Well, in feat that’s probably never again to be repeated, I went with my brother G and my friends Craig and Justin to see a movie.  We went to the first showing of Star Trek at the local IMAX theater.  To gauge where I’m coming from regarding Star Trek, let me say that I would consider myself a fan of the franchise, but not to the point of being a Trekker or anything.  I watched the original series in syndication and when they ran remastered versions on the SciFi Channel years ago and watched them and recorded them on videotape.  I also bought the first DVD set.

I faithfully watched Star Trek: The Next Generation when it aired, and bought the DVD set.  I watched a lot of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, but wasn’t as interested in it as ST:TNG.  I probably saw half of Star Trek: Voyager.  Star Trek: Enterprise was more interesting and I’ve watched probably 80% and bought the DVD set of those.  With regards to movies, I know for sure I saw from Star Trek 3 onwards in movie theaters.  I don’t recall if I saw Star Trek 2 in a theater or not.  I went on my first date with my (now) wife to see Star Trek 4.  And needless to say I’ve seen them all, some multiple times.  I have them all on DVD.

So in general I’m pretty familiar with the franchise.  I’d say of the 4 of us that went to the new movie, we had Justin (Star Trek nut), Craig (hardcore viewer), myself (more than casual), and my brother (very knowledgeable and DS9 devotee).  The crowd, of course, was full of fans waiting to see the first showing.  So how did the movie fare?  Will the franchise live long and prosper?  (Spoilers abound, so read at your own risk.)

The Story

The story of the new movie is essentially a re imagining of the how the original crew of the Starship Enterprise came together, with a whole new cast playing all of the familiar characters of Kirk, Spock, etc.  The movie starts with the birth of James T Kirk and the death of his father George Kirk at the hands of a Romulan named Nero, the villain of the story.  Spock arrives by ship 25 years later, and Nero captures him and strands him on Delta Vega so that he can helplessly witness the destruction of Vlucan.

We follow contrasting view of Kirk and Spock growing up – Kirk the rebellious, reckless youth and Spock in the rigid emotionless Vulcan society.  A grown-up Kirk is convinced to join Starfleet following a bar brawl (where he hits on Uhura!), and Spock opts for Starfleet over the Vulcan Science Academy after a snide comment about his human side.  McCoy is introduced, we finally see Kirk cheat on the infamous Kobayashi Maru.  Kirk’s trial for cheating is lead by none other than Spock, who developed the test.  During it, Vulcan is attacked and Starfleet mobilizes.  Kirk is grounded by McCoy drugs him and gets him aboard the Enterprise under the pretext that he’s sick.

Captain Pike commands the Enterprise, and though Kirk warns him of similarities between what’s happening on Vulcan and what happened to his father years before, Pike continues to Vulcan.  There he finds the fleet destroyed and must surrender himself to Nero, who is using a giant orbital drill to drill to the core of Vulcan so he can create a black hole there using red matter.  Spock becomes Captain of the Enterprise with Kirk as first officer.  Kirk, Sulu and (red shirt) Olson do an orbital skydive onto the drill platform and manage to stop it, but it had drilled far enough to sent the red matter into the core and implode the planet.  Spock rescues the Vulcan elders but his mother dies in destruction of Vulcan.

Nero heads to Earth, torturing Pike in order to get the codes to take down Earth defenses. Spock orders the Enterprise to join the rest of the fleet, and when Kirk argues his decision, Spock has him thrown off the Enterprise of mutiny and maroons him on Delta Vega.  There Kirk meets a much older Spock, who mind melds with Kirk to show him future events and convince him that he must become captain of the Enterprise.  They travel together to a nearby outpost, where they meet Scotty.  The elder Spock beams Kirk and Scotty onto the travelling Enterprise, and Kirk goads Spock into attacking him.  This “emotionally compromises” Spock and Kirk assumes command.

Spock, Scotty and Chekov devise an ambusch of Nero’s ship by coming out of warp in the atmosphere of Saturn’s moon, Titan.  Kirk and Spock beam aboard Nero’s ship.  Kirk rescues Pike, while Spock steals the elder Spock’s captured ship.  He leaves Nero’s ship in it, destroys the platform drilling into Earth’s surface, and leads Nero’s ship away from Earth before turning his ship’s path directly into Nero’s.  The collision releases more red matter, which implodes Nero’s ship and creates another black hole. The Enterprise escapes the black hole by releasing and igniting their warp core reactors, thrusting the ship away.

