Film Review: Star Trek

In lieu of developing something original, today's movie studios usually have two options when deciding to breathe new life into an old franchise internationally adored by fans. The first option is to continue the franchise where it left off several years after the last film to show the audience that the aged main character can still get the job done in the same spectacular style that fans adored so long ago. But usually the original actor's old age or the scriptwriters' inept attempt to rekindle the feel of the original movies causes the franchise continuation movie to fail. Just take a look at "Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull." On second thought, forget that movie existed.

Alternatively, studios can reboot the franchise and begin anew and show how the beloved characters evolved into the fan favorites of today. It takes more work to do a reboot because it involves combing through lots of the canon to figure out how to develop the quirks and traits of the characters while remaining loyal to the original material. But with enough effort, the reboot can appeal to original fans while reaching out to new fans. Actually, original fans are never satisfied with any changes to their beloved source material. Ironically, most probably voted for Obama. Nevertheless, Daniel Craig's "Casino Royale" rebooted well.

Now we have the reboot of "Star Trek," which attempts to appeal to the original fans of the classic sci-fi series while stripping away the geeky stigmata to rope in the general audience. Let me tell you, attempting to strip away the geeky stigmata of "Star Trek" is like attempting to remove the stupid out of ex-girlfriends. Just the mention of "Star Trek" instinctively raises a warning flag of geek presence. I know that "Star Trek" has a deep impact in pop culture and the geek subculture and at the risk of losing my credibility among the geek demographic, I admit that I never watched much "Star Trek." But what little I did fares better than any of the new "Star Wars" malarkey. While I saw some of the movies, the only television episode drilled into my head is "The Naked Time" where Sulu wanders the ship shirtless while brandishing a rapier.

So while I understand some of the references and trivia of the series, I am still watching this reboot movie with a relatively blank slate that can accept any changes in character or design since I probably would not notice them in the first place. This rebooted "Star Trek" that is appropriately titled "Star Trek" is the directorial brainchild of J.J. Abrams, producer of some television shows that I never watched and producer of the "Cloverfield" movie that I hated watching. The plot of "Star Trek" is very basic: An evil alien is bent on destroying the Federation just as pretty much all evil aliens in "Star Trek" do and only Captain Kirk and the "USS Enterprise" can stop him. J.J. takes the viewing audience on a roller coaster voyage that shows how the legendary characters, Kirk, Spock, Uhura, Bones, Chekov, Sulu, and Scotty came together to serve on the "Enterprise."

While this voyage is one that many scriptwriters, novelists, and fans have gone before, the reboot manages to take pieces of the canon back story while ignoring others courtesy of botched time travel. A certain well-established character of the original "Star Trek" series becomes the personified bridge between original fans and potential new fans. But it somehow works in the "Star Trek" setting. You would not expect Darth Vader to travel back in time and attempt to convince a young Anakin Skywalker not to join the Sith.

So despite what canon may have occurred during the original "Star Trek," we have a legitimate reason tto see this new imagining of a young James Kirk full of courage mature from reckless youth to legendary captain while butting heads with a Spock who struggles between logic and accepting human emotions. The two main protagonists shine as we see them develop an eventual and inevitable friendship despite their different styles of thinking. Spock focuses on doing the correct thing based on logic while Kirk focuses on doing the right thing no matter how illogical it is. They bond with each other while reacting to the intense situations that brought them together. The quintessential debate featured in "Star Trek" about logic versus emotion is played out exceptionally well during Spock's thought processes, discussions with his fellow Vulcans, and verbal fights with Kirk. Too bad the other characters do not get such treatment.

With the number of memorable characters in "Star Trek," it would take too long to develop each one in one movie. Uhura gains more depth as she gets to show off what she does exactly and how good she is at doing it. She is still primarily eye candy, but that is more a fault of men's libidos than a commentary about women in the workplace. At least she has a first name now. Sadly, the other main characters feel hastily thrown in at the last minute. Chekov only has math skills and his difficulty in pronouncing Vs as character development. Bones arrives early on to help Kirk, but somewhat fades into the background afterwards as he gives the same quips of his original predecessor. Aside from initial difficulty driving (comment about a stereotypical Asian's poor driving skills calmly averted), Sulu's main scene incidentally reflects the scenes of the original "Star Trek" ingrained in my memory. Except this time Sulu is clothed and his rapier is a futuristic foldable katana that I would buy on QVC. Scotty arrives very late into the film and is overly excited just to be in the "Enterprise" and in the film in general so he acts like an eight year old who just got permission to watch an R-rated movie. He is a very energetic eight year old with excellent comedic timing, but the movie could have made better use of him. While excluding these other characters would be a serious oversight, it would have been better if they had more than a few "Star Trek" jokes tying them to this reboot. Perhaps the inevitable sequels will allow their characters to develop further.

Fans of the original series will get a kick out of some of the various references. Kirk gets it on with a green skinned alien female just as the preconception precedes him. This film shows that the best way to tempt fate and die are to wear a red shirt (one of them possibly worn by Kal Penn in a scene with John Cho), walk along the halls of a ship during an attack, or be the parent of one of the main characters. Additionally, the film features the futuristic technology of "Star Trek" without the geeky techno-babble.

"Star Trek" manages to retain most of the unique qualities of the original series while adding some modern tweaks to suit the general audience. But then all of the qualities that made "Star Trek" unique is tossed out during the film's climax. Ironically, the film weakens the moment First Officer Kirk is promoted to Captain Kirk and his first course of action is to shoot anything that looks alien to him. I know Captain Kirk is a man of action, but the climatic gunfight plays just like any generic action shootout scene. Even the space battle is little more than a variation of the climatic space combat from "Independence Day." I miss the battles from the older movies where the focus was less on firepower and more on outsmarting and outmaneuvering the enemy akin to submarine battles. At least throw in some Shakespearean lines when acknowledging defeat.

Despite the climax, I enjoyed this reboot of "Star Trek" and recommend it for a good time at the movies. I cannot recommend it as a die-hard Star Trek fan since I am only a casual fan, but I am sure the die-hard fans will have fun debating it with other die-hard fans.