Star Trek

I saw the new film on Friday. And I have mixed feelings. It was not as bad as I had feared. Some aspects of the film were very good. Some were not so good.

If you have read my earlier post, you know I had major concerns about the film. Then the early reviews started coming onto websites and into magazines and the general verdict was that Star Trek was very good. The only negative comments I have read are on George RR Martin's blog.

So, my verdict. I won't go into a plot synopsis. There were a number of elements that worked well. I had raised concerns over new actors playing iconic roles. That was one area that really surprised me. Chris Pine played Kirk very well and found a fine line between being a cocky, arrogant young man and a rounded person. Zachary Quinto created a recognisable Spock, but showed the conflict between logic and emotion effectively. Karl Urban was a very good Bones, but underused. Uhura was fine. Sulu and Chekov were both okay. My concerns about the characters were completely unfounded. Bruce Greenwood provided some gravitas as Christopher Pike and Eric Bana was unrecognisable, but good as Nero. But like some of the other actors was underused.

There were some cute nods to the history of the show and films to appease the fans.

The new Enterprise design worked well, although I'm not completely sold on the bridge.

The film was exciting and flew by. But...

The science and the plot left something to be desired. The use of black holes to time travel was dodgy and the fact that Spock arrived exactly twenty five years after Nero only to find Nero waiting for him was a little convenient. The use of the old time travel plot device chestnut is becoming a tired cliche for Star Trek plots. I understand that it was a clever way to set up an alternative timeline for the Trek universe, but I think I would have been happier to have seen a complete reboot with the new actors rather than an effort to pander to the fans in this way. The red matter was, again, convenient and only existed as a lazy way of keeping the plot moving.

And move it did. The pace never let up. Which was a shame as some of the character moments were lost and some of the moral concerns that could have been utilised were not given a chance to be aired. We saw the destruction of Vulcan, yet it was curiously unemotional and if you are to destroy one of the central tenets of Star Trek, surely you need to pay a lot more attention to it.

Simon Pegg as Scotty felt as if he had walked in from a different film. He was okay, but nothing more. Sulu's fight scene was a bit strange. Yes, he fenced in the original series, but would he really have taken a sword on a mission where he has just plummeted through a planet's atmosphere? Chekov's accent was a mouthful or two too far and it was a bit far fetched to see him as a mathematical genius.

The meeting of original Spock and Kirk was nicely done, but Spock meeting Spock was somewhat superfluous. It made for a wow moment, but didn't seem to serve any other purpose.

Another problem was the direction. The handheld shaky camerawork was so rapid that a lot of the interesting visual design was lost. I know that the sensibilities of modern Hollywood are for this style of filming, but some sense of location and some attention to the sets and effects would be nice. And what the **** was it with the lens flare? At times the lighting felt amateur. Yes, it is a stylistic decision, but after a while just looked lame and coupled with the rapid whip pans meant that more visual information was lost.

The plot doesn't stand up to much scrutiny when you really look at it.

Spock and Uhura. Mmmmm. This was an interesting choice. The writer's certainly seemed to have put the main focus on the Vulcan, but a smart young woman getting her commission on the Enterprise only because she is in a relationship with Spock diminishes her independence. It was also a shame that they spent so much time telling us how smart and qualified Uhura was, only to get her in her underwear at the earliest opportunity. It is nice to see an attractive woman in her underwear, but this character didn't need to be sexualised in this way. It was enough to see a smart woman make her way on her skills. And smart is sexy.

The film missed a lot of the elements that made Trek great. The moralising, the exploration of the human condition, debating issues of prejudice, politics and the suchlike. Did it actually do anything that was really that new and fresh?

As an energised Hollywood blockbuster it ticked all the boxes. It has reignited the Trek brand. But it has also missed many of the ingredients that made Trek what it was. So, it was a fun summer movie; an okay Trek movie; but it wasn't quite Star Trek.

Interestingly, I watched Balance of Terror from the original series a couple of days later. And realised that a degree of intelligence was missing from the film. it was all show, but was missing some heart. Trek could be very hokey and silly, but at its best provided thought provoking and boundary breaking episodes. Any sequel should try to hook into these aspects, but I'm guessing it will be another action packed adventure.