Rating:
4 out of 5
Short version: While hard core Trekkies may have some problems with it, this long time classic Star Trek fan found this reboot fun, fresh & exciting.
Screen Rant reviews Star Trek
Where to start? (This is going to be a long one, folks. If you want to skip the preamble and get right to the review itself click here.)
Some people are Star Wars fanatics, others go nuts over Transformers or X-Men. While I’m a huge Iron Man fan, Star Trek is my true love going back well over 30 years. My favorite of all the shows? The Original Series (aka TOS). You may look at it now and think it looks cheesy (however I highly recommend you check out the digitally remastered version with brand new visual effects on DVD or Blu-ray), but remember the original Star Trek is over 40 years old.
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At the time the other big Sci-Fi TV show was the cheese-fest called Lost in Space – so keep that in mind as a comparison. 
I have Star Trek prop replicas on my bookshelves (some pretty damned nice ones) along with a copy of the original Star Fleet Technical Manual by Franz Joseph and a set of blueprints of the original U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701 (which shows the location of a bowling alley on the ship!). I’ve memorized every episode of the original series – I can tell you which one each one is within seconds of any of them starting. And I’ve seen every movie.
Yes, I’m into Trek “canon” – tracking all the little details that tie the whole Star Trek universe together, however I’m also aware (though some fans seem to be in denial about this) that over the course of hundreds of episodes across five different series, Star Trek itself has violated its own canon many times.
Why am I telling you all this? So you have some context for my review of J.J. Abrams’, Roberto Orci’s and Alex Kurtzman’s reboot of the Star Trek universe. However this is not a review just for “Trekkies,” and that’s appropriate because neither is this film just for that group of die hard fans (among which I include myself).
Also, I did read the four part prequel comic that tells the story which leads to the events that take place in the film. If you have a chance I recommend you find it and pick it up at your local comic book store as it really fleshes out the “villain” in the film, Nero.
Some fans may disagree, but this franchise was in desperate need of a reboot, re-imagination, fresh “take” or whatever you’d like to call it. Star Trek, as a brand, was whithering on the vine and was in danger of being put on the shelf for who knows how long – until Paramount might decide enough time had gone by to give it another go. This was due to a number of factors, among which included the subsequent series being taken in directions by Rick Berman (and to some exent, Brannon Braga) that the fans did not agree with. Essentially it was a case of “the fans don’t know what’s good for them – we’ll tell them what they want.”
From this we gained the ignoble death of Captain Kirk in a transition movie with a stupidly weak plot device, Star Trek: Voyager, the Lost in Space of Trek, progressively crappier movies and finally Enterprise: At least an attempt at something fresh in Trek, which unfortunately went off in some half-assed direction – and Manny Coto’s efforts to bring the show back to what it should have been in season 4 were too little, too late.
So… when it was announced that the new film would go back to before the original series crew had met I was both excited at the prospect and terrified of how it might turn out. I mean we’re talking about recasting iconic roles. Bill Shatner? Leonard Nimoy? DeForest Kelly and James Doohan?
Sacrilege!
But I tried to be cautiously optimistic over the course of very early news, pre-production and through the production. I listed this film as my most anticipated of the year…
And I was NOT disappointed.
So finally – the review…
Click here to continue reading our Star Trek review…
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2,444 Comments
@ Johnny
It’s nice to be back, but I have to go back to school in two days!
As a matter of fact, I performed in the Opera House! It was amazing.
My FROA:
#208. Give someone a fish, you feed him for one day. Teach him how to fish, and you lose a steady customer.
~Ingenue
You have a point there, Steve. I have never been a fan of fan fiction, it is usually unimaginative and derivative wish fulfillment fantasy, and you are generally “playing with somebody else’s toys.”
I know that the script for the next movie is already in the works, and that if it involves Ponn Farr it will not be because they stole my idea, but because I correctly guessed where they were going with the story arc (I seem to have a gift for that)
I still know that my treatment is full of win and unlike ST2, has a very upbeat ending with no impediments to a sequel of any kind.
