Sunday, May 17, 2009

Notes on Star Trek: Thank God for J.J. Abrams

After J.J. Abrams totally blew my mind with the season finale of LOST, I decided to cap off the weekend by seeing Star Trek. Now I think all of you know where my loyalties lie in the great cultural battle known as Star Trek v. Star Wars. I am firmly in the Star Wars camp, despite George Lucas' repeated attempt to defile his own creation. At least it started as genius while Trek was riddled with absurdity from day one.

It is my contention that J.J. Abrams has saved Star Trek from the laughing stock of pop culture by improving upon the Trek story line while at the same time keeping true to the characters we love and nodding to its campiness.

Some thoughts (spoiler alert!):

1. J.J. Abrams is a marketing genius. He managed to find a way to give us a young Spock while at the same time giving us the old, beloved Leonard Nimoy Spock. And better yet, he didn't see the need to send Nimoy Spock back to his appropriate time period, so he can trot him out for all the sequels that are sure to follow. Smart move J.J. but why not work in Shatner next time as well?

2. Casting was great. I thought the main crew was well cast, especially Scottie. Love that guy. I do have to question the choice to give Dr. McCoy more of a back seat role in this film... Kirk needs him to balance Spock. Just a thought.

3. I wish J.J. would have explained how the Grand Canyon showed up in Iowa. Or whatever that giant crater was supposed to be that James T. drives the roadster into as a wild youth. Anyone who has ever been to Iowa knows there is no cavernous rock formation that big in Iowa.

4. I love that J.J. has a sense of humor. One of the main reasons People Who Hate Trek, hate Trek is the predictability of certain situations. Trouble on an isolated world? Well let’s beam down the captain and most of the executive officers (plus one officer we have never seen before). Who dies in the dangerous situation? The no-name officer, of course. Everyone else escapes unscathed. J.J. cleverly worked this quirk into one of Kirk’s early adventures by adding “Olsen” to the Kirk/Zulu commando unit. Without giving away the details, Olsen doesn’t make it back to USS Enterprise.

5. One of the early laugh lines in the film is when we discover that Zulu’s hand-to-hand combat expertise is in fencing. Then he whips out some kind of swiss army knife sword and goes to town on a Romulan. Note to JJ… leave the swordplay to Star Wars.

6. Has anyone else noticed that all sounds in Hollywood’s concept of “space” are starting to sound alike?

7. If you are afraid of heights, this is not a good movie for you. My mom had to close her eyes through half the movie. There was a recurring theme of Kirk falling off the edges of cliffs and getting his ass pounded by just about everyone in the movie.

8. The torture scene. Disappointing. We see Capt. Pike strapped to a board, surrounded by water. I was like… OH NO THEY AREN’T! I really thought I was about to see the Romulan Capt. Nero waterboard a federation official! But I guess the producers lost their cajones and instead we got to see some squirmy bug thing dropped in Pike’s mouth. Now, if this was a nod to the famous scene in the Wrath of Khan where Khan drops the burrowing bugs in the Starfleet officer’s ear… it fell a bit short. Some things can not be improved upon. That scene still freaks my shit out after 25 years.

9. Medical advancement. We’ve achieved time-travel but haven’t been able to alleviate pain from childbirth? I mean, even Lucas came up with a Lamaze Droid. And what about poor Captain Pike confined to a wheelchair because of the bug that ate his brainstem? Couldn’t McCoy just wave that magical wand thing over him and cure him? No robotic legs even? I guess that is the difference between a Galaxy Far, Far Away and our own, boring galaxy of the future.

10. New and Improved Romulans! Dropping the vagina-headed aliens was a great leap forward for Trek. Not to say that the remaining aliens looked great. Bringing aliens to the screen is a continuing problem for film makers. If you go with costumed characters, its easy to end up with the Mos Eisley Cantina… but if you go with CGI characters you end up with Jar Jar Binks. It is a difficult balance to strike, but costumed aliens who are subtle and humanoid seem to work best… like Vulcans.

11. What the heck is red matter? Is it like the Force? Does it bind us all together? Is it like a super-powerful tractor beam? Is this part of the Trek canon? I don’t follow the series close enough to know whether or not I was supposed to know what red matter is or not.
I just re-read this list and it reads like a list of complaints. It really isn’t. I thoroughly enjoyed this movie and look forward to the sequels. But while I liked the back story on the characters and learning how the classic crew of Enterprise got together, I thought the overall plot was just so-so. It was episodic and the bad guys weren’t very compelling. I guess this has always been the problem I have had with Star Trek; there isn’t a great showdown between good and evil which sometimes leaves the plot feeling a bit hollow.
I think it’s safe to say that one of J.J. Abrams favorite themes is time travel. Now riddle me this, batman… if the Trek theory of time travel holds true, then can we assume that J.J. will apply the same theory to LOST resolution? Is Faraday wrong? (i.e. Whatever Happened, Happened. Can’t change the past.) The plot thickens.
Thanks for entertaining me again, J.J. It’s going to be a long 8 months until LOST resumes.

UPDATE: I got my aliens confused. It was the Klingons that had the vagina-like heads, not the Romulans. I don't think we've seen J.J.'s Klingons yet so they may still look ridiculous.

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