Subscribe!Star Trek 90210?
I’ve been a Star Trek fan since my late teens - yeah, it took me a while; I never liked Original Series Trek, and the lack of commercial TV stations where I grew up kept me away from Next Gen until I moved away for University. Naturally, I’ve been eagerly anticipating JJ Abrams’ foray into the franchise; I may not like everything Abrams does, but he’s a talented and capable storyteller (and hey, at least he’s not Joel Schumacher or Brett Ratner).
So, I’ve watched the new trailer (now with an extra scene near the end) several times, and I think it’s … interesting.
Obviously, it’s going to be a very pretty movie; the principal cast is all young and attractive, and the battles look most impressive:
The set design is stylish and appealing:
And the technology is sleek and modern, without looking too futuristic:
However, I must confess to a few reservations, mostly cast-related. They all look so young:
(See this image from EW for a picture of the bridge crew, and you’ll see what I mean.)
I realise that the film starts out with Kirk as a Starfleet Academy cadet, and much of the movie’s action focuses on Kirk as a young, somewhat rebellious man. However, the whole thing just feels contrived; a deliberate effort to appeal to teens and early-twenties audiences. Unless the film spans a lot of time, either it can’t end with Kirk as captain (which would be rather a downer for a franchise reboot), or it’ll jam him into the captain’s chair at a ludicrously (and credibility-defying) young age. There’s also the possibility of time-travel-related shenanigans, of course, but it’d take an incredible script to make you believe the whole movie’s a retrospective.
And there’s Abrams’ take on the franchise, of course. From this October EW article:
”All my smart friends liked Star Trek,” he says. ”I preferred a more visceral experience.” Which is exactly why he accepted Paramount’s offer in 2005 to develop a new Trek flick; creatively, he was engaged by the possibility of a Star Trek movie ”that grabbed me the way Star Wars did.” That meant a bigger budget and better special effects than any previous Trek film, plus freedom to reinvent the mythos as needed.
…translation: we’re looking at Star Trek: The Action Movie. (Which is what the trailer suggested to me, mind you, given the focus on explosions and fight scenes at the expense of any kind of plot or intrigue.)
Abrams made his perspective clear: ”We weren’t making a movie for fans of Star Trek,” he said. ”We were making a movie for fans of movies.”
Between comments like these, the action-centric ‘visceral’ approach, the fact that the trailer displayed more overt sexuality than the entirety of the franchise to date, and the cast full of Hip Young Things, Trek fans really need to remember: this ain’t your mother’s Star Trek.
Whether or not it’s a fun movie in spite of that - or perhaps because of it! - remains to be seen.