Star Trek Review
May 6, 2009 by Vic HoltremanWill you like the new Star Trek movie even if you’re not a geek?
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.
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…
Our Rating:
4 out of 5
Around the web:
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@ Steve:
You are absolutely right! Thanx, Paisan, for once again being my memory check.
I always confuse those two, the titles are just similar enough to do that to me.
As I recall, Scotty was not quite convicted of murder (“REDRUM! REDRUM!” – sorry, couldn’t help m’self, must’ve been the Nicholson mention, lol!) in ‘Wolf in the Fold’, but he likely would’ve been if not for Spock and his relentless probing of the Big E’s library computer, exposing the erstwhile prosecutor Mr Hingist, who was, perhaps unwittingly, the otherwise non-corporeal ‘Redjac’ (Redjac! Redjac! Redjac!”), who had also been Jack the Ripper some 400 years before, as well as many others.
Transporter wide dispersal was the only way to get rid if him…let’s hope!
Red Jack – get it? I liked that…
~Johnny
@ All:
BTW, Temporal Prime Directive aside, Spock Prime could set a lot of things straight, since he was after all there, such as warning the gentle, loving people of that little pleasure planet in ‘Wolf in the Fold’ of their prosecutor Mr Hingist! He almost has a duty to do some of that, if it will saves lives, right? Who agrees with me that the altered timeline sort of puts all that Temporal Prime Directive crap out in the street?
Just a thought, let me know…
~Johnny
I think that Spock cannot be held in violation of a law that does not yet exist. That’s my thought.
Having said that, I don’t think it is incumbent, or wise, for Spock to do anything untowards in the new timeline. As Spock said himself in the new movie, events will no longer unfold as they were “meant to be” due to Nero’s arrival. I think with Nero gone, Spock Prime’s primary duty is to “help rebuild the Vulcan race” and let Spock live his own, new life.
@ Steve:
You probably already know this, but the author of the screenplay for ‘Balance of Terror’ (I believe it was DC Fontana, I may be wrong about that) was in fact inspired by CS Forester’s ‘The Enemy Below’, a work I consider very like ‘Run Silent, Run Deep’; you really cannot beat the unrelenting tension of two ship captains pitting their respective wits against each other.
I always considerd cloaked ships of the ST Universe as the submarines of the 23rd/24th Centuries, the ships of the surface (uncloaked Starfleet vessels) pitted against the submarines under the surface (cloaked Romulan ships – or the Defiant, at least in the Delta Quadrant, also the alt future Ent-D of ‘All Good Things’, with it’s third warp nacelle and massive ‘Uberpulsecannon’).
The tension and climax of a Federation/Romulan space battle would be awesome!
~Johnny
PS: Sure right about Nicolas Meyer! They should do whateer they have to do, kiss his ass, whatever, to get him on Abram’s team again. Also, I heartily add my voice to all of yours who wants Abrams to spend some of the new budget on actual sets of Main Engineering this time, NO MORE DAMN BREWERY! Industrial is nice, yes, but do they HAVE to be so blatant about it???
Besides, I liked the Sovereign’s engine room! So sue me.
L8r!
@ Steve:
Hmmm, you know, I believe you are right again, about the Temporal Prime Directive, I mean, after all, the ‘lab types’ didn’t really formulate that sort of thing until the Big E broke away from the black hole and found itself three days earlier (The Naked Time’) – or maybe it was after they first got back from Earth of the year 1968 (‘Tomorrow Is Yesterday’); by the time of their meeting with Supervisor Gary Seven (‘Assignment Earth’), where they were supposed to be merely observing, that policy had by then likely been imposed, or at least considered.
None of this had happened yet, in 2250, the time of the Reboot, so you no doubt are right about that.
Having said that, wouldn’t Spock still have a moral & ethical responsibility to intervene in events of the past that would have happened anyway? Like the murders on another planet? Or the progress of the Botany Bay? Or V’ger?
If I were him, I’d have Starfleet Intelligence debrief me for six months!
Then after that, THEY could deal with it…
~Johnny
@ Steve:
Whoops, turns out I was wrong about the screenwriter of ‘Balance of Terror’ being DC Fontana – I found this on IMDb:
Writers: Gene Roddenberry, Paul Schneider
Somehow comforting to know that Roddenberry had a hand in it, however.
I did confirm that the episode was modeled after CS Forrester’s ‘The Enemy Below’, a natural, really, since a hunt is a hunt.
