Star Trek: Nice Try, But Not Good Enough

By John L. Rothra | May 8, 2009 | Movies | Comments Off
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I’ve seen every series of Start Trek: the original series, the Next Generation, Voyager, Deep Space Nine, and Enterprise. I’ve watched every Star Trek movie (all eleven, now). While I don’t wear the costumes or have pictures of Kirk and the Enterprise in my home, you can call me a Trekkie.

Seeing the previews for the latest entry into the Star Trek world–simply titled Star Trek (also known as Star Trek 11)–I was excited to watch it. It looked like it was full of action and had top-notch graphics. Besides, seeing a younger Kirk, Spock, and McCoy had to be fun. I was disappointed and, in a way, upset by the liberties taken by J. J. Abrams, director of the film.

It seemed like Abrams was more interested in impressive special effects, extraordinary CGI, and lots of action–which he delivered–and not interested in the Star Trek story. When it comes to the story line and the characters, Abrams failed and succeeded respectively.

There are certain things that, after having an established icon and history of over forty years, you do not deviate from. Abrams failed to do his homework. If he did much research, he ignored what Roddenberry and others created.

“Beam Me Up”

On the positive side, the movie had wonderful graphics and special effects. Following in the steps of other CGI movies such as Star Wars, Transformers, and such, Abrams put together a top-notch special effects and graphics team whose work is some of the best I’ve seen.

Additionally, Star Trek was full of action and thrill that keeps you glued to your seat.

The hardest part was probably finding actors who not only could pull off the look of the original cast, but also effectively pull of their character’s personality in a believable way. Overall, Abrams succeeded in this, though there was one slight drawback which will be mentioned below. Furthermore, I appreciated how Abrams tried to show the skill and intelligence each officer possessed, that they were not just a bunch of academy graduates who were good, but that they were truly the best of Starfleet, from Uhura’s exceptional skills in linguistics, Kirk’s genius mind, Chekov’s mastery of science and math, to Scotty’s brilliance in engineering.

“She Can’t Take Any More, Captain!”

There are certain things you cannot reasonably change when it comes to an American icon such as Star Trek, yet Abrams took way too many liberties in his vision of Star Trek (did he even watch a single episode of ST:TOS *)? I’ll just outline what I believe were some of the deviations:

• The Arrowhead-like emblem was not the Starfleet logo at the time

The emblem Abrams had serving as Starfleet’s logo (see image at top), was not the logo of Starfleet until the time after ST:TOS. During that time, every ship had its own logo and the arrowhead-like symbol was the emblem for the Enterprise. It was due to the work of the Enterprise under Kirk’s command that Starfleet adopted the Enterprise logo as the logo for the entire organization.

• Enterprise was designed incorrect

Although not an actor or even a humanoid, the Enterprise is as much a character as is Kirk and Spock. While ships have undergone refits that sometimes will change the look, Abrams seemed to keep only three things: raised nacelles attached to a tubular body with a round disk for the main section. First, the nacelles looked like a Fuze drink bottle and not the tubular (or even rectangular version) use in ST:TOS or ST:TMP. They were fat up front and very skinny toward the back. Second, the body was flattened and did not maintain its traditional more round shape used on the original Enterprise (ST:TOS, ST:TMP) and Enterprise A (ST4:TVH)

USS Enterprise
USS Enterprise A

The interior was even worse. There was too much white! It was like looking at a brighter version of the bland Enterprise from ST:TMP. Also, it appeared more oval than round. Additionally, they treated the main bridge screen as a window, which it is not.

Then came engineering. In the 23rd century, engineering was always clean, smooth, and clutter-free. However, Abrams seems to have use the pipe-filled, raised-walkway look found on 20th century naval vessels. Even the Enterprise NX-01 had a better looking, cleaner, more futuristic engineering section. Abram’s ship was too cluttered, and don’t even get me started on the shuttle bay, it was just as bad.

