(SPOILER: DO NOT READ UNLESS YOU HAVE SEEN THE MOVIE!)
First off, let me state that overall, I found the new STAR TREK movie to be enjoyable. It is fast-paced with lots of action, easily the best ST movie since THE WRATH OF KHAN.
Now, let’s get what’s wrong with this picture. Basically, the plot is a mess. Any time you do a time-travel story, you open yourself up to all kinds of contradictions and inconsistencies (I’m talking to you, Terminator movies!), but this movie has so many, it seems to violate the Prime Directives of the Movie-Making Federation!
The basic plot, as it is written, makes no sense. The Romulan homeworld is facing imminent destruction from a star that is going supernova. The greatest minds of the Federation figure out a way to try to prevent this from happening. Mr. Spock is sent to try to save Romulus. But he does not arrive in time. Romulus is destroyed. In the ensuing explosion, Spock’s tiny ship and a huge Romulan warship are tossed through time. The Romulan ship, led by an angry guy named Nero, emerges first from the timestream, not sure of where – or when -- they are.
Nero vows to find Spock and destroy him, blaming Spock for the destruction of his homeworld. The Romulans encounter a Federation vessel and they destroy it. The Romulans learn that they have traveled over 120 years back in time, to a period before their homeworld was destroyed.
Now, do the Romulans decide to pay a visit to their homeworld and try to save or at the very least evacuate their planet before it is destroyed? No. Instead, they vow to destroy all the planets in the Federation, since after all, it was clearly the fault of those Federation eggheads that a random star went supernova and fried Romulus. In other words, the Romulans are trying to get revenge for something that has not even happened yet and will not happen for another 120 years!
Now, here’s where the story really falls apart: after destroying that first Federation vessel, the Romulans vow to sit and wait for Spock to arrive. Spock is still trapped in the timestream, and he finally arrives –25 years later!
In other words, the villains of the piece sit and wait and do absolutely NOTHING for 25 years while they wait for Spock to arrive! These have got to be the most patient villains ever. And to add even more holes to the plot, the Federation makes no attempt during that 25 years to confront them. You would think they might want to investigate the destruction of one of their vessels, but no, they just ignore the problem for 25 years!
This is just sloppy plotting. Basically, the writers of the movie needed there to be a 25-year gap in the story to allow baby Jim Kirk to grow up to become James T. Kirk so he could fight the guy who killed his dad.
When Spock finally does arrive, what do the Romulans do? They exile him to an alien ice planet, so that he will have a good view of the destruction of his own homeworld, Vulcan. The scene where Spock is exiled to the iceworld is not even shown in the movie. The writers apparently deemed it not important enough to show. Kind of a major plot point, don’t you think? Methinks me smells deleted scenes here…
While on Iceworld, Spock comes across the now grown-up James Kirk, who has also been exiled there after being kicked off the Enterprise.
Wait a second. So Jim Kirk and Spock both wind up on the same planet? Isn’t that the stretch of a lifetime, to say the very least? Out of all the billions of planets in the universe, these two guys end up on the same planet, purely by chance?
When the plot to a movie hinges on a coincidence so colossal, it would make a Tribble’s head spin, you know a script has problems. All I can think is that the future Spock somehow did a long-distance mind-meld with the younger Spock and planted the idea in his head that he should send Kirk down to the iceworld.
That, at least, would have made some kind of sense. Despite the flaws in the plotting, the movie manages to be entertaining overall.
Other comments:
-The opening scene, where Kirk is born on the day his father dies, is hokey but effective. But wait a minute – this movie takes place before the Federation allowed wives and families of crewmembers aboard starships, so Kirk’s mom should not have been aboard giving birth. That seemed really out of place.
I realize they were trying to set up an epic story where Kirk is born on the day his dad dies, but it seemed kind of contrived. Like everything else in this movie, it works if you do not think too much about it. Just sit back and enjoy and try not to think too hard or the whole movie falls apart.
-Oh, and the attempts at broad humor, where Kirk is injected with drugs that cause bizarre side effects, did not work for me at all. I like subtle humor in STAR TREK, but this was too over the top. Next time, save the wacky humor for GALAXY QUEST.
-The new Uhura is breathtakingly beautiful. She should have had a much bigger part. When Kirk & Spock go to beam down for the climactic battle, I was really hoping Uhura would go with them so we could see her in high-kicking, mini-skirted action!
-How come all the ads for this movie try to make it seem like Kirk has a sex scene with Uhura? In the commercials, we see Kirk and Uhura exchange looks, then we see Uhura undressing, then we see silhouettes of two bodies writhing in bed. If you watch the movie, you know that Uhura does not have any sex scenes, and even if she did, in the new continuity, it would not be with Kirk.
-The Jim Kirk in this movie is not a very good hand-to-hand fighter. He spends most of his fight scenes getting choked by the bad guys, and then hanging over ledges, trying not to fall. I was hoping we would see Jim Kirk’s signature move from the old TV series, the dropkick. Alas, it was not to be. Maybe in the sequel…
-Wynona Ryder was an inspired casting choice as Spock’s mom. I always thought she looked kind of alien, with eyes far bigger than most humans.
-Overall I like the new cast, with one exception: they kind of blew it with Chekov. Chekov did not appear in the first season of Star Trek. He was brought in later, as a Davy Jones lookalike, to appeal to fans of the Monkees and the Beatles. In the new movie, Chekov did not have the Davy Jones haircut, so that was disappointing. I really wanted to see that!
-Overall I liked the movie, despite my quibbles about the story. I absolutely would like to see more stories featuring this new crew. But they need a better villain. The villains in this one were serviceable, but they could have been a lot more menacing. Maybe we will see Khan in the sequel?
