To boldly go , and destroy a 40 year franchise

Rating: 2/10 (29 May 2009)

On Friday May 22 2009 I went to the Detroit Science Center and saw the traveling Star Trek exhibit. I was never a fan as a kid but recently I have started watching Star Trek in chronological order according to the canon/time line of the franchise beginning with Enterprise. I have really enjoyed it. The exhibit at the Science Center was terrific, complete with mock ups of the bridge, actual costumes and props from each show, the works.
A few days later I went and saw the new Star Trek. I liked it to a point, and then Spock's mother dies when Vulcan is destroyed, the use of an alternate time line came into play and everything Gene Roddenberry, Shatner, Nimoy and the generations that came after them put on screen, was made null and void.
Kirk is a young rebel rouser from Iowa who in a matter of moments it seems is recruited into Star Fleet and through a 'just happened to be there at the right time' scenario, is put in charge of the Enterprise. Gone is a story about how a young officer worked his way up the ranks at Star Fleet to achieve his later success. Instead we see a bar room brawler who takes command of NCC - 1701 by means of a hurried and contrived plot.
JJ Abrams made no attempt to make the Enterprise look anything like it did in 1967, he has publicly stated he has never sen Star Trek and that is fairly obvious from this over done film. JJ Abrams gave us 'Lost' and with all of the shaky camera work in this film I expected Ben Linus and the smoke monster to appear at any time.
I know the film was made for the short attention spans of today's audiences but some respect for Star Trek fans would have helped. One reviewer stated that the bridge of the Enterprise looked like a perfume counter at the mall, I couldn't agree more. The characters gratuitously speak their famous catch phrases to remind us that we're still watching a Star Trek film. We see Uhura and Spock have romantic scenes together and we see Kirk hiding under a bed in Uhura's room at Starfleet and both are in their underwear. Was this really necessary? The special effects were good yet typically overdone as always in today's movies. The characters were too amped up and the story never took time for the quieter moments that made the original Star Trek great. All of the people involved in the original Star Trek, who have since passed on, are probably rolling in their graves.
The original Star Trek was only on the air for three years but has since become a legend. Sure it was campy and you saw the fake rocks and the zippers in the aliens costumes, but it deserves more respect than the treatment given by JJ Abrams.
At the Detroit Science Center they had a, wall length, display of the entire franchise in chronological order from Enterprise to the current fiasco. Much was on display of characters and plot points. At the very end of the display was this new movie. All it had written by it was 'The adventure continues.' After seeing this new film, I certainly hope not.