So the new Star Trek film is out, and has been well received both commercially and critically, as Wikipedia reports: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_(film)

Star Trek has received nearly universal acclaim from film critics. As of May 12, 2009, the film holds a 95% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes with 225 out of 236 critics giving it a positive review with an average rating of 8.1/10

Including the May 7 figures, the film made $76.5 million domestically its first weekend. The film also opened in 54 other countries, topping the box office in 23 of them, and adding $35.5 million to its opening weekend. In a worldwide Total, the movie so far made $112,000,000.

David and Margaret also had much good to say about the film, giving it four stars each.

In my spoiler filled review, I shall reveal for the first time, the truth of the matter.

First a bit of background, as all but the die-hard fanboys probably know by now, Star Trek is a dated, pop-cultural relic of the 1960's that probably seemed daring and innovative when it first appeared, but then increasingly quaint through its several revival series, until finally a total embarrassment in its final Voyager and Enterprise series. The reasons for this are not just the premise of a galactic empire going about forcing its utopian ideology on other civilisations in hypocritical contravention of its own "Prime Directive" was too thin to sustain the franchise any longer, but that its development painted it into a corner of the nerd's side of the room. Each series seemed to have yet more bumpy-headed aliens sermonising on cringe-inducing sophomoric philosophical topics. Political-correctness run amok; with not only black captains and female captains, but stories where the cast would stand around prattling about the issue of the episode, when the issue could be quite sensibly resolved if they just hit something (At least Kirk could do this much). Then of course there was the pusillanimous approach to narrative demanded by network-TV where almost every episode had to be self-contained, the universe resetting at the end of every episode, and little in the way of a sustained story-arc (except for some of DS9, so I am told), hence one could watch Star Trek episodes in almost any order and it wouldn't matter very much. This timidity would also extend to the characters and their hardware, so that in Voyager they seemed to have a limitless number of shuttle-craft, and by the final episode the ship was just as shiny as the first episode. Lastly there was also the habit of writers falling back on treknobabble to resolve stories, probably the shoddiest thing of all.

So when Battlestar Galactica came along, with no utopianism, no bumpy-headed aliens, no prattling exploration of cultural differences, no political-correctness, a continuous narrative, an awareness of the scarcity of resources and hardware, a preference for religion over philosophy, and no holodeck to have contrived episodes set on 20th century Earth, the effect was like the final nail in the coffin for Star Trek. Hence it was no accident that when BSG got underway that Enterprise was axed, with most of the commentary at the time making this comparison.

So the Star Trek franchise has since spent several years in hiatus as Paramount considered what to do, before finally handing it over to J.J. Abrams, and in an apparent indication that Star Trek would be returned to its roots, it was announced that it would be a prequel starring the young Kirk and Spock, who are still the most recognisable characters as far as the general public are concerned. At first I assumed this would be a conventional prequel that would ret-con into the existing canon, so was surprised to learn via way of fanboy-howling that it junks the existing canon by way of establishing an alternate time-line, effectively rebooting the franchise. Ironically this means that the prequel series, Enterprise, considered to be worst of the lot, remains canonical while TOS, TNG, and DS9 now no longer exist.

But I am personally not too bothered by a reboot, since what is lost could be a fair exchange for clearing out the aforementioned dross in the Star Trek universe and bringing a new sensibility that would otherwise not be acceptable to the existing fanbase. However what we get isn't brutal, cynical, realism but just action, and very little else. The story, such as it is, is very slight, and would not by itself even fill a TV episode, except that it is heavily padded with action scenes shoveled in at every possible (or impossible) opportunity.

The story is thus: A supernova threatens the planet Romulus, Spock attempts to contain the supernova with a black hole (yeah, yeah, I know, it's actually supernovas that create black holes, but let's ignore that), but arrives too late and Romulus and the Romulan empire are destroyed, a surviving Romulan ship and its captain, Nero, are sucked into the black hole, along with Spock's ship, and taken 120 years or so into the past (yeah, yeah, I know, this isn't what really happens when you get sucked into a black hole). Nero is furious and wants to avenge himself on Spock and the entire Vulcan race by destroying the planet Vulcan, then Earth for some reason. He does this by drilling a hole into the core of each planet, and then dropping a black hole into the centre of them so they vanish. Meanwhile Kirk works his way up from recruit to captain in record time, and saves the day and Earth survives.

