Star Trek

When they first announced the new Star Trek, I wasn’t enthused.  I felt sure it would be screwed up, and JJ Abrams has a pretty spotty record as far as I’m concerned.  Add that to the fact that Mr. Abrams was a professed Non-Trekker and I was a little nervous.

But when the news hit that they were moving Star Trek from a November release to a May summer tentpole release, I started to become intrigued.  I figured there must be something to the movie if Paramount felt that they could compete with supermutants and cyborgs.

The weekend finally arrived and as I sat there in the crowded theater, I realized that this was a pretty big event.  Sure, Hollywood has gone bonkers over reboots over the last few years, but this was Star Trek.  It’s practically a religion to millions of people.

And they pulled it off.  Star Trek is easily the best movie of this year, and even its successors this movie season are going to have a hard time matching its vigor.  Star Trek is the Iron Man of 2009.

I have written about time travel before on my blog so it should be come as no surprise to anyone for me to say that I absolutely hate time travel.  It almost always creates more problems than it solves, and it’s nearly impossible to properly recover from.

But I realized as I watched Star Trek that what I really hate is Back To The Future style time travel.  This concept of going back and changing the present is an impossible scenario that is bound to lead to disaster.

This Star Trek embraces a broader (and potentially more scientifically viable) approach to time travel that supports the position that there are an infinite number of timelines, all co-exisiting.  Time Travel by these means isn’t so much time traveling as it is timeline jumping.

It is the crux of this approach to time travel that makes Star Trek possible.  It is the macguffin that makes it easy to dismiss all of the inconsistencies with the original series, and the trick that makes this movie the first true reboot we’ve ever gotten.

Star Trek doesn’t destroy 40 years of Star Trek; it validates it.  While we were watching Kirk and Spock galavant around on their five-year mission, there was a different Kirk and Spock who had a completely different world to deal with.  One where Spock had even more issues to suppress, and Kirk had cause to be just a little bit crazier.

This movie so perfectly captures the spirit of Star Trek that the viewer spends almost no time pondering the differences.  It is folly to do so because the script dares you to argue with it.  It is a self-aware script that deals with inconsistencies before the viewer can even assess their impact.

But where they don’t fool you with script, they do so with acting.  The cast they have assembled to fill these classic roles is absolutely amazing.  I did not think it possible to get a set of actors who so perfectly could match their predecessors.

Although I expected to like Zachary Quinto as Spock the most, I ended up being far more impressed with Chris Pine.  He embodied Kirk without being a parody which was a tall order considering the original Kirk himself was nearly a parody.

The Kirk in this universe is a little more brazon, a little more cocky (if you can believe it), and a touch crazier.  While we always knew Kirk to be a tad on the impetuous side, this new Kirk is downright bat-crazy at some points.  He was written with a an almost Jack Sparrowesque appeal — crazy but in control; unstable but reliable.

And our new Spock isn’t quite like the old, either.  His emotions aren’t buried quite as deep, making him seem to favor his human side more than his Vulcan.  Although a departure from the original Spock, the more apparent war between his halves was an interesting addition to the film.

In fact, we see his feuding halves become the very reason that he cannot accomplish what Kirk can.  While Kirk embraces his humanity, Spock’s inability to embrace either side makes him almost a liability to the Enterprise.  This gets at the heart of the original series and makes you feel Star Trek all over again.

The writers did not hesitate to cram in all of the references they could.  If there was a catch-phrase you loved from the original series, it’s practically a guarantee that you’ll find it in this film.  From “I’m a doctor…” to “I’m givin’ her all she’s got.”, they’re all here.

Rather than take itself as the successor of a devout group of movies, Star Trek embraces the fun of the original — it was called Wagon Train to the stars for a reason.  I don’t even think Gene Roddenberry himself meant for it to carry much gravitas.

It was through this infectious approach that he was able to tackle weighty topics without being judged.  He could have interracial kisses and soviet dissertations with a wink and a smile.  It wasn’t real afterall.  It was all just science fiction make believe.

Though this movie doesn’t tackle any particularly weighty issue, what it does do is capture the essence of Star Trek.  With superb acting, a surprisingly self-aware script, and a serviceable story that opens the doors wide for a whole new Trekverse, this movie couldn’t have done much more right.

Whether you are a Trekker of old, or someone who never quite ‘got it’, this film is for you.  You will likely either find yourself happily revisiting your inner Trekker, or discovering for the first time what Trek is really all about.  Either way, it’ll be a heck of a ride.

Verdict: A Tilt: A+