Review: Star Trek

The original Star Trek series aired from 1966 – 1969, cancelled after just three season after Executives decided the show was ”Too fucking camp and awful, even for the 60s”.

It was rumoured that during this era the President ordered Apollo 11 to be launched into space to find aliens and kill them, so that ”…we didn’t end up like those queers on Star Trek…”. Halfway through their mission, the crew of Apollo 11 ran out of fuel and had to land on the moon.


Star Trek garnered a cult following in the decades that followed, mainly from stoners sitting around their apartments eating breakfast cereal at three in the afternoon, mesmerized by shit like this:



The cult fan base reinvigorated the franchise, and a series of films were released, as well as an animated series, and four more live action series. The accumulated total of the Star Trek machine is Ten films and 716 television episodes. Fuck me.

I had mates who were huge fans of the later series (Next Generation, etc), but it was never for me. Star Wars had always been my Sci-Fi diet. Star Wars was a bunch of greasy loveable space rouges zipping round in battered space ships shooting at bad guys. Star Trek was a bunch of prim and proper officers, flying around in a sterile Dentist’s office of a spaceship on diplomatic missions to go discuss politics and shit with anal retentive aliens.

Star Wars was that room-mate who would bring home a pizza and a six pack after work and play Mario Kart with you. Star Trek was that room-mate who bitched at you for not doing the dishes.

The production values always shit me as well, or rather, their lack of them. Star Wars was creating magic with such hard work creations as Chewbacca or Jabba the Hutt. Creatures you knew for damn sure were from another planet, not human in anyway. The Star Trek design crew were the laziest mother fuckers on the planet, their makeup process seemed to involve flicking a tea spoon of latex onto the actor’s face.

Five ridges on the nose, Voila! We have an alien!


Four ridges on the forehead, BOOM! Another alien!...though we almost blew the entire special effects budget when we gave her that perm :(

Still, the make up from Deep Space Nine and Voyager was state of the art compared the original series. They're special effects for aliens consisted of rounding up Football fans and putting them on the set:



As you have probably surmised, I’m not too fussed about Star Trek. So why did I go see the new remake you ask? Four reasons:

1. JJ Abrams was directing, and I’d liked other stuff he had been involved in (Lost, Cloverfield)

2. I’m quite fascinated by reinvention – and that seems to be all the craze these days in Hollywood, take a well trodden franchise and just start over again from the beginning. It worked wonders with Batman and James Bond, and all of the new Horror remakes are raking in the cash too. Why not do the same with Star Trek, after all the last two films tanked at the box office, and the last TV series was cancelled too.

3. Fuck Star Wars. I used to adore that shit, then that bearded cunt George Lucas came and finger fucked my childhood dreams with that prequel nonsense. I can’t even watch the original trilogy, knowing in the back of my mind that Darth Vader is really that lifeless cocksucker Annakin. I’m willing to give the new Star Trek a shot.

4. There is a cinema literally a block from my house, and during this absence from Alcohol, what the fuck else have I got to do?

So 580 words later, let’s start the fucking review already.

I’ve watched fuck all of the original series, but know enough of the characters from bits and pieces over the years (mainly from Futurama and Family Guy). I found the casting choices for the remake to run the entire gamut of experiences.

There was the inspired casting (Zachary Quinto does a decent Spock), the intriguing casting (of a no-namer for Kirk - Hey! It’s that guy from Princess Diaries 2!), the obvious casting (flavor of the month Brit Simon Pegg to play the Scottish dude), the mildly insulting casting (we need a Japanese guy to play Sulu. Know any Japanese actors? No? Fuck it – get that Korean guy from Harold and Kumar) and the just plain wtf casting (Spock’s mum is….Winona Ryder!? LOL WUT?).

It’s actually quite fun to see such a fresh faced bunch of kids take over, last time I saw the crew of the Starship Enterprise they were all a bunch of wrinkly old fools.

The general story line is that the current crew of Starfleet Academy are called into action early to deal with a problem on the planet Vulcan, only to bump horns with a pissed off time travelling Romulan who has a beef with Spock. Along the way, you are introduced to the legendary crew of the starship Enterprise.

There seems to be a shitload of action as well for a Star Trek film, bar fights, sky diving, shoot outs. If they were trying to get the You-Tube generation interested, I think they will succeed with this film.

One problem with the script, is that they really force that whole “Destiny” malarkey onto you. JJ Abrams worked with writers he had known through other projects, and it really has his fingerprints all over it.

They really push that whole ironic set up, whereby the crew of the Starship Enterprise weren’t meant to run it, but were destined to run it.

The head pilot is sick, so an under-experienced Sulu takes the reigns. The Communications officer can’t speak Romulan, so Uhura (who just happens to be in the room) is given the role. The ship’s doctor is killed, so McCoy takes over. Kirk is found to be a stowaway, and so is made the second in command (!?). I swear this whole paragraph of explanation occurred in under five minutes of screen time. Exposition on red Bull.

The characters already have history with each other long before the ship leaves Earth. Kirk met Uhura in a bar the night before he boards the Cadet shuttle, a shuttle in which he just happens to sit next to Dr McCoy, a few years later Kirk bumps horns with Spock at the academy.

It’s that “Fate” nonsense where people just happen to bump into integral characters on a daily basis, characters that will play important parts in their future. Just like in Lost, where flashbacks show that the passengers of Oceanic Flight 815 ran into each other dozens of times long before boarding the plane.

It’s a glaring flaw in an otherwise fun movie – the script relies so heavily on coincidence.

For me, the low point was when Kirk was exiled to a completely barren ice planet. He leaves his shuttle and an hour later stumbles into a cave, where – holy shit – he just happens to stumble upon a really important character, one who offers vital information to the plot. They both wander 10 metres through the ice into a Starfleet outpost where – holy shit – they just happen to stumble upon ANOTHER really important character (a future crew member), one who offers vital information to the plot. It’s the kind of Deux Ex Machina bullshit they pull in Lost all the time. Lost is a show I enjoy, but there is much that shits me about it, and certain plot devices aren’t worth emulating.

But for all of this plot berating, there is much to like about Star Trek. I enjoyed most of the characters, and most of the action is quite exciting. There are shout outs to the original series, my favourite reference being Kirk trying to knock the back out of a green chick (Shatner was such a slut). The film indeed lacks a little substance, but it will entertain you for two solid hours and makes for a decent cinema experience. A shitty script, but a good film – if that makes sense.

I give Star Trek a score of 2 out of 3 Total Recall boobs.

If anything, I’m a damn sight more interested in the next Star Trek film (2011) then I am of any future Star Wars projects. Eat shit Lucas.