[Okay-- bad title. --I thought it was funny at the time.]
[And there are no spoilers here...]
Much has been made of the reinventing of the Star Trek franchise with this newest movie, simply titled Star Trek.
Entertainment Weekly has been especially hard on the recent Trek past saying the last movie (Nemesis) and series (Enterprise) were, essentially, losers. I think that's a bit unfair. Nemesis was forgettable, but not horrible. And Enterprise was much better than it's been given credit for. I think the media tend to forget that it aired on a network that struggled its entire existence and went completely under shortly after Enterprise went off the air.
But honesty doesn't always sell the most magazines or commercial time, so the media outlets have to proclaim that the Trek Universe is severely broken and needed a revamp. Yeah, it needed to be able to draw new fans, and the best way to do that is to give them a jumping-on point, but I don't think it was broken. It's a different type of animal that had built up enough continuity that most every film or series had been familiar to fans. I do give Paramount and the various creators credit for being true to the fans who've been around a while. Many franchises would have said to hell with them and jettisoned everything to attract new (young) viewers. But it was sometimes too much for the fans with the Next Generation films because they were not much more than larger budget (but not THAT large) TV episodes.
But maybe I have it all "wrong" since while I've seen all the films and nearly all the episodes of all the series (minus a couple of DS9 eps and Voyager seasons), I don't consider myself particularly fannish about the franchise. I enjoy it and I mostly like it, but I don't live it like many (but not enough to keep the franchise going themselves) fans do.
Aaaanyway: I saw the new movie. And while it was a new take on the franchise, it still held up very well with the old ways. I imagined it'd be much less respectful of the past (especially with the ad campaign I apparently missed that claimed "This isn't your father's Star Trek"), and was pleasantly surprised that Trek non-fan JJ Abrams threw in enough lines and situations that made even a minor (but well-schooled) fan such as myself smile in recognition.
Right off the bat, we were hit with a big, emotional situation, and that's when I realized what is usually missing from Trek movies and TV series: emotion. Early Trek films had some great emotion. Star Trek II had the death of Spock in a very heroic moment and a stellar death scene-- and a vengeful villain in Khan. Trek III had an emotional element as Kirk searched for his best friend (although the lack of a truly great villain didn't help it live to its potential). And the fate of Earth-- an Earth we could easily recognize-- was at stake for Trek IV. But then the franchise went off the rails with weak villains since then (except for First Contact, which had great villains-- and is one of the best films in the franchise). And real emotion had been tough to find as well. Even the too-quickly-paced death of Kirk in Generations felt weak. That should have been one of the most devastating deaths ever, but it felt tacked-on.
So from the beginning, we are given this character we feel protective of; someone who has to break away from the tragedy of his past. Then we're introduced to another character to feel empathy toward; an outcast. Americans (humans in general?) like to root for the underdog, and we have them right here in our two main characters.
It's a great start. Previous Trek films had a built-in "shorthand" that helped propel the story; we knew that Kirk and Spock were best friends and would do anything for the other, so the films didn't have to venture into that friendship often. But not doing so robbed us of that concrete experience, of being reminded that they are best friends-- and that they are the cream of the crop at their respective positions. This movie allowed us to experience those things again.
And while it did that, we were reintroduced to characters we've seen before in different incarnations. And we had some great action scenes, a much-revered old face, plenty of humor, a horrible tragedy, an unstoppable villain (a real person; not a concept), and an open-to-close story. You don't need to know prior history to see this movie. Everything is laid out as if it's a brand new concept. That's not to say a fan would be bored; there was plenty of little touches that even casual fans like myself can see-- and they don't step on a rookie fan's toes for not knowing. And even the events we'd heard about before are shown for the first time in this film.
It's not a perfect movie, but it's very good. Both as a movie in general and as a Star Trek movie in particular. B+
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