Critic At Large: Star Trek

I knew that J.J. Abrams’ entry in the Star Trek franchise was going to be a reboot of the mythology. Five television series and ten movies have created a crushing mass of continuity that would give any screenwriter a migraine. But wow, they weren’t kidding about the “reboot” part. I can’t say much more without revealing major spoilers, but one plot point left me agape in shock and thinking “Wow, that took balls.”

And that’s probably why this is the most invigorating Trek movie since Kirk and Spock went whale sightseeing in The Voyage Home. It’s got all the best things of classic Trek. That shiny futuristic optimism. Cool-looking starships that get into some spectacular battles. Familiar characters with familiar quirks. And hot green women. But the movie also adds some new elements to remind us that this isn’t the hippie-dippy Trek of Roddenberry’s time. We see that Vulcans can be total douchebags. We see that Kirk and Spock weren’t always best buds. We see that Spock and Sarek both share a thing for the human ladies. We don’t see Kirk’s stunt double.

I’m really curious to see where Paramount takes the series from here. A sequel is already in the works. But the original continuity still spawns countless books and comics. Will all that fall by the wayside or will the studio tend to each universe separately? It seems like keeping both up and running would create even more opportunities to cash in, but it might require the average fan to start keeping a flowchart to keep track of events.

And because I’m a hopeless geek, I’m going to allow myself one nitpick. A water turbine? On a starship? Really? I was so reminded of the scene in Galaxy Quest where, upon discovering a particularly bizarre obstacle built into the starship, one character says to the other: “It makes no logical sense! Why is it here?”