FILM REVIEW: STAR TREK (XI) 2009: BOLD REIMAGINING; RADICAL RETCONNING

Spoiler Alert: This article contains some spoilers of the movie. If you wanted to be surprise, don’t read this article.

“Space……… the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship, Enterprise. It’s continuing mission to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilization, to boldly go where no man has gone before!” – Opening line of the Star Trek: The Next Generation series.

As a trekkie, I’ve been waiting to see this movie for a long time now. Correction, I’ve been dying to watch this movie for ages already ever since Paramount pictures began showing trailers and teasers of the movie sometime last year (or was it the year before?). And on the opening day (May 8), I finally get to relieved my frenzied anticipation and thankfully, the weather cooperated (it was raining heavily the day before; a storm was coming to town then). And thankfully, the movie didn’t disappoint and honestly, I was pleasantly surprised on how the movie is done. It is somewhat different from what I would expect because the movie contravened established Star Trek conventions or more appropriately, TRADITIONS. Despite that, it was a great movie and I like it. In my assessment, I would give it a 4 out of a rating of 5. The 2009 Star Trek film is the eleventh film in the Star Trek movie franchise and chronologically the first film or a prequel to the 10 films before it but probably, this film may not even be considered a prequel at all given it’s radical retconning (as in total revision of the story line to the extent that it stray away from the storyline’s continuity) but an “alternate” franchise altogether.
Plot
The movie is some sort of a biopic of Star Trek: The Original Series’ leading characters, most notably that of Captain James Tiberius Kirk and Captain Spock (although at the movie they haven’t earn their command stripes yet). It tells a little back story of their youth, their first mission on board the newly built Constitution class, USS Enterprise and how they eventually rise to their respective position at the ship and finally becoming the legend that we all knew. The main plot line of the movie revolves around the revenge of a future Romulan by the name of Nero against the future Spock in particular and Vulcan and the Federation in general. The plot started during the late 24th century when a giant star near Romulus, the homeworld of the Romulan Star Empire went supernova, which threatened to totally annihilate Romulus itself. The 24th century Spock (played by Leonard Nimoy, the “original” Spock) then working as Federation ambassador to Romulus frantically devised means to saved Romulus from certain destruction. He along with several Vulcan scientists were able to develop “red matter”, an unstable compound that when reacted with matter would induce the formation of a singularity, a “gravity well”, a.k.a. “black hole”. However, Spock’s effort went for naught as he wasn’t able to deliver the red matter on time to save Romulus from complete destruction. In spite of that, Spock still pressed on with his mission intent to stop the spread of the energy shockwave resulting from the collapse of the supernova and thus destroy other planets in the neighboring star system. As he was approaching his target, a marauder ship, an advance, heavily armed Romulan mining ship commanded by Nero, who happened to be on a mission outside of Romulus before its destruction and who had lost everything with the destruction of Romulus appeared. Hellbent on revenge, Nero pursued to destroy Spock but instead was “sucked” into the time – space fissure created by the black hole, as a result from the detonation of the red matter by Spock. The result was to “throwback” the marauder nearly 129 years (or was it 150 years?) into the past. The time – space fissure created an electrical storm phenomena in space during the early 23rd century that attracted the attention of the Federation vessel, USS Kelvin, whose first officer, Lt. George Kirk was the father of our hero, Capt. James Kirk. A battle ensued between the marauder and the USS Kelvin resulting into the self sacrifice of Lt. George Kirk by ramming the Kelvin into the marauder in order to save the lives of escaped survivors of the Kelvin. It so happened that one of the escaped survivors happened to be George’s wife who at that time is pregnant and in labor. And in a dramatic coincidence, she gave birth to our hero, the future Capt James Tiberius Kirk, while the baby’s father is in his last few seconds of his kamikaze run. For the next 25 years, our heroes (James Kirk and the younger version of Spock played by Zachary Quinto) grew up while the marauder and it’s captain, Nero planned their revenge. Nero eventually got hold of the future Spock and the red matter, both came into the fissure a few seconds after the marauder but only emerged after 25 years of the appearance of the marauder in the past. With the possession of the red matter, Nero finally set in motion his revenge, complete destroying Vulcan and is in the process of destroying Earth when he was eventually defeated by Kirk, the younger Spock and the crew of the USS Enterprise in a dramatic battle. The movie concluded with a meeting between the future Spock and the younger Spock and the beginning of the legendary 5 year voyage of the starship Enterprise as depicted in the Original Series.
