Star Trek

I don’t know how I can wait until May 7th – Having watched this stunning film once; I wanted to watch the whole thing all over again immediately!

The movie begins the epic Star Trek tale again, from before the story started, but from after the story left off.
We start with James Tiberius Kirk’s birth amongst disaster, where his father George Kirk (Melbourne actor Chris Hemsworth (Home and Away)) gallantly fought to save the crew in face of impossible odds from a gigantic rogue Romulan ship from the future captained by a vengeful Nero (Eric Bana).

(Note there is a marked similarity between Chris Hemsworth and Chris Pine, enhanced by the excellent make up of course - check Spock's ears later - flawless!)

We then dive forward into his childhood as an Iowa farm boy (with Jimmy Bennett playing Kirk) & quickly into his adulthood where James, now 25 & played by the very easy on the eye Chris Pine, gets into a fight after flirting with Uhura (Zoe Saldana) in a bar & is rescued by the current Enterprise captain Christopher Pike (Bruce Greenwood).

James is brilliant, but troubled & directionless but manages to end up at star fleet academy – meeting most of the key characters we all know in the process, and even shagging someone …revealing that the new Kirk is more than a match for William Shatner in the body stakes, and revealing a lot more than the previous Kirks did!

The tension between James and & the young Spock (Zachary Quinto) starts in earnest here, but the story doesn’t slow down with the characterisation at this stage as an emergency calls all able bodied star fleet to arms, including the cadets…

Then there are: Fights, crashes, arguments, Emotions, Ice planets, Rabid monsters, Meetings, escapes, Romulans, Disasters, Weapons, torpedoes, Bangs, Flashes,..

…but you can get all that from the trailers so I don’t know why you are trying to find spoilers here!

We go on a journey of discovery with the crew, as they all have to grow up very quickly & rely on each other. All the characters pay homage to the originals – with occasional hints at their forebear’s affectations or signature phrases – but never really falling into mimicry.

Chris especially manages to show the arrogance and the humanity in Kirk that we loved from William Shatner (Apparently he got the nod from William in a letter when he got the part)

The various other elements combine to make it the epic we hoped for – from the sound track highs and lows, to the cinematography – even the subtle contrast between the blood on James’ face and the neon lights behind him in the bar stick out (Can see this in trailer 3). The makeup accuracy is a relief after being distracted by badly applied sideburns in other movies, and the costumes are in keeping with the originals but less bad 70's polyester - and better shaped bodies under them to boot.

Influence of other movies in the sci fi genre are apparent , most obiously Star Wars; with grand scenes similar to Star Wars IV and the Hoth ice planet in Empire Strikes back, even the Mos Eisley Cantina gets a nod. Indeed Star Trek has all the hallmarks of the ”Beginning” of a strong and successful new voyage similar to Star Wars but “where no one has gone before". If the story in other movie series can be looped back on itself as successfully as this has I would say this may be the future of sequels to come for many movies…and if they have a director as good as JJ Abrams a the helm it bodes well for the future of the big screen.

Development of the film began in 2005 when Paramount Pictures contacted Abrams, Orci and Kurtzman for ideas to revive the franchise. They wanted to be faithful to the long history of Star Trek, take elements from the novels and modernise the production. Filming started in November 2007 & finished about a year ago – Release date is 7th May,

Full credits at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0796366/fullcredits#cast