Those of you that think that just because I created one hawkish character, that it will be about the Federation’s “dark side” fail to understand where I intend to go with this. By the time you read the next scene I think you will though.
I would have thought that by the time of Next Gen that the Holodecks would have a “Vulcan Wedding” subroutine complete with synthesized atmosphere and elements, the fact that it presented a problem for the Voyager crew indicates how little was still known about Vulcan physiology.
As with the cloaking device, the plot is not based on the entire length and breadth of the Star Trek franchise, but rather what was known at that particular time period in Trek history. I’ll have to be sure to watch that Voyager ep though, just to make sure nothing gets by me. Title?
I envisioned this as being not the next Movie, but the one after that. At this point few, if any, Vulcans have been away from home long enough for any symptoms to kick in.
I may run the story past a few agents and try to get recommended to the Guild, but whatever my approach, the first step is to, as Steve put it “write a kick-ass plot”
It will still be a couple of days before you read the next scene, after that, I may take it underground, as per your rec. You will still be invited to join me in a private room to help me work it out, in exchange for credit as co-writers.
The next scene includes a visual element, and I have some drawing to do.
–Later, all; BE
@BE
The episode was Body and Soul. I had to…(hangs head low)…look that up on IMDB. Woe is me.
“Spock! Help me Spock!” TOS episode
That would be one of your quotes Kahless, from “The Savage Curtain.” You rally do have a talent for voice-over work.
Thanks for the quick reply
—BE
And Bright Eyes has won the prize for today….A fabulous trip to the realm of Nageleb. If he asks for experimentation, I would say NO if I were you.
Writing is something I thought I had a talent for, until I tried writing a book. It’s not as easy as people think it is. I still have the basic premise but I need to start work on an outline. BE, do you have a degree in journalism or the like? Maybe I could give you the outline and we could collaborate? It could also be a great Trek movie, dealing with destruction of the universe and all.
@ Kahless:
“…destruction of the universe and all.”
DESTRUCTION OF THE UNIVERSE???
Jeez, Cmdr Riker was right in ‘Insurrection’, wasn’t he – You Klingons really don’t do anything small, do you?
Hahahahaha, I hope the Universe makes it, in your story! I might have plans for the weekend, lol!
@ BE:
Good luck, m’man, I really hope you make some inroads into the whole Paramount monolith structure. And you too, Kahless!
@ Kahless & BE, both:
I wouldn’t mind writing a story myself, set in the next generation after – say, about the early 25th Century or so, centered around a new ship design I stumbled across – non-canon, of course – called the ‘Cosmos’ class. Cosmos and her sisters (one of which is called the ‘Titan’, the same name of Captain Riker’s new command at the end of ‘Nemesis’) are 931 meters long and instanly identifiable by their long, catamaran-like double-dorsal interconnecting hulls, and of course absolutely armed to the teeth. It would be interesting to see what may come after the beautiful Sovereign class, what ship design would indeed succeed the gi-normous Galaxy from TNG – and not in an alternative timeline or some parallell universe, but in the current timeline. So to speak…
Hey, John, maybe everyone from our universe could escape to another one? Maybe? That would be interesting.
Btw, have either of you two aspiring geniuses ever seen the ST/VOY episode ‘Author, Author’? It had to do with a holonovel (after everyone else of the other Voyager regulars took a crack at it), written by The Doctor, called ‘Photons Be Free’. Very amusing – and telling. Well, not very amusing to the thosands of duplicate EMH’s all across the Alpha Quadrant, now put to work in dilitium mines. Their near-universal unpopularity, combined with the schematics of Jacob Starling’s mobile EMH emitter (which allowed the Doctor to go anywhere), made them ideal holo-slaves for the dangerous work in the mines. Makes one think, doesn’t it?
~Johnny
Hey, I don’t have to re-register this time, lol!
