Guest blogger Chris Boulton posts the GSFN website’s second (glowing) review of the new Star Trek movie.
As a third generation Trekkie I was surprised how quickly I was won over by the idea of a reboot/re-imagination of Star Trek. The part of my mind that will forever want to dress in the uniform rebelled at the thought of someone coming in and messing with 40-odd years of established history but then thinking about it logically (as all good Trekkies obviously do) we needed fresh blood. Since Insurrection, I feel, that we’ve lost our way a little bit, but that’s just my opinion.
The film was simply brilliant, I can’t imagine how daunting it was for the cast to be doing something like this. The two that really stood out for me were Spock (Zachary Quinto) and ‘Bones’ (Karl Urban). Quinto undoubtedly had the hardest role due to working along side Leonard Nimoy – where the rest of the cast could put their own stamp on the characters, Quinto didn’t really have that luxary and was simply spectacular but Urban, in my eyes, nailed McCoy’s character. He could have put his own twist to McCoy’s character but from the moment you see him there is just a Deforest Kelley look about him and the rant about space and why he hated it just gave me goosebumps! I have to say though – that Kirk in nothing but a pair of tight grey pants was something I’d pay to see Chris Pine do over and over again.. William Shatner, not so much. Pine’s version of Kirk was very good and a lot less sleazy, again in my opinion, than the original but just the right amount of Kirk ‘cockiness’ (not a reference to the pants) to suit me.
I think that they had enough original features for the old fans such as the design of the Enterprise, the look of the uniforms as well as enough in-jokes to keep us satisfied and chuckling but there is an updated feel to it that’ll bring new fans into the fold.
J. J. Abrams is a genius and amazingly covered the majority of the plot holes that I could see happening by the time the film had ended, such as playing around with established canon and how it would fit in. Giving the film to fans of the show was a brilliant idea by Paramount and I hope that they continue this in later films (and hopefully a series). Go see it!!
From the Desk of Squishy McSquish III
