Note: While I have endeavoured to keep this review as spoiler free as possible, some minor plot details that could be considered spoilers are present

One Sentence Review

An enjoyable but slightly flawed sci-fi romp, that reboots the franchise in a way that is respectful to the original films and TV series.

Detailed Synopsis (Separate Post)

Find it here

My Thoughts

After seeing the excellently designed trailer and all the glossy promotional material and clips, I went into see Star Trek with high expectations, when I left the cinema I found myself slightly disappointed since while the film was enjoyable and quite good, honouring the spirit of Trek. In some ways I found it tried too hard to honour the original Trek and in other ways not hard enough.

To begin I will tell you my current top 3 Trek films, which in reverse order are, 3) First Contact, 2) Star Trek 6 and then 1) Star Trek 2, and as a fan but not a fanatic of Trek I have to say that after my initial viewing I don’t think that Star Trek matches any of these films BUT is probably in fourth place replacing the much maligned Star Trek 3 in my personal list of Top Trek films. This is mainly because I found some of the plot points too unrealistic (even considering its Star Trek) or inconsistent with existing Trek technology, as the film suffered at times from one of the many banes of Star Trek 5, the sacrifice of “realism” for the sake of plot, though in the case of Star Trek 5 the plot is not up to much either, but more about this later.

In terms of the recasting, for the “big 3″ of Kirk, Spock and McCoy, I have few complaints as I could happily believe that these were younger versions of the characters we have come to know and love. The way that the characters meet could even be the way they meet in the original timeline, since aside from how Kirk is convinced to get on the recruitment shuttle the depiction of events are plausible in an unchanged timeline given what we know of there early life in the TV series and film. All 3 actors had good chemistry between them which is important given the prominence of the roles. The only thing I found slightly jarring is that Bones was afraid of Shuttles in the film while in the TV series it was transporters, though I suppose he could have overcome one fear to develop another later on.

For the rest of the recasting my feelings are mixed, as Uhura was the least utilised of the crew in the original series and films it was pleasant to see how important and well developed her role was in the film. This also means she is the hardest to compare to the original cast, but I can say that I did not feel her role was forced into the film, aside from mixed feelings about a romantic development involving her and another crew member.

Simon Pegg as Montgomery Scott was also fine, though I did wonder why they had to give him a pint sized side kick, who I suspect is just there for merchandising purposes. I also found that he seemed a little too manic for my liking, though I blame this on the script and directors rather than Pegg, as I think they thought along the lines of we have a comedian in the cast, lets use him for comic relief. Part of his manicness could be due to where he had been stuck for the past few months, so I will reserve full judgement on Scotty until I see how he is depicted in any sequel.

As for Chekov and Sulu, I just did not like their depiction, Chekov I thought was forced into the film, when he is far too young to be realistically in Starfleet at the time the film is set, and I think that even the most die hard Chekov fans would have preferred a good depiction in a sequel than a forced depiction now. The accent was also overemphasised to the point where while I know it was meant to be funny, just wanted it to be over. As for Sulu, no offense intended to John Cho, his character may have been called Sulu, but I just did not believe he was the same Sulu that we know and love from the original trek.

As for the rest of the cast of note, I thought the villain Nero was slightly weak due to the plot rather than the acting, and I have to wonder what they were doing for the 20 or so years between their initial and second appearance. I feel that this part of the film and his motivations could have been a bit better fleshed out, so questions like this and why his crew remained loyal were fully answered. On the flip side I liked the depiction of Captain Pike and thought that Bruce Greenwood, displayed qualities in his role that you would want in a Captain and I would be pleased if he appeared in a sequel.

As for the film in general, I thought it rebooted the franchise well, and to be honest if Trek was to survive as a film franchise, this process needed to be done long ago, and the best thing is that the editorial team is completely changed as Rick Berman despite being someone who had given much to the franchise, should have handed the reigns over to someone else a lot sooner as the franchise had been tiring for a long time whilst under his care. While the film “Star Trek” is in no way perfect it should hopefully serve as the springboard for a reinvigoration of the franchise.

I suspect that the film may do better amongst people who only watch Trek now and again than the more die hard fans, (I put myself somewhere in the middle closer to die hard than passing fan), as while being a fan of Trek allows you to get some of the in jokes e.g. Admiral Archer and the Beagle, it hurts your enjoyment of the film as you pick up on elements that don’t fit with Trek Cannon even given the altered timeline. If you don’t pick up on these things then you can sit back and enjoy the film.

The only thing I did not like about the reboot was the horrible way that product placement has now entered the Star Trek universe. While the well known beer brand one was done in an effective and subtle way, the mobile phone company product placement was so blatant it was embarrassing. It was not so much the use of the distinctive ringtone which was mildly amusing, but having the companies logo easily seen on the communicators touch screen which left me instantly thinking “oh look, there’s some product placement”.

In closing, I enjoyed the film and if you like space based Sci-fi you should enjoy the film if you dont care too much for realism. Its probably worse than the trailers make out, but is an above average and enjoyable film

My Rating

7/10

Nitpicking for Trekkies

Now time to put on my Trek hat to close out the review as the main problems I had with the plot where technical ones, like travelling in space seems to be like travelling in 24, in that you can get anywhere in 10 minutes regardless of distance and speed, unless the plot demands that it takes longer. We also have the use of Black holes as time portals, when ships should be destroyed by them instead of travelling through them, if you want a Trek consistent “hole” to travel into the past, use a wormhole instead. There were a few more things like this which I wont mention due to spoilers.

Other issues included the Enterprise and the Kelvin having TARDIS like interiors having engineering and maintenance decks that are much bigger than they should be given what we know of its dimensions in past Trek. I was also annoyed by a reference to Klingon War Birds, when they were clearly D-X (X=Number) class or K’t'inga class battle cruisers, as it is the Romulans who have War birds, though this is one thing that can possibly be explained by the altered timeline.

On the Romulan Question, I was also uncertain how Starfleet knew that the Narada was Romulan, since the Kelvin survivors would initially think it was a Vulcan ship when they see the Romulans appearance given the time the film is set. It is possible that I missed a reference somewhere to the Kelvin finding out it was Romulan or an investigation team discovering the debris, sensor records of the Kelvin showed Romulan technology. I was also dubius over whether what was originally a civilian mining ship, even one from over a century later could match the weaponary on Warships, though this is explained in the Countdown comic.

There is also the question of why there are 8 apparently undermanned ships in orbit of Earth that need advanced cadets to help man them. While the one line explanation of a build up for an unspecified reason in another system is plausible for why the rest of the fleet is unavailable, unless all the ships were training ships or in the final stages of being built, it does not explain why they did not have sufficient crew to man them. Linked to this is Kirks reward at the end of the film, as while part of it is expected, I was left thinking that despite of what he had achieved the reward was just there for plot expediency and the sake of a sequel.