STAR TREK: HOW TO REVIVE A SCI-FI FRANCHISE IN THE 21 ST CENTURY

STAR TREK: HOW TO REVIVE A SCI-FI FRANCHISE IN THE 21 ^ST CENTURY

Star Trek. Those two four letter words mean so much to a massive group of people. Star Trek: The Original Series was a three season, low budget, show created by visionary Gene Rodenberry and starring William Shatner as the charismatic, and slick, Captain Kirk, a sort of “space cowboy” captain, Leonard Nimoy as the selfless, cold, composed, and calculating first officer Mr. Spock, and DeForest Kelly as the Captain’s close friend and chief doctor not a magician of the U.S.S. Enterprise. The series chronicled three years of the Starship Enterprise’s five year mission, the many adventures of the Enterprise crew making all of the characters and cast eternal cultural icons. Star Trek spawned a massive fan base, and a legacy that would continue for decades producing Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, and Star Trek: Enterprise. The Quality of Star Trek series had been rapidly declining since the death of Gene Rodenberry, and many believed “Trek” to be dead forever. Until the franchise was revived in 2009 by a most unlikely messiah of science fiction- the mesciah- the man who redefined the science fiction genre with original TV series such as LOST and Fringe, J.J. Abrams.  Abrams 2009 revival, entitled, rather simply, Star Trek, broke hallowed ground and went where no director had gone before among the Star Trek fandom with its flashy effects and fast paced Star Wars-esque storytelling. J.J. and his sci-fi team quite literally took a defibrillator to the franchise and approximately one-thousand lens flares later produced the most successful franchise revival in the history of pop-culture.

            Let’s start by looking at what makes Abrams Trek so different from the other Trek films. J.J. Abrams is very publically a bigger Star Wars fan than Star Trek fan, so it’s only natural that his Trek would reflect it, right? WRONG… mostly. The similarities between Star Wars and the 2009 revival are very much a conscious decision on the part of the Abrams team, Abrams recognized the difference in Star Trek’s TV series and the successful space adventure films of recent years and concluded that a modern sci-fi audience would be more accustomed to the fast paced zooming and zipping of a star wars style space battle. In other words, 2001: A Space Odyssey, wouldn’t cut it with today’s viewers, Abrams knew that he was going to need a more thrilling style, and if that meant throwing out all physics of space, then so be it. Specifically in the action shots, Abrams fought to have silent space throughout the entire film, unfortunately silence on screen doesn’t play well, audiences don’t feel as if they are truly watching a finished product, and Abrams didn’t want old women asking they’re trekky teenage sons if the speakers were broken, so he made the space silent by comparison, there are still sound effects in the space scenes, but you don’ hear them because they come after loud explosions. Another pace decision Abrams mad was the radical idea to have constant lens flares throughout the entire film, it gives the feeling that there is always something happening just out of frame, and keeps the film alive even in dramatic close-ups or during expositional monologues, and it allowed the cerebral dialogue of classic Trek to play surprisingly well against the attention-deficit pace of today’s culture.

            Abrams Trek was groundbreaking for many reasons, but alternate timelines have happened in Trek before, the most courageous thing the film does, is to sit a new man, Chris Pine, down in the captain’s chair. Pine was mostly unknown before Star Trek. He plays onscreen as a Harrison Ford as Han Solo type, with the storyline of a Luke Skywalker (see? more Star Wars) Abrams early cannon divergence (the death of George Kirk, James’s father, on the day of his birth) allows Pine to play a Kirk that didn’t grow up in the shadow of his father’s greatness, always wanting to be a starship captain, instead this Kirk has total disregard for authority and has to be talked into joining Starfleet by Capt. Pike, and only when Pike is captured and Spock is emotionally compromised is Pine finally advanced to Captain of the Enterprise. That arc is ever so important to the future of the franchise. Directly before becoming captain Kirk meets Leonard Nimoy as an older Spock from the prime timeline, the one with Shatner, on an ice planet (not unlike George Lucas’s Hoth),where Spock Prime assures Kirk that he must become captain of the enterprise. Nimoy’s appearance in the film alone is a blessing. Kirk is eluded by the captain’s chair throughout the entire film to this point and it is only after Leonard Nimoy appears and essentially says “I’m cool with Abrams and lens flares and Chris Pines ridiculously noticeable roots, so all you Trekkies have to be too.” It is something that no one else, not even Shatner could have provided and it is the single reason that not a single fan of the original series has questioned J.J. Abrams or his decisions regarding Trek.

The entire cast does an amazing job, Quinto makes Spock his own with the classic Vulcan speech and yet strong emotional undertones. Pine masterfully delivers a bad boy attitude while keeping a strong and assertive tone of a true Starfleet Captain. Zoe Saldana as Uhura makes the lieutenant the strong female she always has been as well as giving her a fierce streak of backhanded remarks and animosity towards the captain. Karl Urban absolutely kills it as Doctor McCoy his eyebrow is unlike any other, and he is certainly the most physically resembling of all the cast to their originals. Simon Pegg as Scotty keeps you laughing the entire time, and just makes me happy when he’s on screen. John Cho as Hikaru Sulu fills George Takei’s shoes nicely and proves that he can play more than just comedy.

A well-executed revival of the most successful American Sci-fi franchise by J.J. Abrams makes fans happy, it makes me happy, and I believe it would have made Gene Rodenberry happy too. I look forward to seeing more from Abrams franchise revival, maybe after he goes off and gets all the Star Wars out of his system in 2015.

 “The future is bright, so bright, in fact, that it can’t even be contained in the frame.”

- J.J. Abrams regarding lens flares

Review: Monsters University

I liked Monsters University, maybe it wasn't as good as the first one, but it was still a very good movie. Pixar in general has issues with making sequels, I believe that is because a lot of the humor in a Pixar film comes from the initial wit of the concept, toys that are alive, rats that can cook, and of course big snarly beasts that clock in and out ever day. That concept itself is one of the things that makes Pixar films so appealing, they very clearly acknowledge the humor in the concept and use it to fuel the jokes and ultimately propel the story. Having said that, I think that "Monsters University" manages to build upon an already strong ground in the world of "Mosters, Inc." and for this I commend them, the universe of he first film certainly had many more jokes to make and opening that up to a college environment helped in that way. The story was weak, though, as it was very predictable, Mike and Sullivan are shown very early on to have strengths that compliment one another's weaknesses, so of course they'll end up working together. When you add in that this is a prequel about two people who ultimately become best friends, there isn't much to tell. I feel as though the writers wasted what could have been a strong b story, that is the Randall story. Randall begins as a similar character to Mike, same ambition and attitude, maybe not as smart, but scarier for sure. As the film progresses Randall becomes less and less interested in Mike's friendship as he becomes a "popular monster" and a member of the esteemed fraternity "Roar Omega Roar" . There is a lot of potential there to set up the eventual rivalry between Randall and Sullivan or the bully relationship between Randall and Mike, a bit that I believe was wasted in the film. Overall I was impressed that the film was able to amuse me as much as it was, the "scare cards" being a running gag was amusing to me, as it reminded me of the Captain America cards from "The Avengers". "Monsters University" did a good job keeping the Pixar spirit alive and was a nice use of a sequel to kill time before "The Good Dinosaur" scheduled for release next year. Although I groaned at some of the jokes, it was nice to be transported back to the world of the "Monsters, Inc." that I loved so much as a child, and have been wanting more of ever since.