vilakins | Star Trek film review

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Star Trek film review

For those interested, the Circle Lounge is as good as ever, but I missed the little selection of tapas or savouries you used to be able to order. They now offer three-course meals, not really what I want when I'm watching a film. So I just shared some Cajun fries with Greg and had a crème brulee and a coffee which was all very yummy.

Trailers seen: the latest Terminator, Angels and Demons (shame on you, Ron Howard!) and Transformers, which looks like fun.

Before I cut, here's a little non-spoilery B7 moment for the fans. When I first saw the little alien, I cried with delight, "A Decima!" (well, not really, but he was vaguely leafy). And who played him? DEEP ROY! This made me ridiculously happy.

And now, before I've read anyone else's reviews, here's mine. I've tried to leave out all major spoilers, but people's criteria vary and you might like to pay it safe and come back later. :-)

In general

Apart from some idiocy with cameras (see below), I really enjoyed this!

Down another trouser leg of time

This isn't in fact the prequel it's advertised as, or the reboot the NZ Herald review calls it, but an AU branching off from the Star Trek universe we know. The timeline of the existing series is safe (I refuse to believe otherwise) because multiple--perhaps infinite--alternate universes are canon in Star Trek. Exploring one of them does free future films or even series up go off in new directions. Of course one can nitpick about characters all being fairly unchanged and all going into Space Fleet together, but hey, maybe time is really viscous.

Things I loved

I was never once bored or embarrassed, and I certainly can't say that for all of the other Star Trek films.
The casting was almost all excellent. There were times when Chris Pine was so very Kirk in his mannerisms and expressions (esp one scene on the transporter pad with Spock) that it was uncanny. Zachary Quinto was a wonderful and utterly believable Spock, and never once made me think of Sylar. Simon Pegg obviously had heaps of fun playing Scotty, and so did I watching him. Our own Karl Urban and the stunning Zoe Saldana were very good as McCoy and Uhura. My one reservation there was Chekhov. His acting was fine, but couldn't they find someone who looked like a 17-year-old Chekhov? OK, maybe the kid had a bad perm, but his face just wasn't in the least bit like Chekhov's.
One of the original cast turns up and this filled me with joy.
We get a non-medical explanation for McCoy's nickname "Bones".

Homages (or just coincidence)

The same guy who does the music for Lost did this. At one point we get what Greg calls the Lost March (last heard as Locke leads his group along the beach). The underground base looked rather Dharma-like.
The little alien mentioned above, played by Deep Roy.
Scotty gets some info from a time-loop rather that that in The Voyage Home.
The mining ship looks like a Shadow one from Babylon 5.

Mostly minor niggles

There's a bit early on which shows that space is silent which was very cool. But after that? Nope, all the usual space battles sounds and explosions.
What were those impressively huge shapes on the Iowa horizon? I wish we'd been told. Spaceship hangars? But why wouldn't they be built in space?
Why were the Romulans all bald and tattooed? Is it a ship fashion, or don't they talk about the hairy ones? ;-) Romulans have always looked just like Vulcans but for their Roman culture, and the captain is called Nero, so why drop that?
Some stuff with astronomical phenomena which just wasn't consistent or logical, but I don't want to be more specific.
One much more major niggle though is that there's really only one woman in the film: Uhura. There are some bit roles, but that's it. If they were going for an AU, why not have some more women in authority--and not in mini-skirts?

"Enough with the lens flares already!"

...was what I said in the first space scene. It was funny when they did it in The Lion King all those years ago, but really, showing (or pretending) a camera is being used does not in fact make it more real. It tells the theoretically disembodied viewer that there's a flawed device between them and what's happening which put a barrier between me and the film and kept on doing so. It wasn't just space scenes but almost every single shot. WTH? Either they used cameras that couldn't handle normal light levels, or, more likely, they added it digitally. WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT? People's faces, the action, the gorgeous sets and effects, were all obscured at least part of the time by flares, light artifacts (like the recurring blue horizontal one, stabbity stab stab) and sometimes completely replaced by white glare. Most of the time there was nothing reflecting or emitting light my cheap little camera wouldn't able to handle.

I enjoyed this film greatly, but this incredibly stupid conceit is probably a deal-breaker for watching it again. Whoever thought that one up? The golden spork for you!

[Edit] I found it was J J Abrams, and he did it to show the future is bright (see my next post). News for you, J J: it did not work.

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You should post this on http://www.rottentomatoes.com/ (not only for bad reviews).

Whoever thought up the camera crap should get a very rotten tomato though.

The Circle Lounge sounds great.

I just watched Star Trek tonight with a couple of friends. I went in with both anticipation (because of the trailers) and trepidation (because of some canon/non-canon-type things I'd heard). But I'm glad to say that I thoroughly enjoyed it. As a reenvisioning, it was very successful. The cast was perfect (I agree with you about Chekov). The effects, action and character moments were wonderful. It gave the characters more depth and I loved that they actually gave a plausible (fannish, albeit head-scratching in some areas) explanation of the differences from the original series.

