Kirk And Spock In Their Salad Days

Rating: 6/10 (16 March 2011)

Star Trek purists all over the universe are trashing this version of Star Trek and while I don't consider myself a purist as such, this one did not leave me yearning for more.
This version has the classic characters that have become so identified with William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy played by young actors Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto. We see them as children, in the case of Kirk at the moment of his birth, and then growing up into top flight cadets at Starfleet Academy. But there's no hint of the camaraderie that we remember from the television series or the films.
Young Kirk is a rebel and we don't know if he'll ever be any good. Far cry from the disciplined starship captain we know. Spock is pretty much the character we do remember, he is a younger version of Leonard Nimoy. The others are all there as younger versions of themselves.
Now as we're going through the film, purists will spot the many flaws in the saga we've seen develop. But that is later explained when we know the true nature of the villain that the Enterprise is pursuing. That would be Eric Bana a time traveling Romulan who's got a doomsday weapon and he's going to wipe out a lot of history as we've learned it.
He alters quite a bit of it so if new films are made and they are planned, the Trekkies will have to get used to a whole new dynamic. One change that was for the better, it was nice to see Zoe Saldana as a young Uhura get around and actually have a life beyond opening hailing frequencies.
The science seems flawed and I suppose we'll have to wait to get into the Star Trek century before we can get a clue if what happens in this film could actually happen. But I do wish they'd given the new Kirk and Spock a better introductory story because now they're stuck in those parameters.