Something, Something, Blah, Blah Reboots: Batman Begins

We have reached a point of critical mass (pardon the pun) and we’ve realized that no matter the quality of the material being produced, we have enough of a built-in audience to make literally any article successful, and therefore, we have reached a nearly unanimous decision on behalf of the stockholders to just stop giving a crap about things like market research, and test audiences. Instead, we’re going to create whatever we want, and market it with flashy CGI, big explosions, scantily clad women, and loud, raucous trailer music that we licensed for a dollar. Also, this is the last article in the series so we really have no need to care anymore regardless of the circumstances. Therefore, we have sacked all of the creative staff, including the guy who was in charge of sacking people, and we’re letting our corporate officers steer this bloated tub!

In all seriousness, I have had a ton of fun with this series because we’ve looked at films of such varying quality. We started with a mediocre film, then we looked at what happens when the reboot goes awry, and then we looked at a really good reboot. This week we’re actually going to look at what happens when reboot does its job too well.

Batman Begins mostly tells the story of a young Bruce Wayne making his transition from anti-social billionaire to cowl wearing, anti-social, vigilante billionaire. The movie was released in 2005 and was directed by cinematic mind game player Christopher Nolan. It’s kind of hard to simply sum up this movie because it spends a lot of time jumping between various time periods in Wayne’s life. But the jist is that we see Wayne’s parents being rich and philanthropic, then they get murdered by Joe Chill, and that sends baby Bruce into emotional turmoil. Once Chill is finally caught and tried, Bruce attempts to kill him, but gets beaten to the punch by a mafia hit person. Bruce’s good friend Joey, I mean Rachel, finds out and slaps him a few times before she tells him how disappointed his father would be. In response, Bruce goes off the grid, and undertakes a multi-year exercise in understanding the criminal mind through acting like a criminal. That more or less covers the flashback stuff.

When we get the ‘present day’ stuff, it’s situated on that cusp moment before Bruce comes back to Gotham City to finally become Batman. He’s somewhere in Asia serving out a prison sentence, and he’s approach by Ra's Al Gul. Gul propositions him about joining a secret group of justice enforcers called the League of Shadows. Bruce gets out of prison, and goes to their dojo, and trains with them, but literally blows the place up when they ask him to execute a thief. After this harrowing experience, Bruce goes back to Gotham to start cleaning up. He takes a low level, dead end job at Wayne Tech working with Lucius Fox, who loans him toys to use to fight crime. We get to see how Wayne built his arsenal, and his methods, and he’s pretty novice so sometimes things don’t go as planned.

Batman is trying to take down the Falcone family, and simultaneously figure out how Falcone members are getting taken out of the general population at the prison to be put in Arkham Asylum under the watch of a Dr. Crane. This leads to uncovering a plot to use a fear toxin to cripple Gotham so that someone can move in and take over. But who? Oh that’s right, the League of Shadows because they’ll do anything to bring justice to the masses. Hence, the latter half of the film focuses on the power struggle between Batman and the League as they fight to administer justice in the ways that they think is right. In the end, Batman lets Ra’s die in a fiery train inferno, and he’s able to save the day. But before we can get too comfortable, Jim Gordon informs us that there’s another psycho that’s threatening Gotham. *Cue heroic music*

That’s a really bare bones synopsis, but, honestly, if you haven’t seen this movie twelve years on, you’re the epitome of a slacker. There’s a lot to love about this movie. First of all, this was a huge departure from the Batman films of days gone by…

Thankfully...

And honestly, Batman kind of needed it…

For obvious reasons...

However, I would also say that this film ushered in the true rise of the modern day reboot. Up to this point, the only modern reboot that I remember hearing about was 2001’s Planet of the Apes. It was not very good, and it’s ticket sales reflected that, but Hollywood has a way of sticking with an idea no matter how little sense it makes.

As I said, there’s a lot to love about this movie. It’s got a really engaging story that keeps the viewer entertained throughout. It does move slowly, but the way in which the story is presented keep the viewer on edge, wanting to know what’s going to happen next, and so it doesn’t feel boring. The whole film is seething with atmosphere. It’s dark, it’s mysterious, and even for Batman, it’s seriously dangerous. No one feels safe in this version of Gotham outside of the crime bosses, and that can be unsettling in itself. The action sequences are really cool. And there’s equal parts fist punching, and car chases, which just makes the whole experience that much more fun. Nolan does a really good job digging into the psychology behind Batman. He looks at all of the events that led up to the genesis of the Dark Knight and puts them in a well defined space within the narrative. Speaking of well defined, the whole entire thing is well grounded in  reality. You see Bat toys, and you never think, “Oh that’s just ridiculous!” Instead, you find yourself believing that the toys being used could actually exist in our world. Finally, I really like the way Batman is brought to light throughout the film. Nolan does an exceptional job at teasing out the reveal until the very last moments before he finally lets the audience see Batman in his final form.

