Not Seamless - how to fix it for the next 2 films

Rating: 8/10 (7 May 2009)

Okay, overall the JJ Abrams reboot of the Star Trek franchise with his film Star Trek is a fine action-adventure space movie but I'd put it below Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and possibly below Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and maybe even Star Trek: First Contact simply in terms of entertainment value and a tight story.
Star Trek 2009 has a lot going for it, mainly excellent casting with a couple of exceptions. I would have much preferred Gabrielle Union in the role of Uhuru, and Karl Urban as Spock (although his McCoy is excellent). Zachary Quinto turns in fine work, but I just don't think he was right for the part. Chris Pine deserves the big Steve McQueen-type stardom he will now get (hopefully he will choose his roles well), and even Simon Pegg as Scotty worked somehow.
The biggest mistake of all was the de-alienization of Spock. Go back and watch Star Trek: The Motion Picture and see how Nimoy plays Spock as almost wholly alien, with that cool black wardrobe and very very different from humans. That is the cool Spock which made the character an icon, not the Oprahized touchy feely sexpot Spock we got in this film. Using Nimoy served the time-travel device but they didn't need him in more than one scene - and how can the two Spocks be in one universe??? Gah, Old Spock telling Quinto Spock "Good Luck," (sigh) The best Spock in the whole movie is the little kid Spock - good little actor and he owned the part.
All over the web you can read glowing reviews about what they got right - the visceral action, the fast pacing, and a story that hangs together, but the film was not without its problems.
The time-travel device is always iffy or weak as a way to tell a story and it only worked halfway in this instance because although they tried to follow the Wrath of Khan revenge arc with their story, their villain was too plain, from too humble a background to really bring gravitas to him or his quest. The love affair between Spock and Uhura was a misfire 100%. Unfolding events kept putting the characters we knew into the chairs we were used to seeing them occupy but it felt forced, not the result of an altered time-stream which would have been interesting (that you can alter time, but not really) Kirk was the by far the most fully realized character and the most believable, but the sheer disregard the characters had for chain-of-command and regulations was breathtaking. The original series was grounded in a rock-solid command hierarchy and unflinching attention to procedure and regulations and it created drama when the characters went outside of them and created a foundation upon which the story rested (a military crew on a mission) but in Star Trek 2009 the characters just seemed to make up rules as they went along and mixed and matched them.
By rebooting the story with the altered time-line we get an instant mix of character relationships, not the backstory we know where people had a track record and had worked together already for years or at least knew of each others' talents and exploits. The original Kirk carefully hand-picked his command team because he knew of their talents, this crew just was tossed in a blender and ended up in the right chairs.
I hate to say it, but toward the end of the film with Nero and his giant claw ship becoming the focus of the finale, it visually reminded me way too much of the worst Star Trek film, Nemesis - another mad Romulan out for vengeance against the captain of the Enterprise. Oh, and don't get me started on Red Matter (or as I call it, One-Glob Singularity-forming Lava Lamp) - now that was a cheap plot device.
The other main criticism is that this film fell too much in the gritty in what I call the Sleek vs. Gritty approach to science fiction aesthetics (read my post about it on Galactica Variants here: http://galacticavariants.blogspot.com/2009/01/sleek-vs-gritty.html ) What made the original Star Trek so cool was the sleek, minimalist look to the design - which had a functional quality to it. Frankly some of the sets looked cheap. Pool light covers for transporter pads and weird plastic cutouts for the above transporter sections for example.
Abrams should bring back the iconic sounds, and no more shots of breweries and basements substituting as the engineering section, that was a travesty. Just one or two shuttles next time, not the whole lower half of the ship for a giant hangar bay.and more color and atomization in the transporter effect, but the horizontal lines were okay. Bring back beam phasers, the pulse gun type sucked. Slowly alter the look of the interior closer to the original series' look - far too many graphic interface panels and consoles and thingies that stick up. No more Star Fleet Academy - you've done it, never need to see it again (it was done best in Wrath of Khan). Sick Bay - it looked like a modern dentist's office - return closer to the look of the original series (minimalism, get it?). Bring back phasers as lasting beams of light (enough with the staccato-fast effect) and bring back that cool blue and the cool sound (gads, this one is so obvious). And - please - no more aliens (except as featured guest stars or way-in-the-background-and-blurry extras) and get rid of the little munchkin Scotty sidekick rock alien (I was flashing back, in a bad way, to Ewoks)