{"id":3682,"date":"2009-05-11T06:35:05","date_gmt":"2009-05-10T22:35:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chekyang.com\/musings\/?p=3682"},"modified":"2018-03-14T11:29:48","modified_gmt":"2018-03-14T03:29:48","slug":"star-trek","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2009\/05\/11\/star-trek\/","title":{"rendered":"Star Trek"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"blog-st-01\"Star Trek<\/em><\/a> (2009). While I\u2019m not as serious a Trekkie than say some of those fellows who attend the Star Trek<\/em> conventions, I think I\u2019ve seen enough of the 43 year old series now. I was really looking forward to the 2009 film that brings audiences back to the early days of the original Enterprise crew since it was first announced.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, one theatre viewing later at Ang Mo Kio hub on Friday evening, I\u2019m left with mixed feelings.<\/p>\n

What went well? For starters, the visuals are amazing. The opening battle scene in space reminds me of the similar battle in Revenge of the Sith<\/a><\/em>, if on a smaller scale. There\u2019s also a scene where Kirk gets chased by a huge critter at the ice planet Delta Vega: that was one scary looking computer-generated fellow.<\/p>\n

Surprisingly too, most of the cast did a great job in their roles, with many nods towards famous scenes and lines repeated from the series and earlier films or just new takes. These would include Spock\u2019s lines on theoretical improbability, Kirk\u2019s reaction to the hypospray, the doomed Red-Shirt, and the Kobayashi Maru<\/em> scene, first introduced in II: The Wrath of Khan<\/em>. All delightful and funny at the right spots. Zachary Quinto \u2013 Heroes<\/em>\u2019 Sylar \u2013 as the pointy-eared \u2018bastard\u2019 Spock is Leonard Nimoy\u2019s Spock channeled, and really deserves all the praise heaped on him by critics for his role in the film. Karl Urban has Dr. Leonard \u2018Bones\u2019 McCoy nailed down too.<\/p>\n

But Chris Pine\u2019s Kirk is painful to watch. In trying to portray a younger and uninhibited James T. Kirk, what you get instead is a smug and arrogant prick that you’d be pining \u2013 no pun intended \u2013 for this ass to disappear alongside Vulcan into the Black Hole. So Shatner’s Kirk also bedded alien women. But at least his Kirk was charming<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"image\"<\/p>\n

But what really was the biggest problem for me? It was the story. No sophistication. No subtlety. And worse of all, employing the oldest and most tired plot device in Star Trek<\/em>: time-travel\u2026 yet again. OK; time-travel stories are tricky to do, but they\u2019ve been films that did them well: e.g. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home<\/em> and VIII: First Contact<\/em>.<\/p>\n

But the story in the 2009 film does something that none of the earlier films or TV series did. The new film uses a time-travel story to, basically, turn the entire Trek universe upside down. It introduces several key story events that renders inconsistent every other story that\u2019s been already told in the last 43 years, barring the Enterprise<\/em> TV series from 2001. In modern entertainment technology, it should had been called a \u2018reboot\u2019 \u2013 except that it isn\u2019t, since the story starts <\/em>in the correct (and only) timeline, but 10 minutes into it, branches into an alternate one. And throughout the movie it reminds audiences explicitly through the inclusion of the \u2018old\u2019 Spock played by Nimoy that the new story really ties in with the existing timeline.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not dead set against reboots. Chris Nolan\u2019s two Batman<\/em> movies have shown audiences how it\u2019s done. And the recently-ended Battlestar Galactica: Reimagined<\/em> series shows that you can redo an entire series while remaining respectful of the earlier material. I think the new Star Trek<\/em> film would had done better if it\u2019d simply declared itself as a total and new reboot with no references to earlier material.<\/p>\n

Story-wise, it\u2019s the earlier scenes that work better than the rest. Early on we get to see Kirk\u2019s birth amidst exploding chaos (literally) and Spock\u2019s childhood.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, as soon as Eric Bana\u2019s Nero shows up near Vulcan the story goes into lazy auto-drive mode. You get a villain returned from 150 years in the future, armed with a super-powered ship Narada<\/em> that blows apart everything the Federation throws at it. The ship’s invincible (boring) but you never know why apart from merely that it comes from the future. Villain\u2019s motivated by revenge, but you\u2019ll never really feel any empathy for him. Kirk, Spock and the new Enterprise crew defeat him with lots of explosions, phaser fights thrown in. And upon victory, the Enterprise warps away to discover new worlds and lifeforms over Nimoy’s “Space: The Final Frontier” voice-over. That\u2019s it for the story.<\/p>\n

And as for Nero\u2019s little time-travel jaunt, where\u2019s the Relativity<\/em><\/a> starship when you need her? That vessel is from the 29th century \u2013 which employs technology superior to Narada<\/em> by 400 years if one wants to go with the technology by years game. And that ship, established in Voyager<\/em>, was to watch out for time anomaly freak shows like this.<\/p>\n

And the Enterprise sets are incongruent. The Enterprise bridge and corridors are so pretty and perfectly manicured that it looks like a storefront by Apple. But the engine room looks like a 1940s refinery with its big pipes and steel columns!<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s the musical chairs equivalent scene of \u201cWho wants to be Captain\u201d. Utterly stupid.<\/p>\n

And the superfluous fencing scene between Sulu and the Bad Romulan. Why do Starfleet officers carry phasers if they\u2019re not going to use them in fights to the death? Might as well issue all of them with pirate-y sabres and red bandannas instead. Arrrrrrr!!!<\/p>\n

————<\/p>\n

In all, whether one will enjoy the movie depends on how serious a fan of Trek one is. Ling has seen all the films, and most of Voyager<\/em>, but doesn\u2019t really know the story\u2019s universe \u2013 she liked the new Star Trek <\/em>film. If you\u2019re not a (big) fan and thus without reference point, you\u2019ll enjoy it too.<\/p>\n

Me, this was yet another missed opportunity. Great visuals and effects, great cast, largely great acting, but a story that made me cringe.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Star Trek (2009). While I\u2019m not as serious a Trekkie than say some of those fellows who attend the Star Trek conventions, I think I\u2019ve seen enough of the 43 year old series now. I was really looking forward to<\/p>\n

Read More Star Trek<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[376],"class_list":["post-3682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-star-trek","wpcat-10-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3682\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}