I Can Kill You With My Brain

SPOILER ALERT – This post contains potential spoilers for the new “Star Trek” film.

My previous post was about my unexpected love for the new Star Trek film.  The love was unexpected because I was largely against the reboot movie as I am a fan of most of the previous shows and movies.  I spent that post explaining this point in detail, but I never went into just what I loved so much about the new movie.  Because so many of you asked (none of you asked), here is what I liked about the new movie.

Casting: The cast is amazing.  I wasn’t sure how they were going to find the right actors to both allow the movie to start a new version of the franchise, but to also serve as a prequel story for characters that have made the original actors into icons.  Somehow, they managed to do it for every role.  Zacharzy Quinto is amazing as Spock.  Simon Pegg is so fun as Scotty.  Karl Urban is an incredible Bones.  And while I didn’t like him in the first half of the movie, I completely surrendered to Chris Pine’s Kirk in the second half.  I don’t know how you ever replace William Shatner.  Chris Pine showed us that you don’t replace Bill, but you go out there and give him as much respect as you can with every second you have on camera.

The Story: Time travel is the crutch of the Star Trek universe.  It is used absolutely everywhere.  It’s in all of the other television shows and it’s been in the movies.  Quite often it’s been done bad.  As soon as it was clear that there was a time travel element in the new movie, I groaned a bit to myself.  The groan proved to be unnecessary as the writers proved that if you are smart and creative with it, time travel can still be a great tool for telling a fantasy story.  But it still has to be executed correctly, which J.J. Abrams did to masterful results.  I haven’t seen a time travel story so well done since “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban”.

The “Future”: While most Trek fans have come on board and embraced this new movie, the loudest complaints I have heard have been centered on how the time travel element of the movie negates everything else that has happened (happens?) in the future of the Star Trek world.  This includes everything from all of the shows and movies that came before it.  This is not an argument that I can get behind.  The existence of “old Spock” in the new timeline is our reminder that everything that happened is still relevant in some way.  Yes, the world of Star Trek will be completely different going forward, but old Spock is still proof that those stories are relevant.  To be frank, if the stories, shows, and movies entertain you and make you happy, isn’t that relevance enough?  Settle down, Trekkies.

I look forward to what J.J. Abrams and his crew, both behind the camera and in front of it, do with the franchise going forward.  The movie was fun, exciting, and didn’t feel at all like the summer blockbuster template was just applied to whatever license the suits in Hollywood thought would sell.  While the new actors paid respect to the original actors that came before them, the new filmmakers also paid at least as much respect to the 43 years of franchise that came before, even if their movie’s plot negated all of it.

While I’m not nearly as huge of a fan of Star Trek as I was back in college, I still consider myself a fan of the franchise.  I have every episode of “The Next Generation” and “Deep Space 9″ on DVD.  I plan to eventually get all of the “Voyager” and “Enterprise” episodes.  I’ve seen many of the episodes of the original series.  I own all of the movies on DVD.  Basically, I’m a fan, though I’m in a sort of dormant state at the moment.  Being the fan that I am, I was generally against the new Star Trek movie.  I didn’t want a reboot.  I didn’t want a shiny blockbuster that was loaded with expensive special effects.

I was planning to boycott the movie until I could see it on DVD, preferably when a friend acquired it via Netflix or through a free Redbox rental.  Despite my fondness for J.J. Abrams and most of his work, I didn’t trust him to touch this beloved franchise.  Yet, others that I did trust started talking about how good the movie was, so I eventually warmed over to the idea of seeing it in the theater.  As more and more people I trust spoke of how wonderful the movie was, I actually became a bit excited to see it.  This last Saturday, I had my opportunity to check out the new version of the Star Trek universe.

I loved the film.  My girlfriend, who knows almost nothing about Star Trek, stated that the film was probably the best movie she’s ever seen in a theater.  Well done, Mr. Abrams.  You boldly went and the mission was a success.  I look forward to your future missions as captain of this franchise.