*Spoiler Alert: It's not this.

Now let’s get to what’s not to love about this movie. First, and foremost, I didn’t like the way Nolan handled Gotham as a setting in the physical sense. In the comics, Gotham is as much an active character in the narration as everyone else. There’s a very distinct style, look, and feel to the city. While Nolan captured the feel pretty well, he neglected the style, and the look. Because of this, I kind of felt like any of the cityscape scenes could have just been any city at all. I feel like this was a hugely missed opportunity that stems from one of the strengths of the film and turns it into a weakness. The strength is that everything felt grounded in reality. That’s super cool when we’re talking about gadgets, or the Tumbler because we want to believe that we could own those things. But when we’re talking about the movie’s primary setting, and characters, I feel like more effort could have been made to maintain a bit of those fantastical elements that separate reality from fiction. Ra’s Al Gul doesn’t die, he goes to a Lazarus pit, and gets resurrected after all of his ‘deaths’. This, in turn, syphons off some of his sanity, and makes him a more dangerous, and unstable villain for Batman to battle. Scarecrow was done well, but I feel like the movie might have benefited from just a tiny bit more of him. Gotham needs that sort of stylized appearance to set it apart from both other real world cities, as well as other cities within the DC universe, like Metropolis, or Rapid City. Those cities look pretty mundane by comparison. These are all little things, but in my opinion, they’re necessary to remind the viewer that they’re watching a Batman film.

My biggest peave with this movie actually has nothing to do with this movie directly. I love this movie for all of things that it did well with the Batman mythology. However, I loathe what it did for movies in general going forward. Here are a few examples of what I’m talking about:

We have the dark, gritty RoboCop. I kind of feel like this works...

The dark, gritty Fantastic Four...

The dark, gritty Superman...

The dark, gritty James Bond...

And finally, the dark, gritty Star Trek

Much like Celine Dion’s heart, or the Energizer bunny, this list just goes on, and on. Batman Begins was so successful in its formula that every other franchise decided that the best thing that they could do is follow suit. For crying out loud, the entire DCEU is built upon the foundation that was laid by Batman Begins. What this has led to is movies that are moapy, and dour, and brooding, and not very fun. Gone are the days of colorful, fun movies with light subject matter that can simply entertain moviegoers in a way that said moviegoers find universally satisfying because Hollywood is too busy chasing the Batman Begins dragon. Hollywood is so intent on recreating that success that they’ve forgotten what it means to have fun producing a film. I’ve already mentioned this quite recently in another article, but I recently went to see the Power Rangers film for a second time, and I was thoroughly impressed with the fact that even on the second viewing, I was grinning throughout most of the movie. Now, this may speak to my level of intellectual maturity in some way, but it’s also a really good demonstration of the kind of audience reactions a movie can get when the movie is fun, and also when those involved in the film’s production had fun making it. But alas, this newer breed of movie take themselves way too seriously, and rightfully so. Hollywood dumps hundreds of millions of dollars into the production and marketing of blockbuster movies these days. That’s a lot of financial risk coming from people who have no idea what they’re doing. So there’s a lot of pressure to strike gold using all the dumb luck that can be amassed. This whole thing speaks to so many problems inherent in the film industry, but a lot of it can be traced back to Batman Begins. Unfortunately, it’s a film that’s a victim of its own success.

That’s all we’ve got for this month! I hope you’ve enjoyed Reboot month as much as I’ve enjoyed researching these articles! Stay tuned because I’ve got something really special planned for June. Hint: We’re going camping! Stick around to see what zany antics I have planned for the start of summer!

Revenge of the Reboots: Rise of the Planet of the Apes

So despite all of the hard efforts on behalf of our staff to steer our series in a more viable direction, numbers did not improve in the manner that was expected as a result of last week’s article. Therefore, we have axed our entire writing staff, and sacked the person who was in charge of sacking the previous staff. New market research indicates that the previous article was a little too soft, and therefore, less interesting to the average reader. We have, therefore, decided to reboot our reboot of our series on reboots in order maintain that soft, and relatable direction, but also give it an edgy tone that will hopefully give it that much needed punch that it was lacking previously.

