STAR TREK
Overall Impression – One of the smartest reboots of a franchise since BATMAN BEGINS. Buckle up!
THE FOUR QUESTIONS
Who’s your main character? – Spock. (Whoa?! WHAT?! Not Kirk?!?! Read on!)
What’s he trying to accomplish? – Professional: Protect the Enterprise as well as the principles of Starfleet and the Federation. Personal: Deal with the biggest thorn in the side of any Vulcan who has ever lived; James T Kirk! Private: Prove that he’s worthy, despite being both Vulcan and Human.
Who’s trying to stop him? – Nero, a crazed Romulan miner who blames Spock for the death of his wife and child…in the future. (I told you to “buckle up,” didn’t I?)
What happens if he fails? – Earth will be destroyed.
THE FOUR ARCHETYPES
Orphan – Spock is a brilliant student, but never fully accepted by his peers or fellow Vulcans. He leaves his planet and family to join Star Fleet.
Wanderer – He is constantly tested and prodded by Kirk, a wild recruit and loose cannon. Eventually, Spock is given command of the Enterprise.
Warrior – Spock tries to save his home planet of Vulcan, and eventually can’t take anymore of Kirk’s interference. He exiles Kirk to a desolate ice planet (like Hoth, but on steroids.) Spock races the Enterprise back towards Earth to try to deal with the impending arrival of the crazed Romulan, Nero. Kirk, with the help of Scotty, beams back onto the Enterprise and Spock faces off against him.
Martyr – Spock is emotionally compromised, and realizing that he has no choice but to follow the rules, he gives up command of the Enterprise and Kirk becomes captain. Under Kirk’s command, they successfully destroy Nero and save Earth. Spock realizes that he and Kirk can become friends, and offers to be First Officer under the newly minted Captain Kirk.
AND, IN THE END…
I can hear the comments already; “Spock is the main character? Really?” Yes, absolutely! One of the tests for determining the main character is to see who changes the most from the beginning of the film to the end (check out the article “Who’s the Main Character in Titanic.”) In STAR TREK, the character who changes the most from FADE IN to FADE OUT is Spock, hand down! Kirk is the same rebellious wiseguy at the end of the movie as he is when we first meet him as a 12 year old. He’s a traveling angel; not changing himself nearly as much as he changes those around him for the better (see the GLOSSARY.)
But STAR TREK is more than just Spock’s story; at it’s heart it’s a bro-mance. It’s the story of how the two greatest friends in the galaxy become so. Because of this, STAR TREK plays as a ‘two-hander’ between Spock’s story and Kirk’s story. We see Kirk’s birth, the story of how he too is an orphan, wanderer, warrior, and martyr, and we see his growth from punk to captain. So again, why isn’t he the main character? Because he never does any soul-searching, he never changes. He actually CHANGES Starfleet to suit himself.
In the writing, STAR TREK is something between an adaptation, a sequel, a prequel, and an invention. It plays smartly and beautifully off of what the die hard Trekkers know and love (present company included) while gently and lovingly bringing a fresh set of eyes to old memories. Hat’s off to the entire creative team. This movie was so much fun, I hardly care that I have no idea what the heck was going on with Nero and his story. Key word being “hardly.” In spite of my admiration, there’s still a part of me that would have liked more clarity.
FANBOY TRIVIA CONTEST — One of the things I loved the most about the writing of STAR TREK were all of the winks to the fans. From a deliberately forced William Shatner-esque line-delivery for one line, to the use of lines of dialog from previous movies, the writers definitely let the fans know that a beloved property was in loving hands.
One of the smartest winks occurs during Kirk’s successful attempt at winning the Kobiyashi Maru training exercise. It’s not a line of dialog, but a specific action. I’m not sure if it was in the shooting script, or if director J.J. Abrams came up with it during shooting. A special Contour At The Movies Nerd Fanboy Gearhead Commendation will go to the first reader who identifies the specific action and explains the context behind it.
– Jeffrey Alan Schechter
If I hadn’t just watched Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan, I would have missed it. In the scene where they are stranded underground, Kirk retells the Kobiyashi Maru story and how he doesn’t believe in no win situations while eating an apple. At least that’s my guess, since the apple eating seemed so out of place it had to be a nod to something.
WE HAVE A WINNER!!!!!
This scene was one of the reasons I’m so fond of this film. It’s a callback that was setup over 25 years ago, yet on the timeline of STAR TREK it’s a set up from the future for a callback in the past. Very, very cool. Nicely done, Mark.
Another such callback scene is the one where Spock refuses to take the ritual of kolinahr (where he has to choose between the Vulcan way and joining Starfleet). That’s the same ritual the older Spock takes later on in “Star Trek: The Motion Picture”. He fails, because V’Ger sends out strong telepathic waves that stir his emotions.
Well, Jeff just as Mark said, the nod was that of him eating an apple while bragging about the incident. It was also the way he was sitting, his leg crossed over the other, and his shatnerest attitude.
Hey Jeff,
Re Star Trek
Yes it was an enjoyable movie. Good action, the story of how the characters meet is fun. Chekov and Uhura have nice role upgrades. But as a die hard Trekkie there were a lot of things that bothered me.
