JJ Abrams' Star Trek

Before I begin my review, I need to make a confession. I didn't like this movie before it started. I have disliked it for months. Ever since the first preview that showed actual footage from the movie, I've thought it was going to be a disaster. I'll get into the why's as part of my review, but I just need to be clear that my expectations do not mean that I simply searched for justification as I viewed Star Trek, and that I ignored everything else that did not support my negative assumptions. In fact, there have been numerous cases where a movie far exceeded my initial thinking. In the interest of thoroughness, I'll even cite examples. My first impression of Gladiator was that it was going to be a lame Spartacus knockoff. It ended up being the best American action movie of this decade. I thought Rocky 6 was going to be as big a disgrace as Rocky 5. I ended up seeing it four times in the theaters. I thought Tropic Thunder would be just another lame Ben Stiller movie, and it's one of the funniest comedies I've seen in years. Yes, I make flash judgments. I believe that everyone does. The difference is that I'm not ashamed of it, and I'm as willing as anyone to change my thinking. All that being said, I was convinced that Star Trek would be utter crap, and I was right.

I need to make another thing clear. I am not judging this in the context of other Star Trek movies. I don't care how bad those movies were. I don't care if you think this one is better. Just because you found the hooker with the mildest case of gonorrhea, it doesn't mean you found a good deal. I am judging this movie as a movie, and so should you. Either it's a good movie, or it's a bad movie, I don't care what it's called.

My first inkling that it would not be a good movie was based on the director, J.J. Abrams. You, the reader who thinks Star Trek belongs in the annals of the great Sci-Fi movies, need to first understand who directed it. This is the same man who wrote Armageddon, people. Armageddon! Do you remember Armageddon? Probably not. Your mind probably washed itself clean of all memories of this movie as a self-defense mechanism. That's ok, that's what I'm here for. Armageddon is factually one of the worst movies ever made. Everything about it is awful. And your sci-fi savior wrote it. But he didn't write Star Trek, he directed it. How does his early career as a writer qualify him as an action director? It doesn't. He's not a good director either. The only other movie he ever directed was Mission Impossible 3. I'd like to see you tell me you enjoyed that movie with a straight face. You didn't. I know you didn't. You know how I know you didn't? Because it fucking sucked, that's how. The only reason you watched it was because it had Philip Seymour Hoffman, and also you wanted to see if Michelle Monaghan got naked. I know this, because I'm just like you. He produced Cloverfield, a movie filmed so poorly that theaters had to put up signs warning you that the shitty cinematography (also known as Shaky Cam) could make you sick. You know what else J.J. Abrams is famous for? Lost. In some dialects, it is also known as The Most Overrated Show Ever Made. Yes, more overrated than ER. More overrated than Friends. More overrated than Family Guy. More overrated than American Idol. Well ok, not more than American Idol, but reality TV doesn't count. Lost started out interesting because it was big budget, an exotic location, lots of characters, and a sci-fi slant. It turns out that the characters all suck, the writers have no idea what the fuck they are doing, and the whole thing is a house of cards that was going to get knocked down eventually. J.J. Abrams' crown jewel is actually just a well-polished turd. This is the man who directed Star Trek. It's not really part of the review, but you all need to know this.

I'll get into the second reason why I thought it was going to be garbage in a bit, but the first thing I want to do is delve into the plot. A movie does not have to have a good plot in order to be enjoyable. Take Napoleon Dynamite for example. If you're going to sacrifice plot, you need to do something else extremely well. A comedy needs to be funny as hell. An action movie needs to have fantastically filmed action sequences and a swift pace. Dramas need to have infallible acting built upon solid character work. I think most people would define this Star Trek as an action movie, and I would say that is correct. We'll get to that. First, let's make sure the plot sucked.

Let's start with the crew of the Enterprise. An event happens which alters the history of Kirk-era Star Trek as we know it. OK. I understand why they did this. I don't agree with it, but I understand it. This way they can tell all new stories with the same characters without having to worry about contradictions, changes in character relationships, changes in personalities, changes in events, etc. In this reality, we're expected to believe that after only three years of school, Kirk gets promoted captain of what we're told is the brand new Flagship of the entire Federation fleet. He does this despite still being in school with at least another year to go under normal the normal Starfleet Academy courseload. He does this by somehow being appointed First Officer of the Enterprise only moments after making himself known to even be on board as, basically, a stowaway. He does this despite the fact that the fucking Flagship of the Federation ought to already have a god damn first officer. He does this despite the fact that even if it didn't, there were literally hundreds, if not thousands, of more qualified candidates on board. He does this because he makes one accurate assessment of one situation. So now he's the First Officer of the Flagship of the Federation fleet, and captain shortly thereafter.

