May 14, 2009

JustSON at the Movies: Star Trek


I don't care if this means I'll probably never have a girlfriend again, but Star Trek rocked.

It went beyond rocked, it took me to a higher place (and I just ripped off Bill Simmons with that line). Imagine rooting for a franchise for years that had plenty of promise and poor performances, poor direction by the people in management, a much more popular rival (Star Wars), a general disregard by the general public and expecting pretty much the worst possible (Star Trek: Nemesis). Yeah I just described being a pre-2004 Boston Red Sox fan and a Trekkie (Sox fan Dylan Kitzan is brandishing a knife somewhere and plotting my death).

The franchise had gotten clunky, outdated and pretty much abandoned. And then this gem from J.J. Abrams came along and not only breathed new life into Star Trek but reminded everyone why the originals worked so well - solid characters, good chemistry and don't take yourself TOO seriously.

First, the action is paced much, much faster. You really don't get a chance to breathe and roughly five seconds into the movie you're already on the edge of your seat about ready to have a panic attack. However, along with the white-knuckle action they do pack a lot of comedy into the film as well and really make it more accessible to normal people than previous Trek films.

Then they so something awesome. They take pretty much every cliche that Star Trek is known for and put it into the film for the fans of the series. The expendable red shirt guy, for example, sees an untimely incineration. Kirk ends up hooking up with a green-skinned woman. Kirk's getting chases by a large furry monster. Ect. Ect. The only thing missing was him losing his shirt and a bicycle kick of some sort.

But thanks to those cliches, you still feel like you're watching Star Trek and the fact that the characters are played by different actors is non-existent by about 15 minutes into the movie. You're just along for the ride at that point.

I'm going to watch this again. And again. And again. I'm giving it a 10/10. The count: Zero - percent chance of me getting laid every again, DD - the cup size of the green-skinned woman that Kirk lays, 4,734 Romulans that meet their timely end, 1 - Winona Ryder sighting as Spock's mom, 1 - dude from ESPN's "Playmakers" sighting as a security red shirt, 120 minutes - how long I was geeking out during this movie.

4 comments:

  1. You are a Star Wars fan, I assume.

    This movie violates many of the Star Trek universe rules. The science was piss poor, Spock was the most emotional character in the show, Warp explosions aren't ride-able, ejecting your warp coil breaks your warp bubble (it doesn't hold for seconds or minutes afterwards), Star Ships cannot be built on planet surfaces, Warp is just that; warping outside of space (allowing things to travel faster than light), the characters were teen-drama-esque and the timeline was ~butchered~.

    Red Matter? Bullshit. That isn't Star Trek. Star Trek explains things. Red Matter is made how? From where? How does it work? It's just there. Instant black-hole creator.

    And no one would use a black hole to prevent a supernova. Y'know what would happen? You'd have a black hole. Which would be worse than the supernova.

    And black holes are not time-travel portals. They proved that at the end of the movie! Or did the Romulan ship get sucked into yet another time period? No? Black Holes do not work that way.

    If anything, Future Spock and the Romulan driller would be stuck on the event horizon of the black hole for virtually ~ever~. Or they'd get sucked in and turned into nothing.

    Also, stars just don't go Supernova. It takes a lot of time. It would have expanded well beyond the size of the solar system (nuking everything in it) before collapsing and going supernova. That's how it works.

    This was a cheap copy of Star Wars with the Star Trek banner hung on it. It is a seriously flawed, piss-poor attempt at the genre. Weak science, weak characters, weak story and lame execution.

    But the graphics and pew pew was good. Pew Pew!

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  2. All I can say to that comment is wow. So, here it goes. Wow.

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  3. "You're a Star Wars fan. I assume."

    I've never been more insulted in my life.

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  4. Aaaand ladies and gentlemen, that person is the reason why I usually don't admit to being a Star Trek fan.

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