1. Kirk is portrayed as being the only son and sole survivor of his immediate family, In the original star trek Kirk has an older brother who dies in one of the original episodes, and Kirk’s nephew is taken on board.
2. Kirk’s personality is dramaticlly different than how it was portrayed by Rodenburry. In the oringal series Kirk is full of himself, over confident, always rolling the dice and winning against the odds, but he falls short of being an out and out jerk. He commands the respect of his crew, while the new Kirk is very hard to admire.
3. Nero is enranged by the destruction of Romulus. Thrust back in time by decades he vents his furry on Spock, Vulcan, and the home of the Federation – Earth. Gee…. couldn’t he have just used the red-matter to keep Romulus’s sun from going supernova and avoided the entire catastrophe???? Wouldn’t you? I know, I know… it wouldn’t have been much of a movie that way.
4. Scotty and Chekov are also dramatically different characters. In chekov’s case I found it for the better, less so for Scotty.
5. The parallel timeline business gives the scriptwriters the freedom to change whatever they want, but it was gratuitous. The story could have been written without the need to destroy all the history we know about the characters. It took away much more than it added.
6. The destruction of Vulcan is huge both as destruction of life and culture and in the Trek lore, but is given pretty minimal emotional force in the film. We barely see any Vulcans in these scenes, and are given no emotional reason to feel their pain. I can hear you saying “Sammy Sammy Sammy… that’s because it’s all about Spock!”.
7. The tactic used to get Spock to surrender his post is pretty thin. It seems unlikely the crew would have followed Kirk after the event. When Spock returns to the bridge, apparently feeling better, he does not resume command, and there’s no suggestion of him doing so during the remainder of the mission. It’s just lame.
8. Kirk reprograms the Kobayashi Maru scenario in order to avoid the no-win scenario. In the 2009 movie he is disciplined for cheating… and if not for Nero’s attack interrupting the hearing, it would have been the end of his Star Fleet career. However, in the original series he was given a commendation for original thinking. Ok, maybe in the new timeline Star Fleet is just grumpier. But it seems a pointless departure. They could have given him the commendation and continued the Kirk-Spock tiff as a result.
9. Spock’s payot keep curling through the movie. Couldn’t they do a better job in makeup to keep them flat????
Don’t get me wrong, it was a fun movie. I enjoyed it. But it wasn’t quite the Trek we grew up with.
Actually…
After Spock maroons Kirk he takes the Enterprise to join up with the rest of the main fleet in another part of the galaxy, not back to Earth at all. It’s only after Kirk gets back onboard that the ship under Kirk’s command heads back to Earth to stop Nero.
It seems to me the four questions and the four archetypes could also easily pertain to Kirk as the main character with Kirk being an even stronger choice than Spock for both the Wanderer and Warrior Archetypes.
THE FOUR QUESTIONS
1. Who’s your main character? – Kirk
2. What’s he trying to accomplish? – Professional: Protect the Enterprise as well as the principles of Starfleet and the Federation. Personal: Deal with the biggest thorn in the side of any Human who has ever lived; Spock! Private: Prove that he’s worthy, despite being the father-less, reckless, rebel who is angry at the world.
3. Who’s trying to stop him? – Nero, a crazed Romulan miner who blames the Federation for the death of his wife and child…in the future. (I told you to “buckle up,” didn’t I?)
4. What happens if he fails? – Earth will be destroyed.
THE FOUR ARCHETYPES
1. Orphan – Kirk is a brilliant 25-year-old going on 15, whose father died on the day of his birth. He gets into a bar fight and is challenged by Captain Pike to follow in his father’s footsteps and to join Star Fleet.
2. Wanderer –is constantly tested and prodded by Spock, a brilliant half-Vulcan, half-Human. Kirk befriends Captain Pike and Leonard McCoy, is the only one to figure out the connection with the lightning storm, and is promoted to first officer by Pike, disables the space drill
3. Warrior –Kirk pisses off Spock and is marooned on Delta Vega for mutiny. (At this point it becomes Kirk’s movie.) There Kirk overcomes alien creatures, meets future Spock, allies with Montgomery Scott, beams back onto the Enterprise and forces Spock to admit he is emotionally compromised and that Kirk is the main character (oops).
4. Martyr – Kirk takes over as captain and immediately devises a plan to ambush the Narada – despite that being certain destruction for the Enterprise, a Kobayashi Maru or no-win scenario. Kirk, with the help of Spock, successfully destroys Nero and saves Earth. Spock realizes that he and Kirk can become friends, and offers to be First Officer under the newly minted Captain Kirk.
In STAR TREK, it seems to me that Kirk does change from FADE IN to FADE OUT. At the beginning of the movie Kirk is a nobody, a loner with no future. Whereas at the end of the movie he is the Captain of a Starship. The propelling moment of change is his fortunate run-in with future Spock where and when Kirk becomes “forced out of complacency and his life cannot be the same from this point forward.” (Contour, user manual, page 45.)
Great post, Eric! I can’t say that I disagree with you at all, and it’s interesting to me that, like Titanic, there’s the ability to discuss who the main character is on a successful film.
I wonder if it’s possible that both are the main characters, and that Contour’s understanding of story needs to be adjusted to allow for movies where this is a possibility? Hmmmm.