This afternoon, I went to the movies to see the newest "Star Trek" film, entitled simply "Star Trek." Directed by a J.J. Adams (according to Wikipedia, the guy who created or co-created "Alias" and "Lost" and worked on "Mission: Impossible III"), the film intends to reboot the Trek franchise to breathe new life into it, presumably by making it more "accessible" to non-hardcore fans.
(SPOILERS)
Guess that's enough space.
While it had entertaining aspects, I came away being reminded of why I usually dislike reboots in the first place----particularly for their "burn your bridges behind you" aspects. It seems that Paramount took a page from the famed comic book reboot known as "Crisis on Infinite Earths", the series that, like this film, used a "Back to the Future"-ish time-travel plot to retroactively alter the past of its entire universe, leading to a subsequent revamping of Superman that tossed out every pre-1986 comic about him published (said Superman reboot was one I never liked, preferring the old "pre-Crisis" Superman). "Trek"'s plot involves a time-traveling rogue Romulan mining vessel captain (named "Nero" of all names), who goes on a rampage through the past and heavily altering things-as-we-know-them, including among others killing off Kirk's father and blowing up the planet Vulcan. While I *knew* this film was likely to retcon stuff left and right (and suspected some familiar-to-Trek-fans planet would retroactively buy the farm), eliminating Vulcan still felt odd to me---sort of like getting rid of Batman's Batcave and Wayne Manor a week after he started being Batman (yes, the 70s stories mostly got rid of both, but they were reinstated by decade's end).
As noted above, the film spends plenty of time noting it's a reboot of sorts---the original Spock, Leonard Nimoy, plays a minor role in the film as showing up in the past to meet young Kirk and young Spock. There's also a scene where a few characters note "an alternate reality" being created by Nero's meddling with the past, which seems to just point out the plot-device, mediocre nature of the film's villain (just as the Anti-Monitor in "Crisis on Infinite Earths" was a plot-device, mediocre villain). Still, given the science-fiction nature of Star Trek (like the comics above), I wonder why they didn't just write an adventure about young Kirk and company meeting (sans the time-travel elements), declare it set in a parallel universe, and just ignore the original material outright (a la "The Flash of Two Worlds" and DC's Silver Age "Earth-One" universe, which left the original Golden Age stories alone but just relegated them to the alternate "Earth-Two"), versus the "Crisis"/Superman-revamp bridge-burning approach?
On a positive note, I did enjoy young Uhura's portrayal in the film---it's nice to see them give her a sizeable role. Also enjoyed Bones' character and Scotty (plus Scotty's little alien friend).
Like "Enterprise", it looks like the film tried to figure out how to make Kirk's time look "futuristic" without making it completely overshadow the now-dated 60's look of the original series. Various female characters are seen wearing the original show's miniskirt uniforms, and several land vehicles are seen with wheels on them (instead of being hovercars, though a hoverbike appears). Unfortunately, the film also features, out-of-place enough (given Trek showing the future as a less money-grubbing one than now), product placement---at a bar, Uhura sees the menu has "Budweiser" beer, and in the by-then-antique 20th century car Kirk makes off with, we see a Nokia touch-screen device installed. I suppose one could argue that it might be part of Trek-folk's odd fascination with present-day-era culture, but considering they view our time as basically like the Flintstones', I always was amused at their interest. We may as well be driving foot-powered cars as far as Spock, Picard, Odo, etc. are concerned---speaking of which, I wonder what Kirk's car was running on since I assume fossil fuels like gasoline are extinct/banned/obsolete in Trek's future...
Overall, I guess the film achieved its job of rebooting the Trek franchise for 2009. I suppose there'll be more such "post-Crisis Trek" films in the future (or even maybe a TV series based on such), but for me, I think I'll stick with the reruns of TOS (along with TNG and DS9), just as I'd rather re-read my old Silver and Bronze Age comics than buy DC Comics' current grim-and-gritty, mega-crossover-happy dreck...
For another take (from someone less vested in "Trek"), here's
Roger Ebert's review of the Star Trek film.