We're expected to believe that despite the entire course of history changing, the exact same people end up as the highest ranking officers of the Enterprise. Sulu, who is young and with extremely limited real-world piloting experience, as evidenced by his rookie mistake in his very first act as pilot, is made the pilot of the Flagship of the Federation fleet. Bones, who has only been at Starfleet Academy as long as Kirk has, which is to say three years, is suddenly the chief medical officer of the Flagship of the Federation fleet. Checkov, who is 17 god damn years old, is suddenly the....well whatever the fuck his position is, working on the bridge of the Flagship of the Federation fleet. Scotty miraculously becomes the chief engineer of the Flagship of the Federation Fleet, despite the fact that he's nowhere even god damn close to working on the Enterprise when the movie begins. So we end up with the EXACT SAME crew as in the alternate reality. I understand why they did it, I just don't agree with it. It makes no god damned sense. At all.

So then, Captain Pike needs to send people trained in close range combat to fight the incredibly skilled at martial arts Romulan miners. He has an entire security staff whose sole purpose in life is to beat people's asses. Who does he send instead? His brand new First Officer and his god damned pilot! HIS PILOT!?!??! Are you fucking serious? These are the two people he sends? Not anyone from his fucking security staff???? And why is that? Oh, because we need to use the characters people care about. Fuck that. Who the fuck is writing this? Amateurs, that's who. This movie that you claim to love has a shitty fucking plot.

On the other side of the plot is the villain. The driving force behind the whole movie. The dude who sets everything into motion. Nero. A Romulan (and thus obviously evil). Is he a Romulan warrior? A military general? No. He's a fucking miner. Flying a mining ship. For some reason, the mining ship is about 100 times the size of the Enterprise. Whatever. That's not anywhere near the craziest part. This ship, for some reason, has incredible military capabilities. It has weapon systems that can, we are told, take down a fleet of Klingon warships. It handles Federation ships with ease. It can launch dozens of missiles simultaneously and disable many of the functions of enemy ships. Yes, I understand it's from a hundredish years in the future. Did you miss the part where it's A FUCKING MINING SHIP?

The story behind the ship is that they traveled back in time. To a specific point in time. Remember, they wanted to find Spock. They at least needed to travel backwards in time enough that their MINING SHIP could destroy the Federation's (and Klingon's, apparently) fleet of warships. Yet we also know that they could not control the destination point in time. This is evidenced by the fact that Spock doesn't return for another 25 years after them, going through the exact same black hole. So they just got really fucking lucky then? Ok, I guess so, everyone is getting really fucking lucky in this movie.

Why does Nero want to come back? At first, we think it's because Romulus was destroyed by the Federation. As it turns out, this is not true. It is destroyed by an inevitable supernova. The Federation wasn't even at fault. Nero didn't even blame the Federation. He blamed Spock. So does he come back to save Romulus? No, not exactly. Even though that would be quite easy. He actually seems most interested in coming back to get revenge on Spock by blowing up Vulcan. Ok. I guess that makes a little sense. Not a lot though, because he could fucking save Romulus, his wife, and his kids, and thus he wouldn't even have a grudge to really speak of anymore. But he's a stupid villain with no depth, so he wants revenge as stupid villains with no depth often do. But after he gets his revenge on Spock, now he wants to destroy the Federation? What? They never really explain this. They toss out something about how Romulus is tethered to the Federation and needs its help, and he wants to sever ties. They don't explain why that's true, or why that's bad in Nero's eyes. They just need something to continue the story now that Vulcan is blowed up. Of course his first target is Earth. I guess that's a coincidence, whatever. It still makes no fucking sense, and the writers don't even attempt to explain it. But that's what you get when you have a stupid villain with no depth who just walks around grumbling the whole time, and is well trained at fighting, along with his crew, because he's a miner. Or....what? I think the most amazing thing is they cast Eric Bana for this role and even he couldn't make it interesting. If Eric Bana cannot make your character interesting, then you suck as a writer, or as a director, or whatever else you do for the movie, because Eric Bana is a certified badass.

