Greetings, Sectaurs!

I want to preface this week’s installment of “Office” with a single statement:

I am a Star Wars fan.

Ever since I was taken to see the first film back in 1977 at the age of three, I’ve been a fan.  That’s not to say that I didn’t love other science fiction, because it was through Star Wars that I became a full-on embracer of all things sci-fi.  I have a passion for almost every aspect of science fiction – time travel, parallel worlds, clones, space exploration, and so on.  You name it – if it exists in the realm of science fiction, my interest is piqued.

By that extension, I have grown to love many other movies, novels, comic books, television shows, and games that exist within the realm of sci-fi.  “Automan”, “Fringe”, The Matrix, The Last Starfighter, Dayworld, Ender’s Game, various comic books – my enjoyment of each of these is an example of my passion for science fiction.

That enjoyment even extends to Star Trek.

Now, I’ve never been a Trekkie or a Trekker, but I’ve enjoyed and even loved many of the movies and television shows that have come across my viewholes for the past several years.  Hell, my favorite Trek film of all time is The Wrath of Khan.  I find myself popping that into the player about as often as I would The Empire Strikes Back.

Now, despite the fact that my being a Star Wars fan may divide some people on whether or not my review of the new film is a fair one, it is important that it is taken into account with what I’m about to say.

I loved the new Star Trek.

I know there’s quite a bit of controversy right now amongst the true Trekkies Trekkers Star Trek fans over this film.  I’m not going to get into that here.  I just want to explain why I loved this movie enough that I saw it twice in the theater.

To put it short and sweet, this movie made me feel like the Star Wars prequels should have – like a kid grinning from ear to ear as he embarks on a galactic adventure of epic proportions while it unfolds across a large movie screen.

I think J.J. Abrams did an amazing job here, especially with a script that wasn’t all that great to begin with.  He took a franchise that was slowly being strangled to death by Rick Berman and infused it with fresh life (if that isn’t one of the most iconic themes of science fiction, I don’t know what is).

He even did his homework.  I watched Khan with my wife and some friends before we went to see the new film, and I found that Abrams must have studied that film specifically – a lot of his cues come from the second film in the series. 

His note-taking didn’t stop there either.  He managed to make references to “The Next Generation” as well as “Enterprise”.  A lot of people think that Abrams just brushed aside all of the established Trek canon just so he could do a reboot.  Not true.  He was meticulous in how he inserted all sorts of little nods and homages to what had already been laid down before.  From the mention of Captain Archer to the Kobayashi Maru test to the acknowledgment that Spock had become an ambassador to the Romulans, Abrams has proven that he understood what all the fans loved and embraced it just as much as they did.  He also knew that some feathers needed to be ruffled in order to rescue the ship from being placed in moth balls.

The result?  A fun and refreshing marriage of fan service mixed with bold and new possibilities.

And the cast… holy crap are they impressive.  Chris Pine manages to capture the essence of Kirk without evoking The Shat.  He’s got the charisma, charm, and cunning down.  Zachary Quinto proves that he can do more than play a psychotic power thief.  His Spock is on par with Nimoy.  Karl Urban manages to steal every scene he is in as he channels the ectoplasm of DeForest Kelley through his performance.  Simon Pegg plays Scotty the way only Pegg could, and he makes the character shine.  Finally, Anton Yelchin, John Cho, and Zoe Saldana each bring their own energy to their characters (Chekov, Sulu, and Uhura respectively), while at the same time respecting the essence of those characters.

The charisma and chemistry of this cast alone makes this a strong film.  The best part is that each character is actually given a significant role in the movie, something the original television show or even the previous films had a hard time juggling.  Each of the main bridge crew is important, and they each get at least one moment to stand out.

There’s certainly plenty for them to do.  Sure – the plot may be a little weak, and you may notice that it does seem to resemble the basic premise of another Trek film, but Abrams manages to throw so much action and adventure at you that you’re having way too much fun to notice until the credits start rolling.  And by that point you don’t care, because you just got off of one of the most thrilling, enjoyable space adventures to come through theaters in a long time.

At least, that’s the feeling I got after seeing the film the first time.  And I enjoyed it so much that I had to go back for seconds.  That’s why I think Abrams got it right – he managed to capture the spirit of what made Star Trek so much fun back during the original series and during the early films (except The Motion Picture – boooring) and presented it to the fans as his way to show his love of the franchise, as well as offer the fans a new ongoing adventure to embark on.  Unfortunately, most of the die-hards are too busy picking apart every little continuity gaffe and contradiction to enjoy the essence behind what made them fans in the first place.

As for me, this film has done something I once thought impossible.  It certainly is an incredible feat – Star Trek almost turned me into a Trekkie Trekker guy who loves Star Trek enough to become part of its fandom.  It might not even take much more to give me that final push that will send me over to the Trek side.  I mean, look what it made me do:

I bought the whole set of Burger King Trek glasses!  I haven’t done anything like that since BK offered Return of the Jedi glasses back in ’83.

See?  I told you my being a Star Wars fan would come into play.  Or is that an ex-Star Wars fan?

The Don is dead, Jim.  Dead sexy, that is.

Stumble it!

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 14th, 2009 at 6:18 am and is filed under Donnie Sturges, Fandom, Television, geek love, movies, the future. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Both comments and pings are currently closed.