Paramount
Bigger. Louder. Faster. These adjectives are the most deceptive in all of advertising, because they are almost as meaningless with context as without. The idea behind a "reboot" is to personify those three tantalizing words. In the case of the re-imagining of Star Trek, you're being sold a brand name and nothing else. This new Star Trek follows the same idea as comedian Patton Oswalt's bit about being confused why, if you liked Star Wars, you'd want to see the same characters as children. Well, the new Star Trek certainly is the veritable Muppet Babies of the Star Trek series. If you want to see young, toned actors, who vaguely resemble their older selves (mistake #1, if young Spock is an approximation, you can't then cast Leonard Nimoy and give him a fairly large part as old Spock, allowing us to compare the two), you're in for a treat. Paul Verhoeven mastered the art of mocking the cocky, pretty, empty types on display here when he made Starship Troopers. Unfortunately, Star Trek director J.J. Abrams (Lost, Alias) brought his TV show experience with him, but not his irony.
Paramount
Verhoeven knew that there was virtually no way to take these bland frat types seriously, and so the joke was on the characters in Starship Troopers, as we get to revel in their brutally graphic deaths. Abrams treats the enterprise with sincerity, well, as much sincerity as one can have while being reigned in by rigid fan expectations. The reboot notion rarely works for a number of reasons. First, the initial reboot movie is basically an apology for what got screwed up in previous editions, which already sets a confusing tone. Second, despite starting over, the filmmakers still have to follow stringent rules established by the source material, so not only is there little freedom, but the movie threatens to fall into the trap of either being totally faithful and uncreative, or, if there's a spark of invention diverting from the formula, getting blasted by fans and critics alike who want their repetitive reassurance, and they want it now. Saddled with an enormous budget and his television habits, J.J. Abrams delivers the most expensive and safe episode of TV ever produced. While Abrams' limitations in the action arena were made quite clear in his directing of Mission Impossible III, in Star Trek, he lucked out, because the requirements were minimal. Abrams manages quite well in making $150 million look like an episode of Babylon 5. Fistfights are poorly edited, and when he wants to create excitement and tension, Abrams simply has the camera shake around a lot in close-up to give the appearance of frantic unease.
Paramount
Now I'm going to have to make my full disclosure to be fair to the movie. I saw Star Trek in an IMAXtheater, projected onto the ceiling and stretched out hundreds of feet wide. It was one of the worst theatrical viewing experiences I've ever had. I wasn't bothered by the size of it, but simply the presentation. The image was cropped on the sides. It was also stretched. It was also out of focus. Whenever there was a shot that was in the daytime or had some bright light in it, I was distracted by the grooves in the ceiling, as if we were watching the movie on thousands of TV monitors at the same time. The grooves probably made sense when this planetarium was designed, but it is a woeful thing to look at. So bright that it takes 30 minutes of squinting before you get used to it, and with a jitteriness not helped by the fact that it looks like someone made a bootleg in the theater, but was too lazy to straighten the camera, and so everything is crooked. Keep in mind that this was a special screening which people had clearly waited hours to get into. So really, it isn't fair for me to judge Star Trek's action sequences too harshly. I could hardly tell what was going on while we were supposed to be blown away by the intergalactic space fights and the only special effect that looked like it might be worth revisiting in a more pleasant environment was the first few seconds of the creation of a black hole twirling like a tornado in quicksand. Also there was that red monster that looked like a giant vagina (in the great tradition of Alien and Blade II), but it was dispatched far too quickly.
Paramount
So what was I left with? Well the visual limitations meant that I had the ability to pay attention to the less flashy details, such as the distracting and meaningless cameos that pop up every few minutes. Actors such as Winona Ryder, Tyler Perry, and Simon Pegg (playing Scotty) have enough screen time that whatever interest we might have in their simple appearance dissipates, until you realize they've actually been reduced to being 8th billed in the cast, and not a bonus for the audience. I got to compare the special effects to the nearly visually identical Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, not a good omen when you look closer to a fully animated movie, than one involving actual people. I got to listen to dialogue like, "tell me something I don't know," or think about why they cast Anton Yelchin (Charlie Bartlett and the son on Huff) as a young Chekov, if he was going to play the part like the world's worst Yakov Smirnoff impressionist, "comically" mangling English with a thick Russian accent. I got to cringe as each famous character trait or phrase in the Star Trek lore was given an origin, always some groanworthy pun or sloppily written contrivance, as if the new actors were just kids wearing their parent's clothing, placeholders for when they mature into the clichés we know in our hearts.
Paramount
It's funny because none of the Star Trek rules had to be obeyed, especially as time travel plays a rather major role in this film. There's even a discussion of alternate realities, so we could easily get a different version of Kirk or Uhura, developing into something fresh and unexpected and it wouldn't be cheating (well, with time travel plots, you're always cheating in some way). Maybe the movie will play better at home and the flat look won't be so bothersome. Or maybe, instead of fretting about not being able to judge the movie properly, I can take Scotty's advice and focus my energy on whether or not they have sandwiches in the future.
