Monday, May 11, 2009

Star Trek Brings You Where No Other Trek Movie Has Been Before

Here it is the review to one of the most anticipated summer movies – Star Trek.
Before I start this review I just want to say that I’m not a Star Trek fan. I’ve seen the other motion pictures and only a few episodes of the original TV series. Needless to say I went into this movie not knowing much about the universe and because of that I might of like things more than a Trekkie would.
First, this is one of the greatest prequel/reboot movies I’ve ever seen (up there with Batman Begins). It has enough humor, action and story to fill another Star Trek series and this is a great thing.
The movie restarts the Star Trek franchise, by telling the story of the U.S.S. Enterprise’s maiden voyage with its young crew.
We are soon thrown into a rivalry that is threatening the fate of the galaxy. It doesn’t help that James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) and Spock (Zachary Quinto) are clashing at every moment. Yet, they need to overcome their differences if they want to save Earth and go boldly where no one has gone before!
That’s as much of the story I’ll get into; I don’t want to give away any spoilers.
I know a lot of you will most likely praise J.J. Abrams (Creator of Lost and Director of Mission Impossible III) for the success of this movie and he did a great job but we really have to give a lot of credit to the screenwriters and actors.
Roberto Orci (Wrote: Mission Impossible III and Transformers I and II) and Alex Kurtzman (Eagle Eye) penned this script and the story in my opinion is well balanced. I know there are some people saying that the plot needed to be retooled, but honestly it solid and it works. There is parts of the story that will make you go “what the hell” but I’ll explain that in the spoiler area.
William Shatner is nowhere to be seen and I really didn’t miss him. The new cast is great, they’re able to deliver on the humor and pull off emotional scenes without being stiff (Yeah, I’m looking at you Star Wars Episode II). They all revive these characters and make them fresh and new again.
SPOLIERS START
If you don’t want to read anything that will spoil the movie for you, please pass this section.
The biggest problem I have with the movie and its story is the black hole and the giant romulan drill. I know your not suppose to think about real science when watching a science fiction movie, but I couldn’t help myself.
The scene that I want to discuss is the one where the Romulan ship lowers it’s mining drill over Vulcan. The drill then blasts a powerful beam to the surface, which drills all the way down to the planets core.
If your like me you have a habit of watching those shows on the end of the world a lot and black holes and such come up.
Planets, like Earth and mostly every other planet, usually have thousands of kilometers in radius. Now if you try to drill a hole to the center of the planet, problems would occur when the pressure of the overlying rocks collapse the hole.
Remember a cubic meter of rock weighs between 2 to 3 tons and you would have a lot of cubic meters of rock (It’s in the billions). With all that it would constantly collapse the hole and you would never get anywhere. And even if you got through the rock you now have to go through fluid and that’s not going to be any easier.
Now after they drill the hole, the romulan’s throw in a substance called red matter. This triggers the formation of a back hole, causing the planet to collapses into itself.
Everyone knows that a black holes need mass to create and if that mass came from Vulcan that’s a big problem because mass compresses and when it does it gets really hot (Millions of degrees). That heat creates X-rays and various other types of radiation that will sit on the event horizon. It will then prevent any more mass from falling in, so a long story short if they did create black holes this way – the end result would most likely be a very, very small black hole.
So all the Trek science might bother some, but I can forgive them. I mean if you don’t know anything about black holes you’ll just go with it and that’s what your suppose to do.
SPOILERS END
After watching this movie and liking it, it still doesn’t make me want to go back and revisit any of the old Star Trek stuff or even completely watch the old series. It does make me interested in seeing this franchise continue on the track they’re on now and hopefully the next movie will get even deeper with the characters.
That’s another flaw and at this point I know I’m nit picking, but I don’t think that the movie was able to fully explore every character well. Kirk and Spock are the two characters that get the treatment this time around and the others just fall into the plot as the movie goes on. So, yes in the sequel I would want them to develop the other crewmembers better.
In the end the summer movie season has only started and we now have the movie to beat. There is some things that you’re going to have to turn your brain off for but that’s a small price to pay when you’re given a action-packed thrill ride.

A-

1 comment:

A smart guy said...
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