A socialist review of 'Star Trek'

[Dusty Ayres]

Yes, even socialists watch movies....

The last few years have seen a number of once-popular film or television franchises “rebooted” for the big screen. Batman, The Incredible Hulk, the James Bond films, Friday The 13th, and other successful series of days gone by have been reconceived and relaunched. These and other formerly lucrative properties are being recycled for the benefit of a new generation by the studios in the hopes of tapping into their profit-making potential. Along with everything else, the continual return to “used” (and re-used!) material demonstrates Hollywood’s remarkable paucity of imagination and inventiveness. The 11th film in the “Star Trek” series, simply entitled Star Trek, joins the fold by returning to the origins of Star Trek’s pop-culture mythology and showing viewers how the original “Starship Enterprise” crew of Capt. James T. Kirk, Mr. Spock, “Bones” McCoy and all the others from the television show (1966-69) first met.
The story concerns the early lives of the fledgling crew. A young Spock is put through rigorous tests of mental ability on planet Vulcan, while his fellow pupils treat him as an outsider because he is half human. On Earth, a young James Kirk steals a car and goes joyriding, nearly killing himself in the process.
The two eventually meet and clash at Starfleet Academy where Spock (Zachary Quinto) is an instructor and Kirk (Chris Pine) a brilliant but irresponsible student. Kirk’s daring and Spock’s careful calculating are, predictably, contrasted, and the personality clash between the pair becomes the central theme of the film. Just as predictably, Kirk and Spock will soon discover they need each other and are both “incomplete” without the other.
When a time-traveling Romulan vessel from the future arrives in Federation space intent on destroying Spock’s home planet of Vulcan along with Earth, Spock, Kirk and the untested crew of the starship Enterprise must pull together to stop them.
As with so many blockbusters of this kind, the majority of the creative powers at work have been focused on the special effects. Spaceships twist and turn, avoiding debris and the “phaser” blasts of their enemies. One recalls an alarming number of objects exploding. The screen is constantly filled with action, often too much of it to take in. At times this is suspenseful or exciting, too often it is simply incomprehensible.

Star Trek: Boldly going where no man has gone before, again

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Didn't Obama screen the movie? yuk-yuk

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

Yes, even socialists watch movies....

I know you're just taking a jab but a lot of theorists and critics of art in general were socialists, or Marxists. A lot of them based their criticism in Marxist Theory. Take for example the Frankfurt School, which was a "school" on the neo-Marxist critical theory of art. Among the theorists were Walter Benjamin, who wrote the famous critical essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction", and Theodor Adorno.

A lot of what is now cultural studies started with the Frankfurt School and Benjamin's essay.

See:
http://www.enotes.com/twentieth-century-criticism/marxist-criticism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxist_literary_criticism

Frankfurt School:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_School

 

[M'Sharak]

Yes, even socialists watch movies....

I know you're just taking a jab but a lot of theorists and critics of art in general were socialists, or Marxists.

George Bernard Shaw is one name which comes to mind.

Regarding the review which Dusty posted/linked: it seems to me to be a pretty straight-up review. There doesn't appear to be anything conspicuously socialist about its content or criticism. In fact, I don't know that there's anything contained in the review which would have made it stand out at all from the rest of the reviews we've seen if it hadn't been published on the World Socialist Web Site.

Didn't Obama screen the movie? yuk-yuk

Oy.