[Newsh]

Wow, Trek is back on the map with this!

Went last night to watch the new Star Trek movie and its definately what you could class as a blockbuster, and will be certaily be going in the Blu-ray collection

I won't post any spoilers but the story is engaging and the characters, despite my doubts before seeing this, are perfect.

Chris Pine is awesome as James T Kirk, bringing through all the qualities of Kirk/Shatner bit without having to mimic Shatner's speech patterns, which was something Pine didnt want to do anyway.
Zachary Quinto from Heroes is a very good Spock, and Karl Urban is awesome as Leonard McCoy, probably my favourite character in this remake.

Look out for cameos aplenty, two of which are Leonard Nimoy and Paul McGillion.

Visually its very impressing, there's obviously going to be a lot of CGI but it for the most part it doesn't look like CGI, which is great.

The character interaction is excellent, especially between Kirk and Spock, and the Bones and Kirk friendship is there too. There are some comedy moments but its subtle and fits the film well.

The way the story ends leaves a blank canvas for a whole new Trek universe, and if this first film is anything to go by then its going to be a good one

Go see it!

[Furydemon]

Glad you liked it Si

Personally I hated it, it really didn't do 'Trek' for me. Don't get me wrong, as action films go, its not bad, it's pretty much two hours of non-stop action... I'll try and explain what I hated without spoilers.


The characters didn't work, now I wasn't expecting the same exact characters, and a good thing too - but they were all pretty 2D - Kirks a bit of a rebel, Spock tries to hide his emotions, McCoys a sarcastic grump, Scotty is comic relief. No-one got enough time to actual talk or do anything because the action just did not stop. A scene where Kirks alone, which might have allowed some nice introspection time as to why hes alone turning into slapstick comedy run away from the big ice monsters. I agree Bones was the best character and I think thats Urbans acting chops showing there.

There's a scene near the end - and I dont want to spoiler it - but both Kirk and Spock do something so out of character and so un-Federation-like its shocking. It just served to highlight that at no point in this did they boldly go explore anything, there was no seeking out new life, no culture - just a film of shooting the shit out of anything they saw.

It's all personal taste, I know, but I was bloody disappointed. There's enough full on action films out there already with the likes of transformers etc, I expected a bit more from Trek.

[Helmboy]

My own, slightly longer review below. There are some spoilers in there, so be warned.

Most of my friends are well aware that I set my expectations for the new Star Trek prequel very low. I’ve argued for a long time that I feel the franchise needs to be rested for a good few years following some really poor showings (Enterprise, Nemesis and Insurrection).

However, even I held out a glimmer of hope that I would find some snippet of hope in JJ Abrams’ new flick. And now, I’ve returned from the cinema in a state of shock. I have never walked out of a film and I’ve seen some pretty woeful movies in my time. After 10 minutes of Star Trek I seriously wanted to leave, the only thing that kept me going was having a fellow fan by my side to share in my pain.

For those not in the know, this prequel charts the backstory of our favourite characters; Kirk, Spock, Bones et al. But there’s a twist. Some evil Romulan from the future has travelled back in time to a point before Kirk was born and changed history. The result is a useful plot device which explains away why Kirk is not at all like the character William Shatner portrayed with such ham and dedication for 30 years.

To be fair, I don’t have an issue with changing characters backstory. Battlestar Galactica was re-imagined to stunning effect. Sadly, JJ Abrams is no Ron Moore. Rather he is beginning to show signs of George Lucas syndrome and as a result may be believing too much in his own hype.

There is no snippet of hope in this film. It is worse than even I had felt possible and symbolises everything that is currently wrong with the Hollywood film industry and its treatment of Science Fiction in particular.

Don’t get me wrong, Star Trek will make a fortune. It will quite easily be the most successful Trek movie in history and will therefore be regarded as a commercial success. But such success comes at a price for some Star Trek fans. I say some, because there are many flavours of Trek fan. There are those who will love this film because it is full of action and pithy one-liners.

Sadly, I’m not one of those fans. I was one of those kids who grew up watching science fiction that places storytelling at the heart of every episode. Sure even Trek of old contained action and ham-fisted dialogue, but these were a necessity of the TV industry. Without such action and drama, the show would have been too cerebral to garner the army of fans it built over 4 decades.

The thing that made Star Trek (and many other popular Sci-Fi shows of the time) so appealing, was that it found a balance between the needs of the studio (who required high peril and action drama) and the needs of the storyteller (who wanted to make the viewer think).

And this is where Hollywood has lost its edge. It has forsaken storytelling in favour of meaningless action, bland dialogue and an abundance of special effects. “Big budget” movies have become indistinguishable from one another. Transformers and this new Star Trek are the same film. Continuous action, limited dialogue and a very basic plot that can be explained in a one line pitch to a studio executive who has no prior knowledge of the craft.

