Weekend Trek: Star Trek (2009)

2009?  This movie came out in 2009?  Actually, that shouldn’t be a surprise to me.  I went to see it, when it was new, on a date with a woman I would later marry and divorce, and we’ve been separated over a decade as I type this up, much happier with a different woman who is more my speed.  As for this date, my ex never went to see another movie of my choice with me again, so she must not have liked it much.  She also said she was a Winona Ryder fan but didn’t believe Ryder was playing Spock’s mother Amanda.

I will say no more of that date.

So, we all know the story.  Or we probably do.  Director J.J. Abrams was brought on board to direct a Star Trek relaunch, but he wasn’t really a fan of the franchise.  He was a Star Wars fan, so he essentially used Star Trek as a way to make the Star Wars movie he otherwise would never get a chance to make..or so he thought before Disney hired him to actually make a couple.

It occurs to me Abrams would make two Star Trek movies and two Star Wars movies with similar reactions from critics and fans: they liked the first a whole lot more than the second.

But here’s his first, and for all that it plays more as a sci-fi action flick that is very different from pretty much anything the franchise ever made before.  The action scenes actually largely work, with a couple moments that take advantage of the soundless void of space to make some really impressive images.  Yeah, the bad guys are forgettable, and their superweapon destroys planets as perhaps the biggest nod to another franchise, but the movie’s still got some impressive moments.

For one, the casting is rather spot-on.  Chris Pine has a breezy charisma that makes for a good Jim Kirk, and Zachary Quinto actually pulls off a great Spock.  Simon Pegg, an actual Trek fan, is a fantastic Scotty even if he takes the longest to show up.  Karl Urban is doing some kind of Southern accent as Dr. McCoy that doesn’t sound like anything DeForest Kelley ever did, but it still feels like Leonard McCoy, particularly when he asks Spock if he’s out of his Vulcan mind.  OK, Zoe Saldana has more to do as Uhuru than Nichelle Nichols ever did, as oddly enough Spock’s love interest, but here we are, and John Cho and Anton Yelchin are both fine as Sulu and Chekov, but the two characters don’t make as much of an impression as the others.

That said, every one of those characters gets a moment to shine.  They all have skills, and since they’re just starting out, it does come out how they get their roles on the Enterprise under Bruce Greenwood’s Christopher Pike.  Pike encourages Kirk to join Starfleet, and after McCoy sneaks Kirk onto the ship, his knowledge of what’s happening gets him promoted to First Officer when Spock is made Acting Captain.  Spock steps aside for Kirk when he reacts too emotionally after the destruction of Vulcan and the death of his mother.  Uhuru becomes the comm officer when it comes out she knows the Romulan language and the original guy didn’t.  McCoy becomes Chief Medical Officer when the original dies during Nero’s attack on the ship.  Sulu replaced the original helmsman who was too sick to go on the trip.  The Chief Engineer is the redshirt who died on the parachute-based attack on the Romulans’ drill, leaving an opening for Scotty.  Chekov is the only one who seems to be at the place where hs should be when Pike takes the ship out of space dock.

And then Leonard Nimoy shows up as Spock Prime to offer some advice to a young Kirk and some wisdom to his younger self.  Nimoy-as-Spoek is always a welcoming presence.  I think William Shatner turned down a chance to cameo, maybe because Pine’s Kirk gets the snot beaten out of him quite a bit.

Yeah, people remember and joked about the lens flares, the ship is very bright white on the inside, and it’s nowhere near as philosophical as Trek usually is, but it works as an action movie, it is at least vaguely recognizable as Star Trek, and it isn’t a bad jumping-on point for new potential fans…though I am not sure this movie would make a good gateway for new fans.  This movie is a different animal with its own charms.  It is nowhere near a bad movie.  The only real question is whether or not it really gets what Star Trek is all about.

I don’t know.  I still enjoyed it.