Star Trek (2009)
Star Trek isn't just a brand name; it's an interconnected fictional universe with a unique focus on telling thought-provoking stories. It's a franchise that has been developed by hundreds of different people over the course of several decades, yet there's a common thread of exploration that runs through every incarnation of Trek—if not exploration of strange new worlds, then exploration of the human condition. Despite the continuity issues, undesirable plot twists, questionable science, and other problems that sometimes mar the franchise, even the worst of Trek has its heart in the right place, however awful the execution may be. As a fan of all of Star Trek, I'm willing to suspend my disbelief and brush things under the rug as much as necessary to continue enjoying the franchise as a whole.
That is, assuming what I'm watching is actually Star Trek.
Star Trek (2009) is entertaining. It's exciting. Stuff blows up real good. It's everything you want from a summer action movie. But it isn't Star Trek. That core of exploration is missing, and the tone is all wrong. It isn't a pure reboot, either; it takes place in an alternate timeline, rather than an alternate universe. That's a small distinction, but it's an incredibly important one. I could forgive the movie for many of its flaws if it were a wholly separate entity, but claiming continuity with its predecessors sets a higher standard—a standard it fails to meet. Star Trek (2009) makes me angry because it tosses almost 50 years of history out the airlock to tell a poorly crafted story that either misunderstands or doesn't care what it means to be Star Trek. It makes me angry because it's so focused on revamping TOS that it squanders virtually all that history and hindsight it could and should be taking advantage of.
So you've got a villain who travels back in time and rewrites history; that's as good a way to reboot a franchise as any. Except we're talking about Star Trek here. Starfleet encounters weird phenomena and powerful threats all the time, yet we're expected to believe that one fatal encounter with a ship from the future—a ship that's seen for only a few minutes and then disappears for 25 years—could cause so many drastic changes to the timeline. Originally, Kirk was born in Iowa and the Enterprise was constructed in space; suddenly, Kirk is born in space and the Enterprise is constructed in Iowa. Unlike every other Starfleet design we've ever seen, the iconic ship now looks like a balloon animal—which is appropriate, because the craft has been inflated to twice the size of the TOS Enterprise, dwarfing even the Enterprise-E. Because of that fleeting glimpse of Nero's ship, the interior of the new Enterprise is full of glass and LENS FLARE and brewery equipment instead of colorful, boxy '60s tech. Somehow, the destruction of the USS Kelvin caused Pavel Chekov to be born four years earlier. I get that the whole point of a reboot is to do things differently, but the events depicted at the beginning of the movie are insufficient to explain the differences between nuTrek and classic Trek. Had Nero blown up a whole fleet of ships, attacked Starfleet headquarters, incited war between the Romulans and the Federation, or killed Zefram Cochrane or Richard Daystrom instead of lowly ol' George Kirk, maybe I could suspend my disbelief about all the changes. But I can't.
That's also why I'm so critical of the different characterizations. Kirk I can understand; he grew up without his father, so now he's a reckless, womanizing jerk instead of a suave, risk-taking thrill-seeker. I don't like it, but I get it. But what about Scotty? He's now a cartoon, a caricature of the proud engineer we know and love. Uhura bothers me the most; she acts more like a pushy floozie than an assertive woman of quiet strength. How did Nero fundamentally change their personalities? I can see an argument for these characters being younger and less mature than we're used to seeing them, but I think of all the people I went to college with, and none of them have undergone the kind of transformation you'd need to turn 2009's Uhura and Scotty into the Uhura and Scotty of TOS. And Nero himself neither sounds nor acts remotely like any other Romulan we've ever seen. While you could chalk it up to his blue-collar roots, even Shinzon—a human clone who spent much of his life doing hard labor among Remans, not Romulans—still has distinctly Romulan speech patterns and mannerisms.
Spock Prime is arguably the worst offender; I don't know what happened to him since "Unification", but he's gone from a primarily logical Vulcan with "an ability to see beyond pure logic" to a pointy-eared human who talks about faith and destiny and discarding logic altogether follow one's feelings. Granted, The Undiscovered Country shows a Spock who is a little emotional and starting to embrace the merits of his human side, a Spock who talks about such seemingly un-Vulcan topics as destiny and faith, but that was a Spock in the middle of a retirement crisis, almost exactly a century before the destruction of Romulus. The more moderate "Unification" Spock should be our starting point, and any deviations in character should be fleshed out with at least a throwaway line; otherwise, there's no sense of character continuity. The Spock I know is an active participant in every situation, interacting with others and processing information as it comes in, but Spock Prime seems slightly out of touch with what's actually going on, and mostly dictates what everyone else should do to be more like classic Trek. It's as though he's the physical manifestation of a story planning meeting, and his presence saves the writers from developing organic reasons for the story to progress as it does. "To stop Nero, you alone must take command of your ship." That's not a logical conclusion from Spock Prime; that's a tutorial popup from the developers.
Also, every time-travel story in Star Trek involves the heroes trying to preserve or restore the timeline, yet Spock Prime is only concerned with keeping the Enterprise crew together; the rest of the timeline can go fix itself if it wants to. He knows how to slingshot around the sun, and he knows where the Guardian of Forever is. He could've worked out a plan to go back in time further and stop Nero. Why doesn't he do something? And that's to say nothing of the Temporal Integrity Commission that should've been on Nero's case in a heartbeat; where are they? If you're rebooting a franchise using one of its most popular gimmicks, you've gotta play by the rules. Other films and episodes have overlooked details that should have impacted the story, but never before has something calling itself Star Trek been so careless or carefree about the bigger picture.
