Star Trek

STAR TREK               B               
USA   (127 mi)  2009  ‘Scope  d:  J.J. Abrams

One aspect of Star Trek that has been missing in the movie versions is an understanding for why the TV show clicked, namely the interrelations between the characters who couldn’t have been more different from one another, where the racial and intergalactic diversity expressed each week literally raised the bar in viewer social awareness.  The show interestingly maintained a healthy dose of personal barbs between the characters that created distinct personalities at work in otherwise cramped, claustrophobic quarters, where from time to time they amusingly got on each others nerves and would take verbal swipes at one another.  Some of the legendary cracks between Medical Officer McCoy raising his suspicions about half Vulcan, half human Spock’s overly rational brain reflecting the side of him that wasn’t human became part of the running dialogue on the ship, and was consistently used not only in the heat of battle but especially in the final few seconds of each show’s epilogue to show that no matter what their differences, all’s well that end’s well, as they survived another adventure together.  That is the one attribute that this Star Trek movie pays particular attention to and it feels like a welcoming home of the characters themselves, as each is once more carefully defined by a certain aspect of their character that is wonderfully appealing.  Add to this an astounding degree of physical resemblance to the original crew that is simply extraordinary.  What’s fun about this version is that it comes before the regular crew of the Starship Enterprise was formed, where each hadn’t yet developed into their now familiar roles.  The back stories, bearing a Smallville Superman, the early years resemblance, offers unique insight, even when it becomes hammy and so deliciously exaggerated to the point of being operatic.  The film does an excellent job pin-pointing and merging the early years for both Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) and Mr. Spock (Zachary Quinto) on their respective planets, one in Iowa, the other on planet Vulcan, also providing an early action sequence that reveals how Kirk’s father was a Starship captain for a mere handful of seconds, yet in a heroic effort saved hundreds of lives in the process, including his wife and newborn. 

One of the criticisms of the Star Trek movies overall is their over-reliance on special effects, where they love to show off where so much of the money goes, and this film is no different.  It gets carried away with the same adrenaline rushes that fellow big budget Hollywood director Michael Bay is known for, also supported by wailing voices and plenty of pounding percussion.  The difference here is that the characters are intriguing from the outset.  When Kirk recklessly races cars as a kid or Spock is subjected to relentless torment from fellow Vulcans about his half human side, their personalities are being formed by the way they overcompensate from what’s missing in their lives, Kirk missing a father while Spock’s mother is not Vulcan.  Kirk’s testy fight in the bar sequence and his relentless approach to seducing any and all women he sees is laughably over the top, but who would have thought Spock could be taunted into fisticuffs on his home planet?  There’s a familiar ring to all of this, as Zoë Saldana’s sexy, but warmhearted Uhura is actually romantically partnered with Spock here, not Kirk, amusingly seen giving last minute kisses in the transportation deck.  Karl Urban is drop dead hilarious as Dr. McCoy injecting Kirk with a virus to gain him access to an otherwise off limits Starship, following with a succession of more injections due to his unforeseen symptoms, all while Kirk is challenging a Captain’s decision and making perhaps the biggest decision in his as yet undeveloped career.  John Cho’s fencing expertise as Sulu early on saves Kirk’s life, and Anton Yelchin’s verbal mugging of the English language as the brilliant 17-year old thickly Russian accented Chekov is exquisite.  Simon Pegg as the drink happy Chief Engineer Scott is deliriously happy at discovering transporting can take place at warp speeds, not to mention that he invented the scientific equation.  And Leonard Nimoy makes not just an appearance, but plays a significant role in what this movie is about, that it’s not all accolades and successes of a rewarding career, but life is all about the journey along the way.  

One major beef, however, is that it follows of the same formula that big Hollywood productions seem destined to follow, which is to accentuate meaningless battle sequences with plenty of explosions, including innumerable space ships, with objects hurled through space, bodies flying, where death and destruction is a major pattern to follow, as if that’s what holds an audience’s attention.  No doubt for some, that’s the bottom line:  was it exciting?  Eric Bana is really very good as the rogue Romulan outlaw Nero, whose brutal interrogation methods are Neanderthal, but his mind is intensely psychological, scarred himself from losing his own planet.  Little by little the main characters move their way into their familiar positions, predictably overcoming all obstacles.  Unfortunately, this is a male heavy cast with few opportunities other than Uhura and Spock’s mother to even have speaking roles, so for a film that features as one of its goals to lead the way in presenting a diversified view of a utopian future society, they certainly failed in this opportunity.  Very few creatures from other galaxies played any significant role as well, so this was largely seen as the typical white man’s battle to save the universe.  Spock’s performance in particular is impressive, especially because he is so full of doubt while also being the smartest guy in the room, while Kirk is a gung ho thrill seeker from the outset, the guy who routinely takes the greatest risks, yet whose self-centered arrogance is more a trait of actor William Shatner, the original Kirk, whose gargantuan ego preceded him wherever he went, as opposed to Pine who spends most of the film engaged in fights, oftentimes on the losing end, whose first response tendency toward reckless behavior does not exactly bode well for ship morale.  But as a blockbuster action thriller costing $150 million, this at least goes for the tone and charming character references of the original TV series.

