453: Star Trek

[00:00:00] 160. Let's get to the Star Trek Kelvin timeline trilogy. Star Trek, the first one, came out in 2009. It is directed by JJ Abrams. Stars Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Simon Pegg, Leonard Nimoy, Eric Bana, Bruce Greenwood, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, John Cho, Anton Yelkin, Winona Ryder, Chris Hemsworth.

[00:00:26] The list goes on. And the snops is the brash James T. Kirk tries to live up to his father's legacy with Mr. Spock keeping him in check as a vengeful Romulan from the future creates black holes to destroy the Federation one

[00:00:41] planet at a time. So I think we maybe talked about one of these movies over the years at some point but not really. We haven't done a lot of Star Trek stuff on the show. Getting right into it though, I'm a big

[00:00:56] Trekkie. I love Star Trek. I love Star Wars too but I also love, really love, Star Trek, the show and the movies. This trilogy specifically, I don't even really remember when this first movie came out. I just didn't have much interest. I

[00:01:12] wasn't even really aware of Star Trek at the time so it went right over my head and was actually the last one that I saw of the three. And I'm pretty sure that the only reason I even got into Star Trek is because my

[00:01:26] whole family wanted to go see Into Darkness because of Benedict Cumberbatch who was really blowing up at the time and we all loved him. So we're like, alright cool, hey he's in this new sci-fi movie, it's Star Trek, let's go. And I end up

[00:01:38] being like, this movie's awesome. And that kind of got me interested in the whole world. But this movie, I've seen it three times I think all the way through. It is by far my least favorite of the three. And I think it's a decent origin story.

[00:01:54] It has a good ability, and J.J. Abrams is good at this, of bringing sort of the old and the new characters and ideas and locations all together and meshing it as one for a more accessible film. And I like how those characters are introduced and

[00:02:13] you meet Bones and Captain Kirk and actually not only that but the casting of this series is pretty spot-on. I think everybody in this movie and who would go on to be in the others, but really the core recurring group in

[00:02:30] the series, very solid. And even the more minor characters like Zoe Saldana, amazing, she's such a really sci-fi legend. I mean you look at Guardians of the Galaxy, this, Avatar, like she is amazing and I love her in this. Zachary

[00:02:47] Quinto, I don't think I'd seen him in anything else and I haven't really seen him in all that much since but I like him whenever I do see him. I think he's very very good as Spock. Pretty as close to Leonard Emoy as you could get.

[00:03:04] Chris Pine, perfect. And I really am glad to see that he has gone on to really grow as an actor. He has such a good variety, he can be really funny, he has good dramatic emotional range as well. So I love Chris Pine in general.

[00:03:21] RIP Anton Yelkin, of course. But while all that is good, I think that's all very sturdy in how it sets up everything, there's just something about this movie that I find to be kind of dull. I still like it, don't get me wrong. I still would

[00:03:39] give it a decent rating for sure, but compared to the other two I don't know what it is. Maybe if I had seen this one first I would feel differently, but watching it now and you know repeatedly, so I just feel like it's really hard to

[00:03:54] get into. I feel like I'm really struggling with the pacing. It's not too long but I feel like I'm kind of dragging through parts of this movie and really actually the worst thing about it is the look. I think this movie looks

[00:04:10] terrible and the special effects are fine. Like I don't really have an issue with how they hold up. Fine, I think that's not an issue, but visually just from an aesthetic perspective I think it looks gross. Like the color palette, it's

[00:04:26] this really murky dark bluish gray. The production design and costume design to me looks cheap. It's almost how in the first Avengers movie if you go back and look at the costume design, the production design, not very good at all.

[00:04:43] I understand it's the first movie, they don't know if it's gonna be a hit, and so they're like alright well let's put the focus on the most important things that are gonna keep people. I get that, you know is what it is, that's fine.

[00:04:55] But now having this whole franchise and other films like it and etc etc this movie looks so bad in my opinion. Even from the first scene where you see Chris Hemsworth pop up randomly. So that's something I try to get past every

[00:05:13] single time I watch it and especially seeing where they go with Into Darkness and Beyond aesthetically, there's almost no comparison there for me. And I would love to hear what you think, let me know on YouTube or on Bandcamp wherever it is

[00:05:26] that you're listening to this. I would love to know what you think of all that or just these movies in general so please let me know. But that's something that really brings the movie down and keeps me just inherently, because it's

[00:05:37] all the time, it's the visual style of the movie that keeps me engaged and excited less because I just I'm like ah this movie ah really kind of gross. Sorry if that's mean but that's just how I feel every time.

[00:05:53] However one savior of some of the visual style is I do appreciate that JJ Abrams does as many practical things as he can, especially when it comes to character design and makeup. I think all the designs of characters, the prosthetics

[00:06:08] on their heads and all that stuff, I think that stuff is awesome still and it's great in all three movies. So I do fully appreciate and really enjoy that part of how the movie looks and how characters are within a scene but it's

[00:06:22] everything else that that doesn't. But besides that some specific scenes I like where Kirk first meets Bones, they see Spock in the courtroom or the conference room whatever that place is can't remember. The beam me up scene

[00:06:40] classic. So I mean there are some good like classic Star Trek elements if you are a fan of those that you probably get a kick out of. I did even though I knew what beam me up was and all that stuff even before I was really invested in

[00:06:52] Star Trek or really experienced with Star Trek lore. And probably the best part of the movie that also looks the best I would say as well is the ice sequence with Spock and the ice creature all that stuff is

[00:07:06] that's where it really gets some good emotional and character development that I really like and I really remember a lot more than most everything else in the movie. The scene where Spock meets Spocks, the young and the old, that's

[00:07:20] classic I love that. And the other one that I think of usually is where Spock and Kirk get into a fight and Spock loses his cool as is not customary with his species so I think all that it adds you know you see those breaks in the

[00:07:38] characters and them trying to figure each other out and themselves out so it does have that well-rounded everybody's just trying to work together and mesh so I think all that works a lot. The score is also pretty good and

[00:07:55] I'm still glad that this one exists I just struggle with this movie every time and it's not one that if I'm going back to watch a Star Trek movie or if I'm in

[00:08:07] the mood for Star Trek this is not gonna be the one I'm gonna pick. I know some people really really like this movie over the others I'm the complete opposite but it is just sort of there for me it's not terrible it's not

[00:08:21] amazing it just does the job. So that one is a light three and a half out of five