Star Trek (2009) | Sci-Fi Saturdays

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Boldly going where no one has gone before, sort of.

The 2009 reboot/sequel/prequel of Star Trek introduced and reintroduced the original characters of Gene Rodenberry’s universe to the public. Saying it was all an undiscovered country would be wrong. However, J.J. Abrams created a fresh perspective on a series that had become a little old and stale, kickstarting the franchise at just the right time.

First Impressions

This trailer shows a younger version of the crew of the starship Enterprise, all played by new actors, setting out on what appears to be an early mission. An older man tells a young James Kirk that Kirk’s father was a captain for only 12 minutes, but saved 800 lives, before demanding that Kirk do better. There is much that is familiar with the film, but is it a remake, a prequel, or something else? It’s time for yet another Star Trek.

Presented below is the trailer for the film.

The Fiction of The Film

In the mid-23rd Century a gigantic, techno-organic ship appears via a “lightning storm in space” and attacks the USS Kelvin. Captain Robau (Faran Tahir) is killed by Nero (Eric Bana), the captain of Narada, leaving officer George Kirk (Chris Hemsworth) in charge of evacuation. After getting as many off the ship as possible, including his wife and newly born son James, Kirk crashes the Kelvin into the Narada, crippling it. Years later, a young James Tiberius Kirk (Jimmy Bennett) steals his stepdad’s vintage car and wrecks it while speeding from a police officer. On the planet Vulcan, young Spock (Jacob Kogan) is bullied by other children for being half-human. At a later date, an adult Spock (Zachary Quinto) decides not to continue his studies with the Vulcan Science Academy and instead enrolls in Starfleet.

At a bar in Iowa, near a Starfleet shipbuilding facility, James Kirk (Chris Pine) hits on Uhura (Zoe Saldana), a Starfleet Cadet, before getting in a fight with some other Starfleet crew. Captain Pike (Bruce Greenwood) breaks up the fight and suggests that Kirk would make a fine officer if he’s anything like his Dad. Kirk, loving to prove people wrong, decides to enlist. On the shuttle to Starfleet, he meets Leonard McCoy (Karl Urban), a slightly older recruit who has nothing left since his divorce. Three years later, and 25 years since the opening scene, the Narada and Nero are still searching for the location of Ambassador Spock, seeking revenge for the destruction of his homeworld Romulus.

Kirk completes a “no-win” training scenario by successfully rescuing the survivors of the Kobayashi Maru. He is brought up on charges of cheating by Commander Spock, and set before a tribunal. The process is cut short by reports of a strange ship attacking the planet Vulcan. All cadets are assigned to ships except Kirk. McCoy owes Jim and sneaks him aboard his assigned ship, the Enterprise, as his patient. En route to Vulcan Kirk overhears something that makes him believe they are warping into a trap, and informs Captain Pike. They are the only ship to survive, arriving with their shields up. The ship is still critically damaged and Pike is ordered by Nero to shuttle to the Narada. An umbilical drilling rig from the Narada prevents communications and transporters from working. On his way Pike takes Kirk, Sulu (John Cho), and Chief Engineer Olson (Greg Ellis) so they can eject and skydive onto the rig, hopefully dismantling it.

A fight ensues on the drilling platform and Olson is killed. The drill is disabled, but Kirk and Sulu are free falling off the platform without a parachute. Chekov (Anton Yelchin) manages to transport them onto the ship just before they crash into the planet. Nero fires a particle of red matter into the planet, turning it into a giant black hole. Spock, realizing that the planet is doomed, beams down to save the Vulcan council, which includes his parents, Sarek (Ben Cross) and Amanda (Winona Ryder). Spock returns with everyone, but his mother. The Enterprise warps away from the planet just as it implodes. Nero’s new plan is to wipe out the Federation. Spock realizes that Nero is from a future time and has altered the normal flow of history.

