Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Star Trek Impressions

Looooved it. I loved the reimagining of the characters and how the story served the reimagining premise. Quinto and Pine were great as Spock and Kirk, and Simon Pegg stole every scene he was in. I loved that it didn't take itself too seriously yet kept to Roddenberry's vision. So overall I loved it. Except I did have one major problem.

****SPOILER ALERT HAVEN'T SEEN IT? READ NO FURTHER*****

What the heck was it with the insane coincidence where young Kirk meets old Spock in a cave? That was just simply too unbelievable a coincidence. Running into one another was necessary for the story, I get it, but together in some random cave? At least they could/should have run into one another in the Federation base on the same planet.

OK, so many of you non-sci fi fans are probably laughing at me at this point. Kirk meeting Spock in a cave was unbelieveable? How about the weird "red matter" that can create black holes and all of the other Trek-isms like warp speed, transporters, etc that are simply accepted? All I can say to that is that Trek assumes that technology is far advanced, and the audience has to accept that in the world of this film. Wild coincidences are not part of the Trek wold, it is just bad storytelling.

Furthermore, that whole ice planet scene annoyed me beyond just that coincidence. Old Spock spending 5 minutes narrating a backstory with a few visuals was just another chunk of lazy-ass story telling. Why not tell the back (future) story in a full-fledged flash-forward? It would have been better storytelling and given underutilized Eric Bana and Leonard Nimoy more to do. If budget or running time was an issue, we certainly could've done without the whole ice monster chase sequence which, though exciting, did not serve the overall story in the slightest. Kirk had already repeatedly demonstrated his exceptional survival skills.

So in other words, excellent movie. Could have been perfect if director JJ Abrams had cut the 10 minutes of ice monster sequence/Spock narration and inserted some kind of flash-forward with more Leonard Nimoy and Eric Bana instead. Kudos JJ!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I do agree with the coincidence about Kirk and Spock Prime. The motivations of Nero were so generic. The lens flares got on my fucking nerves.

It was a solid movie, but I has some problems with it.

Len said...

Lens flares didn't bother me in general, though they were mildly distracting.

Post a Comment