Star Trek – Not Quite a Review

Posted by ADAM

Last night Teresa, Alex, Liz, Lori and I went to see Star Trek. We went at 7 PM on Thursday night — the first screening. The fact that the screenings began five hours before midnight was a pretty well kept secret ’cause the theater was only half full.

Teresa will undoubtedly review this for Pink Raygun and we pretty much agreed about the film so I’m just going to comment briefly. I’m a huge Trekkie. A HUGETrekkie. And I really enjoyed that this movie could be enjoyed both by huge nerds like me and also Muggles. It was exciting. It was funny. It was fun. It captured the lighthearted original series atmosphere better than The Next Generation ever did (despite being about a cataclysmic genocide) and it was nice to have the fun back in Star Trek. I have no doubt this will reenergize this franchise in a way we haven’t scene since The Wrath of Khan or “The Best of Both Worlds.”

BUT… I do have one complaint.

There was too much ACTION!. Seriously, this movie was like Star Trek on speed. It never ever let up. There were so many jaw dropping ACTION! sequences but I didn’t feel like I got to enjoy them fully. The key to enjoying ACTION! is that moment when the sequence is over and the entire audience, eyes wide and mouths agape, collectively exhale and think to themselves, “Jesus fucking Christ that was the most fucking awesome thing I’ve ever seen!” Star Trek didn’t have that moment. Ever. (Maybe once.) You can’t really talk about the pacing of this movie’s plot since there’s only one speed — full throttle! Even Star Wars, which created action movie pacing the way it is today, takes a moment to let everyone catch their breath once in a while. I felt like J. J. Abrams was so worried about boring the audience with the traditional Star Trek talking heads that he overcompensated.

It isn’t deadly to the film. It’s still pretty freakin’ awesome and you’re going to love it so don’t let this little complaint scare you out of seeing it. I’m going again this weekend. It’s just that I felt a little bit bad for the new cast trying to stake a claim to these beloved roles in the middle of all the ACTION!. Chris Pine never got to take Kirk much beyond a sneering frat boy and Zachery Quinto… man, I just feel sorry for the guy! He was trying to make an iconic character his own and play it in a new, original way. Not only did his character-defining scenes keep getting preempted by ACTION! — they brought in Leonard Nimoy for a Spock cameo that stole the show. Quinto does all the action scenes, Nimoy gets all the good stuff. How’s Quinto supposed to compete with that?

Anyway, complaint over. I loved it. I just wish Abrams knew that the material was strong enough that he could take his time a little more. It would have made all the ACTION! even better.