Our big Star Trek (2009) review! (includes spoilers)
In this episode:
- big upcoming summer movies,
- Land of the Lost (2009) starring Will Ferrell,
- Year One (2009) starring Jack Black and Michael Cera,
- our movie review of Role Models (2008) starring Paul Rudd,
- G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009) starring Dennis Quaid,
- Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009) starring Shia LaBeouf,
- our movie review of Star Trek (2009) starring Chris Pine,
- Greg’s veteran fan perspective and Rob’s newbie perspective,
- Frank from The Overnightscape and his Twitter posts about Star Trek,
- canon vs. reboot,
- Zachary Quinto as Spock,
- the rest of the cast (Chris Pine, Simon Pegg, Leonard Nimoy, Eric Bana, etc.),
- the annoying shaky camera technique,
- ways J.J. Abrams could’ve included William Shatner in the movie,
- Captain Pike’s wheelchair,
- Star Trek vs. the Star Wars prequels,
- rescuing Romulans,
- Nicolas Cage’s car crash,
- and forgetting the movie Cloverfield (2008).
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The take from the weekend has supposedly surpassed the records last year from The Dark Knight. It would be enormously funny if this movie were to dethrone the graphic novel/comic fans’ Holy Grail.
As for the film, after digesting it for a day or so, I can say that I enjoyed the movie thoroughly, but the canon/nitpick moments are the most I’ve ever seen in a Trek film. Not happy with the destruction of Vulcan and Romulus, I don’t know why these people in Hollywood are so free wheeling with mass genocide and destruction on screen. Khan had only the death of one person make him nuts, and was cause enough for revenge on Kirk. Oh, and still wish Shatner was involved, if nothing more than to read the “Space, the final frontier” at the end.
That said, the nods to the TOS were many, which I loved about Manny Coto’s Enterprise writing. The characters and actors/actresses were fantastic. The funny thing is, between the nitpicks and humor, this movie felt like Star Trek V: The Final Frontier on steroids! I know that film is frequently tarred, but it is one of my favorite movies ever. It is the first Trek movie I watched over and over again on HBO, and it sold me on the franchise. I think this will sell the franchise on many new viewers, who hopefully will go back and watch the series and movies of the past.
I think given what they were attempting, they were extremely successful. I’ve heard people on the radio saying this is the best movie ever made, but that is ridiculous.
i’m a casual fan of ‘star trek’ – the first four films are my era. i enjoyed this reboot – it did the job you speak about which is to introduce the franchise to a larger audience. i didn’t get worked up about continuity and changes to the lore. yet i did to ‘spider-man’ and ‘transformers’; maybe because i‘m a bigger fan of those two. i thought that used-to-be-funny simon pegg was annoying and that crowbar-ing leonard nimoy into it was unnecessary and confusing.