Wired has a piece up on the new Star Trek movie by JJ Abrams. Earlier this week the director was in LA screening some extended scenes to press and movie execs and Wired had a reporter on hand to cover the event. Their take on the film? Well, it looks like they're going for a younger, louder and faster paced Star Trek film than we're used to seeing.
The verdict? While four five-minute clips do not a movie make, it's safe to say that Abrams' Trek will be younger, brighter, busier and more frenetically paced than any previous incarnation. The performances are edgier and louder, but not better. The effects are spectacular and executed on a scale never attempted by any Trek film. And, while connected to Gene Roddenberry's creation, this film is deliberately and unquestionably built in its own universe -- constructing its story on the idea that the original Star Trek time line has been destroyed and must be reconstructed as closely as possible.
Now when I first read that last bit, about the Star Trek timeline being "destroyed", I thought he was using that word as a metaphor. But apparently the word "destroyed" is more of a literal description of the plot of the film. If you don't want to read any SPOILERS, than I suggest you stop reading now, because here we go.
It appears the plot of the film will involve time travel that is used for the sole purpose of messing up James T. Kirk's life.
What can be safely presumed after watching the preview footage? Romulan villain Nero (played by Eric Bana) has deliberately changed the past -- perhaps in an effort to purge history of that bane of all nasty aliens, James T. Kirk (Chris Pine). As a result, Kirk grows up without a dad and develops into a first-class space goof. Still, he finds his way to Starfleet Academy on the encouragement of the fatherly Captain Christopher Pike (Bruce Greenwood).
Kirk remains a stellar idiot, despite obvious aptitude, and runs afoul of Spock (Zachary Quinto) and everybody else except Leonard "Bones" McCoy (Karl Urban), who sneaks Kirk aboard the Enterprise on its maiden voyage.
If Nero is to be stopped and the Federation, the Planet Vulcan and Kirk's future are to be saved, the Romulans must be foiled and Kirk must find a way to get his butt into the center seat of the Enterprise's frozen-yogurt-shop-style bridge. Fortunately, the older, wiser Spock Classic (Leonard Nimoy) is on hand to aid Kirk and to act as our ambassador to the new time line -- as though telling us to relax and accept that change is inevitable.
Wait a second, let let me get this straight. The plot of the film is that the Romulan villain goes back in time and kills Kirk's dad, thus causing kirk to be a bit of a douche and thus changing the entire Star Trek timeline as we know it? Well, that's kind of stupid.
Look, we all know this film is a relaunch of the franchise. We're ok with that. We sort of expect this to be the Batman Begins of the Star Trek universe, and as such you don't want to be beholden to adhering to the well layed out pre-existing Star Trek timeline. That's fine too, so don't pay attention to it. But don't go taking the time to create a thoroughly cheesy plot device that enables you to "destroy" the existing timeline just so you can have an excuse to ignore it. Why even take the time to worry about it?
Time travel? Killing Kirk's dad? That's kind of dumb. I think that having to create a story that effectively destroys the existing timeline of Trek is retarded and unnecessary. Just create a new version of Trek and tell us to deal with it. We're adults here (mostly), we can take it. I would much rather have seen a film that just went ahead with its view of Star Trek without any explanations of why it was slightly different than the original than see one that spends an entire movie explaining why it's different than the original. That just seems kind of pointless to me.
Nevermind my bitching, I'm just venting a bit. I absolutely loved the trailer for this movie, and chances are I'll love the film too. I just felt the need to share.
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