• Warp is not propulsion, it’s a generated field

It seems that Abrams doesn’t even understand the basics of Star Trek’s warp theory: warp is achieved by the nacelles created a warp field around the ship that moves it at high velocities. It is not through propulsion as used today in jets and other aircraft. However, whenever the Enterprise, or any other ship, seeks to enter warp speed, the back of the nacelles light up as you would find in a back of a jet fighter’s engines as the fuel is burned faster. This may be why he created nacelles that are fat up front and quickly narrow toward the back: smaller hole to escape means faster propulsion. If this was how it worked, the nacelles would rip right off the ship!

• Spock was too human

Spock always struggled with his human half, but he rarely gave in and only showed his humanity when under extreme emotional moments (such as seeing Kirk alive) or when under the influence of some substance (such as on the TOS episode “This Side of Paradise“). However, Abrams’ Spock appears more welcome to his emotions and overall too human where Nimoy’s Spock (from the series, not the later movies where he is more open to emotions) strongly resisted any emotion at all.

This problem is seem most prominently in the next error:

• Spock and Uhura have a love affair

While there is no scene of them in an intimate moment, you do see them kissing twice, once in the turbolift and once on the transporter pad. Both times Spock seems to welcome the kiss and love Uhura. This was never even hinted at in the original series.

• Romulan technology is Reman

Star Trek fans get the first glimpses of Reman (the “brothers” or Romulans) on Star Trek: Nemesis. Romulan technology is relatively smooth while Reman technology is sharp, pointed, and more aggressive. The Romulan ship in Abrams’ movie resembles the Scimitar and nothing like a Romulan ship.

The interior of the ship had the same problems of clutter found on the Enterprise.

• Romulans appear more Reman than Romulan

Although their facial characteristics are human-like, the tatoos and overall appearance makes Abram’s Romulans appear more Reman than Romulan. Romulans always looked identical to Vulcans with the exception of their openness to emotions. Some may dismiss this since this group were not part of the Empire, but rogues who, within the Hollywood portrayal of thugs, are given a more rough look than normal Romulans. I’ll grant this, though I still think a more Romulan appearance would have been nice.

• Pavel Chekov was on the ship

He did not appear until season two when he was first assigned to the Enterprise under James Kirk’s command. He never served under Captain Pike.

• Too many questions answered too late

If you haven’t seen the movie yet, let me tell you something you will not get early in the movie, something I think you need to know: this movie has an alternate story line caused by time travel. As I watched, I had no idea what was going on because things happened that did not fit the forty-year Star Trek story line, the Star Trek canon: James Kirk’s father dies right after James is born, Spock’s mother dies before without ever meeting James Kirk, Pike commands the Enterprise for all of a few hours), and some other deviations from the Star Trek story you may notice.

However, you do not really learn that there is a change in history due to Spock (yes, Leonard Nimoy reprises his role) and the Romulans traveling backward in time and changing events of history. It would have been better if this was clearer from the outset. As it was, this Star Trek fan watched as Abrams seemed to not only deviate from the established Star Trek canon, but to completely violate the story, toss it in the trash, and create what he thinks Roddenberry should have made.

• The timeline is not fixed

In every episode and movie I can think of, whenever history is changed, the Enterprise crew (or other crew) restore the original time line. This does not happen. As a result, dramatic–and I mean extremely dramatic–changes occur in the story of Star Trek that have repercussions into ST:TNG, DS9, Voyager, and beyond. I won’t share what those are, since I don’t want to give too much away.

Overall Review
If you ignore the Star Trek storyline and want an action-filled movie with terrific graphics, moments of laughter, and an well-acted characters, Star Trek is a good movie. If you are looking for a prequel to the Star Trek stories, you’ll be disappointed. J. J. Abrams seemed to try too hard to fit all the main characters into the movie while creating his version of Star Trek. My advice to him: go back to television and leave Star Trek alone.

Here’s the grades I’d assign the movie:

Actors/Character portrayal: A+
Storyline: D- (a generous grade since it violated the Star Trek storyline)
Overall grade: C

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Abbreviations:
ST:TOS – Star Trek: The Original Series
ST:TMP – Star Trek: The Motion Picture
ST4:TVH – Star Trek 4: The Voyage Home
DS9 – Star Trek: Deep Space Nine