Every now and again I make the horrible mistake of going to my local video store and, in a morbid fit of maybe-there’s-something-NEW-here-that’s-cool, rent a new release. Such evenings always wind up a complete disaster, but like a moth to the flame, the mood seizes me a couple of times a year. And like a fool, I obey it.
Last week I went to Casablanca Video and brought home Star Trek, this year’s blockbuster starring Chris Pine as James Kirk, and Zachary Quinto as Spock. An admission - Star Trek is a part of the basic fabric of my life. I grew up watching the original series, and it’s canonical in my love of 20th century American art. I am, however, one of those snobs who thinks that Next Generation is pitifully awful (in seven seasons, I think there are 20 episodes worth your time), and Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise are beneath contempt. Without question: the only TRUE Trek is Shatner and Nimoy, period. The rest is crap.
But my snobbery aside, the new Star Trek is a remarkably, almost impossibly, stupid fucking movie. For those of the chosen ones who haven’t sent it: in the year 2362, a star is going supernova, threatening to destroy the planet Romulus, home of the evil Romulans. The very-old Spock is dispatched to the scene in a small ship so he can inject “red matter” into the star, creating a black hole to swallow the super nova, thus saving Romulus. However, he’s too late; the star destroys Romulus before he gets there. Spock still manages to shoot the red matter into the super nova, creating a black hole that swallows Spock’s ship AND the Romulan ship Narada, despositing them (via a time warp, natch’) in the year 2233.
The enraged captain of the Narada, Nero, seeking revenge for the death of his beloved wife on Romulus, captures Spock and his ship, takes Spock’s supply of red matter, and injects the red matter into the planet Vulcan, creating another black hole that destroys Vulcan. Take that and like it, Spock. Prior to destroying Vulcan, Nero maroons Spock on a nearby moon so Spock can watch the festivities first-hand. The rest of the movie follows the young James T. Kirk and Spock trying to stop the evil Nero, with both future and present-Spock meeting face-to-face at movie’s end.
Some questions came to mind:
1) Once it was clear the star was going supernova, why didn’t an evacuation of Romulus begin? Why is it up to a mere one man to save the entire planet?
2) Doesn’t Star Fleet have teams of scientists to work on this? Why is a single geriatric Vulcan ambassador dispatched to save an entire planet?
3) When Spock arrives at the supernova, he has to take the time to leave his ship’s cockpit to go extract some red matter, and shoot it into the super nova. Are you kidding me? They couldn’t find one more loser to go on the mission with him so that one person could pilot the ship, and the other could deal with the red matter?
4) What’s up with Spock having to take the time to leave his ship’s cockpit, walk to the rear, extract some red matter from a giant vat of the stuff, and load it into the device which he then shoots into the super nova? Wouldn’t all of that be done ahead of time, so that once he was there, it was just a matter of aiming and firing the device?
5) Why would Spock be traveling with a shitload of red matter (allowing Nero to destroy Vulcan)? Would he really take enough red matter with him to create a thousand black holes – as he does in the movie – or doesn’t logic dictate that he just take enough for the situation at hand?
6) If you create a black hole to swallow up a star, doesn’t it then swallow up everything else nearby? Would not Romulus be spared the super nova, but destroyed anyway by the black hole?
7) Even if Romulus weren’t destroyed by the black hole, wouldn’t all life on the planet die anyway, having been deprived of the light and heat of its sun?
8) Creating a black hole where one didn't exist - and creating it that close to Romulus - would completely alter that part of space, probably destroying (or at least drastically destabilizing) the entire solar system to which Romulus belongs. Doesn't that violate at least one Starfleet law? Are these guys allowed to fuck with entire solar systems whenever they please?
9) After being marooned, Spock-the-Old stands outside, looks into the sky, and sees Vulcan being reduced to dust by the black hole. How could Spock see this? If Vulcan were so close that he could see it swallowed by a black hole (in daylight!), wouldn't the moon he's standing on also be destroyed by the black hole?
10) Reeling after the death of his mother and home planet, Spock-the-Young angrily demands that security get the headstrong, argumentative Kirk "off the ship." We cut to a shot of Kirk being jettisoned from the Enterprise in a small pod; he winds up on the same moon as Spock-the-Old. 'The hell..? Yeah, I get it - Spock is losing it, but would they really take the time to put an Acting First Mate in a pod and maroon him? Wouldn't this at least raise some eyebrows on the bridge? And anyway, wouldn't they want to hang on to all escape pods, considering the danger they're in? Isn't standard procedure to throw Kirk in the brig?
Sheer fucking idiocy, friends. I’m sick of this crap. Plot holes were easy enough to overlook in the original series because it was done on a shoestring budget, and had tons of charm. (And William Shatner is God.) Nowadays, J.J. Abrams has a $140 million budget, and years to come up with a workable script. I do not understand how fuckin’ garbage like this gets made, and I sure as shit do not understand why loser-ass fanboys flock to it in droves, shelling out cash to the tune of a $385 million gross, and guarantees of three more sequels. And you wonder why I love Ed Wood movies?