Star Trek Into Darkness

STAR TREK INTO  DARKNESS            C           
USA  (132 mi)  2013  ‘Scope  d:  J.J. Abrams              Paramount [us]

Lacking the humor and flair of the earlier STAR TREK (2009), this second J.J. Abrams stab at Star Trek (1966 – 1969), the legendary but now 37-year old Gene Roddenberry developed sci-fi TV show, more closely resembles STAR WARS (1977 – present), and its computer generated action adventures in outer space, where it’s no accident that Abrams has been chosen to direct the next STAR WARS movie.  Gone, however, is any trace of personality or clever character development that defined both the TV show and the earlier film, as this is pure stereotype throughout, expressed entirely through worn out cliché’s that have all been done better before.  So in effect, what feels like retread and rehashed TV is played out as purely conventional Hollywood material, a large-scaled exhibition that amounts to little more than a demolition derby, where with a boy-like wonder its creators get to blow stuff up.  How this became mainstream entertainment is Hollywood’s insistence upon repeating well-established formulas that have worked in the past.  The new Hollywood, in an era of financial instability, doesn’t trust new ideas or imagination, as there’s no built-in formula for success.  So everything looks and feels like a TV rerun, only larger, expanded to an immense scale, usually showcased on 3D screens, where the emphasis has shifted from acting and human drama to working almost exclusively with computers, where the human factor is nearly non-existent.  The video game look and sound of STAR WARS in the late 70’s has arrived, through the evolution of technology, to the point where computer generated battle sequences and explosions have become the standard bearer for Hollywood movies.  This is what America exports around the world, filling movie theaters with simulated war games, where the good guys routinely violate their prime directive for a supposedly larger moral objective, suggesting the rules of engagement exist only in theory, as the wily, battle hardened veterans always find ways to make an end run around commonly accepted practices. 

The original 60’s Star Trek TV series was actually conceived during the Vietnam War, where the Prime Directive, never explicitly spelled out, but suggests modern cultures with their more advanced technologies may not interfere in the evolution of another developing society, was actually a reflection of the writer’s sentiments that America had no business in Vietnam.  While the Prime Directive was routinely made light of, “I prefer to think of it as the Prime Suggestion,” by Captain James T. Kirk, the truth of the matter is that while this was the ideal objective in the abstract, it was, in reality, routinely ignored on any number of occasions, whenever Kirk felt the end justified the means.  In the post-Bush era of  Iraq, Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo, and the Afghanistan incursions, there’s something ugly and cynical about the ease by which moral guidelines are routinely ignored in the movies, no doubt a mirror reflection of society’s apathetic compliance, but these transgressions are being made by the military branch’s flagship ambassador starship while supposedly carrying out the highest ideals of civilization, where the nonchalant hero (again Captain Kirk) seems to be saying oops, sorry about that, with little more seriousness than the wink of an eye.  It’s actually built into Kirk’s recalcitrant character from the beginning that he’s a reckless and cocky, hot shot, becoming the only student at Starfleet command to defeat the Kobayashi Maru test, earning a commendation for original thinking when he reprogrammed the computer, making a “no-win scenario” winnable.  It’s this kind of thinking that supposedly expresses Kirk’s stubborn individualism, where it’s a fine line between swaggering heroism and being sent to the brig for insubordination.  The film opens with exactly this kind of impossible situation, where against all odds the Captain must consider the unthinkable, where rescuing a single member from his crew could jeopardize the lives of all the others, and of course a brash and daring rescue mission, even though successful (was there ever any doubt?), gets him in trouble back home with Starfleet command, stripping him of his position as captain of the Enterprise.     

While improperly maligned, seemingly unjust, and downright unthinkable (as who wants to watch an episode with someone else in command?), this quickly becomes the least of our concerns, as in true GODFATHER III (1990) fashion, there is an intruder in the ranks, like Harry Potter’s Voldemort risen from the dead files of the Starfleet archives, someone with near supernatural powers who quickly threatens to destroy the balance of power and peaceful stabilization in the universe.  Escaping to an uninhabitable region of Klingon territory, this outlaw, played with British calm by Benedict Cumberbatch, turns out to be none other than the notorious villain Khan, played originally on TV by Ricardo Montalbán, reprising the role in STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN (1982), though Cumberbatch bears no resemblance whatsoever to the evil ruthlessness of the character.  In fact, in a curious  twist, one of Starfleet’s own megalomaniacal commanders goes even more haywire, Alexander Marcus, played by Peter Weller, though it appears he’s channeling Richard Widmark’s demented film noir persona. It is Marcus that revives the military trained Khan from his cryogenic sleep, fearing war with the Klingons, where he works on developing top secret Starfleet weapons and battleships under a cover identity before he rebels, carrying out a series of attacks for the rest of the picture.  While there are plenty more references to the TV series, most are lame, poorly written, and pitifully undermined by the endless battle sequences that exclusively drive the action, with a single exception.  As the Enterprise, apparently sabotaged, comes under a blistering attack, engines stalled, losing warp power and attack mode, where the ship is in flames and people are dying by the second, Engineer Scotty (Simon Pegg), who’s oblivious to what’s been happening as he’s been elsewhere, is beamed onboard the ship as it suddenly goes into a nosedive from engine failure, where he hilariously utters:  "One day I’ve been off this ship!  One bloody day!” STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS - Character Profile - Scotty - YouTube  (1:06).  It’s a refreshing return to character, where other than that, the best that we’re treated to is a lover’s quarrel between Spock and Uhura (Zachary Quinto and Zoë Saldana) during the middle of another ferocious assault.  Chris Pine plays Kirk with the same kind of bland disrespect for authority, as if it’s been programmed into him, while Leonard Nimoy makes a brief appearance, breathing more life into his few seconds, albeit a reminder of just what we’re missing.