Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Star Trek: Movie Review

This movie is a good re-boot of the Star Trek franchise.

Spoilers from this point forward.

I did have some issues with this movie. First off, there is a massive Romulan vessel that appears at the start of the movie. I was thinking perhaps this was a massive attack vessel. You later learn that it is just a mining ship. Hmm. A mining ship taking out a military vessel? I'm not so sure about that even if the mining ship is equipped with space guns and comes from the future. And then when the Federation is out to save Vulcan, this one mining ship is able to destroy a number of military ships. Please.

Second, now a days I'm not so into time travel as a source for a storyline. I know that Lost (tv show) is dealing with time travel, as well, and I had issues with this past Lost season. I just find it all too confusing. In the case of Star Trek, I admit it helps with the whole re-boot situation. It gives everything a fresh start. There is no longer any need to stick to specific storylines laid out by the various movies, television shows and books. (This is obviously the issue with writing books for Star Wars as mentioned by Kevin J. Anderson -- who I wrote in a previous blog on the LA Times Festival of Books.) Obviously, you still have the Romulans, Vulcans and Klingons and such. And perhaps similar missions are still taken, but there is no worry in the Star Trek universe to keep to the previous anthology of work. I do understand the burden that keeping to the anthology places, but I also tend to dislike time travel movies (though I admit Star Trek IV is my favorite movie -- which destroys my whole argument, but perhaps I found Star Trek IV fun due to the amusing take on how people from the future would view life in the current.)

Third thing I didn't like about the movie, I didn't get the whole drill thing. Maybe I missed something, but why couldn't the Vulcans have sent out some fighters to take out this drill on their own (this might show my lack of Star Trek knowledge as perhaps the Vulcans do not have a military, but you would think they'd have something). And when the vessel came to San Francisco to start mining, why did Earth have no fighter jets up in the air to try and take this thing out instead of waiting until Spock (I think it was Spock) took the drill out.

Okay, so those are my issues, but then I have issues with most movies. The movie Taken, I believe, takes even more liberties with its storyline. Essentially, I'm just trying to poke holes into the movie. Over-all, though, it was just a fun ride. I guess I'm being negative, because even though I don't consider myself a Trekkie, I still am somewhat invested in the series.

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