In anticipation of Star Trek Into Darkness opening next week, and our subsequent review, we’re going to review the 2009 Star Trek movie. We’ll be rating the Star Trek movies differently than the individual episodes. Instead of the scoring system being out of 5, it’ll be out of 10, and eventually we’ll also rank all the movies. For being a tightly executed, well cast and particularly exciting Trek movie, and in spite of some plot holes, we give the 2009 Star Trek an 8 out of 10. More on why we gave it this rating after the jump…

What Needed to Happen

Before going into what was and wasn’t achieved by this movie, it’s important to think about what absolutely needed to be done. Some might say the movie shouldn’t have been made at all, which is a fine opinion to have, but for a minute let’s accept that it’s happened, and go from there.

Firstly, if they wanted this new Star Trek film to still be a part of the ongoing Trek continuity, they had to explain how there’s a new younger cast. I think the concept of an alternate timeline really solves a lot of their issues they were going to face, plus it’s a science fiction type premise at the heart of a science fiction movie, which doesn’t hurt. Some people find the alternate timeline upsetting, because it’s like replacing everything we know and love with something new. It actually isn’t replacing it though. You can go check in your room, all your old Star Trek DVDs and cassettes are still there, and they’re unharmed. I’m okay with the alternate timeline, and it will inevitably take up a good portion of the movie to explain.

The second thing that absolutely needed to happen was to introduce the characters. This movie needed to appeal to people who previously weren’t that in to Star Trek, and are unfamiliar with the characters. Introducing the characters takes time, and it’s par for the course for a first movie in a series.

It doesn’t bother me that this movie wasn’t as philosophical as some Star Trek, or about exploration, or like any of the story types or themes that we love elsewhere in Star Trek. Sometimes I hear people talk about all the things they wish this movie was and I can’t help but think that they’re describing Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which more than likely they hate (I actually really like it). Star Trek ’09 had a lot it needed to get done before getting into those things. You can’t expect one Star Trek movie to represent everything you love about all the episodes. I expected it to primarily be an introduction, and one that was going for mass appeal. With these expectations, I was not only happy with the movie, I was pleasantly surprised. That’s not to say it didn’t have it’s problems, which I’ll try to cover.

 

The Characters

Chris Pine was a good choice for this younger, ambitious, arrogant Kirk. The opening scene with his parents is emotionally powerful and sympathetic motivation for our hero throughout the movie. They effectively sell his determination, with his belief that there’s no such thing as a “no win scenario”, and the telling of the Kobayashi Maru simulation.

 

A lot of Star Trek people complain that the ’09 movie lacked any kind of philosophic content, which is mostly true, but Spock may be the exception. It probably doesn’t even register with long time Star Trek fans (because it’s such old news to them) that Vulcanism is an interesting philosophical analysis. I was surprised with how this movie did a good job of giving an overview of Vulcans through Spock. The struggle between logic and emotions in making decisions was well presented with Spock’s character development. Zachary Quinto was also a good choice to play the part.

My favorite casting choice may be Karl Urban as Bones. He played the part very well and we got to see a lot of what we loved about the original Bones.

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Simon Pegg was a good choice for Scotty, but one has to admit that he has very different things to offer than James Doohan. Doohan seemed both tough and lovable. Pegg just isn’t the rugged war veteran that Scotty Prime was. Pegg has his strengths though. He’s very comfortable as the comic character, great at shouting those eccentric Scotty phrases, and pulls off the engineering expert very well. It was smart of the writers to have Pegg play a role that works with him, making Scotty less folksy and more comic relief.

The Zoe Saldana Uhura is essentially a completely different character than the Nichelle Nichols Uhura. That’s not really a bad thing though. The original Uhura seemed like a really approachable person, and someone everyone wanted to hang out with in the mess hall. This probably had a lot to do with their view about women, and the writers not knowing what to do with her character. As far as linguistics and communication, she either seemed like someone who simply got the job done, or was even not really that great at it. In Star Trek VI she can barely speak any Klingon and there are several times in the show when she screws things up. They made the Saldana character a language genius, which contributed to her being less approachable. I’d like to see Uhura become friendlier in the movies to come, but for now I think these changes were okay. One thing that I’m on the fence about is her relationship with Spock. It feeds into the more emotional version of Spock, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it may inevitably harm the feeling of camaraderie among the crew, which I want the movies to get to sooner rather than later. TOS was much more about camaraderie than love triangles.

Sulu is okay. To tell you the truth I never much got the Sulu character. He just seemed to be given a random personality trait in any given episode that we never see again.

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Chekov was also in the movie. He did some funny stuff.

 

 

 

Action Movie

Some people are mad that they’ve turned Star Trek into a generic action movie, when really Star Trek was never about being action-packed. I have mixed feelings about this. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having a bunch of action, if it’s done right, and you can’t really say this hasn’t been a part of Star Trek. Most of the other movies and a lot of the TV episodes tried to go for action adventure.

