| | In the world of movie and science fiction, there is only 2 franchise that comes to mind, Star Wars and Star Trek. While I remain truly a Star Wars fan, I do follow Star Trek with great interest.
My first encounter with Star Trek started back in the 90s with Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG). People generally find Star Trek boring due to all the science lingo and lack of action. But it is all this technological and science babble that keeps my interest in the series going. Later on, local television and now-dead MetroVision screened Deep Space Nine and Voyager, which I tried to follow to the best that I could, considering Seremban is not supposed to be in MetroVision's coverage. Spoilt Klang Valley brats. After that Star Trek went into hibernation, before coming back with a prequel series, Enterprise, which subsequently pissed off nearly all Star Trek fans before having its plug pulled. The TNG movies did not fare all to well either. I would call First Contact my favourite Star Trek movie to date, but by the time they reached Nemesis, nobody seemed interested in Star Trek anymore. With Nemesis and Enterprise, the Star Trek franchise was considered to be dead.
That was until a few years back it was announced that J.J. Abrams was going to direct the new Star Trek reboot. Everyone started getting excited. Moviedom was finally welcoming back one of its favourite sci-fi franchise. Of course, when it is a franchise with this much history and loyal fanbase, there is always concerns about how it would turn out. As I do with all movie, my anticipation for it was high as well and I was excited. I eagerly got the tickets, which did not pose that much of difficulty as compared to the likes of The Dark Knight. Stupid average Malaysian audience.
 Fanboy and Trekkie were both excited over the new Star Trek movie.
SPOILERS START
Having caught the movie, I have to say this was one great adventure ride. Star Trek never felt so epic. From the visuals to the musical score, it had epic movie written all over it. Abrams signature slow-motion sequence during emotional scenes were well in there in the opening. There were excessive use of lens flare everywhere. Heck, I never knew classic Enterprise would look so cool, even though I consider it one of the least impressive Starfleet ship designs compared to the slicker Sovereign class starship. Nero's Borg technology retrofitted Romulan mining vessel looks like some weird fusion between Vorlon-Shadow vessels, and it is huge.
My earlier concern was how do you reboot a franchise with so much history without pissing off the legion of fans? After the movie (and the comic books) I can see why it was perfectly acceptable. No other sci-fi series plays with time travel and parallel universes as much as Star Trek does, and it was only logical that this was the way they rebooted the series. You could still tell fans that their original series and history was still intact, that this was just a new timeline. Trekkies will take in any time travel crap you give them.
The excellent new cast gave a fresh new take on the old crew, but still kept their famous characteristics there. Fandom was practically screaming in approval for Zachary Quinto as young Spock. He definitely has the eyes for the job. Of course, original Spock himself, Leonard Nimoy, was not about to be out done by a young punk, makes a significant appearance in the movie as well. But try not to think about how that works out, these time travel paradox might fry a few brain cells in the process. There lies the strength of the new movie as well, keeping very much the familiar elements from the original series, and with a fresh take. Chris Pine's Kirk is equally dashing as well as arrogant. Karl Urban's McCoy was pessimistic with some of the best lines. Zoe Saldana suddenly made Uhura very hot. Simon Pegg's Scotty is a bubbly ball of positive energy. Anton Yelchin's Chekov gives us the comic relief and John Cho's Sulu is an ass-kicking Sulu. I was particularly happy and greatly amused at the inclusion of the infamous red shirt character. Trekkie and I seemed liked the only ones in the cinema hall laughing out loud when the red shirt finally bites the dust. And having Kirk being chased around seemed something out of The Original Series (TOS), even though I have never watched an episode of it in my entire life. But Galaxy Quest helped me a lot.
Essentially, Star Trek is one big fun adventure ride. It still remains faithfully science fiction, but with lots of the humour from TOS. But I must mentioned how a fellow sci-fi geek pointed out how that they made the new Star Trek more like Star Wars. Could not be helped, I supposed, with Industrial Light & Magic working behind the scenes. Is that not like a conflict of interest? Also check this out for another take on the comparison. But even as the comparisons are made between Star Trek and Star Wars, I believe their true similarity lies in the way it manages to tell an interesting story with great characters. That is what a great movie is made of essentially.
Once again, welcome back, Star Trek. We missed you for a while there.
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| | Posted 5/10/2009 8:12 PM - 8 Views - 0 eProps - 0 comments
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