Since the original series still have a major planet and one character's mother, I have to see this as an AU rather than a re-envisioning, or everything from TOS onwards gets negated. Luckily Star Trek liked playing with AUs.

Which is why I was tickled when they actually mentioned that it's now an alternate time line =)

I loved Chekov, but I do wish he'd look a bit more like our Pavel. A simple Beatle haircut would have made him a lot more instantly recognizable, even though he lacks Koenig's babyface completely.

I have seem quite a few people complain about the lens flares, which amuses me as I don't recall being distracted by them at all. In fact, the only scene I recall using one at all is when McCoy see's Enterprise outside the shuttle for the first time and makes Kirk look out too, which made some sense to me, though was a bit annoying 'cause it delayed the Enterprise reveal until the camera switched. But otherwise I didn't notice. XD Funny what bothers some people and not others. XD

True! There wasn't any physical resemblance at all.

I haven't seen anyone else comment about the lens flares; I was wondering if anyone else had even noticed. Greg did though; it pissed both of us off, and he's not even very visual. Even innocent interior shorts had lens flare; I'd say the vast majority of shots were marred with them, and they had to be artificial. How stupid is that? I really liked the film, but that was a major flaw. I suppose once you notice something, you can't stop noticing, but to me it was really intrusive.

The Romulans are explained in a prequel comic book (I haven't read it but I have read other people's explanations of it!) which says that there is a Romulan funeral tradition of shaving your head and painting patterns on your skin while you are in mourning. The guys in the film are mourning the loss of their entire planet (in the future) and so have embraced the tradition by tattooing the marks on permanently, implying that they will never get over their grief. In other words, it's not all Romulans, it's just these particular ones.

I did notice the lens flares but the only time they bothered me was one time when they were obscuring the view of Spock!

Thank you! That makes sense now I know, but they should have told the audience, perhaps by having Uhura explain that after they contacted the Enterprise.

Once I noticed the flares almost at the beginning, I couldn't stop. Oy. Yes, obscuring Spock (and the rest of them) was a crime. I liked Quinto so much more here than as Sylar. I could do wit seeing a lot more of him as Spock. Ahem, I didn't mean that the way it sounded, but I'll let it stand.

Thank you for the review and all the comments. I can´t wait seeing it too!!!

Enjoy it! I'm sure you will. :-)

What really seems a pity to me is how that will totally fubar screen-capping.

But still... if I go for a movie day while it's playing, I'd go to see it.

It's definitely worth seeing! It's a lot of fun despite the camera idiocy and the cast are great! There'll be screencaps of the clear bits.

I went to see it on Friday night - I thought it was wonderful. I especially loved Simon Pegg as Scotty, because a convincing Scottish accent is a rare thing in films.

Have to say, though, I genuinely didn't notice the lens flares. It's not even that I wasn't bothered by them - when you mentioned them I went 'lens flares? There were lens flares? Really?'

Don't worry; you're not the only one who didn't notice them, though others said their eyes bled. They were deliberately put in with people standing off-camera with torches and I couldn't stop noticing. They obscured character's faces and distracted me so much. Have a look at my next post for a vid.

Simon Pegg was great! It's good to hear he got the accent right. What was James Doohan's like in TOS?

Wow. I can't believe I didn't notice that at all.

I'm sure the original Scotty was actually played by a Scottish actor. I hear Simon Pegg's wife is Scottish, so he was probably motivated by the threat of being made to sleep on the couch if he did it wrong XD

I didn't know that! I bet she coached him well. :-D

James Doohan was Canadian, but he did a pretty good job. He must have done if you give him a pass. :-)

I have a few ST icons but it seems I might need more than Spock for TOS and the AU.

Canadians tend to do a pretty good job with Scottish accents - probably because there are so many Scots immigrants over there.

I have no ST icons. It saddens me :( I have no space for new ones, but I may have to retire an old one because Scotty is my new hero.

I do have space, having been given a lot more icons a while back, but I'm taking my time filling them. I have yet to decide whether I want to make some more TOS icons (I have some great pics to scan in) or some AU ones.

Deep Roy FTW!

I actually wondered if the little alien was him, but not that seriously. I just thought it would be cool, and was delighted to see his name in the credits.

Ditto! My thought was, "Wouldn't it be funny if that guy was DEEP ROY?!"

And our joy when it was!

They now offer three-course meals, not really what I want when I'm watching a film.

I sometimes suspect you inhabit an entirely different, infinitely more elegant world than I do. :)

Trailers seen

They showed a crapload of trailers when I saw it, and I swear almost all of them were based on cheesy old TV shows or toys. Admittedly, I was there to watch a movie based on a cheesy old TV show. :) But still...

multiple--perhaps infinite--alternate universes are canon in Star Trek.

Definitely true. The mirror universe being the obvious example.

