Amazon Star Trek Review

I wrote this review for the Star Trek (2009) movie on Amazon.co.uk and just wanted to share it here...

The big problem Trekkies have with this film is it re-writes history to the point that the original series never happened. This point of view is plainly silly and I prefer to think of it as cementing the original timeline. From now on the original series, Next Generation, Deep Space 9, Voyager and all the previous films are untouchable. You can still buy the DVD's, enjoy the shows whenever. Only now the creators have an empty canvas, unhindered by decades of back story we know backwards. You might notice I left Enterprise out of that list above. That's because I think it belongs in this new time line, after all they went out of their way to reference it.

Alright, now that's out of the way lets look at the film. It's not what you expected. If it was I congratulate you. First of all the cast. They fitted the roles perfectly, sometimes too perfectly. At times it felt like they were trying to pull off impressions of the original actors. While they did bring a few new aspects I would have liked to have seen a bit more.

The ship. Ahh the ship, originally every Star Trek ship was designed by artists. Inside and out. As such they were a reflection of the times. From the 60's block colours to the 80's creams of next gen and the dark moody look of the 90's DS9. It was more interested in style and substance came in a strong second. As long as it looked good we were fooled into thinking it worked. This film comes at it from a completely different direction and because of that the Enterprise feels like three different ships. The exquisitely crafted outside, the advanced habitable saucer section and the brutal pipe riddled construction site engineering section. Each look like they belong to a different ship,, it doesn't gel together right. There is no transition from steam punk boiler house to over lit corridors. Made all the worse by shaky cam direction. There's almost no consistency here, jarringly confusing and distracting. The only other ships we see are polar opposites, Spock's Jellyfish is a triumph of style, but looks out of place in the Star Trek universe. It's design is too alien and has no connection to Vulcan designs we know of. The Romulan mining vessel looks far too fragile for it's purpose. All those spikes and edges are just bits to brake off.

As mentioned elsewhere the plot had more than a few holes. Why was there a twenty year gap between the mining ship and Old Spock's arriving? At any point did Starfleet command question how a washed-out cadet with a history of disobedience gets thrust into command of the fleet's flagship on the voice of one man? Surely there must be more Vulcans out there, somewhere, not just the handful of thousands that got off the planet quick enough. They don't detract form the film but if you think about it there are a lot more that just don't make sense.

The direction, as I touched on, was more than a little distracting. Shaky camera technique and Fly-on-the-wall style filming works well in a modern drama to add realism, or a horror to bring a point of view to the audience. But not with something like this. Star Trek is too fantastical to be realistic and J.J. Abrams is just a little to heavy handed with it at times. Having the opposite effect of what was intended and actually taking us out of the movie by wanting to see more of what is going on. There is also an over reliance on lens flares to build atmosphere. Yes it made the film stand out and gave a nice dichotomy between the Dark Romulans and bright Federation, but we could all do without the symbolism.

With all these negatives you'd have every reason to hate the film. What stops you is the shear passion on the screen. Everyone involved knew they were working on something a great many people feel very passionate about. It had the right mix of humour, character development and drama to be entertaining. To feel like a worthy successor to the legacy. It didn't drag or feel rushed, despite you wanting some parts to be expanded on.

As a film it's solid, as a story it's interesting. As a fan I enjoyed the head nods to continuity and could accept the new actors because they pulled it off. Of all the films out this summer this was one of the best, far better than the disaster that was Transformers 2. It's only real sci-fi rival this year is District 9 and that doesn't have half the fun.

No Simon Pegg for a start (who's Scotty stole every scene he was in, even from Nemoy!)