There's a lot of other stupid coincidence in this movie. Like Spock saving Kirk on the ice planet just in time. Or Nero attacking Kirk's father's ship right as his mother is giving birth in the most forced emotional scene in the movie. Or Scotty also being on this planet, and not too far from where Spock was marooned. Or Pike, the same predecessor of Kirk in the main timeline, being stationed for a short time in the same backwoods Iowa town where Kirk lives. Or Bones also being in that same town to start school at the exact same time as Kirk. Or Spock being the dude who wrote the Starfleet Bridge Officer test. Or Kirk banging (or attempting to) Uhura's roommate. Or Spock coming back in time at the same time as the Enterprise's maiden mission. Or Kirk listening to music that's over 100 years old so that the viewer can identify with it. Or Kirk jumping out of the car just in time and hanging on to the edge of the cliff. But I guess it's just a popcorn flick and we can ignore all that, right? I guess, if you're fucking braindead.

No but really, let's talk about that. It's a popcorn flick, but it's also an action movie. Now, if you're an action movie, it seems to me that one requirement should be that you have, you know, good action. If you are an action movie, and you have bad action, then you are a bad action movie. You may be a good comedy, because maybe it's funny, but it's a bad action movie. As an example of this, take Iron Man. Iron Man is funny as hell. If you ask yourself, is Iron Man a good comedy, you are inclined to say yes, because it's entertaining and funny. If you ask yourself if it's a good action movie, you would say no, because the action is not good (and in fact, there's only one real action scene to speak of). I've heard people use the following phrase in evaluating a movie: It's good for what it was. Usually I think they misuse the phrase, but I understand where they're coming from. If you're trying to be nothing but a popcorn flick, and you don't give a shit about plot or character or any other actual storytelling, then you can still be a good popcorn flick, and you can still be worth watching. You'll never be The Godfather, but that's ok. See Crank 2 as a recent example of this. So let's say Star Trek doesn't want to be a thinking man's space drama, as the older Star Treks attempted. Maybe it just wanted to be an effects-driven action movie. That's fine, for the most part. I don't know why it needs to be in the Star Trek universe. I understand why they want it to be, for the easier sell, but I don't agree with it.

Anyways, the question remains. How does Star Trek fare as an action movie? Fucking terrible, that's how. I'm something of an action movie snob. I love action movies. It may be my favorite genre. I surely watch more action movies than any other type of movie. And I can conclusively say that either I've seen a lot more action movies than J.J. Abrams has, or that he just doesn't pay any fucking attention while he watches them. Let me briefly describe to you, reader, how to film an action scene. The first step, and the most important step, is to choreograph. You choreograph the entire scene. You practice it over, and over, and over, and over, and over. You train the actors to do everything not requiring stunt-work. You plan out the camera cuts, the angles, everything. 90% of the work is in the preparation. Then, since your actors actually know what the fuck they're doing, and you know what the fuck you're doing, you film from a distance. You show everyone involved in the current fight, or the smaller skirmish if you're filming a large scale battle. You do long takes. A long take means that you let the actors perform multiple moves before editing in a new take. They have rehearsed it, they are actors, they can do this. If you want to add slow-motion, do so sparingly. Let the viewer see the impact. And most importantly, the viewer should always know exactly what is happening in a scene. They should know who the players are, they should know who is hitting who. They should know what's going on with the setting. This isn't a horror flick. They don't need an element of surprise. Let them watch the fucking scene. Here's what you don't do. You don't do close-ups during the action. In between, sure. Show the damage, show the fatigue, show the interspersed dialogue. But not during the fight. Never do close-ups during the fight. Also, never employ Shaky Cam. You know what Shaky Cam is. Shaky Cam was not invented by, but was popularized by the Bourne trilogy of movies. It's where the cameraman shakes the camera around for no reason in order to give you what a shitty fucking director thinks is a sense of realism, a sense of being part of the action. It also makes things easier on the director and actors. You see, when you do extreme close-ups with Shaky Cam and quick takes, you don't have to choreograph. Your actors don't have to train. They don't really have to do anything. It's lazy as shit, and anyone can do it. You can just film a lot of movement, because the consequence of these things is that you have no fucking idea what is going on, and you feel nauseous. Some people have even thrown up from Shaky Cam. As mentioned above, theaters have had to put warning signs at the box office about movies with Shaky Cam. Shaky Cam is a telltale sign that the director has no fucking idea how to film an action sequence.

