Boldly Going

By Evan Riddell
Western Herald

After 40 years of thinly veiled morality tales, techno-babble and a sunny outlook on the future, “Star Trek” joins the long list of series reboots to hit theaters.

Given Hollywood’s penchant for completely revamping classics with mixed results, the franchise’s notoriously rabid fans knew this could go the way of James Bond in “Casino Royale” or, as likely,
Inspector Clouseau in “The Pink Panther.” Although one promising factor indicates the former: J.J. Abrams, creator of television’s “Lost” and “Alias,” manned the helm of this potential blockbuster.

Buzz began for the project with a teaser trailer on Abram’s monster flick “Cloverfield” which announced a Christmas release, but Paramount pushed it back until summer for a wider release. When the first trailer arrived, audiences were wowed by massive effects sequences, an updated bridge and a lot of heated dialogue.

The trailer proved the film will be very different from the original series, on which the film is based. Despite original cast member Leonard Nimoy appearing as an aged version of Spock, the film resembles little of the campy sci-fi program.

Chris Pine (“The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement”) plays a young James Kirk, a farm boy who joins Starfleet Academy and ascends to the most advanced starship humanity has created, the
U.S.S. Enterprise. In a recent conference call, Pine described the young Kirk as “confident and arrogant,” but understood William Shatner’s association with the charismatic captain.

“There are certain things that are just characteristics of Kirk that happen to be the same from the original version to the version that I’ve done,” Pine said. He also took elements from Harrison Ford’s portrayal of Han Solo to distance himself from Shatner’s iconic portrayal of Kirk.

Looking the part of the Enterprise’s cold first mate, Zachary Quinto (“Heroes”) put on the pointy ears to play Kirk’s rival, the half-alien Mr. Spock, the first of his kind in the academy.

“In certain ways, he’s defined by his cultural makeup,” said Quinto about his character’s conflicted state. “I had to really connect to his circumstances personally so that I could make them my own.”
Most of the duo’s dynamics move the plot forward as the two struggle to understand each other, as Spock has yet to wrestle his emotions like other Vulcans.

Rounding out the crew as the vessel’s chief medical officer, Karl Urban (“The Lord of the Rings”) plays the gruff technophobe Dr. “Bones” McCoy. Simon Pegg (“Sean of the Dead”) plays Scotty, the ship’s chief engineer. John Cho ( “Harold and Kumar”) is Sulu, the ship’s pilot. Eric Bana (“Black Hawk Down”) is a time-traveling Romulan who acts as the villain for the revamp.

The trailer showed off more than the cast of believable replacements, and this “Star Trek” is going where no “Star Trek” has gone before; loud action scenes and dogfights like “Star Wars.”

While some may gripe about the capitulation of an intelligent show to popcorn fodder, everyone who had no reason to watch the six television shows and 10 previous films now has an excuse to be interested.

“Non-fans can look forward to the fact that there’s a movie that’s much more about relationships and characters and challenges than it is about planets and starships and aliens,” Quinto said.

Early reports from its opening at the Sydney Opera House (complete with a custom screen and sound system flown in) are positive, but with this summer especially chocked full of big movies, what will make “Star Trek” stand out against robots from the future and robots in disguise?

“It’s unique to the genre and it will be a breath of fresh air in such a time of conflict and war and economic crisis,” Quinto said.

“Star Trek” will be released May 8 to conventional and IMAX theaters.

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Posted by HeraldAdmin on Apr 20 2009. Filed under A & E. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

Cody Kimball
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