Star Trek
I haven't written anything here in months, nor have I read anyone else's LJ. I should --- I really should --- be writing here about Learning Unlimited and the great successes we're having there. But somehow, it was clear to me after coming home today from seeing Star Trek at an IMAX theater that I need to write about this movie.

(The short, non-spoilerful version is that yes, this movie is well worth seeing even if you're not a Trekkie.)

So read on if you want my spoiler-filled comments.

Let me start out with the conclusion. This movie was excellent, despite its many flaws.

The flaws? There were enough plot holes to fly the Enterprise through. The movie was relatively straight-forward action fare, with little that was really "deeper" running through it. (These two are not mutually exclusive; see, for example, the Bourne movies.) There were extraneous events (did we really need the random monster chasing Kirk on the ice planet?) and unexplained coincidences (Kirk and older Spock were really marooned on the same planet? And speaking of plot holes, Nero really decided to just leave Spock lying around, the only person who knew who he was and what he was up to, on a planet with a Federation base? And Spock waited around without going to the base until Kirk showed up? And they happened to be marooned in the same part of the planet, both conveniently very close to the base? And... well, you get the idea.) Oh, and, of course, the characters sometimes took actions for no other reasons than the plot really needed them to take those actions. (Spock. Spock! sends Kirk back alone because he wants his younger self to be friends with Kirk, even though Spock is clearly better for the job? He's really going to risk Earth on this?)

And yet, despite the uninspired and poorly-done plot, the movie just worked. It was fun. This is a movie that was gleeful in just being a great movie. This is a movie that made no effort to hide the fact that it was Star Trek. It made no effort to be cool and hip despite being Star Trek; it was just cool and hip, period. They could make Trekkie jokes and make non-Trekkie jokes. There was so much fun in this movie that you didn't need much else.

But we did have a lot else. We had the best actors ever to take on the main roles in Star Trek. (Sure, Leonard Nimoy and De Forrest Kelley were great in TOS; Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner were great in TNG; here, they were all great.) Moreover, these actors had really good material to work with. Bones was characterized in an instant and was fantastic, hitting his character perfectly. They had to work on Kirk but they got him. Spock became much more interesting than he was in the original series. Uhura, Chekhov, and Sulu had characters. Scotty was a standout, showing us what the original Scotty could have been if they'd put real work into him. Frankly, many of these scenes are excellent examples of how to set up a character in a single line, both for writers and for actors.

Then there was the overall mood of the piece. Somehow, it felt like Star Trek. On the way over, the people in my car and I were having a conversation about the nature of science fiction today. Post-9/11, post-Bush, mid-Iraq/Afghanistan/Pakistan, utopias don't seem to work so well for sci-fi any more. Instead you get things like Battlestar Galactica or Firefly, which are outstanding but not... optimistic in the same way. Suppose you go back to look at TNG. It's clearly a product of its time. Is it naive to think that humanity might evolve to something consistent, and better? Maybe so, but even if it is naive, it's good to see it as a possibility, to see something to strive towards. Given the mindset society has now, with fears about the mid-East blowing up and terrorism and pandemics and economic meltdown, it's important to be reminded that we can strive towards something better, that we don't have to be lost in a Battlestar Galactica-style cyclic struggle. I don't think TNG is naive; I think it has an important message. That message, that humanity can come out to something stronger, that it can grow and mature just as individuals can, is intact in this movie. This is a movie of role models, with a society that can be a role model for our own, but without the mindless (if appealing) "everyone reads Shakespeare" of earlier Treks. I think that's fabulous, and an important contribution to society and our cultural dialogue.

So yes, I really liked the movie. I think it's deeply flawed but I don't care; this movie reminds me what movies can be. It inspired my imagination and got me thinking. It told a story that was Star Trek, and good Star Trek. Somehow, lost in soulless and forgettable Harry Potter movies and ruined Narnia movies and various somber indie movies and so forth, it's just so nice to see a good, inspiring, non-trivial action movie with real scope and interest, something that provokes the imagination and reinspires hope. (I wonder, is the Star Trek mindset particularly apt for the age of Obama?)

But really. Really. Was this movie that I actually liked written by the same people who wrote Transformers?


A postscript: I've had some fun lately reading the reviews of all the Star Trek movies posted by a relative newbie over at Rotten Tomatoes. It's called Trekking With Tim, and in his review of this most recent movie he sums up his experience:

When I began this project, I went into it with an open mind, but I still harbored a sneaking suspicion that Trekkies' devotion wasn't wholly warranted. Decades of parodies and potshots directed at Klingon-speaking, hopelessly nerdy conventioneers can do that to you. As I watched these films, what I discovered was a worldview (or, in this case, a universe-view) that was admirably positive and enlightening. So many sci-fi films present a dystopian perspective on the future that it's comforting to see a vision of racial harmony, of fundamentally sound scientific advancement, of morality and camaraderie. Though the mythology of Trek at first seemed impenetrable, I found many of these films accessible on their own terms; if a greater understanding of Gene Roddenberry's creation deepens the viewing experience, it's by no means essential. Even the occasionally outmoded and cheesy aspects of the movies become strangely charming if you view them within the larger scope of the series. I began this undertaking as an agnostic. At this point, I'm certainly no evangelical, but I'm definitely a believer.

This, I think, reminds me perfectly of why I have always so much liked this series; I think it also explains why the later iterations had so much difficulty navigating between the darker tone they were hoping to set and the utopian ideal that had been laid before them.