Star Trek

Last Friday, I went to see the movie of the moment: Star Trek. Despite being an out and out geek, I'm not a big fan of Star Trek. I've seen a few of the big screen adaptations of Star Trek before now, and they tend to leave me cold. My personal *favourite* is Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Not because it is any good (it isn't), but a film about portly TV stars standing around in the pajamas talking about something called V'ger endlessly makes me laugh. Of course, it makes me laugh for about two minutes, then I get bored. Which is a real shame, because that film goes on for a lot longer than two minutes, without ever picking up the pace. In fact, if that film was any more slow moving, I think that the cast and crew would have had to retire (again) before the final reel. Mercifully, this new version of Star Trek wasn't like that.

It zipped along quickly, and never really required too much concentration. It didn't take itself too seriously, and accepted it was a sci-fi film that ultimately boils down to the good guys whupping the arses of the bad guys. There was none of the endless, trite moralising that - for me - makes so much of Star Trek unwatchable. 

Plus, the two lead characters - Kirk and Spock - were actually interesting to watch. Spock was an angry, anal character - determined to be cold and logical, whilst actually being far more emotional that he wanted to let on. Kirk, in this film, was hilarious to watch - he really was a grade-A cockbag, who manages to get up to being Captain despite being a violent, drunken stowaway with a serious attitude problem.

The film also did some work to tie it in with the continuity of the original series, and the concept of parallel universes (as well as giving an explanation for the presence of Leonard Nimoy) made sure that no-one could complain that it was departing from the original series - the very point of the story meant that the continuity of the film had to depart from the continuity of the series. Plus, there were concessions to people like myself who don't much care about the continuity of it all, but want to see the cliches up there on the big screen. And we had them - the red shirt dying on a mission to Vulcan, Kirk copping off with a green skinned woman and the various catchphrases.

It wasn't perfect; no film is. Scotty was underused - and quite why Simon Pegg would allow himself a Jar Jar Binks style side-kick is beyond me. Chekov was a complete cliche, right down to the godawful accent, and it was a little too much to tell us about the childhoods of Kirk and Spock. There is probably a market for Star Trek: The Difficult Teenage Years but I'm not sure whether it was best placed in this film. 

Yet for me it was a triumph - it was a great Friday night, Hollywood blockbuster. And as such, it was a perfect evocation of the original series. Yeah, some fans will attack the irreverence of this movie, but they forget that - for all of its messages of inclusion and peace - the original series of Star Trek was also about entertaining people. After all, this is the series that gave us The Trouble With Tribbles...