One thing, BE, you’re operating on a false assumption. Seven years needn’t elapse before there are problems with Vulcans, per se. They aren’t all on the same schedule. Based on statistics, there are about 2 male Vulcans entering Pon Farr daily, unless you presume an over-abudance of the escapees were children. So, don’t let that be a deterrent to your storywriting.
Cheers,
~Doc
Steve, Yes,I should have said seven year MAXIMUM fuse on those pointy-eared hob-goblins.
As for Pike and the Talosians, as I recall he extricated himself from The Cage without much help from Spock.
In this timeline, for reasons still unexplained, the birth of Spock and the launch of Enterprise got delayed by a couple of decades. My theory is that Pike still encountered the Talosians as a young man, but with a different ship and crew (probably similar to the Kelvin)
Pike’s adventure in the Menagerie would have doubtless remained one of the most memorable episodes of his life. I am sure that when he finally met and befriended Spock, that he would have told him the tale.
@ Brighteyes:
“Not as up on “Voyager” as I am on TOS. Janeway always struck me as the anti-Kirk, always screwing her crew out of a ride home to uphold the Federation’s ideals.” (Italics mine).
Look, BE, not to be chewing you out, but this comment reminds me of a conversation I & three other students at college had once, long ago, about ‘The Law of The Land’, i.e., what we all know protects us from descending into utter chaos. One of us was a judge, twenty or thirty years older than the rest of us, who pointed out that “some technicalities” that bad guys usually get off on, when “everybody knows they’re guilty”, are the safeguards that they really are – honestly!
Those technicalities, he pointed out (with the authority of someone who knew, and which he dealt with on a daily basis) were in fact the Bill of Rights, those laws that protect us from the abuses of ‘The Law’.
If Captain Janeway, as you so sanguinely put it, was willing to “[screw] her crew out of a ride home to uphold the Federation’s ideals…” it was only because she was trying to uphold Federation ideals (Federation LAW) which she believed – correctly, in my opinion – to be absolutely universal, not just confined to our own galaxy, let alone to our own Alpha Quadrant!
In other words, “either we’re all goin’ to Heaven, or we ain’t!”
Janeway knew very well, and understood with crystal clarity, what Captain Kirk also knew very well but often chose to ignore: That the Prime Directive, which was there for a good reason, was there to be respected, not re-sected. The fact that Kirk was able to so flagrantly disregard General Order Number One (Prime Directive) and get away with it through ‘technicalities’ (such as on Eminiar VII, where he “merely restored the natural course of their evolution, which included real war“) is a testament to his luck, NOT his wisdom, any more than his adherence to Starfleet regulations.
In fact, if you’ve been paying attetion, BE, the final 2-part Voyager Series Finale ‘Endgame’ was all about a much older, sadder, wiser Admiral Janeway, 25 years or so later, having witnessed her friends’ deaths (Seven of Nine died from a strange Borg-related disease that could easily have been cured if detected back in the Alpha Quadrant, and her then-lover, Chakotay, utterly disconsolate in his grief, later took his own life as a result), and blaming herself for letting 15 years go by instead of just 7, actually went back in time with a stolen starbase shuttlecraft, some revolutionary new replicative armor, and an anti-Borg virus – which she injected herself with – to thereby change the past and bring her people home early. Well, her younger, less gray counterpart, Captain Janeway, did…
You could say, Admiral Janeway pulled a ‘Captain Kirk’! Lol!
~Johnny
I always thought that Janeway was the most moral of the Captains. Picard upheld the Prime Directive pretty well too, but his situation was far less desperate. Sisko knew how to play dirty when he had to.
I thought Janeway went a little to far in her morality when she turned down Q’s propositon, Hadn’t she ever heard of “Taking one for the team”? If I were Janeway’s husband, I’d rather get her back a little worse for the wear than twenty years later when she was old and gray.
Of course “Q”, being the prick that he is, might have had his fun and then stiffed her for the ride home.
I wonder if Janeway’s last thoughts before her shuttle exploded were “Kirk was right all along.”
