I'm not much of a fan of the original Star Trek series. I was not yet born when it first aired in '66 and I was still a toddler when it was syndicated on TV in the 70s. My own Trek fascination began with the Patrick Stewart-led Star Trek: The Next Generation. I am acquainted though with the original series which starred William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy as Captain James T. Kirk and Commander Spock, respectively, having watched several episodes when the original series was re-run in the 90s on the local tube. And I've watched several of the films as well so you could say I'm not completely a dum-dum when it comes to these things.
Nevertheless, others, especially younger ones born in the late 80s and early 90s who are fascinated with space operas and the like will have a harder time reconciling who Kirk and Spock are as their indoctrination to the Star Trek franchise would either be TNG, Deep Space 9, Voyager or Enterprise. Or, one of the several Trek films that already featured the TNG cast.
On that note however, the most recent reincarnation of Star Trek on the big screen is a welcome treat for those who are familiar with the franchise (the old-Trekkies) and newbies to the universe created by Gene Roddenberry.
Helmed by the popular J.J. Abrams, working on a script penned by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, this new retelling of Star Fleet is essentially original material. Unlike other films that have rebooted their respective franchises, the Star Trek reboot works because it manages to disassociate itself from the continuity and the canons of the older Trek franchises. I mean, how many times will you want to see a teenage get bitten by a radioactive spider? How many ways are there to tell the story of how an alien crashlands on Earth, is raised by farmer folks in Kansas and becomes a superdude? How do you retell why gamma rays radiated on an unsuspecting scientist transforms him into a green-hued monster?
The new Star Trek breaks off from the norm of "retelling" by reimagining the universe. It's both departing from the universe that Roddenberry created and embracing the familiar. And kudos to the scriptwriters for thinking beyond the usual and coming up with a storyline that marries the familiar and the unfamiliar. By using the element of time travel and fanciful use of "changing the past to alter the future", old and new Trekkies now have a fresh starting point. No need to really consult the older franchises as the team of Abrams-Orci-Kurtzman have created a Star Trek for today.
Because of time traveling events in the movie, the development of the characters, most notably Kirk, have been differentiated from their previous '66 incarnations. Whereas the '66 Trek's Kirk grew up to be an intelligent, confident, tactical, and adventurous Starfleet officer supported by an equally-successful Starfleet officer father; in the new Trek, Kirk grew up to be intelligent, confident, tactical, and adventurous but also rebellious and a tad arrogant -- a result of growing up without a real father figure (a result of the Romulan Nero coming into contact with Kirk's father 25 years earlier and promptly destroying him leaving the yet-to-be-born James Kirk an orphan). We will also see how the time traveling disasters will change Spock's character. In the old Trek, Spock remained attuned to his Vulcan ways for much of the series as the influence of Vulcan remained strong but in the new Trek, his homeworld is already destroyed with no more than 10,000 Vulcans remaining. The most disturbing aspect would be the early death of Spock's mother and his supposedly failure to save her during the destruction of Vulcan. How this plays in future installments of the franchise will allow us to see the development of a familiar yet unfamiliar Spock.
By doing so, Star Trek '09 is breaking its strings from the confines of the past series. While the universal canons of Star Trek will remain, it will be free to explore the Trek universe in ways that would be appealing to old fans of the series while welcoming a new generation of fans. If there's a reboot that displays how a reboot should be done, this Star Trek has done it superbly.
Storywise, the script is plausible as it has been evidenced in past franchises that time travel is possible albeit at times accidental. The script again works because it does not alienate the viewer being familiar and yet new as well. Fans will still feel that this is their Trek universe while new fans will not feel as though there's a huge backstory that one needs to get back to. Hopefully, future installments won't make the mistake of referencing to the older Treks because the recent movie has already taken that step "where no man has gone before."
While the central story theme is of quite seriousness, the movie has its share of humor -- a trademark of the series.
The actors have been excellently cast, in my opinion. Chris Pine as the new Kirk makes a solid case for reprising the role. He'll be the new face of the Star Trek franchise. Zachary Quinto as Spock has received the stamp of approval from Leonard Nimoy. He gets mine too and it'll probably be that I''ll recall Quinto more for his role as Spock nowadays than his previous role as Sylar in the Heroes TV series. The others in the cast -- Karl Urban as Bones McCoy, Zoe Saldana as Uhura, Simon Pegg as Scotty, and John Cho as Sulu all played their roles quite well that we'll feel differently if they don't return (like how jarring it was in The Dark Knight to see Maggie Gyllenhaal playing Rachel Dawes when in the first installment it was played by Katie Holmes, or how weird to see Don Cheadle as Dusty Rhodes in Iron Man 2 when we all got used to seeing Terrence Howard play that bit in IM1). Eric Bana as the ultimate protagonist, Nero, was ho-hum for me. Producers could've made do with a less popular actor but I guess they were also counting on a big-ticket star playing a lead villain role help in the ticket numbers. We even got to see a bit of Thor, este ... Chris Hemson, in the opening minutes of the film as the doomed first officer-turned-captain, George T. Kirk, the would-be father of James T. Kirk.
The special effects and CGI were, as expected amazingly done. I think that's to be expected with anything Star Trek and given the eye for detail of JJ Abrams, surely he didn't settle for anything less than perfect. The Federation ships, including the designs of their shuttle crafts remained faithful to their designs from the old Trek franchises although there were improvisations which didn't hurt at all. I particularly liked their concept space station that had all the Starfleet ships docked by their saucers.
All in all, totally enjoyed the movie although it was already the second time I watched it on DVD. I was in Star Trek hang-over mode well until yesterday. The first time I saw the film, it didn't stick because I wasn't able to fully concentrate on watching it due to distractions.
Let's hope the next installments of Star Trek would continue to thrill all of us, Trekkies old and new (the next movie is up on 2012). This new Trek has satiated my Trek thirst and has even made me want more.
Final Rating: 5/5