Last week, we looked at the 2001 reboot of PotA, and how it didn’t quite work as a spiritual successor to a franchise that had been so groundbreaking back in its day. This week, we’re going to look at the other, slightly more successful reboot of the PotA franchise, 2011’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes. I mentioned in passing last week that this film actually benefited from being a little more grounded. We’ll get to that, but first, let’s take a look at the basic story behind the film.

James Franco plays Dr. William Rodman, a geneticist working for a cutting edge corporation. Specifically, he’s researching the feasibility of using genetic correction to cure alzheimer's disease, which his father, Charles, played by John Lithgow, happens to have. The program is in the animal testing phase and Will administers his drug to a chimp that he lovingly, and in no possible ironic way, named Bright Eyes. Bright Eyes is put on display during a meeting with the big wigs, but she’s forced from her cage, which sends her on a rampage, and she’s ultimately killed by security. This is bad for Will because in response, his boss terminates the project, and this means that the company will also terminate the animals that were used in the experiment. During the euthanization process, Will’s lab partner finds out that Bright Eyes had been protecting her newly born son. Will opts to secretly take the son home to raise him and study him, and he names him Caesar, and there’s lots of sappiness for, like, twelve seconds.

A few years pass, and Caesar is showing signs of incredible intelligence, and he’s starting to question his own identity. In the meantime, Will has been giving the drug to old dad Charles because Charles had alzheimer’s so naturally, we give this person our untested, and definitely unapproved drugs. However, over several years, Charles has built up a tolerance to the drug, and its effects are starting to diminish. There are some things that happen that kind of get Caesar carted off to an animal shelter where the two biggest douches in this universe, one played by Draco Malfoy, happen to work. Caesar is caged up with all of the other apes that are there... for some reason. I guess people in California really enjoy collecting dangerous primates.

Meanwhile, Will had been working on a more powerful form of the drug that apparently could also boost intelligence. This drug is administered to a bonobo and in the process, Will’s good friend is exposed to the drug, which kills him. This is ground zero for the beginning of the third act as all of the apes at the genetic corporation bust out and go on a citywide rampage. Also in the meantime, Caesar breaks out of the animal shelter, and steals a canister of the new drug. He goes back and gives it to all of his new ape brethren. Draco and his pops attempt to get Caesar and friends back into their cages, but Caesar rebels by shouting, “no,” and this is when all of those apes take off. The apes from the genetic corporation have freed the apes in the San Francisco Zoo, and now both groups converge on the historic Golden Gate Bridge. By this point, the military has gotten involved, and there’s a pretty intense battle going on between the humans and the apes. The apes are just trying to find someplace safe to live at this point, and the military is just trying to make some primate heads explode. Honestly, I’m not sure which motivation I sympathize with more, but I generally find myself rooting for the apes whenever I watch this film soooo… (That was most definitely sarcasm, BTW.)

After the intense Golden Gate Bridge battle, the apes manage an escape to the redwood forest where Will used to take Caesar to play. There’s a heartwarming goodbye between Will and Caesar, and then the apes disappear into the mists. That’s pretty much the end, but not really because the new drug that Will made was airborne, and acted like a deadly virus to humans, and some of those army dudes were exposed to animals that were ‘infected’ with this virus, and so during the credits, we see how the virus begins to spread all over the world, killing millions upon millions of humans in the process, and most likely spreading to more apes as well.

Okay, so remember how I said that grounding this franchise a bit worked really well? Here’s why… The original movie was a cautionary tale about the nuclear arms race, and man creating the source of his own demise. That was during the Cold War era, and for the time, it was really poignant. It still is in a lot of ways, but I’m going to leave all of that alone because I’ve already discussed it enough in the previous article for that portion of the franchise. This film also serves as a cautionary allegory for man’s inherent arrogance. It just approaches the subject from a direction that’s more relevant to our society today. Instead of nuclear weapons being the instrument of our destruction, it’s us trying to tamper with the basic building blocks of life on Earth without necessarily having sufficient understanding to successfully do so. It’s an approach that works because that is the cutting edge right now, and anything on the fringes has the potential to blow up in our collective faces, which is unsettling. That’s why this reboot works, and the 2001 reboot doesn’t. The 2001 film lacked the cautionary message, and the unadulterated expose on humanity’s follies that are a hallmark of the franchise.

