Star Trek

The idea for a Star Trek reboot series has always been out there. It is an idea that came about in 1968 with the film prequel. Then the idea sat on the shelf for a while when finally in 2009, director J.J. Abrams put it all together. Obviously, this was a project with a very big risk to it with questions as to whether the film can top the original and others that preceded it.

This film follows around a young James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) who is kind of a primadonna and party boy who out of the blue finds his way into the Starfleet Academy and onto the Enterprise. He then meets a vulcan in Spock (Zachery Quinto) and their relationship starts out roughly but develops into friendship as time goes on. The plot has a lot of things including time travel and gives a good history of how the crew got assembled and developed. It also show Spock in many different forms which is interesting.

Probably the biggest challenge for Abrams was selecting a cast. Abrams probably felt to be true to the original that he had to follow creator Gene Roddenberry's lead from 1964 somewhat. You could certainly question actor Chris Pine as the choice for James T. Kirk. Before 2009, Pine had mostly worked in televison with not many films roles to his credit. That said, Pine plays the role of James T. Kirk perfectly which includes a great deal of character development throughout and he is able to bring out a full range of emotions that is required for this character. I liked him. I think it is kind of the same with actor Zachary Qunto who plays Spock. Quinto is an actor with no prior experience and does very well with a character that is just as complex and powerful as James T. Kirk. He also earns bonus point for looking like Leonard Nimoy who made this character famous. Once we get deeper in the cast, we see that it is made of actors that are more established and familiar to us including Simon Pegg, Zoe Saldana and John Cho and I think each of these are casted perfectly and deliver great performances. Also, Eric Bana plays a villain from Nero and is absent quite a bit but plays his part well as a character that you just don't like.

Another challenge for this movie would be the plot because there is time travel in this movie that could be hard to follow and damage the flow of the movie, but it is really done well and in a neat way pays homage to and brings back the deceased Leonard Nimoy. The plot does show us different sides of Spock and Kirk that we are not used to seeing and the film does have a great set-up in the first scene that is probably one of the most memorable scenes in the Star Trek series. Finally there is a love scene that comes in the middle which is really unexpected. I think there is a lot of substance in the plot and liked it.

For a film that involves space and time travel, it is going to need many different sets and also special affects for it to be credible and there is plenty of that here. The special effects here are frankly great and ground- breaking. The elaborate sets and costumes show the time and effort that went in to making this film. You can tell Abrams really went the extra mile in putting all this together and it works. 

I think Star Trek really is a film that is great in every way. It is a film that kept many pieces of the original but also added many new things which kept things fresh and interesting so both old fans and new fans of the series could appreciate it. I recommend this movie.

4.5/5