An Insult to Our Intelligence

Rating: 1/10 (17 May 2009)

Just as the 3 "Star Wars" prequels ruined the Star Wars franchise (though I never liked it to begin with), this new "Star Trek" prequel is a damaging blow to the Star Trek movie franchise, and this prequel crap needs to stop now. The pathetic writers of this new Hollywood generation can't come up with any new, creative ideas, so they just keep going back in time (as they did with "Batman Begins") with established franchises, as if we need to see over and over again how the characters we love so much got their start. And the BIG problem with this new "Star Trek" movie is that they TOTALLY foul up the history of these characters and then insult our intelligence by having Spock (Prime - the older Spock) say that his actions altered the course of history (which, we learn, is why Kirk's father dies on the day of his birth this time around). What a lame, poor excuse for why the history of Mr. Spock, Captain Pike, Captain Kirk, Dr. McCoy and even Chekov is so radically different from what it is in the Original Series and its Original movies. What is different? For one, in TOS, Kirk first served under Captain Robert April on a different starship, and had years of experience as a first officer before becoming captain. In this movie, Kirk's serves with Captain Pike of the Enterprise first, right alongside Spock, and on his FIRST day of service he becomes first officer and then on the very same day is suddenly promoted to Captain! Quite a leap up the ladder! In TOS, Spock is supposed to have served under Captain Pike 13 years before he and Kirk meet. Also, Dr. McCoy suddenly becomes Chief Medical Officer on the very same day that Kirk suddenly becomes Captain. Wow, what a coincidence! This movie so ridiculously rushes the whole thing, but it's OK because Spock altered everything, right? In this movie, Chekov is on the bridge as navigator even BEFORE Kirk ever steps foot on the Enterprise. That means he has MORE experience than Kirk! So in TOS how did Kirk become Captain while Chekov was a lowly ensign? Oh yeah, Spock altered history. And Chekov is said to be 17 in this movie. When did he start at Starfleet Academy--when he was 13?! Finally, this movie has no intelligent (or even intelligible) story. It has a ludicrous story of the Romulans (who look like a biker gang in this movie) creating Black Holes out of planets. And this movie is all action and loudness with dizzying camera shaking, which totally goes against TOS's cleverness of playing on ideas rather than action. Abrams has no business in the "Star Trek" franchise, and I hope he never makes another "Star Trek" movie. But I guess as long as they make plenty of $$$$, it doesn't matter. That's more important than being faithful to the characters and history of the show, right?