One of my greatest frustrations with modern entertainment is the readiness to dump years or decades of continuity the first time anybody feels restricted in their storytelling. If all the novels, comics, and video games were any indication, Star Trek had plenty of stories left to tell, and could easily do so within the confines of established history. Archer was poised to jump into the Romulan War. Kirk undoubtedly had adventures during his academy days. Riker was in command of the USS Titan. Sisko could return anytime, anywhere. The Voyager crew was back in the Alpha Quadrant. And that's to say nothing of a brand-new story—perhaps picking up where Nemesis left off, or filling in the gaps between TOS and TNG, or even centering around a group of aliens for a change. The possibilities were endless! Yet the last season of ENT hadn't even made it to DVD when talks began about rebooting the franchise. This new film already annoyed me.
The title annoyed me, too. "Subtitles are pretentious! Numbers mean you can't see this movie without seeing the others!" Giving your movie the worst possible name for the sake of luring new fans into the theater is inconsiderate to the existing fan community, who forevermore must clarify which Star Trek they're talking about (I'll be calling the film 2009 from here on out). It's a little thing, but it's another example of how the reboot disregards, rather than reinvents, everything that came before it.
Again, if this were a true reboot that cut all direct ties with its predecessors, I wouldn't be so hard on the movie. But it's a sequel, really, that just happens to involve an alternate timeline. We don't give the likes of "Parallels" and "Storm Front" carte blanche to abandon franchise standards and precedent simply because some historical event plays out differently in the episode. And we shouldn't let 2009 off the hook simply because of "an entire new chain of incidents" affecting the timeline.
For one thing, the script lacks the kind of polish and elegance that even the worst Trek episodes and films tend to have. I can't think of any other installment in the franchise that has let slip with the word "bullsh*t" (save for a couple times with Picard, who at least has the decency to swear in French). ENT briefly loses any sense of decorum a few times, but I don't recall it ever talking about bodily functions without at least employing a euphemism, making blatant sexual references (the Enterprise's "ample nacelles"), or referencing bestiality. Pike describes the Federation as "a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada"—firstly, "humanitarian" is hardly an appropriate word to use for an organization comprising numerous non-humans; secondly, "exploration" is an utterly integral part of the definition; thirdly, I think you mean Starfleet, not the Federation. When classic Trek gets the facts wrong, it's usually a scientific miscalculation or an accidental contradiction to some offhand comment in an earlier episode, but this is like Kirk telling a landing party to set their tricorders to stun. Kirk's introduction to McCoy is less egregious but still irritating; the nickname "Bones" comes from "sawbones," old American slang for a doctor, but 2009 allows a well-meaning but contrived ad lib ("All I've got left is my bones") to rewrite the origin of the nickname in a way that doesn't seem like it should stick. It stands out to us because we know his nickname is "Bones," not because the line really makes an impact on Kirk.
In fact, the movie goes out of its way to pander to classic Trek fans. There are a few genuinely good references (such as Pike ending up in a wheelchair, a subtle tip of the hat to "The Menagerie"), but too many beat you over the head and ham-fistedly twist the story and dialogue just so the reference can be made. Kirk is marooned on Delta Vega—oh hey! That's the planet they visit in "Where No Man Has Gone Before"!—which is suddenly an ice planet in the Vulcan system, instead of a desert planet near the galactic barrier, just for the sake of name-dropping. When Kirk meets Spock Prime for the first time, it's utterly clear that the former has no idea who the latter is, but instead of responding to Kirk's inquiry of "How do you know my name?" with something straightforward and logical to put Kirk at ease, Spock Prime quotes The Wrath of Khan. "I have been, and always shall be, your friend" is unnerving and cryptic as heck coming from a total stranger, and it almost devalues the emotional impact of the line's original context. It's flippantly insinuated that Jonathan Archer's faithful companion Porthos (or, more likely, a descendant) was killed by Scotty in a transporter accident—which is intended to be funny, but when you think about it, it's about as offensive and illogical as saying "Instead of testing this on a lab rat, I abducted Molly O'Brien and beamed her into space. Ha ha!"
Humor has often been a part of Star Trek, but the comedic scenes in 2009 completely disrupt the tone and flow of the story. In a moment of tension, when the Enterprise is about to fly into a trap, Kirk awakes with absurdly swollen hands and starts clowning around in the corridor. Moments after the heroes formulate a serious plan to save the day, Scotty gets stuck in a tube in engineering and is almost killed by slapstick. These things take the focus away from the narrative, forcibly injecting comic relief where no relief is necessary. Compare these scenes with the moment from "What You Leave Behind" where Garak and his companions break down laughing in the middle of a life-or-death assault. It's almost surreal how ridiculous the situation is, but it cuts the tension organically, and the characters' reactions are so incredibly human (or Cardassian, or Bajoran) that we get a beautiful character moment in the process. Balloon-hand Kirk just conjures up images of Looney Tunes (but maybe his balloon hands help him command his balloon-animal ship).
