Star Trek was first screened in 1966 but the series only ran three seasons.
Ten years after the axe Paramount brought Star Trek back but this time on the big screen as they had seen the huge success of Star Wars and wanted their own sci-fi movie hit.
Star Trek: The Motion Picture was an expensive big budget film and cost $35m dollars to make and would become a worldwide box office hit. Paramount sliced the budget for future sequels.
Six films were made with the original crew of which the last was Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.
Generations featured Kirk but many were unhappy at the ending of that particular film.
There were four next generation films made with the last being released in 2002.
The increasing budget costs of the movies meant that less was being spent on the production and more was being spent on the actors salaries.
The budget for Star Trek: Nemesis was $60m dollars but well over half of that was paid to the actors. As it stands Nemesis was a financial flop at the box office.
In 2005 Paramount started initial work on finding a director for the next film.
J.J. Abrams the creator of the hit television shows Alias and Lost was brought on board and his vision was an expensive one. Abrams wanted to make a fast paced trek movie that would combine elements of the trek universe with the faster pacing of a Star Wars movie.
This movie features younger versions of the original sixties crew and the story tells us how the crew were formed before they started their five year voyage to discover strange new worlds.
The trailer was such a hit with audiences that Paramount decided to hold the film back from it's original December 2008 premiere and instead release it during the blockbuster summer season.
Some of the music featured in the trailer is from Freedom Fighters and it's called Two steps from hell – Down with the Enterprise.
Film Plot
A Romulan mining vessel arrives from the future intent on destroying the federation, onboard is Captain Nero who believes the federation are responsible for destroying his family and his homeworld Romulus.
On Earth the USS Enterprise on her maiden voyage is dispatched by starfleet on a rescue mission after receiving a distress call from the planet Vulcan.
The Captain of the Enterprise is Christopher Pike.
Dr "Bones" McCoy uses his medical discretion to get Kirk onboard after he is suspended for cheating on a starfleet test. The Enterprise arrives at Vulcan to find destruction and Nero awaiting them.
Positives
The Star Trek universe has been given a facelift and looks better than ever. The CGI visual effects work is superb and enhances the onscreen story.
The writers have been clever enough to retain the things which made the series work so well but have upped the pacing and cut down on the technical talk that sometimes bogged down the older films and the result is a faster paced movie and a fresh feel to the movie franchise.
The opening battle scenes were fantastic
I loved the humor in the bar scene before Kirk signs up to starfleet.
Other highlights of the film included seeing the Enterprise being built on Earth and the space jump to the Romulan drill action sequence. I also enjoyed the alien creature chasing Kirk on the ice planet and the final battle sequence was hugely entertaining.
I felt there were five actors who really did a fine job here. Chris Pine who plays Kirk, Zachary Quinto as Spock. Bruce Greenwood as Captain Pike, Zoe Saldana as Uhura and Karl Urban as Dr Leonard "Bones" McCoy.
Urban had some fantastic dry sarcasm in his lines which reminded me so much of of the way DeForest Kelley played the character. Quinto is the spitting image of a young Spock and really gets into the mind of the character. Chris Pine takes over the role of James T Kirk and just makes it his own.
I think Zoe Saldana really brought something new to the table with her portrayal of Uhura and she shone whenever onscreen. It was also great to see Captain Pike onscreen and many will remember he was the original captain in the pilot episode The Cage back in the sixties.
The image quality on display was excellent and very film like.
Some scenes had intentional softness which was part of the original photography and black levels and skin tones were very good.
I spotted no issues at all. There was a very fine layer of film grain and a good detailed image.
Sound quality was very good with dialogue coming across clearly and all the speakers got a good workout with constant use of the surround channels and reasonably good levels of deep bass.
I think that not many people will complain about the sound mix on this film.
The director of photography loves his lens flare and it is used often in the movie and i feel it works well and was a good choice. Direction by Abrams is assured and he actually got some advice from Steven Spelberg about shooting action scenes for this movie. The advice paid off and the action scenes are well directed.
Negatives
I think the character of Nero needed more scenes to establish his character and they should have left the Klingon prison sequence in the movie but you can see that in the deleted scenes section.
I thought Nero had weak dialogue and we needed to get into his head more and i am surprised they managed to get Eric Bana to play him considering how little time they devote to him and i just felt they paid a terrific actor to play a badass villian but didn't give him anything in the way of great dialogue.
I felt they could have slowed down a little and some scenes were rushed and over too quickly.
The first shot of the Enterprise in space is an example of this.
That first scene with the Enterprise is one where i felt they could have added a rousing music score and given us some more of the ship and created a slightly more epic feel to the proceedings.
I understand the need to tie in with the original series but i felt the end music score was a mistake. I feel they should not use the original music score at all as to me it actually came off a little cheesy.
I felt the sound mix was very good but the bass extension could have been deeper. A little more lower end grunt in the bass department and maybe a few more split surround scenes would have made me happier.
I actually felt the music score was good but could have been more epic in nature. The trailer music had more of an epic feel to it.
Final Thoughts
The film gets more right than it gets wrong. Some minor gripes about Nero and about the pacing which i felt was sometimes too rushed.
I enjoyed the film and there are many references to the original series and to some of the films. For example when we first come across Scotty there is a clear container with a tribble in it.
We get to see Kirk cheat on the Kobayashi Maru test which was first referenced in Star Trek II.
The planet Delta Vega is a homage to an early episode from season 1 of the original series and we get to see a red shirt character die which was often seen in the original series.
The communicators and weapons also clearly took much inspiration from the original series.
It was fun to see Captain Christopher Pike who was a likeable sympathetic character and once again we get a reference in this film to what happened to Pike in the original series.
I feel the decision to take the series into a more action packed direction is the right one but i still feel they neglected their bad guy with this film and should have expanded more upon Nero.
The film was hugely entertaining and it keeps your attention and i think this film will appeal to those who normally would not watch a sci-fi movie and thus i highly recommend it.
Technical Disc Specifications
Releasing Studio – Paramount
Film Running Time – 126 minutes
Disc Format – BD-50
Encoding – AVC ( MPEG 4 )
Film Aspect Ratio – 2.40:1
Blu Ray Resolution – 1080p/24
Audio Format – Dolby True HD 5.1
Starring Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban and Bruce Greenwood
Directed by J.J. Abrams
This is a region free release
Film Entertainment Rating – 9/10
Transfer Quality – 9.5/10
Sound Mix – 8.5/10