Star Trek Has Been Reborn & It’s SPECTACULAR

UPDATE: It’s been pointed out that I made it through all of the links below without saying what I thought… An oversight. I marveled in every minute of its escapist glee; I left believing J. J. Abrams has arrived at genius and each of his new young stars is destined to be a screen idol (or stuck locked in sequel hell). At once retro and exuberantly now, it made me feel young again; I felt as I did as I watched the original Star Wars on opening night at Mann’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood. I am happy to hand this franchise over to this fun young cast. Each evoked and reimagined their character without cheesy mimicry, instead manifesting and claiming their essence. Oh, and, I even liked Leonard Nimoy and the icy chase.
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Will Wheaton is right:

Speaking both as a member of the Star Trek family, and as a fan of what we do, I can tell you that it is f**king incredible. As I said on Twitter: Star Trek has been reborn, and it is SPECTACULAR. The story is such a perfect Star Trek story, the cast is pitch-perfect, the visuals are brilliant, and the sound design will blow your mind. I loved it so much, I wanted to watch it again RIGHT AWAY as soon as it ended, and I hope they do eleven movies with this cast and creative team. After seeing it, that satire from the Onion is even funnier than it already was.

Ethan Siegel @ Science Blogs’ Starts with a Bang reminds us that not all science fiction is scientifically possible. Siegel goes into wonderful, readable, detail explaining that this story about Warp Drive on the front page of Yahoo yesterday is wrong. Warp drive will never ever become science instead of science fiction.

Chris Bowers at Open Left finds in the movie reason to re-publish his Star Trek As Progressive Mythology post:

My view is that science fiction that takes a positive view of the future, perhaps best exemplified in popular culture by Star Trek, is a progressive shift in the use of mythology. Instead of taking our ideal of society in an unattainable past, as conservatism does and as mythology has usually done, Star Trek views the ideal of society in an as yet unattained future, ala progressivism…

He may be right. But the cadets who enlisted in a diplomatic mission to peacefully explore other planets sure acted like a bunch of swashbuckling thugs in that Iowa bar. That would not be my progressive mythology. Ruth Rosen points out that in TOS “Kirk’s good intentions smacked of White House rhetoric about saving Vietnam for freedom [and he] repeatedly found reasons to violate the prime directive.”

James Joyner is impressed at how well the franchise has endured. He says the reviews have been mixed — I guess I missed those — then offers his own blog round-up of sorts. Jonah Goldberg is a spoiler (w/alert) who hates Leonard Nimoy:

Literally, in every scene Nimoy’s Spock — “Spock Prime,” as he’s called in the credits — makes the movie worse, the plot less plausible, the experience less enjoyable. Everything Spock says and does lowers the IQ not just of Spock, but of everyone in earshot, including his fellow cast members, the writers, the director, the audience, and the movie-theater ushers.

Jason Kincaid at TechCrunch explains that the Googlers have put together a ‘Stardate’ calendar that will tell you today’s date in the Star Trek universe:

There are a few ways to go about adding this to your Google Calendar. The easy (and lame) way is to add “[ stardate: ] ” as a friend’s calendar. You can also just look at it on the Google Calendar homepage. But for those of you with a more adventurous streak, try figuring out the secret to unlocking it the cool way. Here’s a hint: add an event that contains the name of your favorite new movie. And it isn’t ‘Wolverine’.

#8 of Wired’s 10 things parents should know before seeing the movie reveals that you don’t have to sit through the credits for some bonus material at the end (I watched anyway). #1, 3 & 4 say take the kids. #7, is it good:

Rating Star Trek movies is always a good way to start a nerd fight, but personally I’d still put Wrath of Khan above this one. Both are action-oriented Trek movies, but Khan’s writing and plot felt tight and consistent. This movie had a lot of ground to cover, including introducing all the characters, explaining the motivations of the bad guys and keeping the action going. The writers did a good job of taking care of all this in two hours, but the plot is a little mushy in places. Also, the main antagonist just doesn’t seem very evil, which made it hard for me to get worked up over the enemy.

James Wolcott says Wrath of Khan — “the only installment from the previous series that Pauline Kael didn’t find worthy of the wax museum” — is on Cinemax these days. And, he says:

I am struck, upon this re-viewing, of how much Montalban’s lordly Khan, in his gray wig and chiseled intensity, reminds me of the choreographer Twyla Tharp. It is a shame no imaginative casting director has ever sounded out Tharp to play an imperious villainess in a sci-fi epic. Given her understandable thirst for creative control, Tharp might insist on writing her own declamatory dialogue and choreographing the dream ballet between Kirk and Uhuru, but I feel that would be a small price to pay for her haughty presence and cultural imprimatur.

But perhaps Tharp simply resists the commercialization and merchandising that comes with being a sci-fi icon. She may blanche at the prospect of landing on a future Burger King Whopper Jr. Value Meal cup, considering it undignified for an artist of her accomplishment and stature to be part of a matched set of plastic collectibles.

Salon celebrates the joyous sexy update; Jeff Greenwald says Obama is Spock; Newsweek that we’re all Trekkies now. Visit the official Star Trek site. And the official Star Trek movie site.