Of course one can nitpick about characters all being fairly unchanged and all going into Space Fleet together, but hey, maybe time is really viscous.

Actually, the alteration in the timeline seemed small enough -- at least for the people not directly affected -- that I thought a lot of the apparent changes were too big! But I suppose it depends a lot on how much effect the Romulans were having on the galaxy in the meantime.

We get a non-medical explanation for McCoy's nickname "Bones".

Which I didn't care for, actually, as the assumption always was that it came from "Sawbones." Which just seems very right for him.

Scotty gets some info from a time-loop rather that that in The Return Home.

Rather like that in The Voyage Home, you mean? I so wanted somebody to say, "How do you know you didn't invent the thing?", but of course they didn't. :)

The mining ship looks like a Shadow one from Babylon 5.

And nothing whatsoever like a Romulan ship. :)

Nope, all the usual space battles sounds and explosions.

I just happily regard that stuff as "incidental music." ;)

I wish we'd been told. Spaceship hangars? But why wouldn't they be built in space?

They would, and should. Bad engineering, as well as bad science in this movie, I guess. :)

One much more major niggle though is that there's really only one woman in the film: Uhura.

Sadly, that does come right from Trek canon, which even explicitly stated, in TOS, that there were no women starship captains. Sigh. Oh, sixties.

"Enough with the lens flares already!"

You know, they annoyed me a little at the beginning -- I remember thinking, OK, these look reasonably cool, but should be used maybe a third as often -- but after a while I stopped noticing them entirely.

I sometimes suspect you inhabit an entirely different, infinitely more elegant world than I do. :)

Believe me, this wouldn't be the case if I didn't live in a city.

the assumption always was that it came from "Sawbones." Which just seems very right for him.

I don't know the expression. I just assumed it was from doctors learning with skeletons, or fixing breaks, or something.

Rather like that in The Voyage Home, you mean?

D'oh! I did mean that. I'll edit that.

And nothing whatsoever like a Romulan ship. :)

Nope! BTW the crew were bald and tattooed because it's apparently a Romulan mourning custom in one of the comic books. But maybe you knew that? They should have explained it anyway, maybe via Uhura.

after a while I stopped noticing them entirely

I wish I could have. That's the trouble with being so visual. :-(

Believe me, this wouldn't be the case if I didn't live in a city.

I doubt there's anywhere in America you can get a three-course meal at a movie theater. Maybe if you're a Hollywood star. :)

But, hey, it's also true that I've lived in the middle of nowhere so long that city life of any sort seems terribly sophisticated to me. Sigh.

I just assumed it was from doctors learning with skeletons, or fixing breaks, or something.

"Sawbones" is an old slang term for a doctor. Here's (http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-sawbones.htm) and explanation of of where it comes from, completely with Trek reference. :)

BTW the crew were bald and tattooed because it's apparently a Romulan mourning custom in one of the comic books. But maybe you knew that? They should have explained it anyway, maybe via Uhura.

Yes, I've seen that mentioned somewhere. It maybe does explain a bit, although, a) I so much preferred the portrayal of the Romulans in the original series to the ones that we tend to get on the big screen, and I find it difficult to imagine that culture going in for the tattooed bald look, b) even in this multi-media age it should not be necessary to read a comic book to understand what's going on in a movie, and c) they really should have explained a lot of things, IMO. Then again, when they did actually try to explain things, we got the Cavalcade of Bad Science, so maybe not. :)

I was sad to see they've phased out the linen napkins for paper, though they still have nice crockery and cutlery. :-)

That's a very old expression to have survived for a doctor in the 21st century (if I got that right) though they do acknowledge that in the article.

It always seemed odd to me that Romulans (and weren't there Remans too?) were so closely modelled on an earth culture when there hadn't been any contact. Now I'd like to have seen that explained at some point by contact about 2500 years ago which influenced the Romans. :-)

That's a very old expression to have survived for a doctor in the 21st century

Well, Kirk, remember, is a huge history buff.

It always seemed odd to me that Romulans (and weren't there Remans too?)

There were in Nemesis, but I try not to think about that movie too much. :)

It always seemed odd to me that Romulans (and weren't there Remans too?) were so closely modelled on an earth culture when there hadn't been any contact.

Eh, TOS did that all the time and chalked it up to "parallel development." :)

Yep. Like the really Roman planet where there were Sun/Son worshippers (so they developed English as well) and the one I really hated even as a kid (and still won't watch) that had yanks and commies and a US flag. So obvious. :-P I can't bring myself to watch the really sexist ones either. However some of their stories are so fascinating and dark and speculative, they're just wonderful.

Sigh. So many series to rewatch and not enough time. I'm hopelessly behind on Farscape now.

yanks and commies and a US flag.

"The Omega Glory!" Oh, man, that was bad. :)

Sigh. So many series to rewatch and not enough time. I'm hopelessly behind on Farscape now.

I know how you feel. And, gaah, that reminds me, it's time for another FS episode for the rewatch already. Where does the time go?!

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