New Star Trek: DO NOT WANT!!!
Star Trek XI was like watching fanfiction. A fanfiction where the author made Kirk into his Possession Sue, then set the story in an alternate universe to compensate for the fact that he just couldn’t get his characters (and maybe even the universe) straight.
Beware, there will be spoilers ahead.
The movie starts off decent, giving us a dramatic space battle in which Kirk’s mother escapes from the doomed starship Kelvin, but Kirk’s father does not.
Yes, folks, our fanfiction writer apparently decided Kirk needed more wangst in his life, and accomplished this by killing off our hero’s father.
After this is over, we see a young Kirk joyriding through the farmlands of Iowa, apparently to establish what a rebel he is. It does this and more: Kirk is now officially established as a moron. When a motorcycle cop attempts to stop him, he puts the pedal to the metal and drives the car off a cliff – after unbuckling and jumping out, of course.
If he died, he would have qualified for a Darwin Award.
I got the impression that Kirk turned onto the dirt road between the fields because, being a farmer kid, he was more familiar with the area than the cop. So why didn’t he know about the cliff? How did the idiot spend 12-14 years growing up in the area and NOT REALIZE A GIANT CLIFF WAS THERE?
Spock’s childhood made me cringe. Apparently, young Vulcans are taught in these pits with all of these shiny nifty holographic displays and such. NOT LOGICAL. This strikes me as neither a space nor energy-efficient way of teaching children. Also, these pits seem like a hazard waiting to happen. There are no guard rails to prevent Vulcan children from tripping over their own robes and falling in.
It seems Vulcans really look down their noses at half-Vulcans. Spock is taunted by his classmates, who insult his mother for being a mudblood – er, human. Harry – uh, Spock – flies into a rage and beats the crap out of them.
Anyone who wishes not to defile the memory of the very handsome Mark Lenard should bring along a pair of blinders. Ben Cross as Sarek made me die a little inside every time I saw his ugly mug on the screen.
When we catch up to Kirk’s young adulthood, we find that he has developed into an even bigger ass than before. Kirk goes into a bar, flirts with a very out-of-character Uhura, whose character is obviously suffering under the pen of our bad fanfiction writer. Uhura gives Kirk her last name, but refuses to give him her first. I can see Nichelle Nichols doing this, but she would have done it in the most charming and classy way possible. Zoe Saldana just comes off as a generic black girl with an attitude.
It seems they attempted to make a shoutout to the DS9 fans. A figure at the bar very reminiscent of Morn sat between Uhura and Kirk, and Uhura ordered a Cardassian Sunset. Too bad Cardassia isn’t even discovered until the Next Generation era.
Kirk gets into a fight. Blood ensues. Captain Pike decides that Starfleet needs this moron. Pike also says Kirk has genius-level intelligence, but I’m not seeing it. Nor will I see it throughout the remainder of the film. Maybe Pike is just petting Kirk’s ego.
Kirk decides to join Starfleet. At this point, one of the truly well-done characters is introduced – McCoy. Karl Urban was brilliant in the role. Too bad they made him – and just about anyone who was actually good – into minor characters.
Stuff happens. The entirely forgettable villain who was responsible for the death of George Kirk shows up again, this time to destroy planet Vulcan using something called ‘red matter’ to create an artificial black hole inside the planet. Guess our fanfiction writer thinks Spock needs more wangst, too. In this end, Vulcan, Spock’s mother, and some six billion Vulcans are all dead. Oh, and Captain Pike is in the madman’s clutches. Pike has left Spock as captain and Kirk as first mate. I don’t know why. It’s not like Kirk is a particularly rational being at the best of times.
It’s really hard to recount exactly what happened and when it happened because it’s all a muddled blur. The movie goes too fast to actually let you stop and think about what’s going on.
Finally, Spock gets as fed up with Kirk as I am and answers my prayers by throwing him out the airlock and sending him to the ice planet, Hoth – er, just some icy M-class planet. Only he gets it wrong and puts Kirk in an escape pod first.
Down on the planet, Kirk is promptly chased by a wampa – er, snow beast. This beast is killed by an even bigger beast, who, instead of stopping to eat his kill and enjoy a warm meal, chases after Kirk instead, who by comparison is a mere morsel.