The whole film is disjointed, from the shifting tone to the inconsistently logical narrative. Nero's whole backstory, which is crucial to understanding the central conflict and how this story connects with the rest of Trek, is explained in a brief, visually overwhelming flashback and a handful of sentences that amount to "Federation bad! Spock bad! Kill kill kill!" It takes the Star Trek: Countdown and Nero graphic novels to give the villain any depth, and even then, his vendetta against Spock and the Federation seems forced. In the final scene, Sulu tells Kirk that thrusters and impulse engines are "at your command," then Kirk tells tells Sulu to prepare to engage thrusters (which are already prepared!), then Sulu tells Kirk that thrusters are on standby (still no change in readiness status!), then Kirk gives the order to move. The movie falls apart if you stop to think about it for any length of time, but with an eye-popping spectacle around every corner, you may be too dazzled to think at all.
The opening sequence sets the pace for the entire movie, with things happening so fast that there's only enough time to react from your gut, not your brain. I wince at the uncharacteristically gruesome fate of Captain Robau (seriously, the big red "TERMINATED" on his vitality monitor belongs in a video game, not in a piece of Starfleet software), but the first ten minutes are otherwise about as Trek-worthy as the movie gets, at least from a visual standpoint. Step back from the action for a moment and you'll see a ship that does an impressive job of bridging the gap between ENT and TOS. Unlike the bizarrely elongated new Enterprise, the Kelvin adheres to standard Starfleet shapes and proportions, looking a bit like the obscure but canonical Hermes- and Saladin-class vessels. Its registry number, 0514, is appropriately low for the time period. The bridge has that claustrophobia-inducing submarine feel of the NX-01, but with boxy consoles and a captain's chair that would be right at home on the NCC-1701. The medical shuttle on which Winona Kirk escapes has the general frame of the Galileo but the surface detail of Shuttlepod One. Even the uniforms are a compromise between the utilitarian jumpsuits worn by Archer's crew and the simple tunics worn by Kirk's. These are the details that matter. Any sci-fi movie can look this good if the budget is big enough, but I don't want just any sci-fi movie; I want something unmistakably Trek.
I've cited some problems with the characterizations, but for the most part, the casting and performances do justice to the original cast. If Into the Woods is any indication, Chris Pine has what it takes to be Kirk; it's just a matter of time until the story lets him mature into the swaggering leader we know. Zachary Quinto plays a convincing Spock, and it helps that the writers get his character; even when emotionally compromised, he sounds more like Spock than Spock Prime does. Karl Urban does the best he can with his uneven dialogue, but in the amazing moments where he channels DeForest Kelley, you can close your eyes and swear you're listening to the real McCoy. As previously mentioned, Scotty is portrayed as a cartoon, but I attribute that to the script and the direction—by the time we get to Into Darkness, Simon Pegg owns the role. Chekov, on the other hand, is supposed to be a bit comical, and Anton Yelchin successfully captures the youthful exuberance of the character's early appearances on TOS. I like what John Cho brings to the Sulu character; the Enterprise's helmsman has historically gotten the short end of the fencing sword when it comes to character development, so it's great to see some personality shine through in the little time we spend with him. I like Bruce Greenwood; he adds a touch of class to everything I've seen him in, and his turn as Pike lends some much-needed gravitas to a starship that's overrun with children. As for Uhura...I just can't. I don't see an interpretation of Nichelle Nichols; I see Zoe Saldana being some girl in a space skirt. However, I haven't seen enough of her work to determine whether my problem is actually with her or with the direction and dialogue. The latter is more likely; the appallingly few women who have speaking lines in this reboot universe are all vapid, and the ones that don't stick around as eye candy get written out of the story as quickly as possible.
Case in point: Amanda. She's got seven lines (eight, if you count the screaming), averaging about six words per line. In those six lines, we learn that she is adept at motherly platitudes. For comparison, in "Journey to Babel", Amanda's first seven lines show us a devoted wife, concerned mother, and warm human being who's gentle but to the point. Also, in "Journey to Babel", she is not callously dropped off a cliff to get an audience reaction. Character death can be a powerful catalyst for change when used correctly, but disposing of Spock's mother in a way that is completely unnecessary and avoidable is yet another example of poor writing. She easily could've stood a few feet farther away from the edge of the obviously unstable ledge, and Chekov just demonstrated he can get a transporter lock on people as they're falling. And what's the first thing Spock does after watching his mother die? He makes out with Uhura. The whole situation is atrocious, Star Trek or not.
The worst part is, I don't think the film knows how shoddy and disrespectful it is. All those references to classic Trek are clearly trying to appeal to the old fans, and Leonard Nimoy is there to uphold the Star Trek tradition of having someone familiar pass the torch to the new generation. The props and costumes look great. The music is memorable (albeit lacking in subtlety at times) and pays tribute to TOS here and there. The pacing is good, the action sequences are exciting, and the special effects are top-notch. The casting—independent of the script and direction—reflects a solid understanding of what it takes to play these iconic characters correctly. In a vacuum, without considering the existence of any other Trek, 2009 generally does a good job of updating a popular '60s TV show for a modern audience—and even the goofy new Enterprise design riffs on Matt Jefferies's original sketches for the ship. On the surface, this movie is both a worthy successor and the hypospray in the arm that the franchise needed. But if there's one thing Star Trek has taught me, it's to look below the surface and get to the heart of what the movie is trying to say.
