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Monday, May 18, 2009

My Thoughts on Star Trek (SPOILER ALERT)

The view of the hull from the bridge of the Kelvin was interesting. Are
these windows with a HUD, or viewscreens? The scenes before
the main title were excellent. One little nit-pick: Kirk's mother is
the only one watching the Kelvin get destroyed. One of the doctors was
not human, but the other appeared to be. I would have thought he would
be watching.

Bad:
Sigh. Nero is another in the long list of paper villians. I expected
it, though, because the time needed to develop main characters. But
the recently late Ricardo Montablan still wears the mantle of best
Trek villian.

The scene with the car was a throw away. It did take me a couple of days
to place the voice on the other end of the phone. Ethan Phillips?

Engineering on the Enterprise looks like a brewery. Huge tanks with
workstations in front? And the bridge was !BRIGHT WHITE!. I liked
the bridge of the Kelvin and I hope the Enterprise is toned down
in the next movie.

Why can Spock Prime see Vulcan destroyed from Delta Vega? Is it a moon,
or a space station?

Sigourney Weaver in Galaxy Quest is screaming in my head "What is the
purpose
of this?!?" after Kirk and Scotty beam in. I would have prefered an
intruder
alert and a chase through the ship. It seemed a little contrived.

The climatic battle with Nero seemed easy. At least throw the Enterprise
in front of the missles. On the other hand, there was no transporter
malfunction cliffhanger where Spock or Kirk can't make it back onboard
until the very last second.

James Kirk hasn't finished Starfleet Academy before he is made
captain of Starfleet's flagship? That's a leap. However, Spock Prime
is standing in back watching over it all. I had the feeling he had
been manipulating events ala Darth Sidious/Palpatine without the
evil revenge endgame.

Good:
The acting was superb. The last scene of Chris Pine stepping on the
bridge had me thinking "Wow, that's James T. Kirk!". I knew Quinto
would do a good Spock and was still pleasantly surprised by the
way he did it. The scene at the Vulcan Science Academy was a
favorite. Salanda had a bigger part than I expected, but was
well done. Cho was more limited and still good. Yelstin as Chekov
was over the top at first, but came back down. Pegg was more of
a comic relief Scotty, still the character worked. Sarek (can't come
up with the actors name right now) was just the right touch
when needed. I would have been happy to leave Chris Pike in the
captain's chair. Bruce Greenwood was my favorite in this movie.
I hope he has a part in the next one.

I could not help getting a little choked up at Nimoy's first line, and
he assumed the character that made him famous with ease. Even the scene
between Quinto and Nimoy is touching. This was the perfect part for
Nimoy's Spock. There was the puppetmaster overtone although
it was used to put things right.

So my final analysis: Not quite up to the Wrath of Khan, but
a good second. The flaws were technical for the most part, or
a matter of taste.