“Robots crashland on Earth and battle each other against the backdrop of beautiful cityscapes and vistas”

“An evil alien goes back in time to avenge the destruction of his race, by wiping out humanity using an overly elaborate cgi MacGuffin”

Star Trek is virtually non-stop action for the entirety of its 126 minutes. The only time the action stops is for some brief attempts at comedy (Kirk goes into comic anaphylactic shock; Sulu forgets to start the engine of the starship; Chekov fails to pronounce his “Ws”. Everyone laugh!!). Sadly, because these comic moments all follow on from one another at high speed, the result is slapstick; Slapstick during a time of intergalactic crisis. Errrr!

The vast portion of the movie is overlaid with an almost continuous OTT soundtrack that is about as subtle as a sledgehammer. Even the brief moments of attempted poignancy are coupled with a sappy score that again detracts from what is going on.

The acting is incredibly laboured, but I’ll avoid blaming the actors for this. They can only do so much with the material that is at their disposal. And the material is, quite frankly, not worthy of lining a real writers waste paper bin. A common forum post that appears whenever Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman are announced as writers for a new project is “Hollywood: STOP GIVING WRITING JOBS TO THESE GUYS”. But it’s obvious why they get the gigs. They write commercially successful films (Transformers, MI:3… err The Island… err The Legend of Zorro). OK, so not all of them are successful, but they have recently had a somewhat golden dollar shaped touched.

The villain of Star Trek (Romulan Nero) is as one-dimensional as the plot. He is there purely to offer a threat and offers no other depth than a desire for vengeance, explained in a classic “Let me tell you my devious plan” moment. His eventual demise sums up this new movies complete deviation from the high principles of Star Trek, as Spock (and his proxy, Kirk) chooses to slaughter him in an act of vengeance that I had to see to believe.

The original Spock (Leonard Nimoy) makes an appearance which, I have to admit, was nice to see. Unfortunately, it too served only to highlight the lack of gravitas Zachary Quinto brings to the Young Spock role. I’m just glad Shatner didn’t get his way and make a cameo!

The final minute gives us the immortal Trek tagline, spoken wistfully by Leonard Nimoy. As the words echoed around the cinema, (“…to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life forms and new civilisations…”) I realised how out of place they seemed in this film. That final act is tacked on to provide a link to the past but in reality only serves to symbolise the complete opposites that this movie is and Star Trek of old, was. JJ Abrams’ Trek is nothing more than a jingoistic American ass-whupping in space. He may have splattered it with familiar names and shown us “the truth” behind famous stories, but JJ has failed to actually see what Star Trek is.

Star Trek will garner a new generation of fans with this film and its planned sequels. However, does anyone really believe that these fans will take the time to revisit the roots of Star Trek? Worse still, is it not more likely that these modern fans will be so fickle that they will jump from Star Trek to the next “Big Thing” that comes along? Afterall, these new fans are the same people that have just jumped from Transformers (via Indiana Jones 4) to Star Trek.

I’m happy to leave this “nu Trek” to the low attention span audience it deserves. I won’t be watching the sequel.

Let the flame war commence!

[Newsh]

Everyone is entitled to their opeinion mate, nothing wrong with that

I’m happy to leave this “nu Trek” to the low attention span audience it deserves. I won’t be watching the sequel.

I think thats a little unfair though. I dont have a low attention span and I know my trek at geek level lol. People have different opinions, and different tastes. It doesn't mean they are fickle

I understand the implication this has on Trek canon, but i can accept as history as changed due to the plot, therefore blanking the canvas

Yes, the villain Nero is one dimesnional, but due to the writers mainly. I thought the ice creature was wank but the movie is just that, a movie. It does what it says on the tin and its good fun.

Just my .02

Let the flame war commence!

Err... Why?

[Helmboy]

No worries. My comment about the fans is actually aimed at the new fans this film will garner. It is clearly aimed at people who are not Trek fans and the cast and crew have said as much in interviews. And these are the fans that I feel will be fickle, because there is little in the film to distinguish it from any other summer blockbuster so why would they become so attached to Trek? They are more likely to love it, then move onto the next big blockbuster and love that for 5 minutes... etc... etc.

And as I mentioned in the review, I don't have a problem with altered backstory. In fact they can change all the characters completely and make Kirk a woman if they want. It worked in BSG afterall. My issue is with poor storytelling and lack of exposition.

It's very true that the film does what it says on the tin. Which is kind of my problem... I wanted the tin to say something more than just "explosions = check; space battles = check; monsters = check; one liners = check; teen angst = check".

It's all 'bout the story maaaaan! Where's the story?!

[UnkArl]

I was walking around London the other week, dabbling in a bit of street photography. I detoured towards Leicester Square on the way to catch my bus and accidently found myself in the middle of the premiere for this film - weird.

[Furydemon]

It's very true that the film does what it says on the tin. Which is kind of my problem... I wanted the tin to say something more than just "explosions = check; space battles = check; monsters = check; one liners = check; teen angst = check".

Yeah I think you've summed it up for me there. Good sci fi is rare enough, to water it down into generic blockbuster material is why this really failed for me. BSG has proven that well written sci fi can still be popular, we need more of it on the big screen!