~Johnny
I think DC Fontana co-wrote “The Enterprise Incident” although I’m not certain of that.
And just because I’m still waiting…
“No, no particular person, just people in general.”
~Doc
It’s too hard Doc.
We all gave it multiple shots.
@ Doc:
Okay, I’ll take one more shot, obscure Star Trek dialogue for $400, Alex?
What did Bones say to Mr Atoz, Chief Librarian in ‘All Our Yesterdays’, about Spock’s apparent diffidence to being ‘prepared’ for a trip into the past, in order to escape the coming supernova of that planet’s sun?
The Librarians of that world had a way of sending people back into their world’s past, as a way of escaping the nova, but it required ‘preparation’, which prohibited any return – this is why Zarabeth could not return with Spock and was trapped in their Ice Age past.
~Johnny
Close enough. It was McCoy to Atoz asking where all of the people had gone. It occurs within the intro scene of the episode. But, that means you’re up, Johnny! (Thank God)
Cheers,
~Doc
1383, wow, just checking in to see where we’re at, lol. Nice job guys, nobody at each other throats yet, haha.
@ Steve:
F*** me, now I have to come up with one???
Okay, gimme a minute, I’ll man up…
~Johnny
@ Ken J:
Give us time…
HAHAHAHAHA!
~Johnny
@ All:
“It just killed one of my men and now you’re telling me YOU CAN’T TURN IT OFF?”
Easy one!
~Johnny
The Ultimate Computer: Kirk to Daystrom?
Ed Harris would indeed be spot-on for Ridgeway, great pick.
While The Ridge may be an Asshole with a capital “A” he is not a villain with a capitol “V”, any one who writes for hin should take care not to make him TOO evil, or it will cast his employers in a bad light, namely ther Federation, and by extention, us.
My need for dramatic conflict in the plot reveal scene necessitated his creation. You have to admit it reads much better than “Here’s the situation gentlemen, the Vulcans are royally screwed bla bla bla blah..”
I needed somebody who could go toe to toe with Spock on an intellectual level but had a completely different worldview, so I took George C Scott’s two great generals, George Patton and Buck Turgidson, added a liberal amount of Jack Nicholson’s Col Jessup, a dash of G Gordon Liddy and Oliver North and just a sprinkle of the Watchmen’s “Comedian” , mixed it all up with a New York sized ego with attitude to match and Voila! Stanley (like the tool he is) Ridgeway a “Bad Admiral” that makes the most recent BA, the weak-willed and tired-looking Admiral Doughrty, look like a cream puff by comparison.
In the end he’ll probably be inspired by Kirk & co to have a change of heart and sacrifice himself to save the day in some suitably spectacular fashion, but he promises to give us a lot of hissable moments and quite a few laughs before that happens.
Trekmovie is reporting The Discovery Channels Mythbusters
will be testing the feasability Of the Makeshift cannon Kirk used to defeat The Gorn in Arena.
Mythbuster Grant Imahara will be wearing A blue Starfleet uniform during the test .
crash dummy Buster will be wearing a red shirt.
sorry I dont have a link ,
but if you go to TrekMovie
They not only have the original cannon clip from Arena,
but also clips of past cannons created by the Mythbusters.
This will happen in their next fan special sometimes next year.
@ Steve:
“The Ultimate Computer: Kirk to Daystrom?”
Bingo! Now it’s your turn again, Paisan.
Are we having fun yet, hahaha?
~Johnny
@ Brighteyes:
HAHAHAHA, “and [General] Buck Turgidson”…
“Gentlemen, please! You can’t fight in here, this is the War Room!”
Don’t sugarcoat it for us, BE, we can handle the truth!
And you’re right, Stanley is a good name for a tool!
~Johnny
@ Gary:
All due respect to Grant Imahara, I’d give anything to see Kari in a starfleet miniskirt! Okay, she’s white and a red-headed Irisher, but, hey, she looks as good as Nichelle Nichols ever did if you ask me…
Hey, how ’bout a gold shirt? Seems like Jamie or Adam ought to be wearing one of those, doncha think?
Lemme see, a rigid tube, a pointy stone to drill out the touch-hole, some coal or other carbon, some diamonds or other hard gems to act as bullets, some sulphur, some flint to make a spark over the makeshift fuse – yep, that oughta be within the Mythbusters’ skill set!
Poor Buster!
I can’t wait, thanx for the heads-up, Gary.
~Johnny
Johhny,
I hear you but I am not sure about Karris due date.
She miight be on maternity leave by then.