Kirk is transported to Delta Vega, a nearby ice planet, for being insubordinate with Spock, who is now the acting Captain of the Enterprise. On the planet, Kirk is saved from a giant creature by an older version of Spock (Leonard Nimoy). He explains that a supernova destroyed the Romulan homeworld Romulus 129 years in the future and that Nero blames him for failing to prevent it. They both were sucked through a black hole caused by red matter, with Spock Prime coming through 25 years after Nero. The two trek to a nearby Starfleet base where they meet Montgomery Scott (Simon Pegg), the lone human inhabitant of the outpost. Spock Prime helps Scotty perfect transwarp beaming and teleports Kirk and Scotty onto the Enterprise.

The Narada arrives at Earth and begins drilling into the planet near Starfleet Academy in San Francisco. Kirk uses the knowledge provided by Spock Prime to get Spock to hit him, proving him emotionally compromised. Kirk takes command and they sneak onto the Narada. Kirk rescues Pike while Spock steals the red matter vessel brought into this timeline by Spock Prime. Spock enrages Nero by stealing the ship and the Romulan follows him. Kirk arrives with the Enterprise just as Spock goes on a suicide run towards the Narada. Kirk beams him out at the last second as the red matter ship explodes on impact creating a giant black hole. Scotty jettisons the warp core and detonates it, causing a shockwave that blows the ship free. Back at Starfleet, young Spock meets old Spock who wishes him a successful future. Kirk is sworn in as Captain of the Enterprise by a paralyzed Pike and takes the ship and the crew for the start of a five-year mission.

“Nero’s very presence has altered the flow of history beginning with the attack on the USS Kelvin, culminating with the events of today, thereby creating an entire new chain of incidents that cannot be anticipated by either party.” – Spock

History in the Making

Star Trek marks a major turning point in the sci-fi franchise. Released one month before the 40th anniversary of the airing of the final episode of the Original Series (“Turnabout Intruder”), and seven years since the previous film, Star Trek: Nemesis, this film by director J.J. Abrams created renewed interest in a franchise whose power was waning. It was the 11th film in the series, which started 30 years prior with Star Trek: The Motion Picture and was followed by six films with the cast of the Original Series, with an additional four films with the cast of The Next Generation. Until being viewed, it seemed as if this film was a reboot of the series, returning to the most popular characters and time period. Of course, it was that, but it was also the continuation of the legacy and storylines created over the previous 43 years.

For Abrams, who was a popular producer, writer, and director of genre television series including Alias (2001-06), Lost (2004-10), and Fringe (2008-13), this was only his second helming of a theatrical film. He had directed Mission: Impossible III three years earlier (and would continue to produce this franchise over the next three films) from a script by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman who were approached with an offer to write a new Star Trek film with Abrams and his production company, Bad Robot, producing it. Eventually, he decided that he also wanted to direct the film citing its relatable characters. Abrams has said he was never a huge fan of the Star Trek universe, instead preferring the more action-oriented approach of the Star Wars universe, which is essentially what he ended up making.

That said, Star Trek adheres to many of the ongoing themes of the franchise which include friendship and legacy, while honoring the 40-plus-year history of the stories. It features the seven original classic characters from the Original Series, with cameos and nods to many others, plus allusions to various other outings of Star Trek, from The Wrath of Khan, Enterprise, and The Voyage Home. It continued the usage of modern science theories being adapted to future technology, making the world seem like an extension of our own. Finally, it provided the necessary shot in the arm to boost interest in the franchise which helped guide the series into the 21st Century. Two sequels and a handful of new Trek television shows were launched based on the successful outing of Star Trek, leading the adventures of the starship Enterprise, and others, into the modern day.

