Everybody in the entire world has had a crush on a girl that looked just like her.
Posted on 05/08/2009 1:26:01 PM PDT by LS
This is simply a great movie. For those of us who grew up first on the television series, then the series of motion pictures, then "The Next Generation," this is the TV series on special-effects steriods, and in my opinion the second best movie of all Star Trek movies, next to "The Wrath of Khan."
The first 20 minutes is jarring, and you have to pay attention. It runs the viewer from Capt. Christopher Pike (played by a one of my favorites, Bruce Greenwood), to the evil Romulan Nero (Eric Bana, sans Hulk get-up), to the young Spock, to the risk-taking James T. Kirk (played supremely in this role by Chris Pine), then finally to the late-teen Spock who chooses Star Fleet, played by Zachary Quinto. Yet somehow the editors managed to keep the essential plot lines straight. Kirk is exceptionally bright, but a hell-raiser. Uhura (Zoe Saldana) is as beautiful as can be, and ironically has no interest in Kirk but rather is in love with Spock. Kirk proceeds to get beat to a pulp by almost everyone in this movie. (First it's cadets from Star Fleet, then Spock, then the Romulans. You begin to think Kirk was taught to fight at UN peacekeeper school).
Above all, what makes the movie is the development, on multiple levels, of the friendship between Kirk, Spock, and to a lesser degree, Bones (Karl Urban) and Scotty (Simon Pegg). John Cho plays a straight Sulu, thank God, and Anton Yelchin does a good job as Checkov.
The plot revolves around the "prime"/older Spock (Leonard Nimoy) trying to save Romulus in the future, and failing. Somehow, the evil Romulan Nero comes through a time warp to the past to destroy Vulcan out of revenge---and to make the young Spock watch!
Don't get wrapped up in debating the "time continuum" stuff, just go with it. There is a glitch with this at the end (the same person cannot exist in two places at once, or two people from different times can't co-exist, or . . . ah, forget it).
Instead, just enjoy the origins of the comeraderie, the sexual tension between Spock and Kirk over Uhuru, the one-liners, and above all, the fantastic way the actors adapted the characters to their own personas while maintaining much of the original Kirck/Scott/Bones/Spock personalities. At times, you can almost see Shatner coming through Pine; unfortunately, at times, Urban tries a little too hard to "be" Bones, and of all the characters, his is the least developed in terms of motivations or past. But the friendship between Spock---at any age---and Kirk is wonderful, if rocky at first. When Spock prime says to Kirk, "I am, and always have been, your friend," it brought a tear to my eye as I recalled Spock dying to save the Enterprise in "Wrath of Khan."
If CGI had existed in 1966, instead of cardboard sets, this is what that Star Trek might have looked like. Enjoy. Live long and prosper, unless, of course, you are Spock prime speaking to Spock in which case, as he noted, "It would be self-serving."
Yes, I heard that too. She was married to Roddenberry, and despite extremely limited acting abilities, he obviously used her at every opportunity.
Great review. Sold me. I’ll be beaming in to my local Bijou at first opportunity.
Now, THAT was funny!
Really? I missed that.
Now I'll have to go see it again.
Everybody in the entire world has had a crush on a girl that looked just like her.
Of course you didn't. Your screen name's not from Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, either.
'Captain' Spock to 'First Officer' Kirk: ".......get out of the chair........"
McCoy (to Kirk, on Academy shuttle): "I might throw up on ya."
and
"She got the whole damn planet in the divorce! The only thing I got left is my bones!"
LOL
Yes, good dialogue.
If you don’t like this movie, I’ll give you one free “live long and prosper” card.
Richard, I SWEAR I never dressed up. I did have a t-shirt that said, “I Grok Spock”, though.
Regards,
PS: I already stood out. There were 5000 guys there and about 12 girls. Who needs to dress up?
I am a baby boomer and loved the original series and movies.
Having said that I walked out of this movie after 30 minutes.
I did not like the storyline much, I did not like the way characters were portrayed and was just plain bored by all of it.
Not sure what I was expecting but that wasn’t it and I paid to see it at an IMAX theater.
Well I guess I am one of few or one that walked out on this picture. I saw the Wolverine picture last weekend and really liked it and it got a lot less good reviews than the Star Trek picture, go figure.
Anyway anyone else out there who found the new Trek picture lacking in any way?????????
I have to admit I've been looking forward to the new Trek movie with a bit of trepidation. I am definitely an Original Series fan, but I have enjoyed some of the other incarnations, most notably several seasons of TNG and Enterprise.
I guess I've pretty much prepared myself to view this new movie as a stand-alone. I'm just going to take it for what it is, in and of itself. I feel if I try to look at it any other way I'm going to be either disappointed or enraged, or both. I know they can't be completely true to the original series, but I can respect another story about characters I like as long as they don't go too far and stay within reasonable boundaries of who the character is (and I know, "reasonable" is an individual judgement).
I've heard from some that it is pretty much non-stop from beginning to end, so I guess that will keep me distracted (and hopefully entertained). In the end, I'm hoping to come away from the movie having enjoyed a movie done in the tradition of Star Trek - one that (dare I say it?) "Boldly goes...."
We'll see.
Thanks for taking the time for this review LS.
We do appreciate it. ;o)
They cut Kirk's older brother, Sam, out of the film too. The kid that young Jim yells at while driving the Corvette was originally cast as Sam.
The guy that plays McCoy - NAILS IT!
That's too bad. You missed all of the character development and interaction that took place after the "stage setting" intro.
I started with the Next Generation and watched the originals later. I don’t have a bias against the Next Generation like many. Picard is accused often of being a PC UN type. He is indeed a diplomat first, but after he exhausts diplomacy he shoots no worse than Kirk. In the shear number of killed enemies, it’s even hard to estimate who’d end up first. He is no pacifist pansy pushover for sure.
btw, I read a ton of books in the Trek Universe. Some very outstanding. The most annoying though was inconsistency in the character development between different authors; and some nifty ideas (technological details, future inventions etc etc) developed by one author being abandoned by others.
Thanks for the review LS; and the ping Kevin
I watched the movie in IMAX. Loved it.
Very nice trick with an alternative timeline. Now they can re-write the history any way they want from this point on.
One of the things that exhaust long running Sci-Fi shows (and comics as well) is that after one defeated super enemy you have to come up with even super-er one. How can you topple the latest greatest achievement?
Now they can start again with the square one. The cast is quite good and can easily go for a movie a year or TV series.
Here is one glitch that always bugged me (no pun intended): In “Wrath of Khan,” they put the worm/bug thing in Checkov’s ear to make him talk. This killed Checkov’s captain (don’t remember his name, a black guy); it rendered Capt. Pike a paraplegic; but didn’t bother Checkov at all and just crawled out his ear.
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