A dark time for Star Trek...

Rating: 2/10 (20 July 2009)

Star Trek is definitely one of the most amazing franchises in the Sci-Fi world. At first glance, it is superficial, plain boring and naive story about the future of the mankind and exploration of space. It is clear that the world created by Gene Roddenberry had to be cut to fit the limitations of the sixties TV screen. Therefore we have lots of not too fortunate ideas - bunch of human-like "alien" races (which are, let's be frank, humans with various skull deformations), pseudo-technical gibberish and other bizarre episode-ideas, deteriorating the quality of the whole series (such as holodeck, retrospections, incoherent time travels). Yet, when You dig a little deeper, a whole new layer gets uncovered. Star Trek provides everything Sci-Fi has to offer: contact with another civilizations, artificial intelligence, time travels, ghost in the machine, interstellar war, You name it. It doesn't mean that everything is a top quality, but some episodes are truly memorable.
Recently, one of the major flaws of the franchise started emerging. Being a classic TV show, Star Trek has a lot in common with the theatre, where most of the scenes are static and actors deliver their speeches standing still or walking slowly around the corridors. The remedy for that, Enterprise, apparently did not fit the needs of the audience and was prematurely cancelled (personally I don't understand why, as the worst show in the franchise, Voyager, lasted for full seven seasons).
J.J. Abrams, who was in charge of the newest movie installment definitely decided to go in the action-oriented direction. He was surely a good choice when it comes to explosions, chases and firing weapons. However, as mentioned above, Star Trek is not about that, and here Mr. Abrams failed completely. On the other hand, it is hardly surprising, as the screenplay was written by two Hollywood "titans", Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, responsible for both Transformers...
I can imagine how the preparations to start production were made. They had the list with all the ingredients needed to create a great Sci-Fi blockbuster. "Actors? Check! Special effects? Check! Enterprise? Check!" The only thing missing was the script. Star Trek movies were never particularly good - the best stories were presented in the series. Unfortunately, the last four movies with the Picard team failed to attract the attention of the viewers and I can imagine why. Their scripts were perhaps adequate for 45 minutes episode, but to sell it for the big screen You need a suspense, intelligent twist and a little action. Picard-era movies lacked some of these traits. On the other hand, Abrams' Trek has nothing but action. Starships go into warp faster than anytime before, torpedoes and laser cannons fire more frequently, members of the crew act swiftly and without hesitation. Unfortunately, no one knows, why.
The first ten minutes of the movie are really good. Although the scene of the arch-enemy emergence is copied from the Wing Commander: Prophecy game, the first battle is well designed and shot. It also gives hope for the mysterious alien protagonist. Unfortunately, the quality of the remainder of the movie is steadily deteriorating. The main characters have absolutely nothing in common with captain Kirk's crew - it's a bunch of teenagers, who accidentally happen to be on the main ship of the Federation. The "story" about the time travels-driven vengeance is neither interesting, nor logical. Appearance of the "old" Spock adds nothing to the plot and is completely unnecessary.
However, the most amazing thing is how the fandom, which buried Enterprise, accepted all the revolutionary twists in this movie, which practically erased all the previous installments. All the series and movies just never took place. I am terribly sorry, but even if someone doesn't like the Star Trek world (as appears to be the case with Abrams, Orci and Kurtzman), its abundance offered so many options to expand the story and to continue the legacy of Kirk, Picard, Sisko or Archer that resetting the whole franchise is not only a cowardice, but also a proof that the screenwriters didn't have a clue what to write.
Apparently creating a good Sci-Fi story is much harder than it seems. Recently, only Starship Troopers 3 were successful in this field. On the other hand, most of the Star Trek movies were below average (except Voyage Home and Undiscovered Country), so a good story would be much appreciated here. Unfortunately, it seems that the following years will not bring anything special - it is highly unlikely that the next movies will be better than this one...
In conclusion, some good news: Star Trek Zero (Eleven?) is not the worst Sci-Fi movie this year!!! Anybody saw Transformers 2 or Terminator 4?