I think people are in denial. They want to love the new Star Trek so bad, they can’t speak the obvious: The new Star Trek movie is not much better than the horrid “Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.” The things that are right with Star Trek can be counted on one hand. The things that are wrong? Well, it’s almost a never-ending list.
Here’s what was right:
1. Quinto: He does a very good job of portraying a young Spock, even with a poor story line.
2. Sulu: He finally gets his due with a good action scene, and even saves Kirk’s butt. Nicely done.
3. Overall, it was fun to see fresh faces playing familiar characters.
4. Good special effects.
Here’s what’s wrong, and I challenge someone to respond point-by-point, instead of personally insulting me:
1. Kirk is a wimp: Kirk spends the whole movie getting beat up. I don’t mind the fact that he takes a beating, but EVERY time? Since when is Kirk the punching bag of the universe?
2. Kirk’s Spiderman-like jump: Near the end of the movie, aboard the Romulan mining ship, Kirk jumps what must be 50 feet. He lands hard, is a little shaken, but within minutes is up and about, running around as fresh as can be. This is totally ridiculous. A jump like that would either kill you or seriously maim you. Is he Jim Kirk or his he Peter Parker?
3. Kirk’s ascent to leadership: Kirk is jettisoned from the ship like a common outlaw, but a short time later he’s the new captain of the Enterprise, and no one has a serious problem with it…not even Spock, who despises him. In fact, Spock comes sniveling back, practically begging to be Kirk’s “number one.” And, yahoo, they’re finally friends! This whole part of the plot is simply ludicrous, not one ounce of plausibility.
4. Kirk finding old Spock in the cave: What are the odds of Kirk just happening to end up in the same cave, on a barren planet, as old Spock? Again, ludicrous. I guess you don’t need a good script these days, just pull something miraculous out of your behind and the audience will accept it no questions asked.
5. Spock fighting off the snow planet creature: A huge, ferocious looking creature is after Kirk. It has just devoured another ferocious looking creature. Yet Spock is able to scare it off with a torch that, to the creature, is about as big as a matchstick. Oh well, guess the monster wasn’t so ferocious after all.
6. While we’re on the subject of the snow creatures, did anyone notice that the larger snow creature eating the smaller one was a steal from a similar scene in “The Phantom Menace?” (the water creatures)
7. Spock and Uhura being lovers: Please. This was done for shock value; it added nothing to the story. I don’t mind this subplot per se, but I saw no justification for it. It was just an “ooh, ahh” moment.
8. Kirk trying to sneak a peek at Uhura undressing: I don’t know, I just never pictured Kirk under the bed like a 16 year-old, straining to see Uhura take her panties off. Again, this added nothing to the story, it was just a “hip” thing to do. Yes, Uhura was gorgeous, but this is supposed to be Star Trek, not “American Pie.”
9. Scotty as a stand-up comedian: In the movie, Scotty is nothing but comic relief (and not that funny anyway). He has a little Star Wars-type muppet character side-kick for the audience to giggle at, and he gets transported into a water tube, and Kirk has to save him, in a scene that is a total waste of time (wasn’t there a scene in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory like that?)
10. The Romulans: Romulans are simply not that interesting. They’re essentially evil Vulcans. We’ve seen them many times before…let’s move on.
11. The time travel/alternate universe story: I get the feeling that this whole dull story was a contrived way of getting Leonard Nimoy into the movie. I have nothing against Nimoy, he’s a class act, but the story could have been so much more intriguing without any of the old cast forced in. Are we starting a whole new Star Trek, or are we going to have cameos and mixed universe stories from here on out? I’m tired of Picard meeting Kirk, Spock meeting Spock, Scotty meeting the Next Generation cast, etc., etc. Maybe Star Trek should be called Time Trek; they spend more time going back and forth through time than they do in their own universe.
12. The Romulan mining ship was a rip-off of the Borg ship: It’s massive and unstoppable!! And by the way, why is a mining ship more powerful than the combined might of Star Fleet? It can just come to Earth and do as it pleases?
13. Red Matter: Am I supposed to know what “Red Matter” is? I get the feeling that the writers of the movie just sort of pulled this from thin air and said: “Ah, the audience won’t know, and won’t care…it’s just something that’s very, very dangerous…um…can cause Black Holes! Yeah, that’s it!”
14. “Eject the Core!”: So, ejecting the core, and the resulting explosion, can save you from a Black Hole? Um, no, sorry...I’m not buying this techno-babble ending. This is the problem with a lot of Star Trek movies and tv shows (and the main reason I got tired of Star Trek generally)—the writers put the heroes in the most ridiculously impossible situations imaginable and then pull them out with techno-babble solutions or going back in time and fixing the problem. So, basically, anything is possible, and death is not really death, and losing is merely a temporary inconvenience to be solved with some technical thing that the audience is not yet aware of? Okay, well, not my cup of tea.
15. “Compromised by emotion” regulation: OMG, I’m laughing as I write this. “If a commander is compromised by emotion he must relinquish command!” Do you ever get the feeling that regulations are inserted into Starfleet command’s rule book whenever there’s a gap in the story that the writers aren’t sure how to fill? “Um, gosh, I’m having writer’s block…plus we’ve put the characters into a dilemma we can’t write ourselves out of. Time for a new regulation!”
16. Spock is more emotionally unbalanced than any character. For a guy who’s supposed to have little or no emotion (or, at least, be in near-complete control of his emotions), Spock sure does have some emotions! He’s mad at the school boy who insults him (and beats him up), he’s in love (and lust) with Uhura, he’s deathly angry at Kirk (and beats him up), and he’s extremely embarrassed walking around the ship after he gives up command. Hmmm, so much for Vulcan stoicism.
I know a lot of people are going to hate my review, but I’m tired of Star Trek and Star Wars “yes” people, who keep the mediocrity going by clapping at whatever nonsense is put on the screen. By appeasing and praising outrageousness and no-one-ever-really-dies scenarios, we send a message to Hollywood: “Keep it coming…make it more outrageous than any movie ever has before!” And Hollywood will oblige. Next time, we’ll get Uhura in a love swing with Spock, while Kirk peeks from the closet and Scotty makes wise cracks about Spock’s dilithium crystals running on full power! They’ll all be killed by a Romulan missile, but Sulu will go back in time, and make it alright, by telling everyone that there’s no time for a love swing, but that they should instead eject the core to save the ship from the Romulan missile. Scotty will stop his wisecracks just long enough to eject said core, and the ship will be safe for another outrageous sequel.
Judging by websites like Rotten Tomatoes, I’m obviously in the minority. But I want believable plots, even in Science Fiction and Super Hero movies. There’s no suspense or tension when death is impossible (e.g., Spock and the Genesis Project story), when every impossible situation has a heretofore unknown techno-babble solution, and Kirk is capable of Spiderman jumps.
Yes, the new Star Trek is flashy, sexy, and funny. But I can get that from “Sex and the City.” I expect more from Trek. I expect moral exploration, intriguing sci-fi plots, and believable stories. The new Star Trek scores a zero on these things. It’s a hip, but ultimately empty shell of its former self.