrowed serial killer on television.
--
If I've gotten any of the terms, races, descriptions, or craft wrong, I sincerely apologise, and reiterate: I am not a Trek fan.
I've divided this review up into two segments. The first is a generic overview of the story. I haven't given away the key plot, but I will be describing the basics of the story. The second segment will be in my next post and will feature specific spoilers for the story, the plots, the characters, and the relationships. I'll link to it when it's done.
As a cultural phenomenon, Star Trek has done more to both promote and damage the sci-fi genre than possibly any other TV series that has ever been written or will be written. George Lucas may have the last say on How To Wreck A Perfectly Good Movie Series, but surely Gene Roddenberry spun in his grave like an axle on a Formula One winner with the slow and painful death of his original series concept.
Best-known for it's obsessive fans - too intense and too passionate about something that is, after all, 'only imagination' - the Star Trek franchise has gone through incarnation after incarnation, slowly grinding itself down into the dust of obscurity - or worse - mockery, in attempt after attempt to make things new.
One could be forgiven for thinking that there were no new places to boldly go.
JJ Abrams proves otherwise in this new kick-start to the Star Trek franchise.
James Tiberius Kirk is born in the minutes before his father's ship is destroyed holding back a mysterious Romulan spacecraft that threatened a Federation Starfleet vessel. Named for his grandfathers, he grows from a wild, reckless child into a wild, reckless adult, before being challenged to join Starfleet by a man who owes his life to Kirk's father.
At the same time, on the planet Vulcan, a half-human boy struggles to become more Vulcan than even the Vulcans amidst the taint of his mother's blood. But on the cusp of his acceptance to one of his people's highest honours, he realises that his human side is not entirely the disadvantage his Vulcan mentors have depicted it, and chooses to leave the planet of his birth for a career in Starfleet.
Grown to adulthood, the conflict between these two men will define and determine the course and future of the Federation in a battle against one man who has waited twenty-five years for his revenge.
I won't wax eloquent about special effects, fight scenes, explosions, or spaceships - after the last fifteen years of movies filled with bigger, brighter special effects with more 'splodey, who cares?
What I found set this apart from your average action blockbuster is that the story is as much about the relationships between the various characters - and particularly between Kirk and Spock - as it is about the action. While they spend a good portion of the movie in conflict with each other, the two characters are very much bound to each other in their different perspectives, different attitudes, and very different upbringings.
Without knowing the characters as intimately as the fans, the incarnations seemed true to their original selves, the interactions were good, there was enough fan service to please everyone, and more than a few nods of the heads to the age-old trademarks of Star Trek - to say nothing of the sci-fi genre.
While the story concept will twist some minds into knots, trying to figure it out, it seemed evident enough to me.
If I had any gripe, it was with the lack of female characters in the storyline. Granted, the original Trek was light on female characters - and equally light on things for those female characters to do. A part of me would have loved to have seen a major male character gender-switched in the manner of Battlestar Galactica's Starbuck (although without the excessive badassitude that Kara Thrace displays), while another part acknowledges just how much fuss there would have been over such a switcheroo.
Perhaps someday I'll find my Holy Grail of Sci-Fi viewing - an action girl who doesn't embody The Feminist Rage but is quietly and gracefully capable and acknowledged as such by writers and characters. Until then, Star Trek is a more-than-acceptable substitute.
The verdict? Worth seeing, whether you're a Trek fan or a complete newbie.
I'm definitely going back to rewatch a second time. Possibly on big screen or Gold Class with a bunch of friends with whom I can discuss it afterward.
So why the hell did I go to the Star Trek premiere? Mostly because I liked the look of the trailer, I liked the idea of a 're-imaging' of the series, and, let's face it, Zachary Quinto is dreadfully hot for someone who is best-known for playing an over-eyebrowed serial killer on television.
--
If I've gotten any of the terms, races, descriptions, or craft wrong, I sincerely apologise, and reiterate: I am not a Trek fan.
I've divided this review up into two segments. The first is a generic overview of the story. I haven't given away the key plot, but I will be describing the basics of the story. The second segment will be in my next post and will feature specific spoilers for the story, the plots, the characters, and the relationships. I'll link to it when it's done.
As a cultural phenomenon, Star Trek has done more to both promote and damage the sci-fi genre than possibly any other TV series that has ever been written or will be written. George Lucas may have the last say on How To Wreck A Perfectly Good Movie Series, but surely Gene Roddenberry spun in his grave like an axle on a Formula One winner with the slow and painful death of his original series concept.
Best-known for it's obsessive fans - too intense and too passionate about something that is, after all, 'only imagination' - the Star Trek franchise has gone through incarnation after incarnation, slowly grinding itself down into the dust of obscurity - or worse - mockery, in attempt after attempt to make things new.
One could be forgiven for thinking that there were no new places to boldly go.
JJ Abrams proves otherwise in this new kick-start to the Star Trek franchise.
James Tiberius Kirk is born in the minutes before his father's ship is destroyed holding back a mysterious Romulan spacecraft that threatened a Federation Starfleet vessel. Named for his grandfathers, he grows from a wild, reckless child into a wild, reckless adult, before being challenged to join Starfleet by a man who owes his life to Kirk's father.
At the same time, on the planet Vulcan, a half-human boy struggles to become more Vulcan than even the Vulcans amidst the taint of his mother's blood. But on the cusp of his acceptance to one of his people's highest honours, he realises that his human side is not entirely the disadvantage his Vulcan mentors have depicted it, and chooses to leave the planet of his birth for a career in Starfleet.
Grown to adulthood, the conflict between these two men will define and determine the course and future of the Federation in a battle against one man who has waited twenty-five years for his revenge.
I won't wax eloquent about special effects, fight scenes, explosions, or spaceships - after the last fifteen years of movies filled with bigger, brighter special effects with more 'splodey, who cares?
What I found set this apart from your average action blockbuster is that the story is as much about the relationships between the various characters - and particularly between Kirk and Spock - as it is about the action. While they spend a good portion of the movie in conflict with each other, the two characters are very much bound to each other in their different perspectives, different attitudes, and very different upbringings.
Without knowing the characters as intimately as the fans, the incarnations seemed true to their original selves, the interactions were good, there was enough fan service to please everyone, and more than a few nods of the heads to the age-old trademarks of Star Trek - to say nothing of the sci-fi genre.
While the story concept will twist some minds into knots, trying to figure it out, it seemed evident enough to me.
If I had any gripe, it was with the lack of female characters in the storyline. Granted, the original Trek was light on female characters - and equally light on things for those female characters to do. A part of me would have loved to have seen a major male character gender-switched in the manner of Battlestar Galactica's Starbuck (although without the excessive badassitude that Kara Thrace displays), while another part acknowledges just how much fuss there would have been over such a switcheroo.
Perhaps someday I'll find my Holy Grail of Sci-Fi viewing - an action girl who doesn't embody The Feminist Rage but is quietly and gracefully capable and acknowledged as such by writers and characters. Until then, Star Trek is a more-than-acceptable substitute.
The verdict? Worth seeing, whether you're a Trek fan or a complete newbie.
I'm definitely going back to rewatch a second time. Possibly on big screen or Gold Class with a bunch of friends with whom I can discuss it afterward.