Titan Fleet Yards

I had the opportunity to watch Star Trek last night. The review is after the break. It’s full-on spoiler heavy, so don’t read any more if you don’t want to know.

Well, what a blast that was. My first impression is that this is just a very good and entertaining movie. There’s action, space battles, comedy, and even a bit of romance and drama. While the last couple of movies were often regarded as “okay”, and “one for the fans”, this one seems to succeed at connecting to the mainstream public. It’s generally very light on technical things, and focuses mostly on characters and story. I honestly think this movie hits all the right tones, and is a new beginning for Star Trek in the 21st century.

Plot

The plot of the movie is generally easy to follow, even if you have no knowledge of Star Trek or haven’t read the Countdown prequel comics. There a are a few cases of surprising coincidence (Kirk, Spock and Scotty all being on Delta Vega), but nothing that really takes you out of the story. One thing that seemed a bit unnessary was that once again, there’s was no-one “in range” except the Enterprise. We’re told that what appears to be the whole of Starfleet is tied up in the Laurentian Sector. It seems a bit unlikely, and I’m not sure that they really needed to state that so outright. It’s a minor issue, though. Ending a movie is, as usual, always a bit of a difficult moment. I didn’t really get the feeling that Nero’s story was over. Yes, he was vanquished, but I would’ve liked something more of a closure for Nero’s character.

Continuity

Abrams and co. have often said that this isn’t a reboot of contuinity, and after seeing the movie I finally understand what they meant by that. The time-travel of Nero and Spock-Prime actually starts changing things from 2233 onwards, starting with the death of George Kirk, and presumably a number of ‘butterfly effects’ that cause other changes from the TOS universe. The only remaining character that really has knowledge of the original timeline is Spock-Prime. Interestingly, he already has some previous experience with alternate realities and timeline changes from “Yesteryear”. He was not afraid to change history then by saving his own life at age 7, and he is not adverse to mention and influence the new timeline now.

You’d have to read the Countdown prequel comics to really appreciate the link to post-Nemesis Star Trek. From how it looks now, the 24th century continues as in the Countdown comics and the “Star Trek Online” setting. In this “prime” setting, the Romulan Empire appears to have been destroyed, and Spock is missing. Spock and Nero have in the meantime created a new alternate reality, splitting off from the prime timeline in 2233. At the end of the movie, in this timeline, there’s an Enterprise under command of Captain Kirk in 2258, and an wheelchaired Ambassador Pike. Vulcan has been destroyed, but Spock-Prime, Sarek and around 10,000 other Vulcans survived. The Klingons suffered a massive loss of 47 warbids in their fights with Nero, and the Romulans from this era are potentially unaware of the events. The appearance of Nero in 2233 apparently does mean that the Federation already knows they are similar to Vulcan, as is evident from Uhura having learned 3 Romulan languages in the 2250s.

Since the new timeline is created in 2233, we can probably excuse some of the changes from the prime timeline, although it’s not immediately clear why this would be so. To name a few changes: there is no Enterprise launched in 2245, nor is there a Captain Robert April or, for that matter, any of the “The Cage” or “Where No Man Has Gone Before” crewmembers like Number One and Doctors Boyce and Piper.

Logically speaking, we do actually see a bit of the prime timeline. The movie starts with the USS Kelvin encountering the Narada as it exits the black hole from the future, so logically the Kelvin itself exists in the timeline prior to the changes. Luckily, the Kelvin appears to be of a design that works quite well as an actual prequel to TOS. Even the Kelvin bridge seems more like TOS in its color scheme, altough it obviously has very advanced graphical displays that do not really appear in TOS.

Nero

One of the better bad guys, although you probably have to read the comics to fully appreciate his working man background and his relation to Spock. He is not obviously evil, and the way in which he first addresses the Enterprise is actually a pretty funny scene (”Hello, Christopher!”). He’s maybe not a Khan, but certainly better than a Chang, Soran, Shinzon, and those other bad guys that I don’t even remember the name of.

