Live long and prosper, Star Trek

Rating: 10/10 (5 May 2009)

Just came from an advance screening here in south Florida. What a joy this movie is! Full disclosure: I have been a fan since September 8, 1966 when the original series first aired. Though I have enjoyed all the series (and movies) to varying extents, the original series is still the gold standard for me. I think anyone who shares that opinion will absolutely flip over this one; Roddenberry's katra is smiling down from wherever he rests in the celestial abode.
Casting and performances very, very good. Pine, at one point early on, delivered a smirk (or maybe it was a sneer) that was soooo Kirk; this was the role where my expectation for disappointment was the highest - I was not disappointed. I know Shatner was peeved at not having a part in this, but really he should be proud that the character he helped to create is so iconic that for someone else to recreate it requires learning some of his MORE . . . SUBTLE . . . mannerisms. Pine never "Shatnered" in delivery of his lines, but you still felt the connection.
Saldana in Nichelle Nichols role - yum yum in both cases. Bigger part in this than Uhura ever was in TOS, but hey, way OK by me. Funny (spoiler here) she has all these kissing scenes with Spock, where back in the real world of the 60's her big inter-racial kiss with Kirk was the big hoo-haa; to me, hilarious on the transporter pads where Kirk is looking over and going WTF? Urban absolutely NAILS McCoy. "I'm a doctor, not a physicist!" OK, we all knew it was coming. It was still perfect. Sulu's "advanced fighting technique" was (spoiler) fencing - cute, harking back to a couple of TOS episodes. But Sulu was never developed much as a character in TOS, he was just there firing phasers and whatnot, so Cho could not have done much wrong (I mean, unless he showed up non-Asian).
Yelchin, frankly, shouldn't even have been in this as Chekhov was not part of the first TOS season, but that can be forgiven in an alternate timeline (convenient SF concept, useful to explain away nearly anything). Pegg was consistently amusing, although it would have been better for the TOS purist had he asked for Scotch instead of a sandwich.
My only quibble is with Quinto, who delivered a fine performance . . . but his voice lacks the baritone "Spockiness" of younger Nimoy's. I mean seriously, to this day, when I see one of my kids flaking out when they should be doing homework, I drop my normal (already pretty low) voice an octave and say "hmmm . . . strangely quiescent" (a Spock line from TOS episode "Operation: Annihilate", first season). It only sounds right in Spock's octave . . .
OK script:genius; action:whooooo; pacing:bracing; drama:hey, it's Star Trek, not Hamlet