Review: Star Trek 2009 – The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
You can imagine from the title how I feel about this movie. To be fair, however, I recognize there are people out there who love the new Kelvin Timeline movies and I’m okay with that. Keep in mind, I am a big TOS fan boy. Captain Kirk has been a hero of mine since I was a just a kid. The new Kirk is someone I can’t relate to and I just don’t like very much.
The movie starts with a young 12-14 year old James T. Kirk driving a 300 year old manual shift Corvette. While driving 80mph down a long straight highway, talking to an uncle on a Nokia phone of some kind and listening to the Beastie Boys, he attempts to take the top down. The top is dramatically ripped off the car and lands in the middle of the road. Not surprisingly, he is being chased by the police. The policeman then chases Kirk into some fenced in area only to watch the kid drive the car off a cliff (which is apparently a quarry). Young Kirk makes a ridiculous leap out the car prior to it going over only to find himself barely hanging on to the edge.
JJ Abrams filmed this at a quarry in Vermont founded in the late 1800’s, so you could argue this is some quarry in the future. But if they have the technology to dig a quarry that big in the future, would they use old style methods to dig? Would they really rip a large trench through the middle of Iowa? Also, for something that big, how would Kirk not know it was there? Between the 300 year old car, a 12 year old being able to drive a stick shift like a pro, him listening to the Beastie Boys and making the ridiculous leap from the car he could have never survived over a quarry that never existed, the movie was not off to a great start.
The Good
It’s Star Trek. I was excited to see a new Star Trek and being a JJ Abrams fan, I was looking forward to his version of things.
The acting. Hard to knock the acting in this movie. Chris Pine does really well playing the new version of Kirk and the casting of Karl Urban as McCoy was pure genius. Of course, I love Zoe Saldana in just about everything she does. Zachary Quinto as spoke was also great casting. I just hated the new emotional Spock.
The bridge of the Enterprise was great. I like the new look and despite all the lens flairs, it was still a visually awesome movie. I will say, however, the Enterprise was huge! The original series Enterprise measured just under 300 yards while the new one is around 500 yards.
The Bad
Plot holes. There are a ton of them. I could go on and on about these but I will point out the two biggest ones.
What happened to the Temporal War? Starfleet had temporal police monitoring the timeline to make sure it stayed intact. Why didn’t they step in and fix all of this to prevent an alternate timeline?
Okay. Let’s say we ignore the Temporal War. Why didn’t Nero just save Romulus? Seriously. He goes back in time so he could have done something to try and save his planet and family. Instead, he convinces his crew they would hide in exile until he could capture Spock in another 25 years. He is just intent on revenge. I understand being angry when your planet is destroyed, but he had 25 years to solve this problem. You would think he would calm down a bit and maybe consider ways to save Romulus. Instead he is still just as angry as he was before.
The Ugly
There are so many things for me to list here, but I will stick to my favorites.
Kirk gets promoted to First Officer. Huh? He snuck on board with a faked “big hands” ailment after he was put on probation. He wasn’t even supposed to be on the ship. I am sure all the other Starfleet Academy Cadets were happy about this. None of them could have been first officer?
Fight on the bridge. This is probably the stupidest thing in the entire movie. Two officers were fighting on the bridge and security just stood there? Everyone else on the bridge just let Spock pound the crap out of Kirk? And then he ejected him? What? How could Spock not be reprimanded for this? Why not put Kirk in the Brig? What was the point of ejecting him to an ice planet?
Ice Planet Hoth
Oh wait… the point was for Kirk to have a Luke Skywalker moment on an ice planet and then run into the original first officer. Spock was just hanging out in a cave. And oh by the way, there is a remote Starfleet base within walking distance of his cave. What the hell has Spock been waiting for? Why was he sitting in the cave? Don’t even get me started on the transporter from the planet to a star ship that was moving at warp speed. How long was he on the planet? You have to think a couple of hours at least. How far could the Enterprise have traveled in 2-3 hours at warp speed? Of course they can use the transporter. Makes total sense.
Beer Anyone?
The laughs continue as they transport into the water pipes of the engine room. Wait… water pipes? On the most advanced ship in the fleet? Massive water pipes? At the time I saw the movie, I told my wife the engine looked like a brewery and nothing like a 23rd century engine room. Guess what? It was filmed at Anheuser-Busch. Not making that up.
After sneaking back on board, he tells Spock he is wrong about everything and that he needs to give up command of the ship. Of course Kirk takes over and everyone seems to be okay with this. No one in the crew has a problem? They all suddenly agree and decide to follow him? What? Uhura didn’t have anything to say?
Of course the movie ends with him given permanent command. Really?
We Have Been Struck by a Gravitic Mine
The biggest offense, in my opinion, is taking the cherished Kobayashi Maru and just crapping on it. I understand Kirk is not the same since he grew up without a father. I understand Starfleet is different, but this moment in Kirk’s life defined him as a Captain. He didn’t believe in the no-win scenario. This Kirk, however, just didn’t want to lose.
In the Prime timeline, we learn Kirk took the Kobayashi Maru several times before reprogramming it and he won an accommodation for original thinking. Of course, this was a different Kirk. This Kirk had a father and grew up totally opposite from the Kelvin Kirk. He was top of his class and well respected.
In comparison, this Kirk was a train wreck from the beginning. Plus, Spock designed this version so the unemotional Vulcan was mad and whined to leadership.
Conclusion
It seems recently all people want to do is argue. We have forgotten it is okay to disagree and there are a lot of people who argue about the Kelvin series movies. People are almost as polarized about them as they are regarding the recent Star Wars movies. I was no exception. For the longest time, I would get worked up when talking about how bad this movie is. One day, a friend of mine, who is just as big a Star Trek fan as I am, loved the new series. I shared my thoughts about it and he just laughed and in a perfect William Shatner impersonation, “Get a life! It’s just a TV Show”. After that, I have come to accept the new series for what it is. I watched of the Kelvin series movies once and I am grateful they attracted an entirely new group of Star Trek fans to keep the legacy alive.
If you loved this movie then great! There are a lot of people who did like it and I know it made a whole lot more money than any of the previous movies. If we were to base how good they are based on money alone, then these new movies would be considered the best. For me, however, I will just stick with the Prime series and leave the Kelvin Series in peace.