Kirk runs into a cave and meets Obi-Wan Kenobi – uh, I mean Spock. The original Spock. The Spock we’ve known and loved since the beginning. Spock reveals his story to Kirk. Essentially, he cheesed off the entirely forgettable villain (EFV) what’s-his-name earlier, who now wants revenge.
So, why is what’s-his-name so cheesed off at Spock? The answer might shock – and horrify you.
Apparently, Romulus’s sun was in immenant danger of going supernova. Romulans, it seems, are SO LAME that they can’t even figure out that their sun is close to dying and it would be a really good idea to evaculate the people before it goes kablooie entirely in a few decades… maybe centuries. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure that with our technology today we could have seen it coming.
Oh, and apparently this supernova was threatening the entire galaxy, maybe the universe. This is moronic beyond belief. This is like a drop of water threatening the Earth’s oceans, or a sneeze threatening the entire climate.
Spock was going to contain the supernova by using red matter to create an artificial black hole. The mind boggles at how this was actually supposed to help. With no sun, the planet would just freeze, rendering the Romulans pointy-eared popsicles. Maybe they have really good indoor heading.
Anyway, it turns out that the EFV is mad because Spock failed at stopping the supernova, resulting in his family getting killed, and now he wants to get revenge on Spock.
Trite villain, trite motivation. Yay.
Spock and Kirk leave to go to a Federation outpost close by. The first… person, I guess, that we meet is a short, non-English-speaking alien, who presumably exists for the sole purpose of comic relief, and to give Scotty the classic non-English speaking sidekick. This would have been more suited to a cheesy 80′s film for kids. In this case, it’s unsettlingly evocative of the ‘stupid golliwog sidekick’ you might see in stories from the 50′s and before – something utterly shameful for any Star Trek film.
This alien leads us to Montgomery Scott, who is refreshingly spot-on. But like any character who is not Kirk or Spock, he, too is relegated to a role of talking scenery. It turns out that Scotty can beam Kirk back aboard the Enterprise – with a little help from Spock. Spock stays behind, insinuating that if he and his younger counterpart were to meet, paradoxes would ensue.
Scotty now has his most prominent scene: he is beamed into a tank of water. Kirk must rescue him from the series of tubes he is now floating in, before he is drawn into the crushy-choppy things. Kirk gets him out, and Scotty officially joins Kirk’s collection of talking scenery.
More stuff happens, but I’m afraid at this point it’s all a blur and I don’t remember it all that clearly. Essentially, Earth is going to be the EFV’s next target, and Kirk has to get himself into the captain’s chair so he can stop it. But the only way to do this is to emotionally compromise Spock. (By insulting his mother, of course.) Stuff happens. Kirk gives orders. Spock and Uhura kiss. Young Spock uses old Spock’s ship and eventually figures out that this is his own ship, from the future. Spock uses the red matter to destroy the EFV’s ship. The day is saved. Old Spock and Young Spock meet up with each other on Earth and talk.
For some inexplicable reason, they promote Kirk to captain for real and give him command of their flagship. Never mind that realistically, Kirk doesn’t have enough experience to be captain. Even if he did save the day this once, this doesn’t mean he’s ready to be captain yet.
By the time the film was over and the original Star Trek theme played, I was beyond ready to bolt from the theater. Sitting through this film was like torture. (It also didn’t help that the theater speakers were so loud I actually had to make earplugs from my paper napkin.)
Overall, the movie substituted flashy effects and action sequences for character development and a decent story. It seems the majority of viewers were successfully distracted by the shiny, given the amount of positive reviews the film has.
I expected at least some nostalgia from the movie; there was none to be found. Pine!Kirk had none of the original Kirk’s likable traits, nor his charm and charisma. Instead, he’s just another Hollywood rebel with no redeeming qualities. Ben Cross as Sarek made my eyes bleed. (To put this into perspective for newcomers, imagine casting Steve Buscemi as Captain Jack Sparrow.) Zachary Quinto actually tried to be Spock, but he didn’t try hard enough.
This is easily the worst film I’ve seen in awhile. If there’s a sequel, keep it far away from me.