Of course if Kirk hadn’t broken the rules to save the Enterprise, there would be no Enterprise to save the Earth, and there would never have been a Picard, Sisko, or Janeway, a point that my own creation, Ridgeway points out, without even knowing it himself, much to Spock Prime’s annoyance.
@ Bright Eyes:
Exactly! This is what I was trying to say, in the end Janeway, who had so much more to lose, made the right decision for everyone’s sake, including her own (in a vicarious way, anyway), at least as ‘Admiral Janeway’.
You remind me of Sisko in that episode if DS-9’s where he faced down his own demons and resolved that he “would find a way to live with it”, with what he had done.
Also, Admiral Ross’ reminder (lesson in Latin, whatever) to Dr Bashir, in the episode of the same name, ‘Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges’ (DS-9) – “In time of war, the laws stand silent…”, the immortal words of the ancient Roman sage, Cicero.
Altho’, I needn’t reiterate, my preference is far & away for ‘Sic vis pacem, para bellum’.
Something a tool like Stanley Ridgeway would no doubt appreciate…after all, we are talking about Romulans, let’s not forget, lol!
~Johnny
what happened to this thread??? I finally saw the flick this thread has gone absolutely bonkers talking about Janeway and Tuvok!! That’s what I get for waiting so long to see it
Not to come between two of my favorite people on here (I have others, mind you) but I have to go entirely with BE on this Prime Directive thing. Kirk may have practiced “cowboy diplomacy” but aside from saving the planet at least five times now, it is not necessarily true to relate the Prime Directive to the Bill of Rights. First, the Prime Directive was created as a plot device and if it were so “prime” then it wouldn’t be called by so many other things. I am aware that the Bill of Rights is really the first ten amendments to the Constitution, but the “non-interefere/Prime Directive/General Order Number One” clause is (at least to the best of my knowledge) never fully defined. It’s vague, and its definition seemed to change from one episode to another as to what was “prohibited” under the Prime Directive. Such a law, like our own Consitution, would be written in a vague way – it’d have to be. If someone was charged with violation it, it’d be solved through litigatory means. Also, it seams unclear how the Prime Directive applies to Federation citizens outside Starfleet. But ultimately, it comes to this – as a doctor or any other crew member, I’d serve under Kirk any day of the week versus Janeway. A note to the tailor – please don’t make my shirt red.
Cheers,
~Doc
@ Steve
“please don’t make my shirt red”
Hey just call yourself Scotty and you’ll be fine (:
~Ingenue
@ Steve (with an aside to Ingenue):
(In Garak’s voice) Well, of, course, Doctor, you realize I wil have to report this to my friends in the Obsidian Order, BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Perhaps to the Tal Shi’aar as well, hehehehe! Admiral Ridgeway is a dilletante!
Okay, I had a moment, there, point taken on the ambiguity of the Prime Directive, that’s probably the only thing that kept Kirk out of the unemployment line, if not JAIL…
“#79. Beware of the Vulcan greed for knowledge.”
Oy, punkin’! Howaya, sweetie? Are U having a good day?
~Johnny
PS: Panda, you have a good point, this thread has sort of, well, drifted off; but we’re all such Trekfans we like talking anything Trek, and well, the movie is still playing after six weeks, but it was fodder for two months before that and, to be honest, it’s been pretty much picked over. Of course, you are I’m sure welcome to say your piece about it, but you could probably cut/paste a similar response from what has been said in here, anyway – please, no offense – after all, how much can be said about a movie? The too-bright bridge, the brewery engine room, the kiss in the turbilift, we’ve said it all…One rather bright fellow on here is even writing a new script for a future ‘new timeline’ movie!
He has a good a chance as anyone, I guess. And welcome.
L8r!
Whoops, I meant ‘turbolift’, sorry!
@ Johnny
FROA:
“#285. No good deed ever goes unpunished”
Reminds me of Wicked!
I’m having a really good day (: I woke up at 1pm, had a nice long shower and watched Gilmore Girls and ate chocolate covered coffee beans *satisfied smile*
~Ingenue
Chocolate covered coffee beans???!!! It would do you well, humaaan, to drink raK’t'Jino instead!! And Gilmore Girls will turn you into a petaQ; listen to a good Klingon opera instead!!
