Star Trek Review and a note on the Geek Revolution

Let’s get this out of the way first: All hail JJ Abrams, king of the geeks. Except for Mission Impossible 3, the man can do no wrong and some would even argue that MI3 was passable given the luggage Cruise brings along. Felicity, Alias, Lost, Cloverfield, Fringe, and now Star Trek, the man just keeps the hits on coming. As an acknowledged geek, there is no one working in Hollywood today who gets my juices flowing faster than Mr. Bad Robot. Star Trek was to be the moment where the hero failed; after all can you really re-launch a franchise without pissing off the legions of hardcore fans. Yet once again, JJ has defied expectations creating a film that appeals to everyone and still leaves room for old school and new school sequels. Without spoiling too much, the script finds a way to exercise all the years and years of muddled Trek continuity yet still leaves the door open for Shatner, Stewart and even Bakula to find work again in the Federation. I love that when Spock explains this to Spock (no typo there and if you didn’t know that spoiler then you missed every ad for the last six months) JJ even throws in a dig at the time travel logic Lost uses.

While I don’t consider myself a Trekkie, I’m certainly well versed in the universe including a love affair with The Next Generation from college right up through First Contact, but I certainly wouldn’t consider myself hardcore. That being said, I can’t imagine the hardcore folks being upset with what JJ has done. Here he’s injected a fresh set of ideas and a fresh look into a world that was becoming obsolete. The best part is that he’s done all this with the same characters more or less and lot of that credit goes to the actors. A lot of buzz has gone to Zach Quinto for his Spock and while I thought he was wonderful I thought Chris Pine was the real surprise. He had the swagger and the cockiness but also brought a real edge of self doubt. I wanted to cheer for him not because he was Kirk but because he was an endearing lead character. The rest of the cast seemed to follow Pine and made the characters their own. John Cho, Zoe Saldana, and Simon Pegg really seemed to make Sulu, Uhura, and Scotty fresh new characters and not characterizations. However Anton Yelchin’s Chekov is over the top and probably the weakest part of the film. Speaking of weak, we all know how weak the Trek villains tend to be but Eric Bana really gives Nemo a chance to star here. While the villain still gets shorted on time, Bana makes the most of what he has and falls just short of Khan territory. Throw in all the tech wizardry and the updated art direction and you’ve got an early front runner for best picture of summer 2009.

Now a quick note on the Geek Revolution. I have enjoyed the rise of geekery into mainstream culture over the last few years. Shows like Lost, Heroes, and Fringe have been embraced on TV. Other shows like 30 Rock and The Office celebrate the geek as well. Star Trek opens to boffo box office numbers and Harry Potter still reigns supreme two years after the last book was published. At times though, I long for the days when geeks didn’t have to compete with everyone else for a collectable glass or a decent seat in the theater. My partner and I went to a 7pm show for Trek on Friday and arrived a good 45 minutes early with our pre-purchased tickets expecting to find a few Trekkie early birds. Instead, we found a packed theater that required us to sit about six rows away from the IMAX screen. This made me long for the days when only geeks would line up ahead of time for their badge of honor. I know pop culture is cyclical and I’m guessing this will pass and my kid-to-be will be lucky enough to experience teasing and wedgies if he follows my geeky path. In the meantime though I got to say I’m getting a little tired of the revolution and the negatives it brings like packed theaters, slap dash sequels (Indiana Jones), unnecessary geek remakes (GI Joe), and pseudo geek shows (The Big Bang Theory, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles). Geekery will live long and prosper but I’m beginning to hope that the Geek Revolution soon feels the icy grip of the Vulcan nerve pinch.