A scene from Michael Bay’s Star Trek.
I didn’t like the new Star Trek. Listen, clearly the franchise needed a reboot if they were to continue. Enterprise and the last two movies weren’t totally horrible but they weren’t good either. They could have left it for dead for all I cared, I’d be happy to just remember the good episodes of TNG and move on. But this is Hollywood and they snaz up old things that we used to like. Fine. What bothered me about the movie was the desire to re-invent the origin of this old idea while simultaneously leaning so hard on the old material for support. Other than “Kirk is a rebel (daddy issues)” and “Spock is logical unless you insult Winona Ryder.” They left it up to your memories to fill in the characterizations. The plot wasn’t much better: Kirk and the gang attempt to achieve the ranks and positions they held in the ’60s TV show, while Romulans try to stop them. There just didn’t seem to be much point to it all other than an excuse to do flashy things with CG in between setting up big applause moments (which again, relied entirely on the past).
Listen, it was well made. If pressed I’d even admit that on it’s own terms, it was sort of good. It looked pretty, and there was lots of action. That was enough for a lot of people to like it, but I just saw an opportunity to do so much more. I knew I wasn’t going to like it and yeah, it’s a personal thing, I’m not making a judgment about anyone who did like it, it just let me down in a big way. I wanted some original thinking, not just a new coat of glossy paint.
Other gripes, in no particular order:
- What the fuck was up with the constant un-sourced lens flares?
- What was up with that water pipe scene, can anyone defend that?
- Ditto the big hands scene.
- What was up with casting Winona Ryder as Spock’s Mom, seriously, did JJ owe someone a favor?
- I’m sick and tired of time travel. Sci-fi writers, please come up with something better.
- What was up with Chekov? It almost felt racist. Of all the things to be totally faithful on…
- Did JJ let Michael Bay direct all the action scenes? Visually incoherent at points.
Assorted really good things:
- The entire opening sequence.
- Those “no sounds in space” moments. Pretty cool.
- The jump to warp effect was absolutely awesome and perfect, and alone may have saved the 2nd half of the movie for me.
- McCoy
- The fact that it gave me a lot to think about, even if it was mostly complaining.
- Reminded me how good Serenity was.
