Spoilers abound and all that, so if you're worried about having the plot revealed to you before you've seen the movie, best to stop reading now. That said, this post is geared towards those who have already seen the movie, so if you're not familiar with the plot and the characters, you're likely to have little to no idea what I'm talking about.
Let's get the praise out of the way first: I've seen the new movie three times now, and I love it. It's exciting, it's funny, it's an all around fun movie. I thought the casting was excellent; the characters were faithful to their origins while still managing to be new and exciting. Zachary Quinto's Spock has an edge to him and plays up the "half-human" angle, and I'm excited to see that Uhura actually has a personality. There are plenty of little in-jokes and tidbits that, as a Trek fan, I quite enjoyed. The CGI looks spectacular, and the space battles are visually stunning, to say the least.
This is not to say that the movie is without flaws. The villain, Nero, is underwhelming at best, and I think when it comes down to it, it's because he's boring. Which is sad, because there's so much potential here for a truly interesting character. This is a man who has seen his family, his planet, nearly his entire race destroyed in an instant; then, he's forced to wait 25 years to exact his revenge upon the man he deems responsible. Somehow, Nero is transformed from a simple miner to a survivor bent on revenge to a genocidal mass murderer, yet the audience witnesses none of this. Revenge is not new to Star Trek; we see Khan overcome and eventually destroyed by his desire for revenge in Star Trek II, and Captain Picard battles his own inner demons in First Contact. Nero certainly had the potential to be a great, tragic villain in the spirit of some of the great Trek stories, but this potential is never realized.
Which brings me to another point: this whole movie is filled with what feel like missed opportunities. This movie has the opportunity to deal with some very heavy issues, including revenge, genocide and torture, but they all feel rather incidental to the plot rather than being fully made central to it. I felt almost no emotional impact from the destruction of the entire planet of Vulcan; and as for its aftermath, we see none of it beyond a quick shot of a handful of Vulcans being patched up in the Enterprise's sick bay. It's implied that Captain Pike is subjected to torture at the hands of the Romulans, and this is certainly a timely issue; but the audience is treated to nothing more than the stereotypical stiff-upper-lipped military officer reciting name, rank and serial number. Confronting complex issues is something that has been at the very soul of Star Trek since its creation, but I'm not sure this newest installment has been able to capture that.
Finally, let's talk about physics. I'm willing to forgive a lot in a Star Trek movie. I can deal with sound in space because it makes things more exciting. I can deal with things like shields, warp drive and transporters, because their workings are kept relatively vague while still having underpinnings loosely rooted in real science, or at least potential real science. What I can't deal with is a movie that misinterprets presently well-understood science, and which furthermore can't even keep its own science internally consistent. How can a black hole be a threat to a planet but not a starship? Except when it is a threat to a starship, as seen with the destruction of Nero's ship? And ships can't escape the blackhole... except when they can. And why all this drilling nonsense? A blackhole should be just as destructive when dropped onto the surface of a planet as it would be at the planet's core.
And of course, none of this is to say that I won't be buying this on DVD the instant it's available.
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