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Rebooting franchises has become fashionable (see Superman, Batman, James Bond), and if there was another big franchise in dire need of a reboot, it was Star Trek. And reboot it did J. J. Abrams – with a bang.
Arguably the best of the big screen-appearance of every geek’s favorite starship Enterprise, Abrams’ Star Trek should replace Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan as number one on most fans’ top list. Abrams had to walk a fine line between modernizing the ailing franchise and preserving the spirit of Star Trek (and keeping the fanboys happy), and the same challenge was faced by the actors and the production design.
Not an easy task, but mission accomplished: The bridge of the Enterprise has finally arrived in the 21st century (or the 23rd if you want), but the engine rooms still look more like an oil refinery or the engine room of a steamboat than that of a starship (maybe somebody has seen Galaxy Quest there), and even the uniforms of the original TV series have been preserved but updated to a modern, non-cheesy look.
The same successful makeover has been applied to the crew of the Enterprise, and the script containes lots of nods to the original series: The first Captain of the Enterprise in Star Trek is a certain Captain Pike, Kirk (Chris Pine) still has got an affection for exotic women and an aversion against regulations, Spock (Zachary Quinto) his conflict between logic and emotion, Bones (Karl Urban) is still grumpy but resourceful, Sulu (John Cho) and Chekov (Anton Yelchin) seem to be born for maneuvring the Enterprise but have the opportunity to show some additional qualities, and Scotty (Simon Pegg) is both comic relief and technical genius. And Uhura (Zoe Saldana) still wears the Star Fleet’s mini-skirt (with style!), but a point is made of the fact that she is a highly qualified officer and not just a switchboard operator with a fancy title.
The only weak point of Star Trek is the not so original plot and the absence of a philosophical background, but that’s outweighed by the pacing and action superior to any other of the Star Trek movies and the successful re-introduction of the original Enterprise crew – with the clever ploy that Star Trek is now taking place in an alternate timeline, allowing further modernisations and deviances from the original series – and a continuation of the franchise into directions where no man has gone before.

Star Trek Movie Trailer

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 24th, 2009 at 3:40 pm and is filed under 4-star-movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.