Star Trek (J.J. Abrams, 2009)

[Dr Amicus]

Star Trek is an allegory about twinks and bears.

[Galen Young]

Link to the best critique of the film I've read yet. The reference to Ipod is priceless. Also, Matt Zoller Seitz put together a beautiful video essay about Spock, that just drives home for me why the new film is such a sad disappointment.

[Barmy]

Why anyone would bother to type more than 100 words on this film is beyond, oops I've reached my

[colinr0380]

Yet again I'm ambivalent about a blockbuster film. I'll try and phrase my comments as responses to some of the posts in this thread.

No, not several years later, but a matter of days after they leave the academy. The kids basically take over the ship. Without having to put in years of flight time or specialized training or working your way through the ranks. It's the "self-esteem" generation. Everyone gets promoted, no matter what they've done (or haven't done).

Just to add to that: The Enterprise is billed in the film as the flagship of the fleet. I highly doubt any flagship of a (space) naval force would be filled with inexperienced cadets at important positions. The idea of the Enterprise as a warship as well was kind of disconcerting as well. In the series it shown as primarily an exporation vessel. This gunslinger mentality coming from a series that stressed intelligence over muscle is kind of hard to swallow.

This was perhaps my biggest problem with the film. For such an 'important' spaceship it felt strangely like it was a ship intended for the work experience kids to pilot that was accidentally forced to go into a dangerous situation (maybe even similar in setup to another "we didn't mean to go to space" film like SpaceCamp, though that's probably just my own wacky comparison!)

I was also left thinking that all those poor extras toiling away at computer screens in the background might be getting rather disgruntled at constantly seeing all these new arrivals promoted over them into senior positions in every area, as Kirk almost seems to build a cabal around him of favoured ministers!

The first half hour, though, had me convinced the film was going to be a silly space opera -- Starship Troopers played straight: Kirk's Superman-esque origin story, Li'l Spock getting in fights at Vulcan Elementary, Uhura rooming with She Hulk at space college.

I agree with the feeling that the first section of the film was the least interesting, with seriously unironic Starship Troopers undertones, though I quite liked the young Kirk's car stealing section underscored by Sabotage just for the initial confusion it caused in wondering whether the Beastie Boys would really still be a cool sound in the future and then the realisation that the track was being used as the 'old fashioned' music likely to be the favourite in car listening of the stepdad Kirk was rebelling against.

I particularly found it uncomfortable having Uhura constantly sexualised, as if as the token woman the only way she can relate to her companions is through either throwing herself at them or rebuffing them, which seemed kind of a reductive way of opening up the character. Similarly I felt most of the introductions to the characters were too concerned with nudging the audience about their iconic status and setting up their famous trademark lines, and the less said about Scotty's comic relief alien pal (with associated new limp catchphrase "Get down from there!" regularly shouted at it), the better! Eventually I think the cast manage to overcome these issues (no mean feat in itself) but similarly to the first X-Men film they only just seem to be getting comfortable with their roles by the final section of the film. I'd particularly add to the praise for Karl Urban, who has certainly come a long way since being out acted by The Rock in that Doom film.

the very un-Vulcan-like performance of Spock by Sylar, and the essential repudiation of Vulcanism by Nimoy himself at the end.

I think what the film is getting at here, using Spock's half-Vulcan, half-human identity as its vehicle, is an argument that the expression of emotion can sometimes be favorable to pure logic. Striving for a balance between the two is perhaps the central theme of the film: Kirk comes from it from the opposite angle--he is pure emotion and needs to learn to channel it into thoughtful leadership--and Nero is extreme emotion in the total absence of logic (well, he thinks he is being logical).

I'm not familiar enough with the series and films to know much about Vulcanism, but in the context of this film it seems that Vulcans are not simply born emotionless but rather learn to suppress their emotions deeply. That's what I took to be the point of the "schoolyard" taunting, anyway, and of the dialogue between Spock and his father. In the series, Spock usually seems like he's trying to "pass" as pure Vulcan by suppressing all emotion. In fact, Nimoy is quoted as saying he liked the role because Spock was "struggling to maintain a Vulcan attitude, a Vulcan philosophical posture and a Vulcan logic, opposing what was fighting him internally, which was human emotion." I see that at work in the new film, except that you have to see the struggle occur as just one part of a very compressed, multi-character narrative.

Themes aside, this was a total blast.

There is a very strange tug of war going on between the wish to wipe the slate clean on the Star Trek universe on the one hand so that the filmmakers can do their own thing with the material and the attempt to preserve certain essential iconic elements on the other throughout this film, with associated sudden whiplashing from one position to the other and back again. Perhaps the smartest thing that the film does is take this and make it the central theme of the film.

With the violent Romulans at one end of the spectrum and the repressed Vulcans at the other the film seems to be about the way that both these extremes destroy each other. The Romulans kill remorselessly and randomly, but are lashing out emotionally at the destruction of their planet. The 'future' Spock himself is responsible for destroying Vulcan, after his well meaning but destined to failure action trying to save the Romulan world from a 'natural disaster' turns him into an easy person to blame for their suffering. In a way since the races are so similar, and are said to come from similar bloodlines, it would be an imbalance to have one decimated race and another in full flower, so the destruction of Vulcan kind of evens the universe up again and brings the possibility of harmony and reconciliation

(I suppose you could read this as even a Middle East metaphor - Romulans the Palestinians, Vulcans the Israelis and perhaps Humans as the somewhat partisan Western Powers - if you were so inclined.)

The Humans, exemplified by Kirk, are the middle ground - given to bouts of over emotionalism and sheer stupidity (but also emotions which can also serve to drive the species into new discoveries and inventions), yet at times able to put aside anger and hatred and try to understand and empathise with as many, seemingly impossible to understand, people as possible (even perhaps with the final death wish/assisted suicide of an enemy).

And that gets at the heart of the aspirations of the whole Star Trek myth, the admirable (though also too flattering of our abilities) sense that human beings are the empathetic heart of the universe, able to bring peace and co-existence, and offer understanding and a significant and valued role in society for (just about) anyone.