EV @ The Movies: Star Trek
Everyone seems to be talking about Star Trek after its opening weekend bonanza, when it somehow outperformed even Matthew McConaughey's latest Oscar bait. (Matthew, it might be time to lighten up, for God's sake!)
Being a movie critic on the internet has taught me one thing: following the herd rarely steers you wrong. So this past Sunday, I eagerly headed into a showing of Star Trek.
Was the movie good? Yes, but that's not the point of this movie review. As I was watching, a strange sensation began to come over me. Slowly, I realized that many of the plot points and characters seemed very familiar. I tried to shrug it off as some kind of mind imbalance caused by the gravitational pull of the obese men to my left and right, but the feeling persisted.
When I got home, I decided to do a little research on my hunch. It took me several hours, but I finally found what I was looking for: the shocking truth. You see:
Star Trek is an unabashed rip-off of a 1979 movie called Star Trek.
It sounds crazy, but the similarities are too big to be mere coincidence. The main character in both films? James T. Kirk. The name of the ship in both films? The Enterprise. The new Star Trek even has Leonard Nimoy playing the same character that he played in the original Star Trek! I can only assume that poor old Mr. Nimoy has gone senile with age, and didn't realize what was happening; otherwise, he would have surely resigned in disgust at the sheer magnitude of this copyright infringement.
What does this all mean, besides the fact that Paramount Pictures will go out of business and everyone involved in the doppelganger Star Trek will go to jail? It means that nobody can possibly like this film. How could you, when you know it's been done before? Hollywood needs to be shown that it can't skimp on originality any longer, because audiences everywhere are wising up. I predict that Star Trek will be the last franchise reboot that Hollywood ever produces.
Think of how much more original the film would have been if the ship's crew consisted of real people, and they traveled around having conversations about why their families don't accept their lifestyles? Filled with equal parts drama and comedy (I'm thinking of one potential scene in which one woman's crazy Greek parents hilariously screw up the ship's instruments, a mistake that sucks them into space and kills them), it would be unexpected and delightful.
That's just one idea. You could also have robot scorpions talking about how hard it is to be a family these days. The point is, these concepts aren't named after movies that already exist, which makes them 1000% better than Retread Trek.
How else is Star Trek terrible? It doesn't take its remaking seriously enough. Fans everywhere were likely outraged at the many inconsistencies between this Star Trek and its source material, including significant architectural changes to the way the phasers behave. Mistakes like these are inexcusable and a travesty to film.
25 years ago, the no-name hacks behind Star Trek could have gotten away with their chicanery; now, thanks to the power of the internet (and my sleuthing skills and finely-honed critical instincts), everyone is well aware of what a disappointment this movie is, to both fans of originality and fans of keeping faithful to things.
Overall Rating: F-
