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Just got back from Quantum of Solace. Obviously, I saw the Star Trek trailer, and I have to say that it looks good.
No, wait, let me rephrase that: It looks good. The Enterprise looked good, the cast looked good, the warp effect looked good, even the brief glimpse of the transporter effect looked good. But will the movie itself be good? Well, the jury's still out on that, as far as I'm concerned.
This movie fell prey to the same editing snafus as the recent Watchmen trailer. Anything of substance was cut down to a few seconds, to heighten the mainstream flash while skimping on the fanboy meat. That said, there are still a few glaring errors.
First of all, the Enterprise. Why the hell is it being built on solid ground? How are they getting it up in the black? Oh, and it's glaringly obvious that the Enterprise will be completed during the course of the movie, which likely means that Pike will be the first Enterprise captain instead of the second. It's a minor detail that only a fanboy would care about, but you'd think it'd be important when the movie is all about how the fucking thing began!
Next, the sexuality. When I heard that they were sexing the franchise up a bit, I figured that there would be a few chaste cut-aways with maybe a bit of shadowplay. Now, let's be honest. Kirk was getting laid every other week and Uhura was always a character with beauty and brains in equal measure. Besides that, it's been confirmed that a few Orion slave girls will appear in this movie, and you don't need hardcore Trekkie credentials to know that there's only one thing Orion slave girls are good for. So, I hear that Abrams and crew might be pushing that envelope a bit. Not unreasonable, I thought. But then I saw Uhura take her top off in the trailer and it's not some view in shadow from the back. She keeps her bra on, but it's fully lit and from the front. Granted, the trailer was cut in such a way that it might look like a bigger deal than it really is. Still, I've got to question the judgment on this.
Finally, there's Abrams himself. I barely know anything about him, so I can't comment on the strength of his resume. However, I am familiar with Lost's reputation for bringing up an endless number of secrets and clues with few resolutions, if any. After seeing Fringe since its inception, I can see a similar trend arising. Same goes for Cloverfield. This leads me to assume -- tentatively -- that Abrams is a storytelling hack who turns plot holes into cliffhangers by leaving them unresolved for stretches of time. I'd be happy to be proven wrong. Also, Fringe and Star Trek are both written and exec produced by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (who, remember, did brief rewrites on Watchmen). I've come to respect the pair for all the fan service they did during the production on the Transformers movie. I've gone on record defending them in this very forum. But if Star Trek crashes and/or if Fringe goes nowhere, I will take back every nice thing I ever said about them. Ditto for Abrams.
Long story short, I just don't know. The movie will undoubtedly look good, but I don't know if it's what the Trek franchise needs. After next May, the franchise will either reclaim its throne as a force to be reckoned with or it will crash and burn worse than ever before. I'm not seeing a lot of middle ground here. Unfortunately, even if it does tank, it still won't be enough to crash Abrams' career, and that's the greatest injustice of all.
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I always loved that one.
