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Star Trek
(2009)
 
And all at once, all over the world, thousands of contributors to MemoryAlpha (the
Star Trek canon wiki) released a collective cry as their universe was forever changed. I'm not saying Star Trek is a categorically bad movie, nor that fans of the sci-fi franchise will uniformly revile it, but that anyone with a concern for continuity (and the forty year legacy that goes along with it) might be a little miffed at the reboot of the beloved series.
Star Trek is sort of a prequel to the original 1966 television series that started it all, but I say "sort of" because it's not your average prequel. In fact, prequels are generally pretty abysmal endeavors, as the recent Star Wars trilogy and the lackluster Star Trek: Enterprise series display. But director/producer J.J. Abrams knows better than to just show us what happened before "The Cage" or "Where No Man Has Gone Before." His experience with Lost has taught him how to tell a story and jump through time to make continuity his bitch, and it's the same temporal tightrope walk here. As a Trekkie, I hate it, but when looking at it with the logical eye of a Vulcan, I see exactly why this decision was made and I can't help but be glad.
After the critical and financial flops that were, well, most everything Trek from the last decade, the franchise was in desperate need of a revitalization. We needed something to get people interested in the universe again, but Insurrection, Nemesis, and Enterprise certainly weren't the solution. Maybe the property just had to be taken out of Rick Berman's tired hands. Maybe a new, tech-savvy generation just wasn't into beaming up and Vulcan mind-melds. Whatever the reason, every 21st century attempt to interest the public in Star Trek failed; it was a dated franchise with too much nerdy baggage.
Until Abrams (or screenwriters Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman of television's Fringe) came up with the time travel idea. It's generally not something that works well with pop culture. We don't want to see last year's fashions, much less our parents' television shows rehashed over and over in some temporal loop. But in this instance it allows the "new" Trek film(s) to reinvent the wheel, make it shiny and new, hip and hot for today's youth, and market it all over again to a new audience and devoted fans alike. As a canon-centric Trekkie, I was pretty ticked off with some of the changes introduced fairly early in Star Trek, but the writers knew this was coming, and they make it very clear several times that we're now in an alternate timeline from the one fans have followed for forty-three years—any number of changes to the established timeline can occur and it's all ok for continuity.
Yeah, it's a bit of a cop-out, but I certainly can't think of a better solution.
It's this fine line that is the genius of Star Trek. The story and filmic elements are almost completely forgettable here, but the meta analysis of what Abrams and company have done with the franchise is worth examination. For any series to remain vital and relevant it has to adapt to changing times and Star Trek had a pretty pathetic track record in that regard. If we as an audience are expected to continue to follow the same characters or universe continuity for decades on end, we need to see something change and the rebooting of the franchise with this film does just that. I can now see a different yet comfortably similar Kirk, Spock, or McCoy (maybe someday Picard or Jadzia Dax) doing things I've almost seen before. The same great stories that made the Star Trek name what it has become since 1966 can be reintroduced to a new generation, or retold for continuing fans. I for one am looking forward to the retelling of "The City on the Edge of Forever" but hope beyond hope that they don't try to redo Khan.
While the specific plot of Star Trek wasn't much more than an inflated television episode, I was enchanted by the stellar performances by the entire cast. Their ability to capture the tone and nuances of their characters as portrayed by the original actors was phenomenal and the inclusion of subtle nods to past (future?) Trek events like Sulu's famous shirtless fencing match or even the poor red shirts' inevitable shared fate reassured me that I was still watching the same Trek I grew up with. Though the trappings and style might change, the characters were all maintained to an amazingly impressive degree.
I was a bit nostalgic for the simplified visual effects and slower editing of older films though, as Abrams seemed quite adept at directing blurs more than discernible action when the tension rose, but again, that's what the kids want these days. The sound department should be given props for their work on these sequences because their contributions were vital to my understanding of what was going on on screen. Abrams may be a talented storyteller and concept maker (I am, after all, a huge Lost addict) but Star Trek doesn't do much in the way of convincing me he has the first clue how to direct a film. Perhaps he should stick to the writing side of things.
In the end, I am completely torn over Star Trek. I went into it wanting to like it and hoping to have an excuse to hate it forever and curse Abrams' name for ruining my beloved Trek. I guess I sort of got both wishes depending on what hat I'm wearing. The nerd in me who still refers to the updated and expanded Star Trek Encyclopedia when a bit of trivia slips my mind gets to hate the fact that a major location from the Trekiverse was needlessly destroyed. But the part of me who wants to see Star Trek shows and movies for decades to come is thankful that the reboot is so successful. I look forward to (re)exploring strange new worlds with whomever helms the Enterprise for as long as they seek out new life and new civilizations.
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All contents ©
2004-2009 Thoughtsonfilm.com |
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Director:
J.J. Abrams
Writer: Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman
Starring: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Eric Bana, Leonard Nimoy, Bruce Greenwood, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, John Cho, Anton Yelchin, Ben Cross, Winona Ryder
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
Runtime: 126
min
Rating: PG-13
Release Date: May 8, 2009
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