Critique
Script
One of the obvious “loop hole” of the film’s script is the numerous “continuity error” that punctuated all throughout. There are about a dozen of them that a not – so – fanatical trekkie like me could find and expose. Such blatant “mutilation” of canonical rules would for a “traditionalists” trekkie, who uphold trekkie canons as bible truth, be considered as “blasphemous” if not an outright “sacrilege”. However, all of this are neatly “smoothen over” (and ultimately assuage the hard core trekkie’s indignation) by the most convenient of all the plot devices available to a science fiction film, that is TIME TRAVEL and it’s PARADOXES. Personally, I find the script is cleverly done. For one, by retconning the storyline, writers had the creative freedom to come up with an entertaining piece without being bogged down by numerous conflicting canonical conventions. There are many films (Star Wars the prequel trilogy) and TV series prequels (Star Trek: Enterprise series is one such case) that got mired in negative reviews simply because the writers are trying to be faithful to the establish canons. As such, in an effort to create a plausible back story to an established canons, some of the plots are deemed illogical while others are seen as somewhat “forced fitted” into the story line. I simply couldn’t imagine how the film would look like if the writers followed the established canons to the letter. Probably, it would not be as entertaining as this movie. However, some errors do occur in the script. Foremost among them is the part wherein the Romulan captain Nero stopped an attack once he discovered that the ship he is on the verge of destroying is actually the USS Enterprise. And he was able to do so by “reading” the markings USS Enterprise off the ship’s hull. Imagine an alien who could read English! For obvious reasons that Earth based movie goers couldn’t understand a word of the Romulan language, the conversation even among the alien Romulans are uttered in Federation Standard a.k.a. American English in trekkie universe (the classic explanation according to a trekkie lore as to why Romulans or for that matter any alien race “seemed to speak” Federation Standard is because they are fitted with a device called a Universal Translator) but to have a Romulan read Federation Standard?! Unless, Federation Standard is part of the core curriculum of school aged Romulan in the late 24th century, the writers must have seriously erred in the script and at critical juncture!
Directing and Special Effects
For science fiction movies like Star Trek, special effects played a very prominent role in the movie if not for much of it. Personally, I think JJ Abrams did a good job with the film direction. If you are familiar with the battle scenes of the previous Star Trek movies, the battle scenes in this movie are much more “clear cut”. The battle scenes of the last few movies in the franchise use CGI effects. It is very fast paced and quite short such that it literally “finishes” in just a blink of the eye. The relative shortness and fast pace of the battle action doesn’t leave a lasting imprint on the mind. The battle scenes in the current film however are more clear cut and “realistic”. The style of which reminiscences that of another sci – fi series, the new Battlestar Galactica (the 2008 version). Furthermore, the design of the Constitution class, USS Enterprise is more swanky, more sleek than the Original Series era starship, which is quite “geometric” in appearance. The internal design of the ship is also much different from the previous incarnations of the USS Enterprise starship in that the inside previous starships are literally more spacious with little “protrusions” of pipes and metals. The only thing that one can see inside the “old” Enterprises in their various incarnations is the desks containing the computers complete with view screens. In this latest version of the starship Enterprise, the internal layout is more cluttered with the engineering room looked more like a pipe maze. Overall, the feeling is that the ship’s internal layout resembled more of a submarine or an aircraft carrier layout than the “regular” starship layout of the trekkie universe.
