For years, the once-vibrant “Star Trek” universe has been on life support. With the box office failure of the last film, “Nemesis,” in 2002, and the cancellation of TV’s “Enterprise,” in 2005, die-hard fans have had to console themselves with watching and rewatching their “Trek” DVDs in an attempt to recapture the franchise’s glory days.
No more. “Trek” is back, with lots of action and the hard edge that’s been missing since the earliest days of the franchise.
However, unlike many summer films whose reason for being seems to be little more than providing CGI-rendered mayhem, this “Trek” retains its core of humanity by presenting a character-driven story that reveals much about the pasts of the iconic Capt. James T. Kirk and his best friend, the Vulcan Mr. Spock.
It’s time for a bit of self-admission here. Anyone who’s known me for more than five minutes also knows I’m a full-blown, “Live long and prosper”-saluting Trekkie. Despite some initial trepidation about this new “Trek,” it would have taken a herd of rabid Klingon targs to even begin to keep me away from the theater when the film made its Dover premiere May 7.
To put it mildly, there never has been a “Trek” film that has felt so alive.
Chris Pine, as Kirk, brings the same crispness to the role first essayed by William Shatner before he allowed the role to diminish into a parody of itself. Born in the midst of a space battle in which his father sacrifices his life, Kirk is seen first as a defiant kid who trashes an antique Corvette and then as a beer-swilling Lothario trying to pick up women in a seedy bar.
After being beaten to a pulp by some Starfleet cadets, Kirk is challenged to join that same organization.
“Your father was captain of a starship for 12 minutes,” lectures Capt. Christopher Pike. “He saved 800 lives, including yours. I dare you to do better.”
Zachary Quinto (“Heroes”) brings forth a Spock torn by similar conflicts, although he does his best to hide them under the mask of unemotionalism and logic that are hallmarks of his Vulcan forebears.
Literally a product of two worlds, caught between a human mother who openly shows her love for him and a stoic although deeply caring Vulcan father, Spock grows up under the constant scrutiny of a society that considers him less than ideal. After being publicly dissed by planetary elders who regret the “disadvantage” of his human blood, he joins Starfleet to escape this all-pervasive prejudice.
The brash Kirk quickly runs afoul of the by-the-book Spock, first making mincemeat out of a carefully crafted “no-win” training scenario and then telling Pike, in command of the Enterprise on an emergency mission, how he should run his ship.
Karl Urban’s Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy is just as irascible as ever. Although the character is part of the Kirk/Spock/McCoy triumvirate central to “Trek,” Urban doesn’t get nearly as much screen time as the other two. He is, however, pivotal in getting Kirk involved in the action.
Urban still manages to steal the show though when, in the midst of a tense battle sequence, he utters trademark line, “I’m a doctor, not a physicist!”
John Cho as helmsman Hikaru Sulu and Anton Yelchin’s navigator Pavel Chekov each get their prerequisite screen time, both managing physical and/or mental heroics that pull the main characters out of some very bad situations.
Zoë Saldana’s Nyota Uhura has a relationship with Spock that’s never been hinted at before, although her character does not have much else to do other than act as a foil to show what a jerk the pre-Starfleet Kirk could be.
Perhaps the most shortchanged of the original characters is Simon Pegg’s Montgomery Scott. Complete with heavy Scottish burr, the engineer who eventually gains a reputation as a miracle worker is first shown exiled to a backwater ice planet. Though Scott’s technical expertise does eventually help save the day, Pegg is used more for comic relief than anything else.
The film’s nemesis is a Romulan named Nero (Eric Bana), out for revenge on Spock, but not just any Spock: he’s mad at a future Spock, portrayed by Leonard Nimoy, the only actor from the original series to appear in the film.
His role is more than a glorified cameo, however, as future-Spock is pivotal to the entire story, both its beginning and its resolution. Vulcans live much longer than humans and as such this Spock is at least 150 years old; at 79, Nimoy carries the role well, despite showing both his and his character’s age. Future Spock seems to have mellowed a bit and at one point he and Quinto’s character share a moment of introspection and advice.
If we never again are treated to the scene of Nimoy wearing his famous foam-rubber ears, this was a good way to bid the character an honorable farewell.
Hard-core Trekkies, however, should beware, as there are things that occur in this film that totally skew the universe we’ve grown up with. Some characters do not survive this new incarnation of Trek, while some who died (or were horribly crippled, hint, hint) do. Major events occur out of whack and have a domino effect on everything that occurs afterward (and even beforehand).
Director J.J. Abrams (“Lost” and “Alias”) has created a new universe that is different and at the same time very familiar to what we’ve become accustomed to over the past 45 years. In many interviews, he has said he wanted to create a film for people who’ve never seen “Star Trek” yet one that people who are intimiately familiar with the franchise would embrace.
It couldn’t have been an easy chore, but Abrams has managed to pull it off.
Milford, Del. —
