Well I say review, it’s more what I like to call a nerd-gasm. Lots of thoughts generated from the film, loosely connected.
Excellent in your face start with the Narada tearing Kelvin apart. And that kind of seals the deal, with what is to come. They're changing the timeline. Kirk's dad being killed in action, Kirk growing up rebelling against his stepdad (Greg Grunberg's voice), and subsequently rebelling against everything else.
However they still keep elements there, things we want to see like how the characters meet and develop their relationships
But still adding little new details to flesh out the Star Trek canon.
Kirk beats the Kobayoshi Maru by changing the programme, we knew this, but now we learn that Spock wrote it.
And nice character interplay with Kirk chasing Uhura, only for us to learn that Uhura is seeing Spock.
Bones effectively gets his nickname from his early comments to Kirk about his divorce.
Karl Urban plays McCoy perfectly, I never felt it strayed into a parody, he kept it real.
Same too for Pegg with Scotty, so much danger of a parody, but he played it perfect.
Infact the only evidence of parody at all was Kirk himself in the Kobayoshi Maru, really hamming it up like Shatner.
That or when Chief Engineer Olson goes the time honoured disposable red-coat way of dropping too far straight into the beam - oops...
They got the classic lines in there, but woave them so well into the dialogue, they were delivered organically, again completely removing the chance for parody.
Bruce Greenwood I have always found a pleasure to watch, effortless acting, he is so undervalued by Hollywood.
Chekov was funny, Sulu works so well even without the deep voice. Uhura is sexy again. Also did you notice her roommate is Rachel Nichols who was in JJ's Alias..
JJ also sneaks in his childhood friend Greg Grunberg as the voice of Kirk's stepdad, we know Greg as Parkman on Heroes, but lest you forget he has been in JJ's other projects - Felicity, Alias, What About Brian, Lost and even sneaked him in on MI3.
Did you spot Akiva Goldsman. I still maintain he should have been publicly flogged for Batman Forever and Batman & Robin, though he went a long way to redeemed himself with Da Vinci Code and A Beautiful Mind. Well Akiva has been writing some episodes for JJ's Fringe recently, so ta-da, JJ stuck him in as a member of the Vulcan Council!
Let's also not forget that Simon Pegg is a member of the JJ Abrams alumni, he was in MI3!
Paul McGillion, Dr Becket out of Stargate Atlantis. He's auditioned for Scotty, lost out to Pegg. But JJ recognised that he wanted to be in the film, so gave him that small part on the hangar deck.
Oh, and William Morgan Sheppard as the Vulcan Science Minister, I love's me a bit of Sheppard, back from the days when he was the Professor hologram on SeaQuest DSV.
JJ also got one of his favourite plot devices into the film, a huge gelatinous red sphere, this time as Red Matter. He loves those big balls of red. Alias had loads of them, in the Rambaldi devices they would keep finding balls of red liquid suspended in mid air.
The music from Michael Giacchino fits perfectly, and helps drive the story along. Though I swear the music used when Kirk is born and dad carks it (called Labor of Love on the soundtrack) just sounds like it came out of the sadder moments from Lost. There is clearly no doubting on this piece of music that MG does the music on Lost. He introduces a new Star Trek theme, a nice little hook which echoes throughout the film's score, it's nice and subdued, it could have gone horribly wrong, but he pulls it off well.
So now finally, what was wrong with it?
You might have noticed a name missing. The weakest point for me sadly, and oddly, was Zach Quinto. Yes, he looks 100% as you expect a young Spock to look. And his acting is great, he delivers the lines perfectly. It' s his voice, the pitch is just too high, kinda spoiled it for me.
Also they missed a trick for the fans. Anyone who's read Countdown the prequel story to the film, would know that Geordi LaForge designed and built the Jellyfish. So when Spock asks the Jellyfish computer for its origins, it simply replies that it was commissioned by Vulcan Science Academy. Ok, so the Vulcan's probably paid for it, hence the commissioned, but a nod to Geordi would have got a few smiles in the crowd.
Starships going into warp. JJ Abrams thank you thank you thank you...
We've finally got rid of that bloody TNG elastic-effect. Much better having the BSG style bolt noise and gone.
What's up with red matter? One single drop opens a blackhole, destroying an entire planet in like 5 minutes
Yet a great massive boulder of the stuff still takes 5 minutes to wreck the Narada? Surely those drops should of landed on crew members and made them implode on themselves?
Ok then what comes next, who knows? Paramount have shown huge faith in JJ by letting him blow up Vulcan, the timeline is fresh from here in, they can do whatever they want. Have to admit, I would never have risked betting money on Paramount being willing to let JJ splinter the franchise off like this. It's a clean slate gentlemen, with the odd bit of tinkering from an old Spock, where do we go now?
