I have been thinking about the new Star Trek movie ever since I saw it on opening day. Now, as a long time Star Trek fan I watched the movie with as much of an open mind as I could muster...and you know what? I liked it. It was a good movie. A couple of little things bugged me, but over all a good movie. You would think as a fan, I would be totally blown away by it! But there in lies the rub. As a cool science fiction movie it was awesome! But as a Star Trek movie it was just...ok. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, besides all the little things that bugged me about the movie...finally, it hit me the other day! That is it!
"The devil is in the details" as they say. A lot of the little things that bothered me is what the problem is in my mind. Little things like how they must have saved all kinds of money shooting the engine room scene's in a bottling plant. Surely they could have spent a few dollars on a better set that didn't make it look like the engine room on the Titanic. The Uniforms for the crew of the USS Kelvin. I don't think it would have taken much work to have them give a little nod to the original (pilot) uniforms. Last, and it may seem trivial, but the fact that the ends of the warp nacelles were blue bugged the hell out of me. Making them red would have in no way affected the movie or the look of the new "old" Enterprise, but would have been a nice touch of continuity for the old fans. But I don't think Mr. Abrams really cared all that much about the old fans as much as he said he did.
Concerning the new Enterprise...didn't like it the first time I saw it. The lines where there, but all wrong. And don't get me started on what J.J. Abrams say is the size of her (according to J.J, its 900 meters....yes...meters. The exact number from ILM is aparantly 2357 feet. compared to the Star Trek:The Motion Picture/Wrath of Khan Enterprise at 305 meters.)but to be truthful, it's started to grow on me. I still think they were a little lazy with the design (the whole primary hull is basically the one from Star Trek: The Motion Picture with some minor cosmetic changes).
Then there was the cast. Loved Karl Urban as McCoy...totally sold me on that. Zachary Quinto as Spock was good as well. Chris Pine did an ok job of Kirk, but I don't think I ever really bought into his character. Zoe Saldana as Uhura was good as well, and Bruce Greenwood as Pike did a fantastic job (really like his role). Eric Bana as Nero was not to bad as a villain, but unless you had read the prequel comics you didn't really understand why he was so pissed. As for some of the other characters, well to be honest they didn't get a lot of attention (which is kind of funny, as they didn't during the original series in the 60's either!). They felt kind of tacked on. Like they just had to toss them all a few lines and a little camera time and its all good. I was a little disappointed in that..Scotty was always one of my favorite characters, and I was kind of looking forward to Simon Pegg's take on him.
In the end, as mentioned earlier, it was a great sci-fi movie, but not a great Star Trek movie. The funny thing is, most of the comments on fan sites that are very positive are from people that were fans of other sci-fi series (Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, etc.) Most of the original fans of Star Trek haven't been so kind with their comments and criticism. When all is said and done, will this movie be a huge hit? Seems to be so far. Will it re-energize Star Trek? In the short term, I think so, but I don't think so in the long run. Will this incarnation of Star Trek create the next generation of astronauts, scientists and inventors? Highly unlikely.
The sad thing is, the management of the franchise has said to us old school fans "piss off" and appealed to Joe Public in an attempt to squeeze out as much money as possible from this property. Unfortunately just as the ancient Emperor's of Rome learned, the masses are quick to lose interest and tend to be quite fickle.