2009 says very clearly that Star Trek would be a heck of a lot better if it were more like Star Wars, with an action-heavy struggle between good and evil that gives fate and destiny more control than the characters over the direction of the plot. There's an unlikely romance; a wise, mystical mentor; a very small alien that provides some comic relief; an ice planet with a scary monster; parents that die at the hands of the bad guys; and a hero who gets captured and interrogated for secrets that will allow the bad guys to destroy the good guys' home base. Nero even blows up a main character's home planet. Heck, if you're paying really close attention, you'll briefly spot R2-D2 floating in space and hear Darth Vader being assigned to a starship. Had this been any other movie, I might let the suspicious similarities slide, but director JJ Abrams is an avowed Star Wars nut and has openly stated that he never "got" Star Trek and wasn't a fan. I can't help but see 2009 as the next best thing to directing a Star Wars movie, and a way of "improving" Star Trek so more people would like it. If only The Force Awakens had come out a few years sooner!
This leads us to the biggest failing of 2009: it completely misses the point of what it means to be Star Trek. Every movie, every episode, regardless of overall quality, has something philosophical to chew on, some point about the human condition intended to get the audience thinking. 2009 has a handful of moments that give us a glimmer of genuine Trek—Pike's speech to Kirk about joining Starfleet, Spock's appearance before the Vulcan Science Academy committee—but there's no central theme to tie the whole thing together. Generations is about letting go of the past; "These Are the Voyages..." is about friendship, making tough decisions, and saying goodbye; 2009 is about stuff blowing up. 2009 deserves to bear the Star Trek name about as much as a Vidiian wearing the face of a Starfleet officer deserves to wear a Starfleet uniform. Considering how the writers tore classic Trek apart to bring us this movie, the metaphor is doubly appropriate.
Beyond that, the script is a travesty. As a piece of writing, the script is illogical, inconsistent, and incomplete. Pike promotes Kirk, a stowaway with no actual command experience, to First Officer after hearing one piece of good advice from him. One of the Kelvin's officers reports that weapons are offline, and barely a minute later, George Kirk is firing a full weapons spread. Uhura suddenly changes from Spock's top student to his lover at the drop of a turbolift. For a Star Trek film, the script blows an incredible opportunity to tie together all the best elements of TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT, and any of their spinoffs in various media. Instead, we have a generic action story that uses elements almost exclusively from TOS, and it doesn't even get the facts straight about how this franchise works.
But...what if that's not entirely the writers' fault?
I came across a draft of the script from 2007, which not only exonerates Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman from a fair amount of narrative wrongdoing, but also got me excited to see this movie that could have been. Extra time is taken to develop characters properly, and Nero in particular is fleshed out enough to be a true villain and not a plot device. Amanda is the woman I remember from "Journey to Babel", and her death means something. Pike's promotion of Kirk to First Officer is still a little contrived, but it actually makes sense. The Kobayashi Maru scene, which the actual movie treats like a joke, plays out more like I always imagined it with just a few differences in the dialogue. Spock Prime provides meaningful insights about the timeline and the relationship between Kirk and Spock, insights that don't sound like the transcript of a story planning meeting. The encounter between the Kelvin and the Narada plays out like a genuine first-contact scenario, not a hectic mess that happens to look cool. There's even a quality DS9 reference (the line about Cardassian vole dander) that's the mark of a genuine Trek fan, and not just someone who skimmed the Wikipedia article on TOS. There are still elements I could do without—a Delta Vega that's not really Delta Vega, the obtrusive comic relief, the Enterprise being constructed on Earth (even if it looks amazing)—but I can forgive those moments more easily when so much of the script feels right.
That leaves the blame pointing squarely at JJ Abrams, director and co-producer of the film. Left unchecked, it's clear that Orci and Kurtzman can write a competent script, and my enjoyment of the Star Trek: Countdown and Nero graphic novels gives me additional confidence in their storytelling ability. As previously discussed, the music, costumes, props, casting, and visual effects are all points in the movie's favor. Everything that's left—the changes to the script that dumb it down and remove almost everything Trek-worthy, the inconsistent tone of the story, the character incongruities, and the art direction of the updated Enterprise (inside and out)—bears the marks of someone who doesn't "get" Star Trek, and who doesn't care about telling a coherent story as long as it's entertaining. JJ Abrams has an uncanny and dangerous knack for convincing viewers that a subpar story is of the highest quality, which explains how this incredible mistake of a movie became the highest-grossing Star Trek film of all time.
At best, 2009 is a misguided attempt to revitalize a popular franchise—one that could easily have been salvaged without being overhauled. At worst, it's a tawdry cash-in on the name recognition of a popular franchise, and a practice run for JJ Abrams eventually directing a Star Wars movie. Either way, it ain't Star Trek, and it's a shoddy foundation upon which to rebuild a franchise. No matter how good certain aspects of the film may be, the haphazard storytelling puts the movie on par with the worst of Trek, the lack of any real substance knocks it a peg lower, and the egregious discontinuities with the rest of Trek make it extremely problematic to acknowledge as canon. I say that if it doesn't fit with canon, it should be fired out of a cannon. Unless another movie or TV show can reconcile some of the fundamental problems with the film, 2009 is best treated as an exciting, but deeply flawed, action movie inspired by Star Wars that rips off ideas from Star Trek.