Comments
Is this guy serious? lmao STAR TREK has a 95 percent rating by the crittics nationwide. This Adam Lippe idiot is a total douchebag!!! lol
"Is this guy serious? lmao STAR TREK has a 95 percent rating by the crittics nationwide. This Adam Lippe idiot is a total douchebag!!! lol"
It's true, Adam Lippe is quite the douchebag because he doesn't agree with everyone else. Screw reading what he wrote and why he dislikes Star Trek, it's more important to judge the review based on an arbitrary rating of fresh or rotten.
This guy must not ba a fan or know anything about the original series. It answere all the questions we have always wanted to know along with an amazing thrill ride!1 Kudos to J.J. Abrams!!
at least you admitted the inferior projection. yet this discredits the entire review, not just your comments on visual effects. go see the movie in a proper theater, imax or not.
of course there are flaws and you're entitled to your opinion. but it sounds more like an axe to grind.
I'm not a very big Star Trek fan, but when this movie was over and I had a minute to think while I was putting the dvd back in it's case, I thought damn, that was a pretty freaking good movie.
I don't know what movie this so called "critic" watched, but it wasn't this one.
Adam, get this movie on Blu Ray and watch it at home on a good HDTV and I'm sure your opinion of this movie will improve.
This review is terrible.
I disagree with your notion that a reboot is essentially an apology. There are many modern remakes that improved thanks to a little modern polish. Take Batman for instance, or Spiderman. Both of these movies improved on the original formula without really changing the source material- which brings me to why I disagree with your second point. Every "reboot" has to follow the original source material, or else it's not the same story.
I don't think you put too much thought into this review...
Babylon 5 effects? Simply shake the camera? Seriously? What a horrible review.
You should do us all a favor and stop reviewing right now.
You are the kind of reviewer that should be in a different profession. Nobody cares about your theater experience find one that has a proper projection and screen and concentrate on the subject which is the movie. What the hell next time you are going to pan a movie based on your under buttered popcorn?
Just as you were fairly unimpressed by the film, I was fairly unimpressed by your review (and I use that term very, very loosely).
review is spot on. star trek was a horrible mess and a disgrace to the series.
He's just putting up a bad review of a good movie to get visitors. Probably the only way he knows how to get people to pay him some attention.
Absolutely spot on review in every way. I'm astonished that anyone likes this film, and the only explanation I have is that Michael Bay has permanently damaged society. If you like Star Trek, you'll LOVE Transformers! Co-opt a brand, stack it full of bumblefucks, send out the marketing hounds at warp 9. Is it really that easy?
Beyond any shadow of conceivable doubt, THE stupidest review I've ever read, I barely made it to the end and only out of sheer morbid curiosity to see if there was anything, anythng at all that could justify the drivel that came before it. I was worried after the first paragraph but then this guy is actually writing about a reboot of much loved characters of a 40 year old franchise in desperate need of a decent overhaul (which it got, no question) and he's comparing them to a corny, overbloated, badly acted, (no, appallingly acted) over animated, one hit wonder like Starship Troopers???????
Adam, you're a prat. Open your mind or stop writing
Finally someone reviews the Star Trek that I saw! I simply couldn't believe all the positive reviews I've read of this mindless, pointless drivel! I can only suppose that Paramount is bribing all the other critics!
very good review. I like the Starship Troopers comparison.
As a Saturday night live movie spoof, the movie was pure genius. Worth a watch for the most beautifully rendered Enterprise to date though. (blu-ray)
Coming out of star trek I felt like I'D strayed into the parallel universe. Everyone seemed to have been watching something deep and engageing while I'd been watching a horrible missmatch of gags, cameos, BRIGHT FLOODLIGHTS and pointless flashbacks.
I tried asking people "but didn't you think the story was stupid, how it relied on coincidences al the time?" but no one else saw it. It was insane. And those lights, MY GOD the lights, you can't see the characters when they're talking because the shakey cam is so bad and the lights are obscuring most of their head. Everyone is so quick to deffend it but it's just terrible.
When they contrived that reason to have all the bridge crew sky dive onto the alien drilling platform and have a kung fu fight with extendo swords I couldn't beleive it. Why not take a shuttle, why not bring guns?...I'm so glad somone else noticed.
Lippe: your critiques and others are accurate but they miss the mark of what made Star Trek successful, and the spirit of what Abrams and the screenwriters preserved in this film.
You also waste our time writing about the quality of the projection. What else could you have distracted these poor readers with - a bitch about the armrest cushions? Did your feet stick to the floor? Was there a family with small children two rows above and to your left who kept opening some candy with cellophane wrappings? Is this a review or a bloody blog posting?
I don't know about you but I grew up watching the original series episodes over and over again. I had no trouble suspending my disbelief despite the horrible special effects and the formulaic dialogue and acting.
I also side with some of the reviewers about the rampant plot holes and the many coincidences that when examined could cause the story to fall apart. However, there are two elements of the historic Star Trek franchise that will always turn off officious viewers: you can never bank on the science being genuine, and coincidences happen in just about every ST episode and movie ever produced. So, in short:
GET OVER IT. No one is asking you to pretend you don't know these characters. Roll with the "re-exposition" and the impossible coincidences.
