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Real thrill of the new Star Trek is 'Genesis'
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Zachary Quinto as Spock and Chris Pine as Kirk: new faces for beloved characters
Star Trek 11 is the “big adventure” Leonard Nimoy promised, full of action, thrills and wonder. It has many endearing moments for long-time fans -- when established relationships and standing jokes are paid homage. But more than that, it’s “Genesis.” To steal the words of Captain Kirk at the end of The Wrath of Khan: “I feel young.” Many have hung in there with Star Trek for four decades now. This movie gives them a joyous sense of renewal -- to see, not an aging crew a mission or two before standing down, but a young crew just starting out together. We surely want to see where they will go next. The casting for this movie was near perfect. Most of the characters are worthy to fill the shoes of their predecessors. They gave us some amazing moments: Chris Pine, as Kirk, deliberately nonchalantly chomping an apple while beating the Koybiyashu Maru. Anton Yelchin, as Chekov, running to the transporter to save Kirk and Sulu in free fall when their chute failed to open: "Woo woo woo, I can't do that!" Simon Pegg, as a joyous Scottie impressed with himself: "I never beamed three people from two targets onto one pad before." Jacob Kogan, age 12, stoically assuming his classmates have “prepared new insults for today.” (Can I adopt him? He was adorable.) Karl Urban, as Dr. McCoy, calling Spock a green-blooded hobgoblin after telling Kirk “I like him!” After viewing it opening day, in IMAX, and on regular screen Monday, I can say it’s a worthy member of the Star Trek pantheon. Great action, great special effects, great characters. We were entertained from start to finish. Okay, we weren’t always overjoyed. It's an alternate reality -- we get that -- but it hurts to know this wonderful young Spock loses his mother. The woman he cared enough about to ask if she would be hurt if he pursued the Kolinahr -- purging all emotion. She replies: "As usual, whatever you choose to be, you will have a proud mother." Spock’s mother, in the reality we knew, doesn’t die. She’s there for Journey to Babel, to help see that he gives a blood transfusion to his wounded father, “sick to death of logic,” and she’s even there in the fourth movie, to witness the re-education of his formerly dead self. Where would we all be if at the start of that movie, The Voyage Home, she’s not there to advise him that “the good of the one” can sometimes trump the good of the many, even though it isn’t logical? But in this new movie, Amanda’s lost in an emergency beam out, although Spock and his father make it. I kept waiting to find out that someone intercepted her transport beam and she was okay after all. But I guess they have to hurt us to entertain us…. “It’s an alternate reality, mom” my son says, as if that makes me feel better. He says you can understand it better if you read the graphic novel Countdown, which was designed as a prequel to the movie. It explains the origin of Nero, the strangely face-painted Romulan who destroys Vulcan with a giant worm-hole inducing drill and threatens Earth with the same fate. He does it for revenge. But should one need advance work in a comic book to fully understand a movie? To nit-pick further, Romulans had never been seen by anyone in the Federation until the episode Balance of Terror, in which they discover they look similar to Vulcans and have a common origin. Spock is older at the time. But then, there’s that alternate reality loophole again. I suppose it also explains away Uhura nuzzling Spock in the turbo-lift and on the transporter pad (the latter a highly unprofessional delay during an emergency). IT SEEMS SO WRONG. Spock as we knew him was incredibly cold to such advances – just ask Nurse Chapel. Thinking of actress Majel Barrett reminds us – in this movie there’s the mysterious absence of the female first officer with the long dark hair that served with Captain Pike (see The Menagerie). “Number One” is apparently another victim of the infinite possibilities of alternate reality. And how about that young Kirk observes the Enterprise being constructed on the ground? Shouldn’t it be constructed in space dock, as is even Captain Archer's Enterprise, before the events of this movie. But this isn’t just a continuity problem. It’s a scientific one. How would such an enormous ship escape the Earth’s atmosphere? Science can be advanced in the 23rd century, but not ridiculous. To nitpick a little more, when the hell-bent-for-revenge Nero looks like he’s about to waterboard Captain Pike, instead he pulls out a creature that looks borrowed from Khan, as in Wrath of….It’s the scene in the second movie where I always cover my eyes – Khan inserts a creature in Chekov’s ear to control his mind. Nero stuffs this one in Pike’s mouth, telling him it will attach to his brain stem. By what route? Uhura's apparent Orion roomate (the green girl) will also bother long-time fans. Orions seem improbable in early Star Fleet Academy days. The girls were typically slaves. All the above said though, this is probably the movie that will capture the hearts of a whole new generation who will become Trekkies. By maintaining traditions, J.J. Abrams and writers Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman not only please the entrenched fanbase, but capture new hearts for Star Trek the way they were won the first time: great character interplay, relationships we can love, worry over, and relate to. The rivalry within respect, the give and take, between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, is as palpable in this movie as it was in TOS. The personal relationships between those three, and Scottie, Sulu, Chekov, Uhura, and others, have always been the key, as it is in most good stories, whatever the setting. I often compare Kirk and Spock's relationship to that of Captain Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin in the novels of Patrick O’Brien. The stories take place in the British Navy of Nelson’s time. Aubrey is the macho commander, Maturin the cerebral klutz. But they’re best friends. It's the same deal. Their differences help each other. Audiences and readers care about their friendship. This new Star Trek scores in characters we will come to love if we see them again and again. Yelchin as Chekov and Pegg as Scottie parlay their Russian and Scottish accents into our hearts. Sulu is good, reprising the fencing prowess of his predecessor. Saldana as Uhura, sadly, was too ordinary. She needed some exotic facet. But no movie has in it everything you would like to see. (I still think Kirk should have called Carol Marcus when their son died in The Search for Spock. I wanted to see that portrayed.) While the new movie’s fight scenes are over the top, we’ll just have to live with that, explaining to our kids that people rarely survive such severe beatings. Just like with the latest James Bond, one human would not likely live past the first one or two of the many socks, blows, and smashes in the script, much less walk away unscathed as our heroes do, bloodied by the make-up people, but, suspiciously, not brain damaged or crippled. I would like to see more Next Generation-type stories, where mental agility often triumphed over violence. But this new movie has blazed a path for future Star Trek adventures. A good re-beginning. A Genesis.
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