Star Trek had more plot holes than black holes, but it didn't matter. I still went to see it twice this weekend, because of the extreme hotness of Spock. I haven't seen a movie twice in the theatres in probably over ten years, so that's saying something.
But so far I seem to be the only person I know who noticed that J.J. Abrams used a giant red sphere as plot device AGAIN. Abrams resolved season 4 of Alias with a giant red golf ball that floated over Russia and turned an entire town's populace into zombies. In Star Trek it's 99 luftballoons for a second time, with an orb of "red matter" that creates black holes. It didn't work the first time for Alias, and it doesn't work in Star Trek (2009).
All balls aside, I loved this movie. Not because it was good, but because it rawked. The action was great, the sets were pretty, the banter made me laugh, there were tons of Trek references and Zachary Quinto did an amazing job as Spock. He carries this movie. Really, all the actors caught their characters well. Plotting is not J.J. Abrams' strong point, but he's really good at creating compelling characters.
With Enterprise and this current movie and the death of Rodenberry, I feel that the Trek universe is becoming much more politically conservative and jingoistic. I loved the Vulcan/human relationships in Enterprise and in Star Trek (2009), but the way the characters solve problems through violence was something I had to actively look past to enjoy the show and this new movie.
The whole point of the original Trek universe was to imagine an essentially positive future where humans had got over the worst of their nature and were trying to live in the world ethically and peacefully. Not many sci-fi worlds are positive about humanity's fate so I really valued Trek's vision of a noble humanity. Sadly, but without giving away any plot points, Star Trek (2009) has lost this hope and lacks the some of the depth of the original. The new movie is shiny and fun, but, as one of my friends said, "It's like cotton candy."
Luckily, this cotton candy is pretty damn good.
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I couldn't get excited about Zachary Quinto after seeing him play Sylar in Heroes. He's not my type anyway, but when I see him playing Spock, all I can think is "Argh! Sylar alert! Scary!" even though he's a really good actor and therefore his performance as Spock ought to make me forget about Sylar.
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