In no particular order, here are my observations:

- The Romulan, Nero, is played by Eric Bana, who makes no attempt to disguise his ocker Australian accent. It is a shame the script didn't oblige him with lines like "Yah gallah Spock, Vulcan won't be worth sheepdip when I finish with it."

- Why is Nero determined to exact revenge from Spock and Vulcan? Now that he has gone back in time, why doesn't he just fly to Romulus and warn them that they have 120 years to evacuate the planet before the supernova? So averting the catastrophe to begin with. In the minds of J.J. Abrams and his writers, evil characters simply do evil things, even if they are totally counterproductive to their own desires.

- When Spock is a young lad, his Vulcan mates make fun of him for being a half-breed, this essentially consists of telling him "yo momma" jokes, until he flies into a rage.

- The very first sequence, when Kirk Snr's ship is attacked by Nero, the action was so action-packed, pacing so abrupt, and editing so nervous, that I wasn't sure that this was actually the film yet, and perhaps this was an ad, and very soon a voice over would say "Star Trek - The Game. Out now on Xbox 360, PS3, and PC."

- Not being done with action, we jump forwards a few years to the young Jim Kirk in Iowa, driving a stolen car off a high cliff. That someone bothered to create a road that runs directly off a cliff tells us that all those Road Runner cartoons were probably set in Iowa too.

- Kirk is determined to seduce Uhura, who does act like a bit of a slut, giving Kirk the idea that she's at least available. There wasn't much I recall in TOS that suggested this side of her character, but I suppose it does explain why she so readily does that (very unwelcome) striptease in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.

- It turns out that Uhura had her eye on Spock, and throws herself at him a few times, and they share an icky interracial kiss. Spock, if you think you're confused now , think about how confused any potential offspring of this pairing will be. I don't seem to recall any such emotional bond between Spock and Uhura in TOS, so how did they terminate their passions so completely? The idea is so stupid that I doubt if even fan-fiction was idiotic enough to come up with this.

- Aside from this, the cast do a pretty reasonable job in creating a plausible resemblance to the TOS characters which they play, with the dynamics between the actors also more than echoing TOS. This is the most successful aspect of the film, and for this the actors deserve more credit than the writers or director.

- Anyway, when they get into space more action follows, there is so much action that whenever it subsides even slightly, I'm expecting the pace to quicken again with someone announcing "Captain, the ship's crocodile enclosure has been breached! Decks 4, 6, and 7 are now infested by crocodiles!" And then Kirk will go and wrestle crocodiles.

- This almost does happen, Spock maroons Kirk on an ice-moon of Vulcan, and he is then chased by some snow creature, who is then eaten by a giant dinosaur-sized reptile, and then Kirk is running for his life from the giant reptile. Fortunately elderly Spock (who just happens to be there) saves him by scaring it off with a small fire.

- There seems to be a new trend in cinema these days (The Brave One is full of this), twirling a camera around on a dolly so the camera is simultaneously moving on three axises. This is just annoying. It's like a baton-wielding marching band leader is the camera-operator.

- While the ten preceding Star Trek films will never be regarded as high watermarks of cinema, at least in their pedestrian fashion they allowed you time to look at anything interesting and pretty. Here the editing is so frantic that if there ever was a good shot, you'd easily miss it by blinking at the wrong time.

- Nero's plan is to drill a hole into the centre of a planet and drop a black hole into the middle of it. But you know, drilling a hole isn't really necessary, all you have to do is throw the black hole in the general vicinity of the planet, and that will do the job.

- Things I've learned: Black holes destroy planets, but cause spaceships to travel back in time.

- Gratuitous Action Scene #45. Kirk and Scotty beam back aboard the Enterprise. Kirk beams back fine, but Scotty happens to beam into a giant waterpipe, which is carrying him swiftly towards some SPINNING BLADES!!! Before Kirk can save the universe, he must first save his new friend from the SPINNING BLADES!!!

- A reboot doesn't mean we're going to be spared bumpy-headed aliens. Not at all. More of them than were ever in TOS.

- As many have remarked, the flight deck of the Enterprise looks like an Apple store showroom. Personally I thought it looked more like an 80s nightclub, but this is all a matter of opinion.

- A bunch of other stuff happened too, but I forget it all now.

In conclusion, William Shatner no longer suffers the shame of directing the worst Star Trek film.