Do you remember the action scenes in Star Trek? There were two chase scenes and the rest were close-up Shaky Cam. I felt sick. I had no idea what the fuck was going on at any time, and you didn't either. I know you didn't, because I'm better at watching action movies than you are. You didn't know what happened until it's all over. You still don't know what happened, you just know who won. If Star Trek is an action movie, which is how people want to label it, then it fucking fails. The action is horrid. Fucking Star Wars kid was filmed better than Star Trek, and that was a camcorder sitting on a tripod. And then you have the chase scenes. There was the stupid one on the ice planet that's not even worth talking about, and the car chase scene. The car chase scene ended with Kirk launching the car off of a cliff for no reason, jumping out at the last possible moment, barely hanging onto the edge, getting up, and giving a one-liner to the officer. You know what that was? I'll tell you what that was. That was a scene you'd expect to find in a Michael Bay movie. It was a, "let's try to make this character look like an unbelievable badass, despite there not being any way that this person could possibly be this badass, and at no point in the future will this character ever be this badass again" scene. You know who Michael Bay is. He's the man responsible for ruining more franchises than George Lucas. He's arguably the worst director in the world. You hate Michael Bay, and you hate his movies, because you do not have Down Syndrome. And if you do have Down Syndrome, there's still at least a 70% chance that you hate Michael Bay, because his movies are too retarded even for you. If you are a director, and any of the scenes in your movie feel like they were lifted out of a Michael Bay movie, then you suck balls. J.J. Abrams, you suck said balls.

People are wanting to say that this is the best Sci-Fi movie in years. You know what it takes to be truly good Sci-Fi? It's not just taking place in the future, or having lots of lasers, or space travel, or alien titties, or anything like that. Sci-Fi as a genre exists to challenge our established beliefs in the real world. Star Trek used to do that. The original series pushed more boundaries than almost any other television show ever made. It tackled all sorts of social issues that most other shows would never even dream of touching. That's what good Sci-Fi does. It makes us think. It makes us question. It makes us want to explore. Does the new Star Trek do any of that? No. Hell no. Because it does just want to be an action movie. Or a popcorn flick. Or a cash cow. Or whatever. Even if I can't convince you that it's not a good movie, which seriously, how the fuck is it not terrible, then at least you have to agree that it is not a pinnacle of Sci-Fi. It is simple. It doesn't challenge you as a viewer in any sense other than your ability to keep watching such a gigantic waste of money and talent.

I don't really want to talk about the acting for a few reasons. One is that I'm no judge of acting. Two is that there's even more subjectivity than in most of the other things I've talked about. And three is that I didn't really dislike any of the acting other than Zachary Quinto as Spock. Fortunately, Nimoy got to show him up throughout the movie as the way Spock should be played. Nimoy's Spock was logical, yes. Lacking in substantial emotion, sure. But there's that little bit of humanity in Spock that makes the character whole. Nimoy portrayed that humanity as a man eager for and appreciative of friendship. Supportive even when disagreed with. Trustworthy and perhaps even slightly optimistic. He was a character you liked and cared about, despite being robotic and plain-faced. Quinto's Spock, on the other hand, is a whiny bitch. He's just playing his role from Heroes. In Heroes, he is a villain. He's not a scary villain. He's not a deep villain. He's not a good villain. He's a whiny bitch villain. The only time you are ever scared of him is before you see his face and meet him as a person. He's just a name associated with a bunch of freaky murders. The name is scary. Then he comes on-screen and ruins it. Similarly, in Star Trek, the only time his Spock isn't a whiny bitch is before he gets any screen time. Once you meet him, from then on it's PMS city. On the other hand, the dude who played Bones was fucking great.

I like to summarize my reviews with metaphors, and I have two for you. The first one is from my Twitter review. Pretend you have an unassuming bare patch of dirt on the ground. A random person walks by the patch and takes a shit. As the day goes on, more and more people walk by this spot, see the shit, and decide that they will add to the pile by shitting on it themself. This happens again and again until the pile of shit has grown quite large. Somehow, maybe lightning strikes or the Hand of God comes into play, the pile of shit mutates into a movie. This is that movie. The second metaphor is as follows. The viewer is Scotty. J.J. Abrams is the fucked up midget alien that follows Scotty around and serves no real purpose except as a ridiculously lame attempt of humor, I guess. And the movie is the question you and Scotty are both asking of the midget alien/J.J. Abrams, which is, "What the fuck are you doing here?"