That is, assuming what I'm watching is actually Star Trek.
Star Trek (2009) is entertaining. It's exciting. Stuff blows up real good. It's everything you want from a summer action movie. But it isn't Star Trek. That core of exploration is missing, and the tone is all wrong. It isn't a pure reboot, either; it takes place in an alternate timeline, rather than an alternate universe. That's a small distinction, but it's an incredibly important one. I could forgive the movie for many of its flaws if it were a wholly separate entity, but claiming continuity with its predecessors sets a higher standard—a standard it fails to meet. Star Trek (2009) makes me angry because it tosses almost 50 years of history out the airlock to tell a poorly crafted story that either misunderstands or doesn't care what it means to be Star Trek. It makes me angry because it's so focused on revamping TOS that it squanders virtually all that history and hindsight it could and should be taking advantage of.
So you've got a villain who travels back in time and rewrites history; that's as good a way to reboot a franchise as any. Except we're talking about Star Trek here. Starfleet encounters weird phenomena and powerful threats all the time, yet we're expected to believe that one fatal encounter with a ship from the future—a ship that's seen for only a few minutes and then disappears for 25 years—could cause so many drastic changes to the timeline. Originally, Kirk was born in Iowa and the Enterprise was constructed in space; suddenly, Kirk is born in space and the Enterprise is constructed in Iowa. Unlike every other Starfleet design we've ever seen, the iconic ship now looks like a balloon animal—which is appropriate, because the craft has been inflated to twice the size of the TOS Enterprise, dwarfing even the Enterprise-E. Because of that fleeting glimpse of Nero's ship, the interior of the new Enterprise is full of glass and LENS FLARE and brewery equipment instead of colorful, boxy '60s tech. Somehow, the destruction of the USS Kelvin caused Pavel Chekov to be born four years earlier. I get that the whole point of a reboot is to do things differently, but the events depicted at the beginning of the movie are insufficient to explain the differences between nuTrek and classic Trek. Had Nero blown up a whole fleet of ships, attacked Starfleet headquarters, incited war between the Romulans and the Federation, or killed Zefram Cochrane or Richard Daystrom instead of lowly ol' George Kirk, maybe I could suspend my disbelief about all the changes. But I can't.
That's also why I'm so critical of the different characterizations. Kirk I can understand; he grew up without his father, so now he's a reckless, womanizing jerk instead of a suave, risk-taking thrill-seeker. I don't like it, but I get it. But what about Scotty? He's now a cartoon, a caricature of the proud engineer we know and love. Uhura bothers me the most; she acts more like a pushy floozie than an assertive woman of quiet strength. How did Nero fundamentally change their personalities? I can see an argument for these characters being younger and less mature than we're used to seeing them, but I think of all the people I went to college with, and none of them have undergone the kind of transformation you'd need to turn 2009's Uhura and Scotty into the Uhura and Scotty of TOS. And Nero himself neither sounds nor acts remotely like any other Romulan we've ever seen. While you could chalk it up to his blue-collar roots, even Shinzon—a human clone who spent much of his life doing hard labor among Remans, not Romulans—still has distinctly Romulan speech patterns and mannerisms.
Spock Prime is arguably the worst offender; I don't know what happened to him since "Unification", but he's gone from a primarily logical Vulcan with "an ability to see beyond pure logic" to a pointy-eared human who talks about faith and destiny and discarding logic altogether follow one's feelings. Granted, The Undiscovered Country shows a Spock who is a little emotional and starting to embrace the merits of his human side, a Spock who talks about such seemingly un-Vulcan topics as destiny and faith, but that was a Spock in the middle of a retirement crisis, almost exactly a century before the destruction of Romulus. The more moderate "Unification" Spock should be our starting point, and any deviations in character should be fleshed out with at least a throwaway line; otherwise, there's no sense of character continuity. The Spock I know is an active participant in every situation, interacting with others and processing information as it comes in, but Spock Prime seems slightly out of touch with what's actually going on, and mostly dictates what everyone else should do to be more like classic Trek. It's as though he's the physical manifestation of a story planning meeting, and his presence saves the writers from developing organic reasons for the story to progress as it does. "To stop Nero, you alone must take command of your ship." That's not a logical conclusion from Spock Prime; that's a tutorial popup from the developers.
Also, every time-travel story in Star Trek involves the heroes trying to preserve or restore the timeline, yet Spock Prime is only concerned with keeping the Enterprise crew together; the rest of the timeline can go fix itself if it wants to. He knows how to slingshot around the sun, and he knows where the Guardian of Forever is. He could've worked out a plan to go back in time further and stop Nero. Why doesn't he do something? And that's to say nothing of the Temporal Integrity Commission that should've been on Nero's case in a heartbeat; where are they? If you're rebooting a franchise using one of its most popular gimmicks, you've gotta play by the rules. Other films and episodes have overlooked details that should have impacted the story, but never before has something calling itself Star Trek been so careless or carefree about the bigger picture.