Genre-fication

Many things spring to mind when someone thinks of a Star Trek film. As a series, it has defined several phrases into the lexicon of sci-fi-related words, such as phasers, warp drive, and dilithium crystals. It has a set of core characters that include Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. And it also features stories about the perseverance of the human spirit. This 2009 film is both a re-introduction of classic Trek lore as well as an homage to the 40 years of Trek that had come before it. Since Star Trek is both a continuation of the events from The Next Generation timeline and a re-imagining of the origins of the crew of the Enterprise, it makes clever use of changing familiar elements in the universe. As an example, audiences were first introduced to the idea of the Kobayashi Maru test–an unwinnable scenario–in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Here, audiences get to witness Kirk taking the test and beating it, something alluded to in Wrath of Khan. This is only one example, as the film makes references to almost every other iteration of the franchise, including jettisoning the warp core (Star Trek: Insurrection), a reference to “Admiral Archer’s prize-beagle” from Star Trek: Enterprise, Spock’s memory tests from Star Trek IV, plus many references to elements from the Original Series. Perhaps the biggest change in this particular film is to demote McCoy as a major player, making Uhura the third main character after Kirk and Spock, as well as giving her and Spock more of a romantic subplot–something hinted at in the first season of Star Trek.

Another aspect of Star Trek that seems very popular is its use of time travel. While only five episodes of The Original Series dealt with time travel (“The Naked Now,” “Tomorrow is Yesterday,” “The City on the Edge of Forever,” “Assignment: Earth,” and “All Our Yesterdays”) there were many episodes that dealt with the crew traveling to planets with alternate timelines. Sometimes the world was stuck in Roman times (“Bread and Circuses”), or a world that was contaminated with old Earth ideas, such as Naziism (“Patterns of Force”), gangsterland Chicago (“A Piece of the Action”), or just an alternate version of Earth (“The Omega Glory”). These alternate or parallel worlds would give credence to the world that JJ Abrams,  Roberto Orci, and Alex Kurtzman would depict. Time travel had become a popular plot in the films, with Star Trek being the third film to utilize it after Star Trek IV and Star Trek: First Contact. Unlike those films, where the Enterprise travels to a past time period to interact with the inhabitants and return to the future at the end of the film, Star Trek has time travelers arrive from the future altering the flow of time (from the audiences’ point of view) which creates a new reality where things are similar, but just not the same as fans may know them.

Abrams did something else with this film which many people may be aware of. He (along with Orci and Kurtzman) purposefully tried to include elements of the Star Wars franchise in his film. This Star Wars-ficiation of Trek includes more elements of action and humor than were usually seen in the franchise. Coincidentally, that was the same type of thing that Star Trek II attempted after the negative reviews following The Motion Picture. It course-corrected from a very cerebral type of film to a more action-oriented one. Yet the final version of Star Trek still feels very much like Star Trek. Certainly, there are more action moments, which future television shows would also add to their episodes, but overall the film is quite true to its roots. An interesting side note about Abrams’ approach to this film, is that it very much served as a template for what he would go on to do with Star Wars: The Force Awakens six years later. That film works as a sequel to a successful franchise, while also a nostalgic trip to the origins of the series.

Societal Commentary

Star Trek doesn’t have as much thematic backbone as some of the other films in the series, but that’s okay. It presents what it has concisely and with earnestness to the audience. Its primary focus is the theme of legacy, one that has been addressed in many of the other films–especially those with the original cast. Legacy is the primary motivation for both Kirk and Spock. Though he might deny it, Kirk feels that he will not be able to live up to the noble sacrifice of his father. George Kirk gave his life to save 800 people including his newborn son, James, and everyone knows it. Young Kirk’s acting out and constant run-ins with authority (his stepfather, the police, Starfleet cadets) are all an apparent cover-up to his inadequacies and possibly a way to prevent people from expecting anything greater from him. Spock also has expectations placed upon him, mostly by himself. He is different by nature of his birth, being half-human. He feels that he must work harder to prove himself amongst his peers in order to attend the Vulcan Science Academy, but is soon corrected by that notion when he realizes that his “birth defect” will never be overlooked. His sense of legacy is bolstered by meeting his alternate self. Spock Prime gives Spock the necessary means to overcome any feelings of inadequacy and being something less than; showing that he will use what he perceives as a disadvantage to his advantage.

