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Saturday, May 23, 2009

Twice the Spock For The Same Price: My "Star Trek" movie reveiw

So I just got back from seeing the new "Star Trek". I know what you're thinking. "Brian? I thought you were a super huge nerd and would have seen it opening weekend." Well, I'd hate to be predictable. That, and, like Wolverine, I had better things to do. Two good things come out of waiting to see Star Trek until two weeks after its opening. One, whenever a character people know is introduced on screen, it isn't accompanied by a bunch of cheering (and/or erections) from all the hard core fans in the audience. I mean, I had an erection the entire movie, but at least there wasn't any cheering. Secondly, my mom even heard it was good from one of her friends, so guess who bought my ticket to the movie. My dad. But my mom came too. So it was like a family movie outing. Yay. Made the erection really hard to deal with though...

How was the movie? Ok, there will be some slight spoilers here so if you haven't seen it, don't read on. Just know that it was worth seeing, stuff happens, go watch it. Still with me?

Ok, so the movie in itself was an excellent movie. Plot, lots of action, plenty of colorful things and attractive people, awesome sound, and some comedy to boot. Also put in a handful of throw-backs to the original, and you've got yourself a good Star Trek flick. This is about where my compliments for the film end. Let's look at the characters. All the original cast has been re-incarnated into newer, younger, more attractive versions of their former selves. The guy who plays Spock does a pretty good Spock. The lady who plays Ahura is a good (read: hotter) Ahura. And the guy who plays Zulu is Asian! Close enough!

Spoiler Alert! Ok, here is my one major gripe with this film. This is not really a Star Trek film so much as it's a "hey, how can we cash in on yet another preexisting body of work without having to really honor and of the story structure that happened before." Simple, we'll just create a new timeline with the old characters, make up some junk about it being a new timeline and how it came to be, and wah-lah! A blank check to use as you will to make countless sequels and oodles of money without actually having to write anything new. Albeit the story in the movie was actually quite good, but I thought good story should be taken with a grain of salt, that grain being an excuse.

You can't really blame them too much. The Star Trek universe has dealt with time travel before in that movie where they all go back in time to steal the whale and end up meeting the mom from "Seventh Heaven". I really liked that one; right up there with the one where Christopher Lloyd plays a Klingon. Then there was the whole "Enterprise" series where they basically break it off into its own storyline by declaring that it was taking place in a different reality. Also a good show; the Vulcan was hot and in many episodes was scantily clad. Almost outed Seven-of-Nine for the top spot on Star Trek characters I want to have sex with, but I digress. So now I guess the grievence is two fold. They are caching in on a previous body of work AND using a mechanism said work has already used to branch itself off of itself. Shenanigans indeed!

Somehow I couldn't help feel like I was watching an episode of Lost or Heroes due to the proximity of directors and actors who contributed to this film (JJ Abrams and the Spock guy). Also there were many more close up shots than in the original Star Trek films. I remember the older ones being much more fans of the wide pan than the shots in this film. Ok, that is way too film nerdy. I'll stop there.

In conclusion, go see it, its good.

BJ rating for Star Trek originality: C-
BJ regular movie rating: B+/A-

PS: I also found it funny that, as previews for the movie, we have "Transformers" and "GI Joe", two other movies that are raping the cache of fan sentiment as a way to make a bazillion dollars off of nerd erections.

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