Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Entertainment. 2009.
Screenplay by: Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman
Run Time: 126 minutes
Rating: PG-13
Watchers Annotation
Sometime in the future James Tiberius Kirk is growing up as an Iowa farm boy. Kirk, the future captain of the starship Enterprise, faces Starfleet Academy and the Romulans in this adventure.
Cast
Chris Pine, James Tiberius Kirk
Zachary Qinto, Spock
Leonard Nimoy, Spock Prime
Eric Bana, Nero
Bruce Greenwood, Captain Christopher Pike
Karl Urban, Leonard McCoy
Zoe Saldana, Uhura
Plot Summary
Winona and George Kirk are expecting their first child. Meanwhile, a rampaging Romulan mining ship unexpectedly attacks their ship and George Kirk is killed. Winona and her son, James, survive the attack. Jump ahead into the future and James Kirk likes to get into trouble. He ruins a valuable car, and later gets into bar fights with Star Fleet Cadets. A meeting with Captain Christopher Pike convinces Kirk to enter Star Fleet Academy. Kirk meets his future best friends Leonard McCoy (aka Bones), and Spock, a Vulcan. In a tandem storyline Spock is growing up on Vulcan being taunted by other purebred Vulcan boys because he is only half-Vulcan himself. Spock’s mother is an Earthling. While stationed at Star Fleet Academy, the Romulan ship has traveled through a wormhole to the past in order to destroy Spock. The Romulan ship equipped with planet destroying hardware blows up the Vulcan home world, and then heads for Earth. During the attack on Vulcan, Spock attempts to rescue the Vulcan Council because they hold the all the knowledge of their culture and history. Spock saves the council, but his mother is killed. Spock removes himself from command of the Enterprise when he thinks his emotions might endanger his decision-mking Kirk (smuggled aboard Enterprise) is placed in command by Spock. Kirk and his crewmates stop the attack on Earth in hand-to-hand combat with swords. The older version of Spock who had attempted to save Romulus created the wormhole to escape the exploding star. Spock from the past comes to Earth and meets his much younger self. History has been radically altered because the Romulan’s (who are seeking revenge for the destruction of their planet) have disturbed space-time continuum.
Critical Evaluation
The Star Trek franchise is based on a nearly mythical series created by Gene Roddenberry in the 1960’s. Although this is a rollicking adventure, the movie radically changes the mythology behind the original story. In this installment of the series, the young Kirk is a hellraiser who is being raised by family members while his mother serves aboard a ship. He still likes to be in the center of a fight. He even leaves his post as commander to scrap with the aliens. Spock still battles his emotions, but in this version he is a lover not a fighter. Uhura, the beautiful communications officer from the series has a much larger roll in this film. She is Spock’s lover this time around. The other core characters: Bones, Scottie, and Chekov are secondary to the story. It seems that the writers expect the audience to have some basic understanding of the characters in the original series and films, because they spend little time in character development. The bulk of this film is spent on special effects battle scenes. While the series and especially the films had a message to deliver about life in the future, the environment, and race issues, this film has none. Much of the film is a remaking of the legend, and it is not successful. True fans of the series will think as I did, “that’s not the story, Vulcan wasn’t destroyed!” As Uhura states in one scene in the film – this is alternative reality. New audiences will not be familiar with the alternative reality presented in the film, and will probably enjoy the film for its action. However, old fans will be bewildered by the writer’s and director’s viewpoint.
Information about the film
You can find more information about the film on the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0796366
Genre
Science fiction, adventure, fantasy, action
Curriculum ties
None
Challenge Issues
Fantasy violence, suggested sexual situations
Challenge defense ideas
· Become familiar with the film and its content.
· Refer to the collection development policy of the library.
· Refer to reviews from Internet Movie Database (IMDb) at
· Try to get reviews of the film from teens that have seen it.
Why I included this title
This film was a summer blockbuster, and I have been a Trekkie for 40 years.
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