Does anyone else get a bad feeling about any of this?
I mean, OK, it's got that nice 'n' shiny, slick, touchy-feely, see-your-stubble, expensive feel about it ....... and then what?
Even that nice 'n' shiny, slick, touchy-feely, see-your-stubble, expensive feel is inherently troubling. By overextending with extraneous details, they have not merely gummed up the magical Trek mythos, but actually regressed it:
1) A curved window with internal reflections is a poor "improvement" on a flat, unreflecting viewscreen. I'm sure that that's going to be a big help in tricky, think-fast situations. "Wait, what is that Bird of Prey doing? Oh, it's .... AARGH! Sulu, turn your f*cking console off. I just got blinded, again!"
2) Deep-hued, lycra-based uniforms give the illusion of progress, but they are also a step backwards from the pastel-coloured cottons of the original uniforms. The new uniforms are harsh and cold, while the odd are warm and inviting. Because he's employed newer fibres, I'm sure Abrams thinks that he's "updated" Trek, but he clearly isn't aware of artistic concepts like subtlety and understatement. The old uniforms implied higher technology that was mimicking older, more familiar fabric for psychosomatic comfort, while secretly possessing new, vastly beneficial properties (such as improved heat insulation, greater tensile, non-ripping strength, biometric field generation etc.).
Just two examples of how bone-headed this jazzed-up version is. The bridge itself is also a major eyesore: gaudy, unrelenting, in-yer-face. British posters will know what I mean when I say it reminds me of walking round the high street chemist "Boots".
Then there is everything else, which may be uniquely summed up by the new "Empire" promotional shot (hence my posting in here). Not only is the lighting in the 40+ year old photo of Shatner and Nimoy ten times better, not only do Shatner and Nimoy have more defined faces with vastly better skin tone, not only was the photo taken from a more compelling angle with Shatner and Nimoy looking up, but the older actors themselves simply convey their personalities, and, hence, their characters, and the series they represent, better. Who was it, pray, who told Christopher Pine (haha!) and Zachary Quinto to lean against each other like lovers, rather than commander and confidante? So, so, so stupid.
And that's this Trek endeavour in a nutshell, I feel. 'Course, I could be unkind and rip on 101 other things -- like the casting, like the use of CG, like the villain (Nero? F*cking NERO???) -- but maybe I shouldn't. Then again, maybe these people shouldn't be meddling so egotistically, needlessly and pathetically with something beyond their combined powers of conception. The villain is a brilliant example. He just seems like exactly the sort of 2-bit antagonist, serving the purposes of exactly the sort of 2-bit action-adventure format, that Trek has been heinously dumbed-down, and more or less killed-off, by. Gee, this is gonna be a swell motion picture.