Star Trek leaves reviewer both unfazed and transported

Humble, ordinary Jane Q. Movienerd has reservations about J.J
Abrams’ Star Trek.

She can’t fathom the considerable expense poured into such a chintzy
relic, and she never paid much mind to the original series, for which
this movie is a prequel. However, she regularly goes to summer
blockbusters in the hopes that the film will transport her away from
the nauseating hoopla surrounding it. Iron Man, The Dark
Knight and Watchmen managed to do this, so why not
Trek?

The doubts about Trek linger in her mind and eventually
articulate themselves into larger annoyances that Jane has about movies
in general—that reboots and re-dos are now a constant in her life and
that attempting to revamp a flagging franchise is considered a genuine
artistic risk for a director on par with pursuing original material.
She is galled by the irony that Christopher Nolan, The Dark
Knight‘s director, made this so. She believes that unoriginal
material is crowding out everything else in the limited space of her
local movie market. “No one values originality anymore!” she fumes.

But maybe, Jane thinks, she is being hyperbolic and narrow-minded.
Shakespeare and Chekhov are dusted off year after year by the gifted
and the talentless alike and no one questions it. Those stories provide
templates and inspiration for brilliant directors and writers. A fan of
lush, literary pieces, Jane doesn’t believe in “definitive” adaptations
because she thinks that each attempt is a time capsule of the valued
aesthetic and influences on filmmaking at a particular moment. Is Jane
being hypocritical when she champions the perpetual slew of Jane
Austen-inspired movies, while pooh-poohing the Lazarus-like raising of
long-dead sci-fi series?

So Jane decides to look for an escape, transcendence and a worthy
companion for two hours of her life. During Star Trek, as many
things drag her out of her reverie as pull her back in. She admires
that the script is totally character-driven but realizes that this is
at the expense of the plot, a forgettable jumble of time warps, black
holes and renegade Romulans.

Spock, played by Zachary Quinto and Leonard Nimoy, is the stand-out.
That Vulcans are equally impassive and strictly logical creates an
interesting quandary for Quinto’s half-human, younger Spock. His
emotional, human side has not reconciled itself with his stoic, Vulcan
side. The elder Spock has come to terms with the duelling pressures of
his psyche and Nimoy plays him with a dignity and regality.

Star Trek was enjoyable enough for Jane, but the younger and
sexier versions of Kirk and Spock are evidence that, for Hollywood,
anything is now up for a remake. Jane was always a Star Trek: The
Next Generation fan and can’t think of anyone other than Patrick
Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard. “Some nerd probably thought the exact same
thing about Kirk,” Jane realizes. “These decisions are made independent
of what I want.” Jane only goes to movies, what she sees isn’t up to
her.

This article appears in May 14-20, 2009.