Beyond having a very concrete and well built theme, this film also benefits from an engaging story. We do spend quite a bit of time in montage mode, but all of that serves to help get to the exciting stuff a little more quickly, and the story doesn’t suffer any for it. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that it actually helps the story. Instead of wallowing in pretentious, drawn out, and muddled explanations of things that really aren’t important, this film paces itself so that it can lay all of its foundations early and quickly. The viewer never feels like they’re not getting enough information to keep up, but nor do they feel like the film is taking too long to give them that information. It’s all very concise, and very well executed. The actors in the this movie are also exceptional. Every last actor gives their best performance. They have fun doing so, and that translates well into the movie. The touching moments are touching, the sad moments are sad, and the exciting moments are exciting. There’s no real loss between the film and the audience as far as tone is involved.

Of course, we have to look at the special effects. This film would not have been possible without them. I love the original franchise, and I’ll even admit to enjoying a decent amount of the 2001 film, but even I have to concede that the apes in those movies were lacking a bit in their appearance. Don’t get me wrong, I still think they look great for what they are, and when they were done, but some things just don’t age all that well. This movie, again, benefits from grounding itself a little more. We’re not dealing with physically evolved apes, we’re only dealing with intellectually evolved apes, and so we can just show regular looking apes. The audience still gets the same effect, but in the grand scheme of things, it will all age a little bit more gracefully. And the rendering of the apes is fantastic. Andy Serkis probably worked his butt off to bring Caesar’s performance to life, and he did a great job. Even through the lens of the movie being over half a decade old, those creature effects still hold up well, and I don’t usually praise CG, but I really have to give credit where credit is due.

I’ve been giving this movie a lot of high praise. That’s not to say that it’s without fault. It does do a little too much homaging for my tastes. Several of the character names are lifted directly from either characters, or real people associated with the making of the first film, and there’s actually a scene where a scene from the original movie is playing on a TV. There are probably others, but I don’t want to spend too much time there. Just know that they exist, and if you’re in the know, they can get a little annoying after the third viewing or so. The reason that I feel comfortable praising this movie so freely, though, is that it really captures the feel of those old Sci-Fi movies that I enjoy. It poses a theory, and it presents its own sort of corroborating story, and it makes the viewer think about stuff. It may not be up to the level of some of the greats, but it makes that attempt, and that’s what good Sci-Fi is supposed to do. For that reason, I’m going to say that this is a movie that not only deserves a watch, but that probably deserves a spot on your DVD/Bluray shelf, or hard drive, or whatever you use to store and watch movies. I think it’s destined to become a classic, and I’m sticking to that assertion! Stay tuned for next week as we finish up reboot month! What will I be skewering next? The answer may surprise you!

Rise of the Reboots: Planet of the Apes (2001)

Recent market and focus group testing has drawn our attention the fact that the name, and the protagonist of last week’s article both came off as a little too aggressive. Therefore, we’ve given the guy that wrote that article the sack, and brought on a new team to produce a more ‘family friendly’ reboot of the reboot series. Keeping that in mind, we’ve decided to explore subject matter that could be interpreted as being ‘more universally appealing’, or at the very least, ‘less unappealing’ to the average reader. With that out of the way, let’s look at this week’s reboot, Planet of the Apes.

As I stated last week, this was my first proper exposure to the film reboot. And as my previous article on the original movies should demonstrate, I really like this franchise. I own everything ever filmed for the PotA franchise, including the live action TV show, and the cartoon show that were done back in the day. I’ve stuck with the franchise through thick and thin, and sometimes I’ve been rewarded, and other times, I’ve been less than impressed. Either way, the concept that the original series used was, and still is, captivating, and thought provoking. However, at the tender age of 18, all that I cared about was that Tim Burton, the guy who made my favorite Batman film, was going to make a movie in another franchise that I really enjoyed. See, this was the point when everyone finally realized that ol’ Timmy B wasn’t completely infallible. He had done a few movies up to this point that maybe weren’t as well received as the studios would have liked, but those films always mustered enough charm to still appeal to audiences, and at least make some money. However, 2001’s PotA is a completely different story altogether.

