Saturday, May 30, 2009

Star Trek

Dir: JJ Abrams

I had some hopes for this film, because it is directed by JJ Abrams and I like his work thus far, especially 'Lost'. I watched the film last night in an unfamiliar cinema (my favourite cinema had already removed the film) and was well happy. Not only were the characters believable as their former incarnations, but the film was coherent, entertaining and even, in the beginning as James T Kirk is being born, emotionally engaging.

Kirk, Spock and Dr McCoy were all played as close to their originals as possible, but the changes made to Sulu, Chekov and Uhuru were subtle, or good for the story. The only character I didn't care for was the new Scotty, but thats because I don't find Simon Pegg remotely amusing.

Using an alternative time line was a good idea to explain any discrepancies, but as I'm not a Trekkie, I wouldn't have cared even if I'd spotted them. My only concern was to be entertained with a good romping sci fi adventure, and plenty of space ship action (I love space ships and always have). Only one red shirt died as far as I noticed, but he had a name! Not sure if thats an improvement or not.

One or two details regarding the sets bugged me however. I thought the federation star ship interiors were badly done, especially the engine and commincations rooms which looked very out of place, and far too big to fit inside the hulls of the USS Kelvin and USS enterprise.


2 comments:

brando said...

Are you talking about the big tubes of water room? I thought that was a bit weird too. Why not have a big tank of water, and plumbing taking it where it needs to go? It doesn't need to look like a crazy straw.

About ships.

I thought Eric Bana's ship was ridiculous.

There, I said it.

moif said...

It looked like a good sculpture, but as a space craft it seemed a bit contrived, I have to agree. I wondered what all the long curving spines were supposed to be for.