I Have Been And Always Shall Be Your Friend

SPOILERS follow

Everyone who knows me knows I'm a Star Wars baby, but during that long period between Jedi and 96/97 when Episode I finally started to become a reality, I was still a space geek annd Star Trek was where I got my fix. I saw the movies, the TOS reruns in the afternoons after school, but it wasn't until The Next Generation that I really got into it. I love astronomy and space ships, so Star Trek more than Star Wars appeals to the Dude-I-Want-To-Be-An-Astronaut side of me (plus there's actual characters). Star Trek also inspired me as a writer; I still remember reading interviews with Michael Piller in the original Star Trek Communicator about the process of writing. He spoke sometimes about 'zen writing', an idea that non-outline writers like me love because things seem to naturally fall into place. You discover something in your story as you write it, and you come away not only with the joy of discovery, but the feeling that really, that's how it always was.

That's how this new film feels.

When it was first announced J.J. Abrahms was taking over the franchise, I had my doubts. Not about him; I love just about everything he does on TV. I didn't know that Star Trek had any life left in it, especially after a good decade or more of aimless banality. The only place to go was back to the past, and the risks there are obvious. I can say now that not only did he succeed my wildest expectations, he absolutely obliterated them. The film essentially goes back to Kirk and Spock - back to their very births - and starts over fresh. However, the it's not a rehash of what's gone before because history has been changed by a Romulan named Nero who is whisked back in time. Nero is tattooed and angry and takes it out on a spaceship that happens to have Kirk's dad on it. Kirk's dad dies, and it's the first of MANY things that zig where they should have zagged before. The film manages to honor the past - Leonard Nimoy appears in a scene with the new Kirk, Chris Pine (instant star) that recalls so many good moments from the past, and erases so many of the bad - and also chart a new path. The film clearly establishes that Nero's actions have created a new timeline - an alternate one - and things will not proceed normally.

This all seems obtuse to a non Trekkie but really, it's an ounce of the film. The rest of it is a hilarious, blistering action romp that is more like Raiders or a New Hope than any other Trek film. The movie consciously echoes A New Hope in several ways - the farm boy hero; the looking at the suns like looking at the Enterprise moment; the destruction of a planet by a big ass spaceship; the bar scene - and none of them seem to try to shrink the ethos of Trek to that of Wars. Trek can be what it always has been - optimistic, outward looking, fun - and still be wall to wall adventure. This is a great achievement for Abhrams and a joy for Trek fans who may have feared that there never would be any more 23rd century joy.

The Great:

They built the Enterprise in Iowa. In Riverside. For a boy from Iowa who dreamed of space growing up, that is the single coolest thing in the history of cool. They still never would have gotten it off the ground though.

The casting is perfect. Pine, Zachary Quinto, Simon Pegg - Jesus, Simon Pegg - and most of all Karl Urban as Bones not only pay tribute to actors no one thought replaceable, they prove the characters are not.

Zoe Saldana.

The Kobyashi Maru. "I... understand."

The upside down skyscrapers on Vulcan.

The pipeworks engineering section of the Enterprise. Hey, remember when it was a cardboard room with a chair?

"I have been and always shall be your friend."

The emergence of the Enterprise from Titan.

The Enterprise. Still love the 'A' version the most, but this thing is gorgeous.

The jump to the drill.

The set of the Narada - the most unique set I've seen in a long time.

The music - outstanding, big and epic.

The sound effects are simultaneously original and throwbacks, and generally iconic. The Enterprise always sounded like an ocean liner going by before; now it sounds like a supersonic train so fast you barely hear it at all.

Go see this. Several times. Like I will.