One of my greatest frustrations with modern entertainment is the readiness to dump years or decades of continuity the first time anybody feels restricted in their storytelling. If all the novels, comics, and video games were any indication, Star Trek had plenty of stories left to tell, and could easily do so within the confines of established history. Archer was poised to jump into the Romulan War. Kirk undoubtedly had adventures during his academy days. Riker was in command of the USS Titan. Sisko could return anytime, anywhere. The Voyager crew was back in the Alpha Quadrant. And that's to say nothing of a brand-new story—perhaps picking up where Nemesis left off, or filling in the gaps between TOS and TNG, or even centering around a group of aliens for a change. The possibilities were endless! Yet the last season of ENT hadn't even made it to DVD when talks began about rebooting the franchise. This new film already annoyed me.
The title annoyed me, too. "Subtitles are pretentious! Numbers mean you can't see this movie without seeing the others!" Giving your movie the worst possible name for the sake of luring new fans into the theater is inconsiderate to the existing fan community, who forevermore must clarify which Star Trek they're talking about (I'll be calling the film 2009 from here on out). It's a little thing, but it's another example of how the reboot disregards, rather than reinvents, everything that came before it.
Again, if this were a true reboot that cut all direct ties with its predecessors, I wouldn't be so hard on the movie. But it's a sequel, really, that just happens to involve an alternate timeline. We don't give the likes of "Parallels" and "Storm Front" carte blanche to abandon franchise standards and precedent simply because some historical event plays out differently in the episode. And we shouldn't let 2009 off the hook simply because of "an entire new chain of incidents" affecting the timeline.
For one thing, the script lacks the kind of polish and elegance that even the worst Trek episodes and films tend to have. I can't think of any other installment in the franchise that has let slip with the word "bullsh*t" (save for a couple times with Picard, who at least has the decency to swear in French). ENT briefly loses any sense of decorum a few times, but I don't recall it ever talking about bodily functions without at least employing a euphemism, making blatant sexual references (the Enterprise's "ample nacelles"), or referencing bestiality. Pike describes the Federation as "a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada"—firstly, "humanitarian" is hardly an appropriate word to use for an organization comprising numerous non-humans; secondly, "exploration" is an utterly integral part of the definition; thirdly, I think you mean Starfleet, not the Federation. When classic Trek gets the facts wrong, it's usually a scientific miscalculation or an accidental contradiction to some offhand comment in an earlier episode, but this is like Kirk telling a landing party to set their tricorders to stun. Kirk's introduction to McCoy is less egregious but still irritating; the nickname "Bones" comes from "sawbones," old American slang for a doctor, but 2009 allows a well-meaning but contrived ad lib ("All I've got left is my bones") to rewrite the origin of the nickname in a way that doesn't seem like it should stick. It stands out to us because we know his nickname is "Bones," not because the line really makes an impact on Kirk.
In fact, the movie goes out of its way to pander to classic Trek fans. There are a few genuinely good references (such as Pike ending up in a wheelchair, a subtle tip of the hat to "The Menagerie"), but too many beat you over the head and ham-fistedly twist the story and dialogue just so the reference can be made. Kirk is marooned on Delta Vega—oh hey! That's the planet they visit in "Where No Man Has Gone Before"!—which is suddenly an ice planet in the Vulcan system, instead of a desert planet near the galactic barrier, just for the sake of name-dropping. When Kirk meets Spock Prime for the first time, it's utterly clear that the former has no idea who the latter is, but instead of responding to Kirk's inquiry of "How do you know my name?" with something straightforward and logical to put Kirk at ease, Spock Prime quotes The Wrath of Khan. "I have been, and always shall be, your friend" is unnerving and cryptic as heck coming from a total stranger, and it almost devalues the emotional impact of the line's original context. It's flippantly insinuated that Jonathan Archer's faithful companion Porthos (or, more likely, a descendant) was killed by Scotty in a transporter accident—which is intended to be funny, but when you think about it, it's about as offensive and illogical as saying "Instead of testing this on a lab rat, I abducted Molly O'Brien and beamed her into space. Ha ha!"
Humor has often been a part of Star Trek, but the comedic scenes in 2009 completely disrupt the tone and flow of the story. In a moment of tension, when the Enterprise is about to fly into a trap, Kirk awakes with absurdly swollen hands and starts clowning around in the corridor. Moments after the heroes formulate a serious plan to save the day, Scotty gets stuck in a tube in engineering and is almost killed by slapstick. These things take the focus away from the narrative, forcibly injecting comic relief where no relief is necessary. Compare these scenes with the moment from "What You Leave Behind" where Garak and his companions break down laughing in the middle of a life-or-death assault. It's almost surreal how ridiculous the situation is, but it cuts the tension organically, and the characters' reactions are so incredibly human (or Cardassian, or Bajoran) that we get a beautiful character moment in the process. Balloon-hand Kirk just conjures up images of Looney Tunes (but maybe his balloon hands help him command his balloon-animal ship).
