I wasn't born until 1983, so I've only heard stories from friends and their parents about the summer of '77. You didn't have to be a "geek" or a "nerd" or a five year old who loves CG to go see Star Wars.
Star Trek star Leonard Nimoy
Star Trek world premiere, Alamo Drafthouse, Austin, Texas, Leonard Nimoy in attendance, April 6, 2009. Images by David Hill, copyright 2009
From what I understand, the entire population of the United States saw it a hundred times and everyone owned a copy of Frampton Comes Alive! in those days. When I think of what I saw last night, I recall all those stories about how people kept going back to see Star Wars over and over again in '77.
With the help of a highly gifted and disciplined writing team, JJ Abrams has done what many considered impossible: he has truly opened Star Trek up to the masses. You don't need any sort of track record with Trek to jump on, have a hell of a time, and want to go again. They've gone one step further and created something that even the most die-hard fans can respect and roll with, much to the surprise of some.
I thought that I was taking my wife to a screening of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan where we were also seeing 10 minutes of the new movie. When we arrived at the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar, there was a security task force the size of which I'd never seen for one of these things. It looked like 12-20 people in suits ready to give us a thorough "wanding" before we went in.
I wanted to dismiss it as a reaction to the Wolverine leak. Friends told me "oh, I've seen that many before," but something was off. Another friend floated the idea we were unwittingly watching the new one, which others of us had thought as well. "Five weeks early? No way," said a friend. Thinking like a former publicity guy, I said, "how much more loyal of an audience could you get than people who'd come out at 10pm on a Monday night to watch Star Trek II?"
They could have shown this new Star Trek to a room full of the people who spent $72 million seeing Fast & Furious this past weekend and the reaction would've been just as huge. Different in nuance, but just as big.
Tim League
Star Trek world premiere, Alamo Drafthouse, Austin, Texas, Leonard Nimoy in attendance, April 6, 2009. Images by David Hill, copyright 2009
Alamo Drafthouse founder Tim League started us off as our emcee, nearly foaming at the mouth when talking about what he would do if anyone threatened the Alamo's piracy-free perfect record. He introduced Harry Knowles, who further amped up the crowd for what even he thought was going to be Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Then, the cat's tail poked out of the bag when he introduced Damon Lindelof, Roberto Orci, and Alex Kurtzman. All three are producers on the film (the latter two wrote it) and they "wanted to be here in Austin instead of Australia." Really?
Star Trek II started up. In a scene taken from many a Butt-Numb-a-Thon, the movie ran out of frame and burned out. Tim asked the Producers Three to take the mic and improvise while he figured out what was going on. A couple jokes about Lost later, and a gentleman with an unmistakeable silhouette slightly disguised by a coat and hat walked up carrying a film can. It was only Leonard Nimoy, who had a bit of fun with us and then announced that we were attending the film's true world premiere. Whoever organized this event deserves a raise.
Then we jumped right in to the new movie.
It opens on intense action with a score that resembles Terminator 2 more than space opera. Also missing are the long, dreamy titles over space used in previous installments. I could go on listing things that have been changed for the better, but I'd be typing until the movie opens. Suffice to say, the beast has gone through a complete transformation, and absolutely for the better. It had to change to survive. What's resulted is rooted in what the fans love, and celebrates it without trying too hard to live up to what some spent decades constructing and yet others have spent decades worshipping devoutly.
To use the source material but effectively start from scratch, the writers employed the plot device that has always done well by Trek: time travel. Time-traveling bad guys change the flow of history to the point that none of the established characters are the same as they once were. Different people than you remember live, love, and die. There's a marked lack of exposition for a long while. Then, Orci & Kurtzman get said what they need said and move on.
Bruce Greenwood grounds the movie early on in a scene with Kirk at a bar. Chris Pine puts his own spin on Kirk that faithfully captures what hotshots like him are all about at that age. There have always been smart, capable guys who do stupid things for the hell of it, wanting a direction for their life to drop out of the sky. Karl Urban "plays Southern" as Dr. McCoy more authentically than any European or Australian who's tried in recent memory. Simon Pegg steals each scene he's in where he opens his mouth, which is to say...every scene in which he appears. Everyone else is great, but I don't want to go on forever here. The Enterprise crew all do impulsive, stupid things, but that's what that age is like, isn't it? I'll add that Anton Yelchin is fine as Chekhov. Don't let early reports from footage screenings convince you his pronunciation "gag" ruins things. He plays it straight, and it worked for me as a speech impediment of some sort.
Star Trek has never been this visually dynamic. The camera work is full of lens flares, reflections, and focus effects that really sell the atmosphere as being less steady and...overly-tidy than before. You also have a more nuts n' bolts, gaskets n' pipes styled Enterprise, where the ship feels like a labyrinthine submarine merged with an aircraft carrier. The mixture of practical and CG alien and creature effects are also fantastic, with all kinds of new stuff never seen before in the franchise in terms of design or quality.
Star Trek is an unrelenting, slam-bang naval war movie that rarely catches its own breath, even to hold for laughs. Shades of swashbucklers and submarine thrillers alike are all over the storytelling and smash-bam-kaboom stuff going on throughout. It's packed to the gills with plenty sure to thrill people looking for escapist heroism with a healthy dose of optimism. There's plenty of room for interpretation for those who want to look for some allegory that is or isn't intended. The key is that Abrams and his team have bottled that '77 stuff of legend.
Looking at the rest of the summer slate, Star Trek is going to own the return business crown. They're opening at the beginning of the summer and they'll have legs even after other releases come out big and then subsequently drop off just as big. That doesn't even take into account the underperformers that fizzle every summer. The smartest move Paramount has made in recent memory (no offense intended) is pushing this back from Christmas 2008.
Here's Alamo's blog entry on the event.
Cole from Film School Rejects has never watched any Trek of any sort and loved it.
Rodney Perkins chimes in with a brief but decisive opinion. The fan community has nothing to worry about either.
Back with more later in the day. I have to grab some shut-eye.