Language: English
Run Time: 127 mins
I had not quite made plans to watch this movie, preferring to leave it till it had spun its last yarns on the screens and made its way into some portable disc format. Much of this was down to what Berman and
I have attempted to keep track of this movie's development from time to time ever since I knew that pr
oduction works were underway. The offiially released summary of the movie's plot was that this was the time when the now famous character of James Tiberius Kirk first enlisted into Starfleet and the events surrounding them. Casting definitely intrigued me then as it would seem hard pressed to find actors in these times that would resemble the iconic Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner in their equally iconic roles as Spock and Captain Kirk, respectively. And I was indeed surprised when Zachary Quinto of Heroes fame was chosen to play a younger Spock. Gabriel Gray wasn't exactly my first choice for the role having not seen him in act as anything other than power hungry, serial killer. However after the application of makeup, one can clearly see why. Zachary's performance has been dubbed to portray Spock as colder and more rebellious than Nimoy's version of the famous character to which I wholeheartedly agree. There's even a hint of Sylar in there somewhere. The selection of Chris Pine to play Captain Kirk another one I questioned inititally because... well, with all due respect to Pine, he doesn't look much like Shatner to me, past or not. The decision to choose him was reported in Wikipedia as something like so "Pine recalled having difficulty with his audition, which required him "to bark 'Trek jargon'", but his charisma impressed director J. J. Abrams.[35] Pine's chemistry with Zachary Quinto, playing Spock, led Abrams to offer Pine the role.[35]" to which I agree wholeheartedly after watching the movie.The interaction between the two reminds me a lot the exchanges between Nimoy and Shatner but with a lot more zest.
The rest of the cast were not quite exactly how I would have pictured them being younger but close enough. The most prominent of which was Chekov's character now played by Anton Yelchin. Granted the accent was there but it was hard to correlate the similarity between looks. Then again, one would be find it tough indeed to find another, younger actor who can imitate the unique accent of Chekov and has the looks of Walter Koenig. The choice of John Cho of Harold & Kumar fame as the youthful Hikaru Sulu seemed to fit, though the tone and ring of Cho's voice differs from that of Takei's. The younger Nyota Uhura played by Zoe Saldana is admittedly a more alluring figure with the same confidence and inclination portrayed by Nichelle Nicols. The choice of Simon Pegg of Run Fatboy, Run and Shaun of The Dead fame as Scotty is another close enough for me. Though the portrayal of Scotty's character was more of a comic relief than James Doohan's was. And of course last but not least is Karl Urban taking on the role of Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy with as much vest and essence to DeForest Kelly's original portrayal.
(WARNING: SPOILERS WITHIN!)
The Plot
The movie begins with a Romulan starship appearing from a 'thunderstorm' in space, which would be later revealed to be time-space warp, akin to a black hole. Encountering it was the USS Kelvin. Suffering heavy 
damage as the result of the Romulan assault, the crew abandoned ship, its captain sequestered aboard the hostile vessel, acting Captain George Kirk takes control to old off the enemy so that the others could escape. Devoid of photons and phasers after a brief retaliation of the Romulan vessel, George Kirk elects to do a kamikaze and ram the Kelvin into the enemy starship thus saving the crew members and his newly born son. The son, James T. Kirk, grew up to be an intelligent yet bitter young man. After a chance meeting with Captain Christopher Pike (Bruce Greenwood), Kirk chose to enlist within Starfleet Academy. Portrayed as a ladies' man (as with the the original character) he is seen attempting to chat up Uhura several times as well as going out with other women. Accused of cheating in the Kobayashi Maru simulation in his third year, Kirk begins to form an uneasy relationship with Spock.
During the hearing for Kirk's alleged fraud in the test, a distress signal was received from Vulcan and the Academy mobilizes to send aid to the United Federation of Planets' member planet due to the main fleet being engaged elsewhere in the quadrant. Kirk, under suspension was smuggled aboard the USS Enterprise by McCoy by injecting him with an easily treatable virus. During this time a 'more-than-friends-and-mentor' relationship between Uhura and Spock was also revealed when Uhura insists that she be assigned to Enterprise instead of some other ship and Spock relenting to her request. Whilst in travel, Kirk recognizes the conditions reported (thunderstorm in space) in the Vulcan distress signal to be similar to that of when the USS Kelvin was attacked when his father was in charge and pleaded with Captain Christopher Pike to stop. The Enterprise arrives in Vulcan space nonetheless only to find that the forward fleet had been destroyed by a Romulan vessel. Promoting Spock to Acting Captain and Kirk to First Officer, Captain Pike agrees to the protagonist Romulan, Nero's (Eric Bana) request to negotiate a 'ceasefire'.
