"Star Trek" (2009)

SPOILER WARNING!!! This post spoils movie "Star Trek" (2009).

I didn't realize, how much Star Wars this movies has first time I saw it. Now it looks more like Star Wars than Star Trek. What is annoying, is that, this is actually good scifi action movie. But this is not Star Trek. This is almost everything, that is not Star Trek and nothing that is Star Trek. J.J. Abrams told, he didn't like original Star Trek and that shows. Movie doesn't get spirit of Star Trek. This is more like application to get to direct Star Wars. As we now know, that worked for J.J. Abrams. He left Star Trek as soon as he got to do Star Wars.

Star Trek is intellectual science fiction. It is not about action. Problems are solved by coming up with good ideas, not with muscles and fire power. Stories show interesting concepts. Original Star Trek, my second favourite tv series, had interesting dynamics between main characters. Doctor McCoy was all about emotion. Spock was for cold logic without emotion. Kirk was somewhere in the middle, using both emotion and logic. McCoy and Spock were friendly rivals. Spock was there to show, how illogical human activities some times are. His role was given to Data in Next Generation and Seven of Nine in Voyager. Those are best characters in Star Trek franchise.

In "Star Trek", Fake Kirk is born, when his mother escapes from spaceship, that his father flies in to enemy ship. Then we see how young Fake Kirk escapes police and destroys sport car in process. Fake Spock in introduced fighting vulcan kids. Then Fake Kirk get into bar fight with four cadets. Fake Spock shows his rebellious side in Vulcan by choosing Star Fleet instead of Vulcan science academy. Fake Kirk is someone, who always gets into trouble and wastes his talent. Fake Spock can't control his temper. Fake McCoy is divorced drunk, who bends rules and use medicine unsafely. Our three heroes aren't same characters, that made them so good in original series. They don't have same chemistry. Now Fake Kirk and Fake Spock are rivals and McCoy is there by Kirk's side. They are rivals because they have different opinions on how they should act in different situations. They don't represent different world views like McCoy and Spock did in original series. If there is main difference between them it is, that Fake Spock wants to go by the rules, when for Fake Kirk end justifies the means.

Story doesn't have any interesting points. It is just angry romulan getting his revenge. He has planet destroying weapon. He uses that to destroy one of main characters home planet. Our heroes barely escape first encounter with villains. There is ice planet, where our heroes have to fight strange monsters. Villains go to destroy another planet. This time our heroes are prepared. Two of them go inside enemy ship. Final battle is fought inside and outside of enemy ship. During final battle Enterprise comes out of nowhere to save one of our heroes' ship, just before villains are destroying it. Enemy ship is destroyed and our hero gets medal for his actions in final battle.

Does that sound familial? Inside enemy ship, there are platforms, that make no sense. Final battle is fought on those platforms. One of main characters uses his sword in fight on platform high above planet. I don't know how to describe Fake Scott's assistant, other than saying he could be in Star Wars and you would not notice anything strange. He would be more at home in Star Wars than in Star Trek. Half of elements are from Star Wars and other half from Star Trek. Designs and names are from Star Trek, story and tone from Star Wars. Every character is made to look stupid at one point and they don't act like they should. There is too much pointless action for action's sake.

Star Trek was thinking man's science fiction. This movie turned it into generic stupid action science fiction. All things good in Star Trek were stripped in this movie.  This was made for average stupid movie goer. Intellectual stuff is over their head. Explosions and action is what sells the tickets. Star Trek is not like that but "Star Trek" is. I wish good science fiction would sell better. Great science fiction movies are still made, but they are hard to find, because these kind of movies get all the publicity.

Why I hate this movie? I hate this, because it took Star Trek away from us, who like intellectual science fiction and made it generic action fantasy. When I say I am a fan of Star Trek, I have to mention that I mean original Star Trek, not this J.J. Abrams version. This is good action movie, but I hate what it does to franchise I like. I haven't seen Star Trek Into Darkness. I don't want to support latest Hollywood trend of using popular titles' names and turning them into something other than original material was. That is why I haven't seen World War Z. I will write about both movies, when I can see them without paying extra to see them.