REVIEW: Star Trek

I'll be the first to admit that I've never been much of a Star Trek fan, aligning myself more with the Star Wars side of the sci-fi universe. We all know how THAT turned out...

I like my science fiction to be more gritty and real than the happy-go-lucky world that Star Trek seemed to offer. I thought it was naive to think that we'd have a United Federation of Planets, and that spaceships were clean, could teleport you, or could whip up some food for you on the fly.

I watched a couple of episodes of The Next Generation, I've seen a few of the movies, but I just was never really into the whole Star Trek phenomenon. And when I heard that the great J.J. Abrams was going to be doing a reboot of the Star Trek franchise, my first thought was...WHY?

The cast for the movie was announced, and it made me go WTF? Sylar as Spock? Who the hell is Chris Pine? And don't get me wrong, John Cho is great in everything he does, but as Sulu? This guy was in Harold & Kumar! (On another note, the other guy from H&K is now working for President Obama) But the list of actors kept growing...Karl Urban, Eric Bana, and Simon Pegg? I'd see any movie with those guys in it, even a Star Trek movie.

Then I started to hear more things about the movie, and I saw the first footage, and the geek boy in me stood up and said, GO SEE THIS MOVIE. It didn't help that friends that saw it kept telling me it was awesome. It also didn't help that it made so much money over the weekend, and I hadn't heard a negative review about it yet.

I've been disappointed with the recent movies I've seen lately. You can read my review of Wolverine on this blog, and Punisher War Zone left me sick for the future of comic book movies. I was hesitant about seeing this movie, but the hype got me. I had to see it.

When the opportunity arose that I could go see, I jumped at the chance. I sat down, excited and scared, and finally watched the movie.

One world...WOW! I guess you could call me a Star Trek fan. This movie had action, sex, humor, and sci-fi, but not in any sort of sterile, utopian way that the original series' did. This was a Star Trek that was dangerous, gritty, and realistic, but also fun. It was like watching the original Star Wars all over again, but with much better CGI and story.

And acting. This was a good cast, and I liked the way each actor came at their role. I think Karl Urban was channeling DeForest Kelley, because he had Dr. "Bones" McCoy down pat. And I liked the way Pine didn't try and imitate William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk, such an iconic performance. This is a different Kirk from the original series, and Pine makes the role his own.

The only thing I worried about was the Trekkies, those die-hard fans who wear the outfits and go to the conventions and who are more die-hard in their convictions than Al Qaeda. These people had real power, as evidence by the fact that Star Trek shows keep getting put on television, even though no one cares about them....except Trekkies. I could hear the same babble of discontent that first heralded the start of the new Battlestar Galactica.

But I think this movie will even placate them. I won't spoil it for you, but they tie the original series and all the movies and TV series that follow it in with this new movie series. And I think it works really, really well. It was an incredibly smart move on their part, and I'm going to admit it...I'm impressed. Knowing as little as I do about the Star Trek universe, they've opened up a whole new doorway into another world, and I for one can't wait to see what's next.