Loved It!

We saw the new Star Trek film yesterday.



It was great. I was riveted to my seat. Kirk and Spock were excellent. I especially liked the brash young Chekov and Sulu. McCoy looked too old to be a cadet and seemed uncomfortable in the role. Scotty somehow looked fey (he even had a leprechaun pal) and not the stern, no-nonsense engineer we've come to love -- although he did a good Scotty imitation.

The effects were, as expected, fabulous, the ships looked opulent especially when compared to the original series we've been watching where the sets are obviously cardboard and paper mache. Did the plot make sense? Of course not. This review covers all that.

As enjoyable as this film is, it's not without some clunkers.

The most jarring were the prominent product placements. Inexplicable as well as jarring was Spock's emotional response to the blandishments of the beautiful young Lt. Uhuru. He even smirks a little when Kirk, who's had his eye on her, looks surprised. Speck's entire raison d'être is his purely logical persona. Are we to believe that was an act?

A bit of comedy at the end -- the elderly time traveler Spock in conversation with himself as a young man doesn't give his customary greeting because it would be self serving.

Speaking of the end, I waited through all the credits. They went on and on -- there must have been at least a couple of thousand people who worked on the film and as usual I feel proud when I read the names of all these fellow Americans, male and female, representing probably every nation in the world.

The very end was a short tribute to Gene Roddenberry and Majel Barrett, his wife.