Since When Did Star Trek Ever Make Sense?

Rating: 9/10 (17 December 2009)

I'm really surprised how many 1, 2 and 3 star reviews of ST09 are in this site. I enjoyed the movie immensely at the theater, bought the DVD, and have watched it half a dozen times since. I don't consider myself a Trekkie or Trekker because I can't speak Klingon, tell you the color of Zephram Cockran's shirt, or name the writers of every show in the first season. (But if I could, I would call myself a Trekkie, not a Trekker.) However, I did watch the very first airing of the very first episode. "The Man Trap," in 1965 when I had just turned ten, and watched every show of the original series as they came out. I once skipped a Boy Scout camping trip to watch the episode, "Assignment: Earth" (a great disappointment.)
I had no desire to see Star Trek TOS done again, and haven't liked a Star Trek movie since "The Return Home." ("Well, "First Contact" was pretty good- but it was the only STTNG movie that was!) So I received ST09 with an open mind. I didn't expect it to be the same; it couldn't be. It had to appeal to a very different audience. I was interested in seeing what they came up with.
Star Trek 2009 had an intrinsic problem to solve; what does Star Trek need to be for its audience in the 21st century, and how do we get there from here -- one century closer to the date of the series itself! But actually getting there was put into the background, so we could zero in on the new actors playing the old characters-- the fun part. Plot logic and continuity didn't have a high priority in this film. How could Spock Prime watch the destruction of Vulcan from another moon or planet-- if it was in his solar system, the other planets would be pulled into it; if it were from even the closest solar system Vulcan would be an invisible dot circling a pinpoint of light. How did Kirk, Sulu and Olsen dive from space into the atmosphere at a perfect right angle to the threshold without burning up like the space shuttle Columbia? How the hell did Spock manage to illegally banish Kirk from the Enterprise only to send him only eleven miles from Spock Prime who he didn't even know existed, amidst all the vastness of space? If you're looking for a story that makes sense, ST09 is not for you.
But since when did Star Trek ever make sense? Since when do explosions in space make sound? When did the concept of the Universal Translator ever make sense? How can a computer suddenly extrapolate the language of a culture it hasn't even made First Contact with? And would you actually eat any food that was made in a replicator? Are warp drive, time distortions and tele-porter beams really science or a hi-tech kind of magic? Everyone just puts the line where we suspend disbelief in our own place, that's all.
ST09 always struck me as the post-911 remix. "We were once innocent and optimistic, but that is all gone and now we live in an alternate reality in which our father and mother were killed by alien terrorists." Its like a snapshot of what's become of us by way of the Great Speckled Bird. Its compelling enough that lots of us-- not all of us-- don't need to pay attention too carefully to the background. And according to the box office, the Abrams team got the depiction right. That understanding informs my enjoyment of the picture.
Chris Pine creates his own Kirk but at times shockingly invokes Shatner effortlessly, whether he's slouching in the captain's seat or intoning the name "Bones!" Zachary Quinto, though never reminding me of Nimoy, always inhabited Spock's identity, practically never invoking Sylar. His voice is actually softer and gentler than Nimoy's, playing the same character in the original.
One of the biggest changes in the Trek Canon was the character of Uhuru. You can't make a big-budget wide-appeal movies nowadays without having far stronger female characters than Gene Roddenberry had. Modern women would never accept a Communications Officer Uhuru who had nothing to do but turn on the Universal Translator and automatic ship-wide radio at the beginning of her shift. Zoe Saldana fends off Kirk's boorish advances, intercepts and translates elusive Klingon radio transmissions, runs long-leggedly through the Enterprise's halls in her famous mini-skirt, and badgers Spock to assign her to the Enterprise even if it looks like favoritism. So what if she's in a love triangle with Spock and Kirk? Here's a woman fit for a starring role in the film. About Vulcan time!
I loved Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, Anton Yelchin, Ben Cross and Bruce Greenwood recreating the series' characters-- even though this Captain Pike could have been the father of the original Jeffrey Hunter Captain Pike. (J.J. Abrams said they wanted an actor to capture the Kennedyesque quality of Hunter in the original series, so they got the guy who played Kennedy (very well) in Thirteen Days.)
Eric Bana brings a lot of working-class gravitas to a role that is just patched together to give the actors something to do. He's always fun to watch. By the way, Nero has more motivation in this film than many of the other reviewers give him credit for; he slaughtered the Kelvin mad with grief over the death of his family and his planet, only minutes before he destroyed the USS Kelvin. Then he and his ship were captured and imprisoned and tortured by the Klingons for 25 years before escaping, explaining why his face was so twitchy in one extended closeup. He became an obsessed crackpot in prison. Buy this entire sequence was cut out of the theatrical version.
Well, that's my take on the movie. Not so bad if you have a sense of humor.