Star Trek

One of the first things I saw with my new glasses (see previous post) was the J.J. Abrams Star Trek movie. Literally: we checked the mail, and I opened the box containing my glasses on the way to the mall movie theatre. Not exactly ideal, considering that my prescription had changed quite a bit, but I'm glad I was at my peak sightedness for the movie.

It was great. Not only is Star Trek good in terms of "hey, this movie is well written and has good production values and a talented cast," it's good in terms of "this is a good Star Trek movie." There were a lot of nods to fans of the original series (spoiler: Sulu does some fencing) that had dad and I laughing in the nearly-empty theatre, but I'm sure anyone who hasn't been a longtime Trek fan would have enjoyed the film just as much.

The writing was very good. When I first heard that the plot was going to start before the original series and change things around, everything I read was discussing "alternate realities" this and "string theory" that and it all sounded complicated and uninteresting. Instead, the movie handled the whole time travel/alternate timeline issue capably and with a bare minimum of movie-physics or technobabble. It's barely a big deal, what with all the space fights and explosions.

Speaking of which: this is a great. action. movie. Everything's always in motion, but not to the point that I felt overwhelmed. Even better, from my point of view, was that there was little by way of sex/nudity/language. Lots of running and fighting and drama, however :-D

The cast? Also well-chosen. I'll admit that I had no hope whatsoever regarding the choice of Zachary Quinto for Young Spock (I didn't like him in what little I saw of Heroes), but by the end of the film I couldn't picture anyone else in the role. Also notable were Simon Pegg as Scotty, Anton Yelchin as Chekov, and Karl Urban as Bones. Urban in particular was spot-on as a young McCoy. Really, everyone was good, but if I just start listing actors this will look like an IMDB page.

(Also, I don't think I'll be spoiling the film for anyone if I mention that Leonard Nimoy is in it, right? And we all know I'm incapable of saying anything bad about him, even including that bizarre Ballad of Bilbo Baggins video. But he almost made me cry at one point, so good show.)

Overall, I loved the movie, as I'm sure you can tell :-)