I'm sorry, but I'm rather disappointed by this. All the preview material let me think I would like this.
Welcome to the Meh-sayer's Club, est. Summer 2009. There's not many of us, but we're glad to have you all the same. Pull up a chair.
Yeah, feels weird to be on the other side now. I'm genuinely surprised most here seem to enjoy it so much. Watching it in the theatre I was almost certain the majority of people wouldn't like it. The three people I saw it with, however, liked it – all three of them being non-fans.
I mean, it certainly is a technically well-made movie. There's no question about that. Abrams knows how to craft a nice-
looking film. The effects are great, the pacing is nice and I enjoyed the music.
But the script is just all over the place. Dialog feels stilted, the plot and the succession of scenes are really disjointed (why the whole detour to Kronos, for example?), and I really got the feeling the writers have no desire whatsoever to portray the
Enterprise crew as professionals. I could forgive that in the first movie, as they were supposed to be young and inexperienced. Sulu not knowing how to engage the ship, Chekov not being able to formulate a clear sentence in English, Kirk always acting on his whims – I could live with that for the first movie.
But here we have Spock and Uhura – two high-ranking officers on the flagship of the Federation (or whatever) – openly showing that they're a couple, kissing on the bridge and quarreling while on one of their most important missions. Here we have Chekov making chief engineer for no reason whatsoever and constant insinuations that he's in no way up to the task. We have Sulu being afraid of taking command. We have Uhura essentially screwing up the proceedings with the Klingons. We have Kirk making more than one questionable decision. And we have Spock crying, quoting out-of-place catchphrases from previous movies, and yelling a laughable "Kaaaahhhhnnn!"
I'm sure they were thinking they were writing a clever homage to TWOK, but when you go so far as to just quote the lines and re-enact the scenes, it becomes really laughable. It's as if the writers think fans are only satisfied when we hear buzz words from previous canon. It's not a better movie because they call the fucking Klingon ships "D-4s". It's not a better movie because they throw in Section 31.
Oh man, the more I think about this movie the more I realize how disappointed I am. One thing I keep wondering is, if I would enjoy this more as a non-fan. I like to think my disappointment isn't just stemming from the fact that I'm a fan. I really want to accept new stuff, honestly! But I feel this one wasn't just bad because it's new and different, but because it's bad.
EDIT: One other thing, though: I loved loved loved the first 20 minutes or so. The mission on that planet with the volcano really felt like TOS to me, complete with Kirk bending the Prime Directive. Just another mission, like they used to have. It was really well-executed. I wish the whole movie would have been more like that.