Hey Bright Eyes, you forgot the quote. Also, Kirk is my favorite captain. If I wanted someone to protect the planet, he wins, hands down.
My only problems with the movie:
1) the ice creature was more Star Wars than Star Trek and didn’t really belong
2) Kirk’s “compassion” toward Nero at the end, left a bad taste. “you don’t want our help, fine then we’ll fire on you as your ship is enveloped by a black hole”. The space equivelant of kicking the Romulans when they’re down. Or did I miss something.
Now that that’s off my chest, I guess I can go through the 1,400+ comments on this thread.
Oh! and why did it feel like the academy will let in any local board the shuttle? Is this community college? I suppose we can assume Pike made arrangements for Kirk, just looked wiered
We have a new addition to the thread.
I think Kirk decided that after Nero’s comments it was too dangerous to leave him alive.
@ Panda:
Nero instantly became the worst criminal in history (if you don’t count Grand Moff Tarkin [Peter Cushing] of the Death Star – different galaxy, different universe, maybe, and a long, long time ago) when he basically detroyed an entire planet along with 6 BILLION living, intelligent, thinking, and (despite rumors to the contrary) feeling superlative beings. He wasn’t sorry one bit for what he did; he wasn’t any more grief-stricken than anyone else who had lost their loved ones, their home, and everything else near & dear to them, ever; he decided to take out his rage on an innocent, remarkable civilization 135 years before the tragedy to his own homeworld even happened – which was a natural phenomena, btw – and he made Spock Prime (Ambassador Spock) watch, just to make him suffer.
If I had been James Kirk, I would have shot that son of a bitch on sight, no quarter given or asked for, taking no prisoners. But he was required by the principles of decency which allow us to call ourselves ‘civilized’ to make the offer. That is exactly why he did that, and no jury in the galaxy could have blamed him for making sure the bastard wouldn’t show up any where else along the timeline as anything but useless wreckage. That is why they fired on the Narada as Nero & his crew were being consumed by the maelstrom of his own making.
Nero died by his own hand, and he deserved nothing but Eternal Hell.
~Johnny
Johnny-
you almost sound like you take Vulcan’s destruction personally…
Kirk didn’t have to offer aid to Nero – I think it was a weak attempt by the writers to show that Kirk had “grown up”. At the same time, he didn’t need to fire on Nero to finish him off (could anyone on that ship really survive a black hole causing the ship to implode?) That ending was just bizarre.
Great movie overall, I just had the couple gripes. But I haven’t read or heard anyone say anything about the “need help? Just kidding” ending
I must say that I take Vulcan’s destruction personally since I’ve been a fan of the show for so long. I also took the destruction of the Enterprise personally in Star Trek III. With respect to Kirk, I found his actions perfectly in alignment with the old “We come in peace, shoot to kill” attitude so wonderfully illuminated in “Star Trekkin’”
There’s a lot of precedent for Kirk offering aid (ref Journey to Babel, Day of the Dove, Balance of Terror) when he “didn’t need to” so I didn’t find that part of the movie disingenuous. I still maintain that it’s absurd that Spock (Prime) could watch the destruction of Vulcan from Delta Vega but they’ve already said they took artistic liberty in writing that scene to be more visually compelling on the screen. I give them props for at least not coming up with some type of lame excuse like Delta Vega had moved across the galaxy due to some gravometric-thing-a-ma-jig.
It’s nice to see Ingénue and Fury again. Haven’t seen our friend the Dentist in a while.
Regards to all – I’m going to sleep after working my first 36-hour shift since residency.
~Doc
Found Orci’s explanation…
…couldn’t risk Nero traveling through time again.
Coulda been explained with a 1-liner from Spock, but oh well.
