I seemed to have somehow bypassed the whole Star Trek phase. I have missed the original series with William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy (due to the fact that I wasn't born) and was too involved with cartoons and Nickelodeon to be concerned with The Next Generation. However, I have always yearned to experience Captain James T. Kirk yell, "Beam me up, Scotty!" and see Spock be the unemotional voice of reason in times of peril. Director J.J. Abrams must have read my mind, along with the minds of other wanna-be and current trekkies alike and came up with a brand new rendition of the U.S.S. Enterprise and its crew.
It doesn't take a die-hard fan to know that the Star Trek franchise is one that has been recycled over and over, which is something that concerned me with the new remake. Would this movie be able to break new ground with these familiar characters, or would it be nothing more than a nostalgic flashback that simply regurgitated old material? The surprising result was a combination of the two. Familiar elements were used, but this was done so in a way that seemed new and invigorating.
The film takes its audience back to before James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) even set foot on the U.S.S. Enterprise, utilizing all of the same characters from the original series, only at a much earlier time in their lives. The crew responds to a distress call and finds themselves up against time-traveling Romulans, led by their captain Nero (Eric Bana). The inclusion of the time travel element in film always raises a red flag because so much can go wrong and make everything a chaotic mess. However, the concept works perfectly and helps to create fun aspects of the movie, such as the young Spock (Zachary Quinto) meeting his future self, played by none other than Leonard Nimoy himself.
The production value was absolutely amazing and was able to make the audience forget that this movie is based on defying reality. Black holes are not gateways to other dimensions and times. The accuracy of warp speed is obviously debatable. How is it possible that Scotty (Simon Pegg) can transport three different people from two separate places to one location and yet Kirk and Hikaru Sulu (John Cho) are forced to parachute onto the Romulan drill in order to destroy it? But the fun and excitement comes from suspending that disbelief and embracing the fiction of the sci-fi genre. And of course, having Dr. Leonard McCoy (Karl Urban) shouting, "Dammit man, I'm a doctor, not a physicist!" makes things enjoyable as well. The rest of the crew was filled out perfectly, with Nyota Uhura (Zoe Saldana) as the communications expert and Spock's secret love, and Pavel Chekov (Anton Yelchin) ironically heading up the communications of the ship with his extremely thick Russian accent.
The thing that I was excited for the most was the doors that were opened for the franchise. This movie was a simple re-energized version of the original series, full of catch phrases and familiarities. But now that the new, younger characters have been established, perhaps the next movie will test the personalities of the crew instead of simply re-establishing them. Regardless, the Star Trek remake was a fun and exciting experience with an excellent cast that would entertain the entire spectrum of Star Trek fans.