Why does this movie work? Why has it likely spawned a new billion-dollar franchise? Because Abrams gets the recipe - and yes, this recipe is the only thing that matters - of themes, characters and plot that Roddenberry intended.
Kirk represents the all-American ideal of swagger and kinetic energy; Spock represents our wise, paternal establishment, our superego; McCoy (who MUST be nicknamed Bones) is the skeptic and doubting Thomas. Scotty MUST say the immortal phrase, "I'm givin her all she's got." What the hell do you expect? Just because Nero blew up a ship doesn't mean that all of these people would be drastically different.
The themes always, always revolve around loyalty, commitment to the team, commitment to a few key ideals, and the conflicts that arise amongst these values. Genocide is also a constant fear, arising from the Cold War and seemingly lost on today's children. These are prominently featured as the meat-and-potato themes in "Star Trek".
The best ST plots always echo nautical voyages of past eras, when there was still something left to discover on our OWN planet and empires were still expanding. In one sense ST itself has been a revisionist re-imagining of American expansionism with a compassionate moral center. This movie actually positions our "Federation" as the target of a vengeful terrorist madman. It is an update for our post 9/11 world.
ST epis and movies are strongest when there is an impractical journey and an actual ship to ship battle, and the weakest episodes of ST television (and frankly, the movies) are when we are NOT treated to such combat. The first sequence of this "Star Trek", the epic battle and sacrifice of Kirk's father, is among the best cinematic experiences of my life.
So, I see the flaws in this complex dish, however, I consume it willingly, because it has all of the things that nourished me as a child watching Kirk take roundhouse swings at some poor bastard in the Gorn costume.
Good review, bad Star Trek TOS movie. Despite the physical resemblance of the actors and some re-iterated lines from the series, the movie fails as a prequel. Why? Spock kissing Uhura? WTF? Sulu likes swords in TOS, but was a sword master as portrayed in the movie)? Spock looks the same age as the captain; as a slow aging (half-)vulcan he should have rather be played by an older man in the movie. Running in the ship's hallway that fast? Bloody noses they will get sooner or later...
So the movie loses a lot of true Star Trek, as every fan can easily spot.
Moreover, the story is just about the characters, the villain is just a sideplot.
To be fair, if the movie would not be about Star Trek it would be a good science fiction movie.
Decent review. I was shocked to see this awful movie getting such a collectively great review on Rotten Tomatoes etc. Indifferent casting, poor script, utterly non-canonical yet at the same time slavishly box-checking all the minor cliches from the old TV show. I like Lost so thought Abrams would do a decent job of this, but this was horrible. God knows what he will do with the sequel...
The effects were headache-inducing - big, loud and dull. Presumably tens of millions of dollars of state-of -the-art effects to create less coherent, far less exciting space battle that Star Trek II: the Wrath of Khan c.1982. Good job guys! Oh yeah, as somebody who is familiar with the old 60s show, TNG and DS:9 Spock must have lived a really long time if a Romulan mining ship (yes, it is not a warship, just a civilian vessel people) from his lifetime is so advanced (not to mention Borg-cube-huge btw) as to be able to swat aside the entirety of Star fleet and blow up the planet Vulcan!
And why oh why was the once-talented Winona Ryder in this pointless throw-away part?
It also gets tiresome to see the continual validation of kids with sociopathic behaviors being portrayed as growing into successful admired leaders. Abrams character premise is false, and sends a twisted criminal message.
To all the pseudo-sophisticated naysayers who have posted here with their oh-so-superior knowledge of movie-making and their utter disdain for J.J.Abrams' reboot of Star Trek, I would simply ask: How does it feel to truly be from another planet?
Everyone is so arrogant on this thread. Why can't we accept the fact that not everybody will like the same things? Personally, I LOVED the movie, so it was interesting to read a negative review.
Fascists. Conform or gtfo is their slogan
How a true trekkie could love this movie is beyond me. I'm a big fan of both Star Wars and Star Trek, been to loads of conventions, but this movie really leaves a lot to be desired in any department.
I mean, there's a reason why steady-cam was invented for a start. The constant shaking and "laser/light in the eye" effects are really horrible. The movie would have been somewhat fine story wise if not for the huge two-fingers it puts up to the past Star Trek installments due to the scrapping of the original timeline. It's hypocritical in the sense that it tries to portray these classic actors, but totally gets rid of their upcoming actions and achievements with the timeline nonsense. It's only a prequel for a short while, then it becomes an outcast - an on its own - type of movie.
The guy who plays Dr McCoy plays a good part i feel though, unlike Yelchin as Chekov who's accent is awful. Most of the other young actors i would say are average at best. Although most of that problem could be down to whoever wrote the script. Nimoy's talent is lost sadly for me, although it was nice to see him with those ears again...
All in all, the movie wasn't my Trek tea by a long shot. It's now a far cry from the steady days of TNG where things happened nice and slow. 'Relax' is not a word that exists in this new Trek universe.
So i am waiting for the sequel through gritted teeth, in the hope that it may prove better that the first...in more than one way.
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