Doc-
I didn’t find it strange that he offered help (my comment was a response to a previous comment alluding that he did have to), it was the offer->decline->fire order of events and how quickly it all happened that was bizarre. But Nero woulda travelled through time again, and that explains that.
on with the quotefest…
@ Panda:
Fine. If you’re happy, I’m happy, but all those people on Vulcan, admittedly not very warm souls by Human standards, but nonetheless still very sympathetic, as a lot, are, as Chevy Chase used to say about Generalisimo Fasncisco Franco, are STILL DEAD, so, there ya are…
I will be honest. I thought the new Enterprise sucked, I thought the new movie wasn’t bad, I loved the characters, which were after all not original, but then they were not supposed to be, anynore than the original uniforms were, sort of as a touch stone.
Having said that, the new Abrams/Orci movie was absolutely necessary, because the old Franchise was getting stale and despite the fan base, which is like a sort of Sci-Fi ersatz electorate, was still in need of something to re-energize the whole storyline…sort of like depleted dilithium crystals.
This new movie, for all its faults (and they are many), has gotten fans more wound up about the true nature of ST than anything has in years.
And what is that true nature? Simple – the same message that Gene Roddenberry had 40 years ago, that Humans from the planet Earth are not doomed by their own shortsightedness, that our desire to go OUT THERE, to seek, to learn, maybe to make a positive difference in this universe, is something worth considering. Even doing. That is why we will go to Mars, return to the moon, and build bases OUT THERE, because of the simple faith many of us have that the journey will be worth it, that our existence will have been justified, and that the doubters, no matter how vocal, will eventually come around.
You never hear anybody say anymore, like you used to, “Why did we waste all that time & trouble going to the moon?” There’s a reason for that, especially considering that we did it seven times.
Peace,
~Johnny
@Johnny –
You wound me, good sir
THe Enterprise sucked? I admit I wasn’t thrilled at all with the still they released, but I loved it once it was on screen. I fell in love with it as soon as they brought it into view and sealed the deal when they separated from Space Dock. Still not sure if I like it better than the original movie Enteprise/Enterprise-A, but I’m sold on the ship. I would have been really disappointed if they had gone with a total replica of the original series design, as nice as it was. It just could never sell with all of the modern special effects. Anyway, chew me out Giovanni, but I’ll go with our new lady of the line hands down.
And now I really am off to bed. “I’m too old for this.”
~Doc
@ Kahless
Well I’m not drinking raK’t’Jino, but I’m drinking a cup of tea that smells like fish… it’s very unappealing.
@ Panda
I should’ve said this before, but welcome
@ Johnny
I agree whole-heartedly with your rant before about Nero being evil and Kirk being right for shooting the shit out of him.
@Steve
Omg I love “Star Trekkin”! I was walking around Sydney singing it as loud as my ill lungs allowed me
~Ingenue
Oh and Johnny,
FROA:
#24. Never ask when you can take.
~Ingenue
Still here Steve! Floating around like some kind of…floating thing. I remember the first still I saw of the new Enterprise, and not being at all keen on the strange proportional changes from the original: those massive warp nacelles with their curved support pylons too close together; the saucer section sat way back on the secondary hull, following the lines of the latter’s pinched-in rear end. It looked, to quote Frank Zappa, “Like a squid in a polyethylene bag: fast and bulbous.”
I thought I’d wait till I saw it in motion before weeping into my cornflakes though, and the minute I did I was sold. Regardless of the bridge/engineering interiors – which I suspect was more what Johnny was referring to – its curvy, slight ungainliness actually does look like something that might have been designed before the clean, staight lines of the TOS version.
Whatever the case though, it’s a million times better than the ugly beast that was the Enterprise B, which I said somewhere else resembled a mad bath designed by Philippe Starck.
Panda, I must admit I’m firmly in Kirk’s “You don’t wanna grab the rope? Well hold onto this one then…” camp. The movie was Anomaly City and I’ve only seen it once (!), so I can’t recall if Kirk said that all in one breath, as it were, or if that sequence was just edited abruptly.
And that’s Captain Beefheart, not Zappa…
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