Kirk is promoted to Captain of the Enterprise by now Admiral Pike.  Spock meets elder Spock, who convinces him to stay with Starfleet with Kirk rather than help rebuild Vulcan society.  He joins Kirk on the Enterprise as first officer, and they boldly go off where no man has gone before.

Analysis

The biggest question of the movie prior to seeing it was how this movie would fit into the canon of Star Trek.  They pulled off this “reboot” by actually letting events in a time travel storyline affect the future.  (A Star Trek first?)  Unlike time traveling to save whales, and then everything is back to the way it was, this time elder Spock gets Kirk to change the future.  They destroyed Vulcan!  This is a great way to reboot the series, and really sets them up well for future movies using this cast.

Speaking of cast, I felt much of it was cast perfectly.  Chris Pine played a good James T. Kirk.  He didn’t try to imidate William Shatner, which would have been a disaster.  But he did play up on Kirk’s certitude and his arrogant nature, with some humor thrown in.  Zachary Quinto’s performance as Spock was solid, though not very memorable (although that may be due more to the character than the actor).  Zoe Saldaña was good as Uhura, though seeing her in her underwear didn’t really add much to the movie (not that I’m complaining, mind you).  Simon Pegg played Scotty well and mostly humorously.  Anton Yelton’s Chekov will probably be remembered mostly for replacing his v’s with w’s.  John Cho was decent as Chekov, and Eric was just rather generic as villain Nero. By far the best cast member was Karl Urban, who played Lenonard “Bones” McCoy.  “My God, man,” his tone, his inflections, his mannerisms, everything screamed of DeForest Kelley’s portrayal.  I almost wish he had more screen time than he did, just to see more.

There was quite a bit of humor in the movie, some that worked well and some that did not.  I enjoyed the scenes of McCoy getting Kirk aboard the Enterprise, where he keeps hypospraying Kirk with meds to make him appear sick and then to counteract the reactions. The whole Kobayashi Maru scene was hilarious.  “Stardate……whatever.”  The bar fight scene where the guy says “there’s four of us and one of you” and Kirk say “well then go get some more guys and we’ll call this an even fight.”  Scotty in the transporter room saying that if there’s any sense in the Romulan’s ship design, then he should put Kirk and Spock right into an empty cargo bay, and of course they beam right into the middle of all the Romulans.  Young Spock and the Vulcan bully kids.  Spock: “I have and always shall be your friend… Spock”  Kirk: “……bullshit.”

Of course there were a plethora of classic lines delivered by the new cast members.  About the only thing I think didn’t make it was “He’s dead, Jim” because there was never an instance for it to occur.  While I enjoyed those little tidbits, it made me wonder what was left for a sequel, like they showed all their cards in one hand.  Maybe that’s good, maybe that’s bad.

There were also a few things that fell kind of flat or didn’t really work for me. I thought the scene with Scotty in the engine water tubes was kind of lame.  The whole opening scene of Kirk on Delta Vega, with the little monster being eaten by the big monster who chases Kirk… did they have money to burn on special effects, or what was that all about?  The Romulans as a whole… pretty generic.  The car scene with young Kirk seemed a little forced to get a point across.

Random thoughts:  Spock and Uhura with a sparking love interest was rather interesting.  And of course, a red shirt (Olson) bit it in classic fashion.

Conculsion

The best Star Trek movie to date.  Director J.J. Abrams and writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman took some of the best bits of past Trek and wrapped them in a satisfying retooling.  For the most part, the writing is clever and the action is fast-paced.  It’s certainly not the deepest movie, but it doesn’t have to be.  There’s nothing wrong with pure entertainment.  There was never a moment where I looked at my watch and wondered how far in we were or when it might be over.

The reaction of a fan crowd is never a good judge of a movie.  I recall going to see Star Wars Episode 3 on opening night, and the fan crowd was very into it and gave it a huge round of applause.  By the end of that weekend, the “general consensus” was that the movie was crap!  (Personally I still liked it.)  But for Star Trek, the fan crowd cheered ending, applauded Gene Roddenberry name in the credits, and I’d say 90% stayed in their seats for the whole credit listing until the lights went up.

“General consensus” has been mainly giving this movie praise, and I think it deserves it.  It’s got a 95% on RottenTomatoes.com.  It’s the first movie in a long time that I’ve felt I’d like to see in the theaters more than once.  If this is any indication of the future of the Star Trek franchise, the future is bright indeed.