The other prominent theme in the film is anger and its harmful nature. Certainly, Kirk is an angry character. Presumably angry at his father for not being around for him, but certainly angry at the world. Even as a child, the chip on his shoulder is obvious as he tells the police officer his full name, “James Tiberius Kirk.” But anger also blinds individuals to situations. Nero, as the protagonist in the film, is a prime example of that. For right or wrong, Nero blames Spock Prime for the destruction of his homeworld and his wife. It becomes a single purpose for him. When he travels back in time and realizes that Spock Prime has not arrived yet, he lets that anger fester in him for 25 years. Suddenly, killing Spock is no longer the goal. Destroying his homeworld of Vulcan while Spock watches becomes the starting point. Nero then wants to rid the galaxy of the Federation too, realizing he can alter the course of history for his people. But in the course of his revenge he commits genocidal acts, not realizing he is no better than the ones he blames for his pain. As has been mentioned in other Star Trek films, revenge is a dish best served cold. But in this case, Nero has let his vengeance fester too long, attempting to exact a higher price than was originally paid.

The Science in The Fiction

For a series set in the future and having a wealth of science-fiction ideas to work with, it’s strange how often certain notions get re-used. Time travel is a common trope for Star Trek (the franchise), but here it presents itself differently. Rather than introduce a time travel plot where things are reset or made better, Star Trek uses it to introduce the idea of alternate realities. Just as Doc Brown surmises in Back to the Future Part II, traveling into the past does not allow for a “do-over,” but instead creates an alternate series of events from that moment that the timestream was interrupted. Many other films have used a similar conceit (such as Sliding Doors) to illustrate the effect that our choices have on our future. Star Trek uses plot devices to allow the use of new actors to portray legendary characters, albeit in a new reality.

A new scientific idea for Star Trek is the creation of a plot device called red matter. It is a liquid substance of which a tiny drop can create a black hole (referred to in the film as a singularity) that can consume a planet. This black hole opens a portal that allows the Narada and Spock’s ship to travel backward in time–though the singularity created by the release of all the red matter at the end of the film succeeds in destroying Nero and his ship, rather than time-shifting them again. Wormholes are nothing new to Star Trek. The use of a wormhole was part of the entire premise of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. These singularities appear to be wormholes of another type. Instead of taking a ship between two points in space, it also adds a fourth dimension of time. The original use of the red matter is never explained–other than as a way to contain the destructive power of Romulus’s supernova sun, but it appears to be a metaphor for real-world scientific discoveries that are used for destructive purposes. It is akin to the splitting of the atom, which was an amazing scientific discovery–but eventually was used to create bombs capable of destroying the planet many times over. If that’s the case, and its destructive capacity is known, then why does Spock need an orb of red matter one meter in size?

The Final Frontier

As part of the tie-ins for Star Trek comic publisher IDW released two different mini-series that provided extra backstory to the film. Both were based on story elements provided by writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, which delved into some deleted scenes from the film. The first series was called Star Trek: Countdown and told the story of Spock and Nero in the 24th Century and what led to the destruction of Romulus, and why Nero hated Spock so much. The second story was called Star Trek: Nero and tells of what happened after the destruction of the Kelvin and the intervening 25 years for Nero, most of which was spent on the Klingon prison planet of Rura Penthe. These comics, along with the two sequel films,  launched a new continuity for Star Trek which followed the original five-year mission of the Kelvin-timeline Enterprise. Those stories continued to be told by IDW weaving in between the sequel films.

Star Trek was followed by Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) and Star Trek Beyond (2016). While successful, these did not live up to the hype of the 2009 film. Paramount has not produced any further Trek films to date (though there have been many rumors of new ones in the works). One reason the franchise lost steam may be due to the declining interest in the films, but also the death of Anton Yelchin, just before the release of Star Trek Beyond. On television, Star Trek has been going strong for the last seven years. Star Trek: Discovery debuted in 2017 as the first new series in twelve years. It was quickly followed by other, varied shows including Star Trek: Picard (a follow-up to the events of the crew from The Next Generation), Star Trek: Lower Decks (an animated series taking place in a post-TNG timeline), and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, which is a prequel to the events of The Original Series. The 2009 Star Trek film revitalized the franchise at a time when it very much needed the revamp, and continues to show why Star Trek is still relevant.

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