...To boldly go back to the future

In his review of Star Trek, Roger Ebert protests the direction of the franchise:

The Gene Roddenberry years, when stories might play with questions of science, ideals or philosophy, have been replaced by stories reduced to loud and colorful action. Like so many franchises, it’s more concerned with repeating a successful formula than going boldly where no “Star Trek” has gone before.

I don't know that I'd go quite so far as to say the new Star Trek cares only about "loud and colorful action" (though there's certainly plenty of that). And I did enjoy the film, quite a bit. But I couldn't help feeling that the story itself was a bit... shallow. The plot—evil Romulan from the future wants to blow up lots of planets; fresh-faced but familiar starship crew must stop him (with some help from a certain time-traveling Vulcan)—is pretty simple, once you get past the temporal layers. In an essay for Religion Dispatches, Nathan Schneider bemoans the simplicity of new villain Nero compared to more complex foils like the post-Cold-War Klingons of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. There's not much to this character beyond his desire for revenge, and the film seems to know it: toward the film's end, when the Enterprise has defeated Nero, young Kirk shows the villain mercy, offering to transport his crew from the doomed ship and give them medical help. There's an all-too-brief exchange between Kirk and Spock on the wisdom of offering assistance to the Romulans, but it's cut short when Nero rejects the offer. Kirk, with an apparent sigh of relief, orders the Enterprise to open fire on Nero's ship: so much for mercy, and so much, too, for exploring revenge versus forgiveness. It feels like a bit of a scoff at the way that Star Trek has approached philosophical and moral issues in the past.

The story isn't that deep—but that doesn't mean Star Trek is without depth. What's most interesting here isn't the story they're telling, but the mechanics of how it gets to be told in the first place. Contrary to what you may have heard, this is not a prequel. The Kirk in this film is not the same Kirk from the original series. Owing to the time travel plot, this is an alternate universe, with its point of divergence occurring at the time of Kirk's birth. This is an ingenious approach to the fact that this is a franchise with an established mythology, and a fan base that is notoriously attentive to the details of that mythology. Since this is a parallel universe, any inconsistencies (and there aren't many) can be explained by that divergence. Indeed, this doesn't negate anything that has gone before, so you can't really call it a "reboot;" they've just copied the operating system onto a new machine. 

Moreover, the mechanics of the setup open the door for some consideration of free will, even if the film doesn't give that consideration quite as much attention as it might deserve. For instance, future-Spock (or "Spock Prime," as the credits would have it, implying some DC Comics influence) orders past-Kirk not to mention his existence top past-Spock, lest foreknowledge of their friendship spoil its development. That turns out to be something of an empty warning (witness the on-screen meeting of the two Spocks later on), but it is a sign that there's a bit more going on beneath the surface here.
(Over at In the Open Space, Carmen Andres has some more thoughts on free will in this Star Trek and in Nemesis). 

Of course, all of the above is in willful neglect of what Star Trek really gets right, which is the characters. Everyone gets a moment to shine here, a chance to prove why they're the best at what they do. Not only that, but the catchphrases, when they appear, don't even feel contrived. These characters are in good hands, and I'm looking forward to seeing where next they boldly go. 

Comments

[Scott Ferguson]

"Since this is a parallel universe, any inconsistencies (and there aren't many) can be explained by that divergence"

Inconsistencies cannot be "explained away" by time travel. You get a lot of hand waving but in the end you are likely left with only arbitrary plot twists.

I agree that the characterizations were enjoyable. However in an alternate reality what the hell does it matter? These aren't the Spock and Kirk from the series, remember, so the producer can do anything to the characters he or she wants. You lose something essential to the series and characters when Uhura and Spock have a romantic relationship. And snogging on duty?

As to divergent time paths, I got the impression that the Federation was intimately familiar with the Romulans - to the point that Uhura was familiar with all three dialects. In the real series the Romulans were a poorly understood if threatening civilization when Kirk-prime encounters them in the Neutral Zone. Would a single Romulan mining ship, apparently staying out of sight - no one in Star Fleet seems to know of Nero's existence - change the time line to the point where Romulans are so familiar? I am not buying that one. It feels like the producers wanted to include a Romulan bad guy and figured all the fans knew about them so it didn't matter.

[Gabriel Mckee]

There's a difference between "explaining" and "explaining away." But, as I said, there aren't many inconsistencies-- even McCoy's divorce (which I was sure was invented) was intended to be mentioned in a TOS episode (the subplot eventually got cut, but the Okudas site it as de facto canon).

As for what any new characterization matters-- it matters for what comes next. I don't think anything, essential or otherwise, has been lost. The old episodes and movies are still there; you can watch them if you like, and this movie doesn't say they "never happened." (Though NONE of this ever happened, of course...) It's like Marvel's Ultimate line-- the main universe still exists (though new stories will be in mostly non-filmic media); the new playground has a different tone, but is aiming to rescue the spirit from the growing weight of the letter. After all, if any future Trek movies required their audiences to know everything that has gone before to know what's going on now, those audiences would dwindle pretty quickly.

As for the Romulans, first contact occurred a full century before the events of this movie, complete with a big ol' war. That's plenty of room for linguists to learn the dialects. (Though, on screen, they're all speaking English anyway, right?)