Star Trek: Off In The Weeds

Rating: Null/10 (12 May 2009)

Having watched the original series and been influenced for better by the original Star Trek and Gene Roddenberry's vision of a tolerant, rational, diverse and productive future I was very much looking forward to the new Star Trek movie.
The first inkling that I might have trouble with the movie was the trailers that show what looks like a pre-teenage James Tiberius Kirk driving what in the movie would be a 300 year old antique muscle car off a cliff while almost killing himself. The whole scene screamed out action, pointless image pandering, and strongly suggested a total lack of understanding of Star Trek and Kirk ... but a total lock on how to manipulate movie-going audiences with rebellious images and eye candy.
Nevertheless, I did want to see what this new Star Trek was going to be, and I think that is the capital this movie knows it can draw on. Abrams and company bought the rights knowing that me and millions of other people will go to the movie sight unseen. I think it gave Abrams, who I think has never finished anything he has done, and certainly never done anything he has finished without interjecting time travel and alternate realities, a license to "muck about" with Star Trek, as if no one cares and it is his own personal property, not the worldwide icon that it is. Star Trek has survived for so long because of the vision of Roddenberry of the world in the original series.
To be sure, most of the Star Trek movies were made to capitalize on the branding of Star Trek, and people could hardly get enough, but no one really thought highly of the movies as part of the Star Trek world, they were nostalgic moments that brought together actors who were too old to be what they were in these movies with overblown plots about existential threats to civilized life in the universe.
Most of the movies completely missed the point of Star Trek, that being the seeking and exploration of new life and new civilizations. Star Trek was at its best as an adventure show that was usually at its heart subversive with some critical comment about our own Earth's history. The movies mostly missed this.
This new movie is slick, and it has all the images strong and intense to catch people's eyes, and it did catch mine. On the good side there is a new crew that are younger and more believable to be crewing a Star Ship for the United Federation of Planets. The catch to this is that these are all Roddenberry's inventions, and they were bought to get viewers in the door, not to honor or extend the Star Trek legacy.
I have to say that the whole new crew is great. Kirk, Spock, Uhura, Scotty, Bones, Chekov, Sulu ... they all did great jobs and looked their parts. It was a lot of fun to see just a small glimpse that could have been with a real Star Trek movie instead of the exploitative marketing that some Hollywood focus group told movie investors how not to lose money in.
The idea of "disrespectfully" blowing away all of Star Trek history and lore could have worked or been a necessary device if there was a greater good to be obtained from it, but there was really no point to do all of that for a cheap and simpleminded script that they settled on here.
There was good music as well, the new Star Trek theme wonderfully caught the sense of wonder and awe of what must be out there in the universe for us to encounter and see.
While seeing the movie the pace and visual images unfold and move on through this story with its own momentum at warp speed, the problem with this movie, and Hollywood in general is that most often they assemble the pieces of a movie they think people will see, and the demographics they hope to rope in to sell tickets to, and the mechanically construct a product that while it will appeal to a mass market has no understanding of how to have a heart, or in this case how to be Star Trek.
The fun in watching this movie is undeniable, but the sadness in pondering it's failures and the disrespect it showed to the original creators and the fans of Star Trek who continually hope for more is what make the movie an ultimate failure.
2/10