But like I said before, Nero never really gets a chance to finish his own story. He’s basically just destroyed by Spock and the Enteprise, but maybe it would’ve been nice to have a face-to-face with one of the Spocks or Kirk. After all, both Spock and Nero were one of the the last survivors of their homeworlds. Of course.. I don’t think we really saw him die, just being pulled in a red matter induced black hole.

Spocks

All three spocks (Young Spock , Prime Spock and err.. Spock) are good, and they show a nice progression from a troubled youth being bullied (Jacob Kogan), to a Spock trying a very strictly logical Spock (Quinto) to a Spock that is more balanced between logic and emotions (Nimoy). It was especially nice to see Nimoy as Spock again, and how lovingly he speaks of his friendship with Prime Kirk. He’s the lifeline to the original Trek, and the one that knows what is going on. Nimoy’s Spock seems almost to vindicate the new direction Trek is taking, and gives some credibility to the ‘new’ characters.

Kirk

I think Chris Pine did a very believable young Kirk. He may lack a bit of the leadership and intelligence of the TOS Kirk, but he definitely has the sense of humor, the bravado and self-confidence of him. Especially in the bar scenes I could see the ‘real’ Kirk in Pine. And his nonchalance during his Kobayashi Maru was just fantastic.

We don’t actually see Kirk in command as Captain throughout most of the movie, however, so it will be interesting to see where this character is going in the future. The experience and judgment of Prime Kirk weren’t entirely there yet in Cadet Kirk, and the friendship with Spock is still young.

The crew

The rest of the crew was mostly good. Uhura and McCoy get a lot of screentime, but Chekov, Scotty and Sulu are more like supporting characters. Chekov’s accent was pretty heavy to the point of being almost incomprehensible, and they even actually pointed out his “V-as-W” pronunciation. I didn’t think making fun of a Russian accent was the original intent of the character, and that scene felt a bit strange. Still, Anton Yelchin is a Russian, so I guess he drew from his own experience and the accent made some sense. Sulu was a real action hero type of guy, with most of his screentime spent swordfighting. Scotty was a bit of a comic relief role by the wonderful Simon Pegg, but he did get to be the miracle worker we know a few times. I’d love to see Scotty being developed as the “fourth man” that he was on TOS, in command of ‘his’ ship when the Big Three do their missions.

Uhura had a surprisingly large role in this movie, compared to the “Hailing frequencies open” role she had in TOS. In fact, there’s something of a romance brewing between her and Spock, with a somewhat jealous sidelined Kirk. Spock in a romantic relationship!? Well, it’s only after his homeworld is destroyed that he finds comfort in Uhura’s interest in him. It’s a similar role once played by Nurse Chapel in TOS, and really isn’t out of place in this movie. Surprisingly, we actually learn Uhura’s first name (Nyota).

Finally, McCoy. In my opinion, the best of the new characters. I don’t know how, but Karl Urban really seems be Bones. It’s maybe a bit of a cheat that we don’t see the actual friendship developing (that happens during the “Three Years Later” break), but since this movie focuses more on Spock and Kirk, it’s good to have Bones in the role of Kirk’s adviser and loyal friend early on. There weren’t that many Spock-McCoy face-offs yet, so again, looking forward to seeing the whole ensemble in action in the future.

Special Effects

This is where the new movie really takes a leap forward compared to what came before. Never have Star Trek ships looked so big, and so real. They do not zip about like fighter planes, but they do a lot of maneuvring, with beatiful shots ranging from extreme close-ups where you can look through windows to extreme wide shots where the Enterprise is silhouetted against a massive black hole explosion. And rarely has the 3D element of space been exploited so well in Star Trek. The movie begins with a fabulous pull-out shot of the Kelvin, and my favorite shot is where the camera pulls out of the Enterprise bridge, through the window/viewscreen, and then turns around and moves back across the saucer, ending with a close-up shot of the upside-down bridge. Fabulous. There are also fantastic shots of the Enterprise in Titan’s atmosphere, with Saturn as a backdrop.