They say Grant is wearing Blue Because its a Science Officers uniform.
LOL! with all the explosive these guys use ,
I wish I could be a “Scientist” like them!
oops !
Kari I meant .
As a rule, I wouldn’t want a movie to be a retread of a TOS episode, even a great one like Balance of Terror.
Still, elements of that episode would work really nicely with the treament I am working on.
The more astute of you have realized where I intend to go with this, that Vulco-Romulan re-unification is the key to the Vucans’ salvation (at least in the short term)
Rigeway’s plan to “jump start” re-unification (much like we jump started democracy in Iraq) is not at all popular in the Admiralty and neither is he. The reason he is in that room is that he has correctly deduced the cause of the Vulcan attacks. The Admiralty and the Federation will insist on a diplomatic solution. Spock Prime will volunteer but Starfleet will not permit it due to the risk of SP being captured and interrogated for his knowlege.
Guess who gets to be the Federation’s “olive branch”
Tragicly, while the events in First Contact, Enterprise, etc have changed things a great deal in the Federation, the Romulan time line has remained pretty much the same. As the Enterprise embarks for the Neutral Zone on a mission of peace, one of the Preator’s finest and proudest flagships is embarking on a mission of war.
I like it.
Even more tragicly, Spock Prime has not told anybody what a cloaking device is because that is precisely the kind of technology that would make Ridgeway’s suggestion viable.
At this time the Federation has no knowlege of cloaking technology and our heroes are about to be surprised….again.
Those of you who would like to take a crack at writing what happens next shouldn’t pay too much heed to the throwaway line “Their power is simple impulse” used in BOT. What I’m sure they meant is that they detected no warp signature from the cloaked Romulan. This would make sense if Cloak 1.0 could hide a ship but not it’s warp signature, the Roms would have to go sub-light in order to sneak up on their prey. The situation is similar on the submarines of today, prefectly capable of the same speeds of a surface vessel, but to go that fast would give away their location by prop cavitation and plant noise.
“But what about “The Enterprise Incident” ” I hear you say, “Didn’t the Enterprise cloak at warp 9?”
Ah, but that was with Cloak 2.0 , a much improved version. The Romulans could never penetrate deep into enemy territory undetected with Cloak 1.0. The ability to cloak a vessel’s warp field as well as the ship itself is what made cloak 2.0 a weapon so deadly that the Federation had to employ extreme measures to obtain a copy.
I’ll bet if we put our heads together we could come up with a hell of a script. Shall we try it, just for fun.
I’ve started the ball rolling with a pretty kick-ass premise, and the next scene is writing itself in my head.
You’re gonna LOVE what comes next.
@ Brighteyes:
Don’t forget about Chaing’s BoP, in ST/VI: It could not only hide its warp signature, but could remain cloaked even while firing a torpedo, except for just a flash of a fraction of a second – and Spock was there when Uhura figured out that all the gas anomaly-detecting equipment hey had aboard the Enterprise might be adapted to one of their Starfleet torpedoes, so he even knows how to defeat it.
And if Spock would never reveal any of his secrets, why did he give Scotty (as a young man) his own formula back to him so he and Kirk could transwarp-beam onto the Enterprise in the first place? Obviously, he has enough intelligence to discern what could be changed thru his intervention, and those events that could not possibly be changed by any ‘meddling’. Like no one else would. Space is a great insulator, even in the 23rd Century.
Good observation on the risk of Ambassador Spock’s capture, I hadn’t thought of that – and I still say, he has 135 years of the knowledge of things that are still gonna happen anyway, the kind of things that would not be affected by Nero’s corruption of the timeline.
Hmmmm, Ed Harris as someone named ‘Stanley’ – I like it!
@ Gary:
I didn’t know Kari was pregnant – lucky daddy!
~Johnny
Lot’s of good stuff. I have to catch up.
OK, so I’m up for the next quote. Hopefully this one will be easy (so someone else can get a quote in!)
“Soon, Captain… quite soon…”
Good luck, and good night.
~Doc
@ Steve:
Okay, Doc, that is a TOS movie qute, but not from the series, but that’s okay by me, I’ll take it:
Valkris, Lord Kruge’s operative (and main squeeze) in ST-III/TSFS, right before he blasted her – and all the other men onboard the merchantman ship – into space debris after she made the mistake of telling him she saw the Genesis Presentation made by Carol Marcus.
~Johnny
TOS movie QUOTE, I mean, sorry…
~Johnny