With Captain Christopher Pike held hostage on board the Narada (Romulan vessel) and an unsuccessful attempt at foiling the Romulan attempts at drilling into the Vulcan planet's core, the Romulans deployed a batch of Red matter. This led to the creation of a black hole which would suck the planet into the dark abyss. Spock teleports to the surface to rescue his father and other elders but was unable to save his human mother. Upon his return to the Enterprise, Spock is seen lamenting that he is now part of an endangered species after witnessing the destruction of his homeworld. Nero is then seen torturing Pike for Earth's perimeter defense codes. After a heated argument on whether to save Pike, return to Earth or rendezvous with the remainder of the fleet, Spock uses the Vulcan nerve pinch, immobilizing Kirk and strands him on the planet Delta Vega. There, Kirk encounters future Spock (Leonard Nimoy) who explains the sequence of events which led to the destruction of of his home planet, the capture of his science vessel and his exile through the process of a Vulcan mind meld.
Of which it was due to future Spock's actions that the planet of Romulus was destroyed in the future. Also explained was of how these events have created an alternate reality in which events flowed. In which the Kirk, having his father live and become a successful Starfleet Captain was the main inspiration to Kirk enlisting in Starfleet and creating his own legacy. Convincing Kirk to retake captainship of the Enterprise, both of them travel to a nearby Starfleet installation. There they meet a marooned and younger Montgomerry Scott or more famously known as Scotty (Simon Pegg).
Upon seeing Scotty, future Spock explains to him of how he would come up with the formula for transporting in midwarp and win an accolade for it. Future Spock then assists him in the configurations of the formula and successfully transport both Kirk and Scotty onto the Enterprise, midwarp. Both Kirk and Scotty gets captured by the Security team on the Enterprise and were interrogated by current Enterprise acting Captain Spock (Zachary Quinto).
Upon getting Spock to show his anger and resentment at losing his homeworld, Spock relinquishes the position of acting Captain as per Starfleet regulations in which whenever a Captain is deemed emotionally compromised then he is not fit to lead. 
Taking on the role of acting Captain, Kirk sets an intercept course of the Romulan vessel heading for Earth. Spock returns to the bridge to lend his assistance in both the rescue mission and the assault on the enemy vessel after consultation with his father Sarek (Ben Cross). Scotty assumes the all too familiar role of Transporter Chief.
Spock and Kirk are to beam aboard the Romulan vessel and rescue Captain Pike, with the Enterprise berthed near one of Saturn's moons, using the radiation there as cover.
Uhura's affections for Spock were made known again and for the last time prior to both Spock and Kirk being beamed aboard the enemy ship. Upon materializing on the enemy vessel both Spock and Kirk came under heavy fire from the Romulans there but were able to suppress their assailants. Mind melding with a fallen Romulan assailant, Spock discovers the whereabouts of Captain Pike and proceeds to rescue him. Along the way they found future Spock's science vessel and after some minor convincing by Kirk, Spock decides to pilot it, confident of his familiarity with it for some unfathomable reason. 
Using the vessel as a heavy hitting decoy, Kirk saves the severely injured Pike while Spock attempts to destroy the vessel from within and also destroys the drilling mechanism. With Kirk and Pike safely transported back onto the Enterprise, the Starfleet flagship in conjunction with Spock piloting the Vulcan Science vessel decapitated what remained of the now immobile Romulan vessel. The subsequent implosion ignited the remainder of the Red matter and caused the Romulan vessel to be sucked into black hole. A nice touch was when Scotty suggested to eject and ignite the warp core (a common practice in a lot of Trek episodes) to escape the gravitational pull of the black hole.
The end scene where Spock meets future Spock was a surreal and somewhat fitting moment in which future Spock attempts to convince his younger self to remain in Starfleet whilst rebuilding what remains of the Vulcan race. Added to this was also the now all too familiar (to Trekkers and Trekkies at least) scene of a crew preparing the Enterprise for launch in the last scenes of the movie.
