Star Trek [2009] Sci-Fi // Action

Having seen fully every episode, movie, and subsequent next generation of STAR TREK, I speak with some authority when I say the new movie was ...okay. It had some good bad stuff, and some good stuff. Some awful stuff and some great stuff. 

So let's get into my biggest gripes (besides the lens flair yatta yatta) first before what I liked. Just as a heads up, this will contain spoilers.

• The college frat house atmosphere.

Seriously, what's with this? For the life of me, it just doesn't seem to fit. I suppose it's a demographic target thing, but it really got on my nerves. These are 30 year old people and a seventeen year old. I get that they're recruits, I get they're new, but I don't get why all of them are such children. The original was a bit goofy, but this was such injustice.

• The script. 

I'm split on this one, but I think I did dislike it more than I liked it. It's well executed, but it's just so so cliche it's actually painful. Unfortunately, the novel and forward thinking charm was lost with this film. It was, at its core, an ACTION film, and that kinda irked me because there was no deeper layer. It play-by-play found ways to veil plot-reminder-dumps (albeit extremely well exicuted), but it still felt like a "here is what is gonna happen lol but something is gonna go wrong uh oh" the ENTIRE time. But this is subjective. I wanted something thought provoking. I wanted ADMIRAL Kirk. Instead, I got Frat Fuckboi Kirk. Not a fan.

• The extreme use of Deus Ex Machina to shoe horn in what ostensibly boils down to a glorified cameo. 

Look, I'm all for giving Lenard Neemoy a chance to be Spock again, but the flimsy and outright ridiculous way it was executed was a problem. While we're at it, let's just add

• The plot in general.

It irked me. The entire plot was this: ʅ(◔◡◔✿)ʃ  Oh, you're first officer lel. Oh, you're meeting Nemoy on Hoth. kek. Oh, you're fucking running around talking some shit about time travel and black holes and blah blah
 There is just something really strange about "You're first officer now  ʅ(◔◡◔✿)ʃ"

• The inconsistent tone and awkward story arcs.

The best part of this movie was watching Pike lead, not watching Kirk act like a child. 

What I liked:

I'll start with something I'm ambivalent on, and that's how many scenes were actually other scenes...Let me explain:

This first time I noticed this was the scene where Ahora bitches Spock out and gets herself onto the Enterprise. It's ostensibly an "ex girlfriend confront sleaze bag guy". In fact, I found many of these little scenes shoe horned in. It's pretty thinly veiled, but my Mom didn't pick up on it--so it's certainly forgivable.

There are quite a few of these on the bridge discussion that range from Breakfast Club style monologing to outright,

• The mannerisms of the side characters. 

These were captured, albeit through a different vibe, extremely well. Bones is especially well done. Ahorah being a strong independent African woman has been given a different spin on spunk, but she's basically the same. Scotty is bit more goofy, but I think that's okay. Sulu was given a reason to joust and actually made more serious. All in all, they're all very well cast actors. It's supposed to be goofy. It's not supposed to be like this new Star Wars movie. It's a self aware movie.

• The goofy fist fights being more or less exactly how they were in the original.

We all remember the classic double-fist to the back instant knock out, or the unnecessary barrel roll and subsequent phaser blast. In true form, these goons in the new movie lost their phasers just as often and got in ridiculous fist fights. This stays true.

• The graphics. 

Lens flair not withstanding, I think it's pretty awesome. However, I still have to give it to Star Trek 3 for the "reveal" of the Enterprise. However, this film gave us that obvious green scene shot where Kirk is looking out ON EARTH at a ship getting build. That's new. That's memorable. Unfortunately, there wasn't much else memorable.


Overall, this film is basically exactly what you'd expect from the people who made it. It's good, but it's not true justice to what a Trek film is, at least to me. It has no soul.