The main problem is pointless action that doesn’t mean anything to the viewer. Every part of a movie should be interesting, and ideally the scenes should build off each other while displaying some variety. This can be achieved through action, or any number of other things. The best way to see how the ’09 movie did, is to go through the main sequences that can even loosely be described as action scenes.

Opening Battle
I love the opening. It sets the stage for the rest of the movie and packs an emotional punch that’s rarely achieved in Star Trek.

 

 

Child-Kirk Car Scene
The point to this scene as far as I can see is to just add symmetry with the Spock childhood scene. It shows how reckless Kirk can be, but we get enough of that throughout the movie

 

Child-Spock Fight Scene
This scene builds the Spock character and begins the introduction to Vulcans. It’s a little goofy, but I think it works.

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Bar Fight
This scene introduces us to the main character, and sets us up to meet Pike, which makes the scene worth it.

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Kirk and Bones Running Around
A scene explaining how Kirk got on Enterprise after being in trouble was necessary and this was a kind of funny way of doing it. Some of the silliness of this scene is right on the line of being too much, but I think they pulled it off.

 

Fight Over Vulcan
This is an appropriate time to have a big action sequence, and it kind of feels like the writers put it together for that reason. It’s too long, and transparant in its machinations to get the characters to do some “cool” action. They have to sky dive and sword fight on a big thing over the planet and turn some stuff off or whatever. This is our first time the heroes meet the villain. They give a chance for Sulu and Chekov to do something and set up the stakes for fighting Nero.
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Monster on Delta Vega
This was unnecessary to the plot, (and we’ll get into this section more a little later) but I feel it adds to the movie. Having strange worlds and crazy monsters fleshes out the universe we’ve been put into.

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Scotty in the Water Tubes
This was probably the worst choice of the action scenes. It’s completely pointless, doesn’t fit in terms of pacing, and takes away from the build up to the ending. When we’re fed too much unnecessary action we get tired of it, and it does damage to the rest of the movie.

 

Kirk Fights Spock
I have problems with the plot at this point, which I’ll get to in a bit, but this did need to happen to move the plot in the direction they’re going.

 

 

Fight on the Narada
This was cool. It’s the main showdown so clearly it’s appropriate to the plot. It was nice to see Spock and Kirk starting to work together.

 

Escaping the Black Hole
This makes the ending action sequence feel drawn out. I think they could’ve shortened or even done away with it.

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It’s Too Dark
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One of the criticism of the ’09 movie, and main fear for Star Trek: Into Darkness, is that it isn’t portraying Roddenberry’s ideal future. Alright, pop quiz: What are the most loved Star Trek episodes? City on the Edge of Forever? Balance of terror? Best of Both Worlds? The Inner Light? In The Pale Moonlight? So…pretty much the darkest episodes? Star Trek presents an ideal, but it’s always been our ideals being challenged by outside forces or inward struggles. I think the ’09 movie does a great job of achieving this.

 

The Problem Section

For most of this movie it’s really entertaining and has a solid enough plot. There’s one section of the movie that doesn’t really make sense though. It starts with Spock kicking Kirk off of the ship and stranding him on Delta Vega. In the moment it seems really harsh and unjustified. They viewer is forced to try to think about all that Spock has gone through and imagine the threat of Kirk really getting in the way and hope that Spock only did it because he knew there was a Starfleet base close by, just to have it make any sense. But these things definitely aren’t justified by what comes across in the movie.

Then we meet the old Spock, which is really cool. The problem is old Spock’s position. He says Kirk needs to start building his awesome friendship with Spock, and he also needs to take up his role as captain of the Enterprise. The way of doing this is to have Spock be “emotionally compromised” enough to give up command. So Kirk says incredibly mean things to Spock, stirring up his feelings about the loss of his planet and his mother, things that would definitely burn any bridges of them being friends.

They also happen to be right next to where Scotty’s stationed. What luck. Of course, there’s big coincidences throughout the movie, but this one seemed like the biggest jump. I feel like it would’ve at least helped if they had some mumbo-jumbo about their fates or something. Anything to make it not so crazy that all of these young guns miraculously find there way to the bridge of the Enterprise.

This section also has some pointless action, which I’ve covered already. Eventually Kirk makes his way back to the bridge and tries to get Spock angry. The dialogue isn’t great, having Kirk blatantly saying things like “doesn’t it really bug you that your mom died?”

They may have set themselves up with difficult problems: Kirk has to take command and Spock become the first officer, they have to agree to go after Nero rather than regroup with the fleet, they wanted to introduce Scotty, and feature the old Spock. That’s a lot to accomplish, but there had to have been a way that makes more sense.