Comments on: DVD Review: Star Trek

By: sam christopher

sam christopher — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 07:11:11 +0000

I am especially with you on that last point, Carl. The Great Bird of the Galaxy raised a fuss over Saavik being used as a traitor in ST VI (even though that was exactly the way they should have went to my way of thinking), imagine what he would have been like over the destruction of Vulcan itself. I also have a hard time believing that Nimoy-Spock, irrespective of anything the Enterprise crew or Starfleet sees fit to do, wouldn’t take it upon himself to go back and change things in order to save Vulcan. And I agree that the “Alternate Timeline” explanation fits in far better in Marvel Comics than in Star Trek.

Also, because I forgot to mention it before, there is a comic series that “explains” what Nero and crew were doing for 25 years. The Narada is captured by Klingons by the end of the first ish and the crew is sent to die on– say it with me– Rura Penthe, which I always thought was a scary place until everyone we’ve ever seen get sent there escaped in, like, five minutes. I have no idea where the rest of the story went– the first ish was enough for me to decide, after the brain cells I slaughtered reading all of Countdown, I’d had enough.

By: Carl Lawrence

Carl Lawrence — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 20:26:04 +0000

By the way –I don’t think Roddenberry would have been as enthusiastic about this film as you believe, Pat. In fact, I don’t think he would have cared for it much at all. He didn’t like the backgrounds of his major characters being toyed around with unless he was the one who was doing it, and I firmly believe he would have objected to the destruction of Vulcan in no uncertain terms.

By: Carl Lawrence

Carl Lawrence — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 20:10:01 +0000

Pat, I don’t think the ‘canon’ was so much the problem as it was the shows that followed and their ever declining quality with each subsequent incarnation. I wasn’t a fan of “Voyager” at all, and “Enterprise” if anything showed that the creators and producers of that particular series didn’t really care about established mythology or they would have paid a lot more attention to what occurred in the original series, which clearly they did not.

I will concede that my review of this latest film was written also from a fancentric standpoint, but I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing, especially when taking into account that “Star Trek” was around long before J.J. Abrams appeared on the scene. As a popcorn action flick the movie is all right, but as I point out in my review, poor choices were made in the developing of the script, and in terms of major battles, particularly with respect to the film’s climax, it really wasn’t anything we haven’t already seen before in prior Trek films. So Abrams was assigned the task of trying to revive a stale franchise because so much has already been done in it over the course of four-plus decades. That’s a long time, but clearly the studio didn’t assign devotees of the franchise to produce an eleventh movie and I won’t pretend that they did.

As for it being “a complete re-imagining,” it wasn’t entirely that either or Leonard Nimoy would not have been in the film obviously. I’m glad you enjoyed it however, and while I realize that my review comes across as harsh (I won’t go so far as to call it ’scathing’ however), I didn’t hate it. There were things to like about it as well, and I can see why people would enjoy it. I just hope that I like and enjoy the sequel as much as you enjoyed this first movie under Abrams.

Thanks for your input.

By: Carl Lawrence

Carl Lawrence — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:01:22 +0000

I think that sums it up very well, Sam, especially the distinction you drew between this movie and “The Motionless Picture” — “all thought and no action” as opposed to “all action and no thought” indeed. Right on the money IMO.

By: sam christopher

sam christopher — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:43:03 +0000

I really loved this film the first time I saw it. And I still enjoyed after seeing it a few times in the theaters. I see what you’re saying here, though, Carl, and I’ve said time and again that I didn’t mind this film film being the “Mirror” of the original ST-TMP: The Motion-less Picture was all thought with no action while the Abrams film was all action with no thought. If the second film in this “New Universe” is like this then I’ll have a problem.

By: Pat Owens

Pat Owens — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:38:10 +0000

One of the problems (yes, major problems) with the entire Star Trek “canon” was that it became incredibly boring…no one but real fanboys really gave a damn anymore.

The new Star Trek movie was a complete re-imaging, and the makers made that clear from the very beginning. To me, they created a fun, well crafted action movie that Roddenberry would have been proud of. And they did stick to the opening lines of the whole Star Trek mission statement: “To boldly go where no one has gone before.”

The old Star Trek is alive and well on DVD. Long live the new Star Trek!