The whole film is disjointed, from the shifting tone to the inconsistently logical narrative. Nero's whole backstory, which is crucial to understanding the central conflict and how this story connects with the rest of Trek, is explained in a brief, visually overwhelming flashback and a handful of sentences that amount to "Federation bad! Spock bad! Kill kill kill!" It takes the Star Trek: Countdown and Nero graphic novels to give the villain any depth, and even then, his vendetta against Spock and the Federation seems forced. In the final scene, Sulu tells Kirk that thrusters and impulse engines are "at your command," then Kirk tells tells Sulu to prepare to engage thrusters (which are already prepared!), then Sulu tells Kirk that thrusters are on standby (still no change in readiness status!), then Kirk gives the order to move. The movie falls apart if you stop to think about it for any length of time, but with an eye-popping spectacle around every corner, you may be too dazzled to think at all.
The opening sequence sets the pace for the entire movie, with things happening so fast that there's only enough time to react from your gut, not your brain. I wince at the uncharacteristically gruesome fate of Captain Robau (seriously, the big red "TERMINATED" on his vitality monitor belongs in a video game, not in a piece of Starfleet software), but the first ten minutes are otherwise about as Trek-worthy as the movie gets, at least from a visual standpoint. Step back from the action for a moment and you'll see a ship that does an impressive job of bridging the gap between ENT and TOS. Unlike the bizarrely elongated new Enterprise, the Kelvin adheres to standard Starfleet shapes and proportions, looking a bit like the obscure but canonical Hermes- and Saladin-class vessels. Its registry number, 0514, is appropriately low for the time period. The bridge has that claustrophobia-inducing submarine feel of the NX-01, but with boxy consoles and a captain's chair that would be right at home on the NCC-1701. The medical shuttle on which Winona Kirk escapes has the general frame of the Galileo but the surface detail of Shuttlepod One. Even the uniforms are a compromise between the utilitarian jumpsuits worn by Archer's crew and the simple tunics worn by Kirk's. These are the details that matter. Any sci-fi movie can look this good if the budget is big enough, but I don't want just any sci-fi movie; I want something unmistakably Trek.
I've cited some problems with the characterizations, but for the most part, the casting and performances do justice to the original cast. If Into the Woods is any indication, Chris Pine has what it takes to be Kirk; it's just a matter of time until the story lets him mature into the swaggering leader we know. Zachary Quinto plays a convincing Spock, and it helps that the writers get his character; even when emotionally compromised, he sounds more like Spock than Spock Prime does. Karl Urban does the best he can with his uneven dialogue, but in the amazing moments where he channels DeForest Kelley, you can close your eyes and swear you're listening to the real McCoy. As previously mentioned, Scotty is portrayed as a cartoon, but I attribute that to the script and the direction—by the time we get to Into Darkness, Simon Pegg owns the role. Chekov, on the other hand, is supposed to be a bit comical, and Anton Yelchin successfully captures the youthful exuberance of the character's early appearances on TOS. I like what John Cho brings to the Sulu character; the Enterprise's helmsman has historically gotten the short end of the fencing sword when it comes to character development, so it's great to see some personality shine through in the little time we spend with him. I like Bruce Greenwood; he adds a touch of class to everything I've seen him in, and his turn as Pike lends some much-needed gravitas to a starship that's overrun with children. As for Uhura...I just can't. I don't see an interpretation of Nichelle Nichols; I see Zoe Saldana being some girl in a space skirt. However, I haven't seen enough of her work to determine whether my problem is actually with her or with the direction and dialogue. The latter is more likely; the appallingly few women who have speaking lines in this reboot universe are all vapid, and the ones that don't stick around as eye candy get written out of the story as quickly as possible.
Case in point: Amanda. She's got seven lines (eight, if you count the screaming), averaging about six words per line. In those six lines, we learn that she is adept at motherly platitudes. For comparison, in "Journey to Babel", Amanda's first seven lines show us a devoted wife, concerned mother, and warm human being who's gentle but to the point. Also, in "Journey to Babel", she is not callously dropped off a cliff to get an audience reaction. Character death can be a powerful catalyst for change when used correctly, but disposing of Spock's mother in a way that is completely unnecessary and avoidable is yet another example of poor writing. She easily could've stood a few feet farther away from the edge of the obviously unstable ledge, and Chekov just demonstrated he can get a transporter lock on people as they're falling. And what's the first thing Spock does after watching his mother die? He makes out with Uhura. The whole situation is atrocious, Star Trek or not.
The worst part is, I don't think the film knows how shoddy and disrespectful it is. All those references to classic Trek are clearly trying to appeal to the old fans, and Leonard Nimoy is there to uphold the Star Trek tradition of having someone familiar pass the torch to the new generation. The props and costumes look great. The music is memorable (albeit lacking in subtlety at times) and pays tribute to TOS here and there. The pacing is good, the action sequences are exciting, and the special effects are top-notch. The casting—independent of the script and direction—reflects a solid understanding of what it takes to play these iconic characters correctly. In a vacuum, without considering the existence of any other Trek, 2009 generally does a good job of updating a popular '60s TV show for a modern audience—and even the goofy new Enterprise design riffs on Matt Jefferies's original sketches for the ship. On the surface, this movie is both a worthy successor and the hypospray in the arm that the franchise needed. But if there's one thing Star Trek has taught me, it's to look below the surface and get to the heart of what the movie is trying to say.
