Star Trek (2009) DVD Review

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been arguing the finer points of Star Wars, and even been mocked for my love of Star Trek; I should clarify that when I say I like Star Trek, I mean I love Star Trek; first episode I ever watched was The city on the edge of forever, and that was it – I was hooked. It’s the single episode that turned me onto the idea that I might just have a good imagination; as I grew, so did my appetite – I feverishly read as much science fiction and fantasy novels as I possibly could, all the comics I could lay my grubby little hands on, until finally I reach this point in my life…A 32 year old man child with a massive desire to work in media instead of any kind of random, everyday job that a normal man might be happy with. My desire for more, my hunger to use my imagination in a creative way came from Star Trek.

It was in that spirit that I paid to see every Star Trek film from the day I was old enough to do so, watch every series no matter how dire it got, dutifully lapping up every tale Brannon Braga, Ron Moore and Jeri Taylor could come up with.

It was this same love, this same yearning for a decent story that kept me in the theatre during the abject failure that was Star Trek: Nemesis, because I loved Star Trek; I loved the universe in which it resided, even more so than Star Wars or even Flash Gordon or Superman, and I kept hoping for the spark of Brilliance that I had seen so many years ago with Gene Roddenberry, and continued through Deep Space Nine and The Next Generation; the thing is, it never happened. The franchise faltered and got old as it was tirelessly squeezed for every penny it was worth, until even I was finally forced to ask if it was worth prolonging the life of the show – was it better to be left with all the fond memories I have thanks to Star Trek?

Paramount, or more pointedly Viacom, I assumed weren’t all that interested in breathing new life into the franchise, in doing something drastic to a 40 year old drama science fiction show – regardless of how much cash flow it generated. I am happy…No, overjoyed to report that I have never been more wrong in my life, and will gladly do so.

Chris Pine – James T. Kirk
Zachary Quinto - Spock
Leonard Nimoy – Spock Prime
Eric Bana – Nero
Bruce Greenwood – Captain Christopher Pike
Karl Urban – Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy
Zoe Saldana – Uhura (as Zoë Saldana)
Simon Pegg – Scotty
John Cho – Sulu
Anton Yelchin – Chekov
Ben Cross – Sarek
Winona Ryder – Amanda Grayson
Chris Hemsworth – George Kirk
Jennifer Morrison – Winona Kirk

Review

The Film

The key to the new Star Trek is that they’ve done pretty much the same thing as they’ve done with Doctor Who; they’ve updated it for the MTV generation, made it cleaner, given it a soundtrack that, while extremely modern is every bit as passionate and brilliantly orchestral as the late and much missed Jerry Goldsmith; they’ve kept the basic look, but consulted apple on the consoles of tomorrow, and Microsoft for the operating system – They’ve kept the look of the old costume, but asked someone who went to design school how they’d update it – and it all works. And when I say it works, I mean it works uncompromisingly well.

What’s even more interesting, is when you come to realise from the extras on the disk just how much of the production was good old fashioned practical photography and physical effects – old school techniques using forced perspective, mirrors to cheat us into thinking that Kirk is skydiving through Vulcan’s orbit…Even the enterprise itself isn’t a set, it’s a Budweiser production factory, and again, amazingly, with a little bit of dress it all works. The thing that always bothered me about the original Star Trek was the assumption of how clean everything would be by the 22nd century, but Abrams lovingly brings us back down to earth, and reminds us that as humans, and especially for those engineers out there, you’ll never be able to purge the grease monkey, and that the engine room will always be a gritty place where you get dirty, grimy and sweaty.

Even the location sets fit; Star fleet academy is no longer an imaginary stage set, but an actual university – a Budweiser plant doubles for an engine room and a building site for the Enterprise herself, and Vulcan is the same set they’ve been using to fight everything from the Gorn in the original series, to mysterious aliens in the somewhat popular television series Roswell. I simply can’t stop gushing about how simple, but how brilliant this film is; how much I love the fact that someone from a new breed of Hollywood directors has opted for good old fashioned, hands on cinematography with anamorphic lenses, as opposed to doing everything with the way overused green screen. This film in my opinion should be offered up in classes as an example of how you make a film that seamlessly blends practical and digital photography with maximum effect.