The Critique
For fans of Trek over the decades and even those of more recent Trek serieses have grown all too familiar with the overuse of time paradoxes. Used initially in the Voyager series to great effect in the episodes, Future's End Part One and Part Two which explains the advancement in the level of technology on Earth in Trek reality through the reverse engineering of future technology, as well as Endgame Part One and Part Two it has become somewhat of a norm when reused frequently enough. As could be seen in several episodes in the Enterprise series as well as the Star Trek movie, Generations. It was even suggested that the franchise be renamed Time Trek given the current general direction. And one could be forgiven to think that with the arrival of this current movie that the suggestion was not too far off by any stretch of the imagination.
I am not against the use of time paradoxes per se but it does seem a cheap way to right the inconsistencies that have infested a long standing franchise by simply saying that "All those things that happened before....well...they didn't actually happen." Then again, it is understandable given that the original actors of TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY are already aged and unlikely to withstand the test of time in reviving the franchise that it would be prudent to use a new cast, in a new setting under new rules. Though how detrimental this would be to the near fanatical following that Trek itself has garnered remains to be seen.
This movie does however set in motion a new era in possibilities of story telling in the Trek reality. Devoid of overused Borg and devoid of the once familiar Vulcan planet. With clear advancements in this alternate reality which would, I believe now be the Prime Trek reality as opposed to the previous one it would be interesting to see how future Star Trek serieses develop based on this. Perhaps a revisiting of the explorations of the Enterprise in this new environment akin to that of TOS. Something which I feel the big wigs at Paramount are eyeing at.
It was also more of a tribute to the character of Spock which has been somewhat of a pivotal figure of focus in the Trek reality. Nowhere in the movie was it more succinctly shown than in the end scene where young Spock met future Spock in a somewhat symbolic passing of the baton to a younger and arguably more different generation. And though Kirk's somewhat resurrection also plays a role but none more so than Spock who was more, I feel anyway, more affected by the occurring events than Kirk ever was.
Whatever the future or current implications may be, this movie in itself is a good watch if not for the CGI alone. The acting is an honest tribute to the original cast members of the TOS. The plot however may be lost to those who are not truly Trek fans in the first place but otherwise enjoyable and would certainly intrigue those who would bother enough to find out about what all this is in the first place. All in all, a good movie and worth top dollar to watch in a good cinema. And if I were to be honest, I'm quite ecstatic at the prospect of a Trek series or at least a spew of Trek movies based on this current cast.
I am not against the use of time paradoxes per se but it does seem a cheap way to right the inconsistencies that have infested a long standing franchise by simply saying that "All those things that happened before....well...they didn't actually happen." Then again, it is understandable given that the original actors of TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY are already aged and unlikely to withstand the test of time in reviving the franchise that it would be prudent to use a new cast, in a new setting under new rules. Though how detrimental this would be to the near fanatical following that Trek itself has garnered remains to be seen.
This movie does however set in motion a new era in possibilities of story telling in the Trek reality. Devoid of overused Borg and devoid of the once familiar Vulcan planet. With clear advancements in this alternate reality which would, I believe now be the Prime Trek reality as opposed to the previous one it would be interesting to see how future Star Trek serieses develop based on this. Perhaps a revisiting of the explorations of the Enterprise in this new environment akin to that of TOS. Something which I feel the big wigs at Paramount are eyeing at.
It was also more of a tribute to the character of Spock which has been somewhat of a pivotal figure of focus in the Trek reality. Nowhere in the movie was it more succinctly shown than in the end scene where young Spock met future Spock in a somewhat symbolic passing of the baton to a younger and arguably more different generation. And though Kirk's somewhat resurrection also plays a role but none more so than Spock who was more, I feel anyway, more affected by the occurring events than Kirk ever was.
Whatever the future or current implications may be, this movie in itself is a good watch if not for the CGI alone. The acting is an honest tribute to the original cast members of the TOS. The plot however may be lost to those who are not truly Trek fans in the first place but otherwise enjoyable and would certainly intrigue those who would bother enough to find out about what all this is in the first place. All in all, a good movie and worth top dollar to watch in a good cinema. And if I were to be honest, I'm quite ecstatic at the prospect of a Trek series or at least a spew of Trek movies based on this current cast.
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