Characters and Actors
One of the most impressive things about the latest Star Trek movie is the degree of imitation by the current crop of actors to the original cast members. In particular, Karl Urban’s portrayal of the irascible Dr Leonard McCoy was such an “exact” replica of the speech, the accent, the mannerism as well as the irascible character to the “real” McCoy portrayed by DeForest Kelley that one would think that Karl Urban is a younger clone of DeForest Kelley. Other actors too are equally “faithful” in their imitation at varying degree. Such “faithful” rendition of the original characters allows trekkies to easily accept these new actors in their roles because for the longest time possible, most trekkies didn’t even dare to imagine somebody else would be playing the parts of the original actors in the roles that the latter are typecast into. Accent apparently played a large role in the maintenance of this “imitation”. For example, Montgomery Scott, the Enterprise chief of engineering is played by James Doohan in the Original Series had a heavy Scottish accent and Simon Pegg, the current “Scotty” also exhibit such heavy Scottish accent (complete with the character’s condescending attitude). Pavel Chekov is another case. The character in the Original Series played by Walter Koenig has a distinct Russian accent and Anton Yelchin, a Russian with also a distinct Russian accent currently portrays the role of Chekov in the movie. The movie however is not a simple “imitation” exercise by the current actors of the original casts. They are also given some creative license to develop the characters. The most readily seen example is the portrayal of Kirk by Chris Pine and Spock by Zachary Quinto vis – a – vis to William Shatner’s portrayal of Captain Kirk and Leonard Nimoy as Spock in the Original Series. Shatner’s Kirk is decisive, arrogant, and bold. These are the same qualities that Chris Pine was able to elucidate in his rendition of Captain Kirk. However, Shatner’s Kirk is cool and calculating, more of a risk – taking explorer rather than a gung – ho, swashbuckling adventurer that Pines’ portrayal seemed to suggest. Furthermore, Pines’ Kirk seemed to be more like a James Dean type of rebellious bad boy than the more “gentlemanly” officer image of Shatner’s portrayal. Probably, the script called for such a portrayal since this version of Captain Kirk does have a stormy childhood. However, still, I would prefer a more “gentlemanly officer” type of Kirk even if it has some sprinkle of James Dean in it. Spock on the other hand as portrayed by Leonard Nimoy is an expressionless being trying hard to get in touch with his “human” side and for that, Nimoy’s Spock is the “model” Vulcan for which all subsequent Vulcan portrayals are based in the Star Trek universe. Zachary Quinto’s Spock conversely looked more like a human trying hard to be a Vulcan. Again, this maybe what the script calls for, to accentuate and ultimately explore the inner struggle of Spock between his “humanity” and his Vulcan lineage. Well, I just kind of that felt that it was quite odd for a “model” Vulcan to suffer identity crisis and trying hard to be a Vulcan. Anyway, despite that probable script’s attempt at ‘reinvention of the characters”, I felt Zachary Quinto’s take on Spock is done pretty well. I mean it is hard to portray a Vulcan especially their ubiquitous hand greeting signal. As for Chris Pines portrayal, I think he has to be more “mature” in his portrayal relying less on physical brawn. Other than that, I think he does well. There is another thing I’ve noticed in this current group of actors. They seemed to be more “cheery” when compared to the original casts. I mean Kirk is the quintessential leader and he almost always maintained that “coolness”, which William Kirk played to perfection. Nimoy’s Spock is ever expressionless and DeForest Kelley’s McCoy is the usual irascible self while George Takei’s Hikaru Sulu wears a long face that seemed to suggest a calculating and scheming personality. In short, the original casts’ portrayal seemed to be more “stoic”. Conversely, the current actors seemed to wear a smile constantly even if they’re serious and thus, they seemed more “cheery”.
Overall, as I said, the movie is a 4/5 in my book and it is one of the few movies that I deemed as worth watching the second time around, which I did last Sunday by the way (I’ll probably go for a third one soon).
P.S. To better understand the terminology of trekkie “speaks”, please refer to Memory Alpha, a Star Trek Wiki hosted by Wikipedia, http://memory-alpha.org