I'm willing to admit that in order for a Trek reboot to succeed, it would need a facelift. Maybe my fellow Trekkies are a dying breed, but the established magnificence just wasn't connecting with contemporary adolescent mouth-breathers. I thought that Enterprise would surely be the death blow of everything I knew as "Trek."
Well, J.J. Abrams and Roberto Orci did, in fact, completely re-arrange well-established canon, but did so (in the truest spirit of Trek-explanations) while keeping one foot firmly planted in the context of sci-fi writing.
To explain without giving away too much, a band of Romulans from the future (led by Eric Bana and his sidekick, Clifton Clifton Gonzalez Gonzalez, Jr. lol) go back in time in an attempt to wipe out the Vulcan race because they're mad at Ambassador Spock (Leonard Nimoy reprising the role). The Romulan actions create an alternate reality. So the events of Trek past still happened, but didn't, get it?
Oh well, the movie explains it well enough.
In short, I appreciate the efforts of the filmmakers to not completely ignore and forget past canon.
As for performances, Zachary Quinto is magnificent as the new Spock. Chris Pine is going to be a very interesting new Kirk, as he incorporates some not so subtle "shades of Shatner" at the end of the film. Karl Urban nails the role of Dr. McCoy, and Simon Pegg is twelve degrees of enjoyable as Scotty. Anton Yelchin and John Cho are commendable as the loveable helm tandem of Chekov and Sulu, but the most surprisingperformance comes from Zoe Saldana as Uhura. Interesting because Uhura is the character that undergoes the most changes, and she's much more prominenetly featured here than Nichelle Nichols ever was (no fault of her own, let me make that clear). Saldana's Uhura is very sexy and smart, but much stronger than Nichol's. If Nichelle Nichols was an inspiration to young women of her day, then Zoe Saldana takes the torch and runs with it most admirably.
Old school Trekkies like me will not be disappointed with all the homages to the original, believe me.
The only weakness of the new Trek, and it is a big deal, is Eric Bana is a very weak villian. He's not the best actor out there, and his attempts to bring any charisma to Nero fails miserably.
It was nice to see Clifton Clifton Gonzalez Gonzalez Jr in a big budget film again. he's one of my fave supporting actors.
Live long and prosper, bitches.
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5 comments:
I will take your word for it. I can't get to the theater till Tuesday.
Decker out.
I was hoping you and Janeway would talk about it on Trek After Dark Monday night.
Fine use of critical prose once again there Turzter. I admire the spoiler dodging and the old-school perspective. I'm old school, so I needed that. Your review still sounds a wee more nicey nicey 'worried about what Paramount might think if they read your review sounding' than I expected from the Turz...but then maybe you actually really liked the film more than not.
Now I'm curious rather than slightly tepid about the prospects.
And I agree about Bana being a more mild mannered actor. Worked well in BHD but then he wasn't really a villian in that one. Still not sold on the enterprise design though. And how about those lens flares? Heard they get a little redundant.
From 1-4, how many Turzters do you rate it?
Freddy
http://www.createforum.com/operationorca
You're a Trekkie. Why doesn't that surprise me?
1) Damn, black background with white font... I'm now seeing black lines everywhere. Lol.
2) I know nothing about Star Trek, but I loved the movie anyway.
3) I LOVE YOU SIMON PEGG. (Remember Mike, when you have that big movie premiere one day, you are inviting me, you are inviting Simon Pegg, and you are arranging our seats so that I sit next to him.)
4) ...I had a #4, but typing out #3 sent me into a dreamy state and made me forget it.
Peace.
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