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May. 8th, 2009
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New Trek is a good movie. Good enough to pave over a handful of rather enormous plot holes, and keep me from caring about the slight bumpiness in the road. It's slick, ballsy and exactly what the franchise needed. I went with a group of die-hard and not-so-die-hard Trek fans (none of us consider ourselves Trekkies, exactly), and the reaction was almost wholly positive. There was one fanboy holdout, over continuity gaffes and divergences. Most of us agreed that it didn't quite feel like Star Trek. But I'm going to out on a limb here, and say for the record that that's ok. Hell, it's not just ok, it is, once again, exactly what Star Trek needed. Star Trek has been dead on the big screen since First Contact. The shambling exercises in Next Gen nostalgia that came after it, did little to expand the franchise: they didn't bring us fresh new ideas; they couldn't bring in new fans. This movie does both.
It manages to simultaneously bring the franchise back to its roots, and create a new frontier for it to explore. Star Trek needs that mix of comfortable nostalgia and adventurous, exploratory newness. In terms of of the big picture, Star Trek has never, and will never "boldly go, where no man has gone before." But it should valorize that spirit, while being safe for the viewers: it should impart the sense of boldly going, without actually boldy going. The franchise has had its minor victories (first interracial kiss on American tv!), but it is what it's made from. Wagon Train to the Stars, and all that Jazz. What this new film does so well, is re-imagine Star Trek (the people, places, things and themes), in a way that remains Star Trek, but is fresh. That would be why I said it's ballsy - purists stay home! ( Read more... )
It manages to simultaneously bring the franchise back to its roots, and create a new frontier for it to explore. Star Trek needs that mix of comfortable nostalgia and adventurous, exploratory newness. In terms of of the big picture, Star Trek has never, and will never "boldly go, where no man has gone before." But it should valorize that spirit, while being safe for the viewers: it should impart the sense of boldly going, without actually boldy going. The franchise has had its minor victories (first interracial kiss on American tv!), but it is what it's made from. Wagon Train to the Stars, and all that Jazz. What this new film does so well, is re-imagine Star Trek (the people, places, things and themes), in a way that remains Star Trek, but is fresh. That would be why I said it's ballsy - purists stay home! ( Read more... )