Going beyond the expectations of being your average popcorn film, this becomes something quite beautiful when you sit down and really, really notice the warmth and grain captured on the film. Ironically, I think you appreciate it even more on Blu-ray, but is still one of those rare films where your enjoyment isn’t diminished by what kind of DVD player you have.

The Plot

To clarify, the film has a comic that presents some back story to the events in the film, which make for interesting reading; it’s the 24th century, and Romulus is in peril; a star in the Romulan system is about to go supernova and threatens to destroy the planet, and in desperation Spock turns to the science council on Vulcan for help in the matter, as they have something that can help – red matter, in fact. It turns out that a small drop of this red matter can cause a black hole that can absorb the energy from the star, and thus save Romulus. The problem comes in, however, when the science council refuses to aid their Romulan cousins until its far too late to achieve anything.

As a result of this energy blast, Nero, a Miner that had previously befriended Spock, and Spock Prime himself are sent back in time through the energy blast which propels the Romulan mining ship back in time to the period just before Kirk is born. Almost immediately Nero sets about changing the future to benefit Romulus by destroying a federation ship that happens to contain George Kirk, his wife and unborn child – Jim.

The whole story is propelled by loss, from the tragic villain of the story, Nero; driven mad by the death of his own wife and child, to that of Kirk himself never knowing or really being influenced by his father – in fact I would say that one of the ways Abrams has changed the storyline from the original, is that Pike is now a mentor and father figure to a young Kirk, as opposed to merely being the first commander and friend in the original 60’s TV series.

The Cast

All you can really say to the cast is that they work; some, I never would have thought of in a million years, but they work. From Zoe Saldana as Uhura, to Anton Yelchin as Chekov – Abrams has gone for a kind of “compromise universe” where not everything looks the same, and the cast is one notable area. The real gem of the film in my opinion is that of Karl Urban, who gets pretty close to the sail as far as an impression of DeForest Kelley goes. Zachary Quinto is a pretty awesome choice for the role of Spock but honestly seems a bit bored or even tired sometimes…Even the choice of Chris Pike as Kirk fits, and I was absolutely chuffed to see him pinning down more than a couple of Will Shatner’s mannerisms to accompany his performance – as with the rest of the production, the overall idea of the film is not to change, but to update and refine, and for the most part, it works.

The only casting decision I didn’t think made sense was that of John Cho as Hikaru Sulu, but given that his involvement in this instalment was very minimal, it’s easy to overlook because he hasn’t really had a chance to shine; I’m hoping a second installation of the franchise reboot will remedy this, as well as give us more screen time for the irreverent, ever brilliant Simon Pegg.

The Verdict

Overall, it’s a DVD worth having in your collection. More so than say, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. It’s been interesting this year, as there have been a lot of popcorn films, where you can check your brain at the door and enjoy the film to compete with, but it manages – as a film it’s far more entertaining than Transformers 2 was for me, and while it had a decent plotline, it wasn’t pretentious enough to try and make it sound as intellectual as Bay tried to. The only criticism I have about the film really is the box it comes in.

The DVD

The DVD comes in a range of 3 – 1 disk, 2 disk and Blu-ray edition, and all of them frankly have the same cover; this is where it lets it’s side down, because all it is essentially is a white box with Star Trek” Emblazoned on it. Saying that, play.com have a nice line in an exclusive steelbox edition – one including a 4gb memory stick, and one standard 2 boxed set in a 3 disk steel case (bluray) that I think, if you’re going to go with the whole white thing, looks far more aesthetically pleasing than its plastic case counterparts is well worth the investment. It punches in at a fairly hefty £35.99 compared to the usual fare of £17.99 though, so if you’re going to buy it, be really sure you like your star trek.

The DVD itself is actually really nice; the disks are nicely printed, and the menus for, at least the DVD version which I prefer are very slick and well designed; easy to navigate, with a few sound effects that might get annoying for someone else if you happen to decide to walk away and make yourself some popcorn. However, the features are where it comes into its own. Admittedly sparse in terms of what’s there on the standard edition, they are nonetheless entertaining, and really give you an appreciation for the film and the director, as they run through the decisions made about location, shooting, the usual saying absolutely nothing but nice things about the director – but in this case, I think I might actually believe them; the cast all seemed to be genuinely happy to be working there.