These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. It's ongoing mission: To
explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to
boldly go where no one has gone before."
As most people know, Star Trek is a popular TV/Movie series which originated
in 1966. The 1982 film Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan is the only Star Trek
film I have seen and I have not watched the TV series so I'm definitely not a
fan. I don't have a lot of knowledge about the characters or know much about
the Star Trek universe. I was relieved to hear Star Trek: Zero is an origins
story. Director J.J. Abrams does an outstanding job at showing the audience the
chronicles of Kirk and Spock, but gets right in to the action with out it
becoming boring. Star Trek: Zero is one of the best science fiction epics
I have ever seen! Stark Trek: Zero begins with an enormous space battle between
a Federation Starship (USS Kelvin) and the villainous and vengeful Romulans
captained by Nero (Eric Bana). I was astonished at the scale of the opening
confrontation. I even found my self holding my breath to survive the vacuum of
space. In the chaos Winona Kirk (Jennifer Morrison) gives birth to James T. Kirk
(Chris Pine). Years later we see James as a young troubled boy on earth. He is
becoming a rebel of society. At the same time we see intelligent and logical
Spock (Zachary Quinto) on his home planet of Vulcan. He is growing up through
his school years dealing with the pressure of having a human mother, which makes
him prone to human emotion. Spock and Kirk enlist in Starfleet Academy. They
join Dr Leonard McCoy aka Bones (Karl Urban), Nyota Uhura (Zoe Saldana), Hikaru
Sulu (John Cho) and the remainder of the newly established crew aboard the USS
Enterprise, piloted by Captain Pike (Bruce Greenwood). On their first mission
they encounter Nero and his mining vessel which is drilling a hole in to the
planet Vulcan. We are treated to more astonishing action sequences and space
skirmishes. Then everything just goes mental and the film becomes Vulcan
awesome. The film is primarily focused on Spock and his unfortunate and horrific
history with Nero, while also addressing Kirk's rise to captain of the
Enterprise. The cast is huge and everyone is brilliant; Karl
Urban's performance as Bones was awesome. Simeon Pegg also stood out as the
ship's humorous engineer Scotty. Zoe Saldana as Nyota Uhura was excellent too,
plus she is absolutely stunning. Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto are perfect as
Kirk and Spock – they really had me believing in their characters and made me
give a damn about them and the rest of the crew with great character development
throughout the film.
The whole film just looks amazing – from the set of the Enterprise to the
space battles and fist fights. The lighting, especially the use of lens flares,
made it feel like I was really there – it added another dimension to the
film. Speaking of dimensions, this story takes place in an alternate time line
from the original Star Trek series. Nero travels back in time to capture Spock
from the future to save Nero's past for a better outcome in the future –
Confusion aside however, Star Trek: Zero is just epic. You would be mad not to
see this on Blu-ray too. This is why I love movies – to see excellent films
like Star Trek: Zero. I eagerly await a sequel, until then I think I'll watch
it again!
Live long, and Prosper