My jaw hit the floor several times during this movie.
I've seen every episode of all the series with the exception of Enterprise. Enterprise rewrote too much of the Star Trek canon, just for the sake of making it new. Unnecessarily, as you will find. I've even read a few of the books. Never gone to one of the conventions with fake pointy ears. Never had to have Shatner tell me to grow up or leave my parents basement. Not a Trekkie, but a Trekker. The distinction in my mind is that it's not the be all end all of my existience, but I do dig most things Trek. I just like good writing, and interesting premises. The acting can be hokey at times, but I enjoy that as well. But, I do believe in the honest purity of what has come before. Han shoots first? That's bullshit. The guys looking for E.T. are carrying flashlights, not guns? Kiss my fat ass. So, the idea of another Trek restart did not sit well with me, as I'm sure it did not sit well with others. But, let's consider another recent restart.
Casino Royale.
To fans of the Bond legacy, the idea of restarting Bond from scratch was anathema. "How dare you erase all that has gone before?" But, Bond started in the SIXTIES. Hit it's stride in the seventies and cruised through the eighties. The nineties saw it as tired. Guess what? Same can be said of another property. And, guess what else?
Casino Royale Rocked to the Prime.
So does the new Trek.
Except, through very inventive writing, and pure Sci-Fi thinking outside the box, everything that has gone before has still gone before. Even though it's a clean start.
What the hell does that mean?
See the movie.
Intrigued? You should be.
Let's get to the non spoiler stuff. JJ Abrams can direct a damn fine action flick. He proved that with Mission Impossible III, and has shown that again here. Once this movie has established the basic plot and gotten the chess pieces into place, it kicks into high gear and doesn't let up until the Coda.
The acting from the Big Seven was fantastic. Loved the new takes on the characters. Oddly, yet correctly, the most in keeping with the original character, and thereby the least impressive to me, was Quinto as Spock. He channeled Nimoy. Karl Urban did an unbelievable homage to DeForest Kelley as Bones, but breathed new life into the character as well. Quinto felt more like mimicry. Not chagrining the potrayal, just saying that the most publicised, (which might be the reason), was the least impressive.
The twists in this movie truly shocked me. I commend them for the balls to do what they did. I kept expecting one of the old Sci-Fi deux es machinas to come in to place to erase what happened, but dude. What happens in this movie is now the new canon. Deal with it. Dig it. Derive pleasure from it. It's all good in the end.
After thinking about it, I decided to take out the spoiler stuff I had written here. They were some pretty major spoilers, and I figured it wasn't worth the risk of someone even accidently seeing them before checking out the flick. Let's just leave it as big things happen in the movie. 'Nuff said.
Prime's Bottom Line - Fuck Enterprise (and the bullshit of losing the Star Trek title, at least when the series started), THIS is the way to REstart, REinvigorate and REnew interest in this property.
I've seen every episode of all the series with the exception of Enterprise. Enterprise rewrote too much of the Star Trek canon, just for the sake of making it new. Unnecessarily, as you will find. I've even read a few of the books. Never gone to one of the conventions with fake pointy ears. Never had to have Shatner tell me to grow up or leave my parents basement. Not a Trekkie, but a Trekker. The distinction in my mind is that it's not the be all end all of my existience, but I do dig most things Trek. I just like good writing, and interesting premises. The acting can be hokey at times, but I enjoy that as well. But, I do believe in the honest purity of what has come before. Han shoots first? That's bullshit. The guys looking for E.T. are carrying flashlights, not guns? Kiss my fat ass. So, the idea of another Trek restart did not sit well with me, as I'm sure it did not sit well with others. But, let's consider another recent restart.
Casino Royale.
To fans of the Bond legacy, the idea of restarting Bond from scratch was anathema. "How dare you erase all that has gone before?" But, Bond started in the SIXTIES. Hit it's stride in the seventies and cruised through the eighties. The nineties saw it as tired. Guess what? Same can be said of another property. And, guess what else?
Casino Royale Rocked to the Prime.
So does the new Trek.
Except, through very inventive writing, and pure Sci-Fi thinking outside the box, everything that has gone before has still gone before. Even though it's a clean start.
What the hell does that mean?
See the movie.
Intrigued? You should be.
Let's get to the non spoiler stuff. JJ Abrams can direct a damn fine action flick. He proved that with Mission Impossible III, and has shown that again here. Once this movie has established the basic plot and gotten the chess pieces into place, it kicks into high gear and doesn't let up until the Coda.
The acting from the Big Seven was fantastic. Loved the new takes on the characters. Oddly, yet correctly, the most in keeping with the original character, and thereby the least impressive to me, was Quinto as Spock. He channeled Nimoy. Karl Urban did an unbelievable homage to DeForest Kelley as Bones, but breathed new life into the character as well. Quinto felt more like mimicry. Not chagrining the potrayal, just saying that the most publicised, (which might be the reason), was the least impressive.
The twists in this movie truly shocked me. I commend them for the balls to do what they did. I kept expecting one of the old Sci-Fi deux es machinas to come in to place to erase what happened, but dude. What happens in this movie is now the new canon. Deal with it. Dig it. Derive pleasure from it. It's all good in the end.
After thinking about it, I decided to take out the spoiler stuff I had written here. They were some pretty major spoilers, and I figured it wasn't worth the risk of someone even accidently seeing them before checking out the flick. Let's just leave it as big things happen in the movie. 'Nuff said.
Prime's Bottom Line - Fuck Enterprise (and the bullshit of losing the Star Trek title, at least when the series started), THIS is the way to REstart, REinvigorate and REnew interest in this property.
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