Star Trek

In an earlier post I mentioned that, despite my insistence that I would never go to the movie theaters again, I was considering going to see Star Trek, the first movie in a long time to really excite me. Well, I was a week and a half late, but I did finally go see the film last night. And I have to tell you, I thought it was great.

The movie paid just enough homage to the Star Trek canon to satisfy me. Not that I'm a big time Trekker. I guess I'm more of a Trekker than the average bear. I have seen every episode of the original series, of The Next Generation, and of Voyager, and I've seen all of the movies, but I've never been to a Star Trek convention and don't plan to go. Also, I didn't watch but a handful of episodes of Deep Space Nine, and I didn't even make it through the first episode of Enterprise. Also, I don't own any old Star Trek props or clothing or pajamas or lunch boxes or anything else. I never learned casual Klingon. On the other hand, I am aware that such a book exists, and I have flipped through it at the bookstore. Call me a beginning Trekker, then.

But I digress. My point was that, as a beginning Trekker, I found the film satisfying. Chekov's accent, McCoy's nickname and the explanation for it, the clothing--all of these things were true to the original series. At the same time, the film manged to be just different enough to be exciting. I think non-Trekkers can enjoy the film, too.

I will quibble with one thing: I don't like movies that solve problems with giant coincidences, and there's a big one of them in this film. I don't want to get into details in case you wanted to see the film but haven't yet, but let's just say that the way that one of the characters in the film meets an older version of another character is ridiculous in both its timing and the odds that it ever would have happened. It reminded me as I was watching it, actually, of when--in the movie Monsters, Inc.--Mike and Sully meet the Abominable Snowman. It's pretty much the same scene, actually, but without a one-eyed, green monster.

Overall, though, the special effects were great, I never got bored, and the film had some funny moments. Plus, we get to find out why Christoper Pike ends up in a wheelchair. It's good stuff.