Review: Star Trek

[pointedview]

Just some very quick thoughts about the new Star Trek movie, which we saw this past Saturday. I've had three posts in my head for a week or so, and haven't had time to sit down and transcribe them. I suppose that catching up with the things you missed while you were away is the price of vacation. It'd save me a lot of time if I could blog telepathically. :)

Anyway, regarding the movie, I liked it a lot, but did have a few quibbles. I'd probably give it about a 90 out of 100.

Pros:

• Karl Urban as McCoy. I was pleased when I heard that he had been cast because it seemed like a good choice, but I had no idea he'd be that entertaining. I was especially impressed with his voice work. Hollywood grossly overdoes Southern accents 99% of the time. It's much harder to keep it subtle, but that's just what he did. It's my understanding that he worked with a voice coach, and it shows. New Zealand may be halfway around the world from Ole Miss, but you wouldn't know it from Urban's performance. I also liked Sulu's successor (I totally want that sword, by the way).


• A few critics, Ebert among them, have cluck-clucked to the effect of, "Star Trek used to be smarter," as a way of criticizing the action-heavy plot. I love reading Ebert's reviews, and I agree that it's important to preserve Roddenberry's vision of philosophical and scientific query, however, we've got to save the franchise first. Paramount won't finance stories like that if there's no one there to watch them. It was time to reinvent Trek, and I think this was a very positive introduction for a new generation, outside of the few minuses listed below. It wasn't ponderous exposition: it did what it needed to do in terms of introducing and establishing the characters without being tedious.


• Leonard Nimoy. He's 78 years old. If this is his last appearance in his signature role, then he certainly could have done worse. I thought the passing of the torch was handled very gracefully. Passing is only because of the necessity of the human life span. To me, and to many fans, he will always be the true Spock.

Ambivalencies:

• I'm not 100% sold on Zachary Quinto as Spock. I get what he was doing in the first part of the film as an actor before the transition to a slightly more Nimoy-like Spock after discussing his mother's death with his father, but even after the shift, he seems a more emotional Spock than the cooler Spock of the series. It's not lack of skill as an actor; I can get with his depiction of a younger Spock that doesn't have total mastery over his emotions. He's plenty capable of delivering contained heat, and had clearly thought about what he was doing in trying to deliver a nuanced portrayal. We'll see if he can eventually get to full Vulcan restraint as the performance evolves and the character matures.


• Speaking of Vulcans, while Ben Cross did just fine, I miss Mark Lenard as Sarek. Yes, I know he's dead and couldn't come back from the grave to play the part. I'm just saying.

Cons:

• I could have done without Keenser, Scotty's alien companion. The line, "I have been, and always will be, your friend," was touching, and should have been left alone in moving simplicity. I don't need a laugh track on my comedies to tell me when something's funny, and I don't need a Greek chorus to tell me when there's a poignant moment on the screen. Mercifully, Keenser's screen time was brief, and did not turn into Jar-Jar.


• I am very much WTF on the Spock/Uhura pairing. I realize that this is a reboot, but it seemed gratuitous. If it was a ham-handed attempt to echo Sarek's choice of a human wife, it didn't work well. Completely unnecessary. I'm a casual Trek fan, and out of all the series, I've seen the least of the original, but even I know that such a pairing stomps all over canon.


• Vulcan. I'm not torn up about this the way that many dedicated fans are, but I do sympathize with them and think their feelings are legitimate. While it sets up a great loss for Spock as a character, as a pragmatist and as a writer, I'm just wondering if they're going to regret taking it out, 'cause then they don't have easy access to it later. Rather than having the entire planet destroyed, couldn't they just have damaged half of it or something? Now, if they want to use it as a resource, they're going to have to do time travel again, or maybe some sort of crystalline archive, and going to that well so many times gets old in a hurry, in my opinion.


• I think Chekov's successor was the weakest member of the new cast. He looks nothing like Walter Koenig, and it's pretty easy to do an exaggerated Russian accent. I find it hard to believe that this was the best they could do.

Except for the non-canon relationship I mentioned, I really do consider these minor drawbacks. I don't want to sound like I'm being more critical than I actually am -- I came out of the theater in a very buoyant, enthusiastic mood. J.J. Abrams has done a wonderful thing for the franchise -- make no mistake about that. It needed this film badly. It could have weathered another dud, but better to have a reinvigoration of the material that makes it accessible to new audiences. Overall, caveats aside, I'm pleased to say that Star Trek is back. and fully energized. ;)

Side note: CBS has Star Trek: The Original Series online.

Addendum: After I posted this, it occurred to me what may be feeling off to me about Zachary Quinto, and it's not his fault. It's entirely unfair, but I think it's his voice. Leonard Nimoy's baritone is much fuller and richer: I remember his inflections vividly from his days hosting In Search of.