There’s a lot of subtle CGI going on in scenes. A majority of aliens is now a mix of prosthetics and CGI elements, leading to all sorts of creatures with strangely shaped eyes, mouths, etc. The computer screens are all full of movement, and my favorite addition to the bridges of Kelvin and Enterprise are the viewscreens that are also windows.

There is just one element of special effects that is a bit annoying at times. We all know Abrams likes lensflares and other filming artefacts to bring a sort of realism to his shots. The 99% of the movie these things aren’t particularly noticable. But during combat with the Narada, there are around 3 cases where the screen complete whites out on the Enterprise bridge. That was just one step too far, in my opinion, and seems just pointless.

Design

The design aspect is perhaps the most controversial of the whole movie, at least as far as the fans are concerned. There is certainly a whole new aesthetic going on in this movie. I think that in the end, the new Enterprise works quite well. Even after the seeing the movie though, I still have some reservations about the interior sets. The bridge is very, very bright, and the lensflares and white-outs only accentuate this aspect.

One curious design decision was to film the ‘lower decks’ representing Engineering and the shuttle hangar in industrial locations. I was quite apprehensive about the idea, and I don’t really like it in the end. On the Kelvin it seems to work okay, with engineers rapelling down from the cavernous engineering deck. But on the Enterprise where a lot more time is spent in those areas, it just seems a bit strange. It still isn’t enough to take you out of the movie, but I think more should’ve been done to at least make it look like it fits inside the ship, both stylistically as well as physically. I think I would’ve appreciated a newly designed Engineering set a lot more than these industrial locations. The impression of size and the large tanks were okay, but the pipes and big welded iron beams just seemed out of place on a spaceship.

On the other hand, things like uniforms, props and the aliens were very good. Maybe it would’ve been nice to see some more recognizable aliens alongside the Vulcans, but it’s always nice to see aliens that are more than just forehead appliances. The uniforms are perhaps the most faithful to TOS element in the movie. The Academy uniforms even have the hats and military stylings that were glimpsed in “The Cage”, and the Kelvin uniforms seem like a good design between the ENT jumpsuits and the two-piece Enterprise uniforms.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the fact is that this is just a very enjoyable movie, even if you’re not into Star Trek. You have to be cynical not to enjoy the spectacular visuals and the entertaining story. At the same time, I’m sure the things that Star Trek fans are passionate about will be under very close scrutiny, and some decisions may not fall into favor. The real question is probably “Where to go from here?”. This movie looks to become a success, and there’s at least 1 sequel planned, as far as I know. I’ve always been in favor of a reboot or revitalization of the franchise, and this looks to be a very good starting position.

The big question.. is it better than “Wrath of Khan”? It’s not easy to compare movies like that, but I’d be willing to say this movie is in the top 3, with First Contact and TWOK. But in terms of what it does to the franchise as a whole, it may turn out to be the best thing to happen to it in decades.

So much for my first impressions. I’m sure there will be a lot more discussions in various places over the next couple of weeks, months, years to come over this movie, and I’m looking forward to that!

Bits and pieces

• Stardates seem to be of the form .. The Kelvin scenes take place in 2233.4, the Enterprise stuff around 2258.43, if I remember correctly.
• Spock could see Vulcan explode from the Delta Vega surface. Delta Vega is then likely a planet very near to Vulcan, almost certainly in the Vulcan star system. Although lithium is mentioned, I would reckon it’s not the same as the remote Delta Vega from TOS.
• Starships appear to be much larger than before. There were 800 people on the Kelvin, and the engineering and shuttlebays appear to be huge. The Kelvin has a “medical shuttle 37″, and apparently enough shuttles to evacuate 800 crew, and there’s mention of a “shuttle 89″ on the Enterprise, indicated that these ships have far more shuttles than the 4 or 5 of the original Enterprise.
• We hear a good number of names for other Federation ships. I can remember the USS Hood and USS Farragut, but it is unclear if there are any ships like the Enterprise. We do see a few Enterprise-era ships: A four nacelled “double Miranda”, a three-nacelled ship, and even a few Klingon warbirds in the Kobayashi Maru scenario.