2009 says very clearly that Star Trek would be a heck of a lot better if it were more like Star Wars, with an action-heavy struggle between good and evil that gives fate and destiny more control than the characters over the direction of the plot. There's an unlikely romance; a wise, mystical mentor; a very small alien that provides some comic relief; an ice planet with a scary monster; parents that die at the hands of the bad guys; and a hero who gets captured and interrogated for secrets that will allow the bad guys to destroy the good guys' home base. Nero even blows up a main character's home planet. Heck, if you're paying really close attention, you'll briefly spot R2-D2 floating in space and hear Darth Vader being assigned to a starship. Had this been any other movie, I might let the suspicious similarities slide, but director JJ Abrams is an avowed Star Wars nut and has openly stated that he never "got" Star Trek and wasn't a fan. I can't help but see 2009 as the next best thing to directing a Star Wars movie, and a way of "improving" Star Trek so more people would like it. If only The Force Awakens had come out a few years sooner!
This leads us to the biggest failing of 2009: it completely misses the point of what it means to be Star Trek. Every movie, every episode, regardless of overall quality, has something philosophical to chew on, some point about the human condition intended to get the audience thinking. 2009 has a handful of moments that give us a glimmer of genuine Trek—Pike's speech to Kirk about joining Starfleet, Spock's appearance before the Vulcan Science Academy committee—but there's no central theme to tie the whole thing together. Generations is about letting go of the past; "These Are the Voyages..." is about friendship, making tough decisions, and saying goodbye; 2009 is about stuff blowing up. 2009 deserves to bear the Star Trek name about as much as a Vidiian wearing the face of a Starfleet officer deserves to wear a Starfleet uniform. Considering how the writers tore classic Trek apart to bring us this movie, the metaphor is doubly appropriate.
Beyond that, the script is a travesty. As a piece of writing, the script is illogical, inconsistent, and incomplete. Pike promotes Kirk, a stowaway with no actual command experience, to First Officer after hearing one piece of good advice from him. One of the Kelvin's officers reports that weapons are offline, and barely a minute later, George Kirk is firing a full weapons spread. Uhura suddenly changes from Spock's top student to his lover at the drop of a turbolift. For a Star Trek film, the script blows an incredible opportunity to tie together all the best elements of TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT, and any of their spinoffs in various media. Instead, we have a generic action story that uses elements almost exclusively from TOS, and it doesn't even get the facts straight about how this franchise works.
But...what if that's not entirely the writers' fault?
I came across a draft of the script from 2007, which not only exonerates Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman from a fair amount of narrative wrongdoing, but also got me excited to see this movie that could have been. Extra time is taken to develop characters properly, and Nero in particular is fleshed out enough to be a true villain and not a plot device. Amanda is the woman I remember from "Journey to Babel", and her death means something. Pike's promotion of Kirk to First Officer is still a little contrived, but it actually makes sense. The Kobayashi Maru scene, which the actual movie treats like a joke, plays out more like I always imagined it with just a few differences in the dialogue. Spock Prime provides meaningful insights about the timeline and the relationship between Kirk and Spock, insights that don't sound like the transcript of a story planning meeting. The encounter between the Kelvin and the Narada plays out like a genuine first-contact scenario, not a hectic mess that happens to look cool. There's even a quality DS9 reference (the line about Cardassian vole dander) that's the mark of a genuine Trek fan, and not just someone who skimmed the Wikipedia article on TOS. There are still elements I could do without—a Delta Vega that's not really Delta Vega, the obtrusive comic relief, the Enterprise being constructed on Earth (even if it looks amazing)—but I can forgive those moments more easily when so much of the script feels right.
That leaves the blame pointing squarely at JJ Abrams, director and co-producer of the film. Left unchecked, it's clear that Orci and Kurtzman can write a competent script, and my enjoyment of the Star Trek: Countdown and Nero graphic novels gives me additional confidence in their storytelling ability. As previously discussed, the music, costumes, props, casting, and visual effects are all points in the movie's favor. Everything that's left—the changes to the script that dumb it down and remove almost everything Trek-worthy, the inconsistent tone of the story, the character incongruities, and the art direction of the updated Enterprise (inside and out)—bears the marks of someone who doesn't "get" Star Trek, and who doesn't care about telling a coherent story as long as it's entertaining. JJ Abrams has an uncanny and dangerous knack for convincing viewers that a subpar story is of the highest quality, which explains how this incredible mistake of a movie became the highest-grossing Star Trek film of all time.
At best, 2009 is a misguided attempt to revitalize a popular franchise—one that could easily have been salvaged without being overhauled. At worst, it's a tawdry cash-in on the name recognition of a popular franchise, and a practice run for JJ Abrams eventually directing a Star Wars movie. Either way, it ain't Star Trek, and it's a shoddy foundation upon which to rebuild a franchise. No matter how good certain aspects of the film may be, the haphazard storytelling puts the movie on par with the worst of Trek, the lack of any real substance knocks it a peg lower, and the egregious discontinuities with the rest of Trek make it extremely problematic to acknowledge as canon. I say that if it doesn't fit with canon, it should be fired out of a cannon. Unless another movie or TV show can reconcile some of the fundamental problems with the film, 2009 is best treated as an exciting, but deeply flawed, action movie inspired by Star Wars that rips off ideas from Star Trek.
Special thanks to John C. "Buck" Field for his series of "Star Trek by the Minute" posts, which were instrumental in getting me thinking about this movie critically, and which brought up some of the issues mentioned here that I might have otherwise overlooked.