Hold onto reality tight as we take a Willy Wonka-esque boat trip down memory lane, and try to make sense of this movie. It all starts with Marky Mark, minus the Funky Bunch, working as an astronaut on a space station. A group of scientists are trying to train chimpanzees to fly probe ships so that the precious humans don’t have to risk life and limb in order to better understand the cosmos. Everything appears to be going normally until an unidentified blob of space weather begins to rain down on the space station.

One of the chimps is sent to take readings, which indicate that there may be temporal anomalies associated with this event, and the pod is lost. Marky Mark decides to go after his good buddy, and in the process, gets affected by whatever made the chimp disappear. When he finally lands, he’s under water, but when he finally gets above water, he’s in a tropical jungle area.

It’s around this time that he finds himself being hunted by an unknown assailant. He’s eventually caught, where he gets to share a cage with Kris Kristofferson, which is one of the coolest stage names ever, and he quickly realizes that he was caught by talking apes. Paul Giamatti plays a peddler ape who specializes in the purveyance of exotic pets/slaves, or humans. We see him grading each specimen, and earmarking how they should be marketed based on appearance and temperament. I think this is supposed to be social commentary on social stratification, and bigotry, but it’s all too off putting to really get its message across. At this point, Burton made the decision to spend a ton of time examining ape culture. I’m not saying that it isn’t interesting, but it isn’t exceptionally entertaining. It’s slow, it’s muddled, and it’s just plain weird. We see how the apes subvert the humans to perform menial labor, but that there’s a movement led by one of the apes to make humans more equal in society. We see the ape mating ritual, which includes awkward, nightmare inducing dancing. And we see ape hoodlums acting like ape hoodlums, and getting into all kinds of ape shenanigans. Honestly, most of it’s pointless. The most important takeaway is that an ape named Thade, who is the son of the ape patriarch wants to get him some sweet ape tail from Ari, the ape who’s leading the human equality movement. And also that Thade treats humans like disposable commodities because he super hates humans, read he’s threatened by their ability to grow and adapt, I think.

Anyway, we slog through the boring until Ari helps a group of apes to escape. Through some plot happenstance, Paul Giamatti’s character Limbo, and a few other apes end up as part of the caper. They all flee into the woods in order to get a head start on their pursuers. It’s actually pretty exciting, but not enough to keep me awake during most viewings. They all end up at Lake Powell, where much of the first film was made, and eventually stumble upon the wreckage of Marky Mark’s space station. Bet you’d forgotten he was in this film, huh? It’s okay, most people do. Ari and Marky Mark do some snooping around to see what’s up with this situation, and in the meantime, the ape army, which is about 5,000 strong at this point, get the drop on the group. I’m not sure why Thade thinks that he needs such a huge army to capture a group of less than a dozen people, but okay. During the poking around, there’s some babble about the space station being the genesis for ape life on the planet. Marky Mark recognizes names of apes that participated in his program, and Ari ties those names to renowned names in ape mythology. They realize that they can use the booster rockets on the station to wipe out the army and set the plan in motion, but Thade comes in to wreck the party. He eventually gets stuck in a room with bullet resistant glass and kills himself by shooting a gun, which he got from his father, Zaius, who ironically enough was played by NRA guru Charlton Heston.

There’s some action, maybe an explosion or two, and then out of nowhere, the chimp that kicked off this whole adventure performs a picture perfect landing of his space pod right in the middle of the crowd. There’s a somewhat heartwarming reunion, and then Marky Mark decides that he needs to fly off into the sunset. So he does. After he kisses Ari because we need to recreate as many iconic moments from the first film as possible. Marky Mark sets trajectory, and does his thing only to land on the National Mall in Washington, DC. Specifically, he lands outside the Lincoln Memorial. He seems relieved to be back in his own universe, and then he walks up the steps and into the monument only realize that ol’ Honest Abe has been replaced by Honest Ape. That’s about the point when a half dozen police cruisers show up, and a bunch of uniformed apes pile out with guns at the ready. And then the movie ends.

This film has already taken a bunch of flak over the years, and deservedly so. I’ll try not to overlap too much with what’s already been said, but don’t expect a miracle. A lot has been said. So, the main area where this movie suffers is in its focus. It flat out just doesn’t have any. It’s trying to be witty, and smart, and sexy, and slick all at the same time, but it doesn’t know how to juggle all of these attributes effectively. Burton took a huge risk opting to do this film, and it really didn’t pay off for him because although he can make great films, you really need to know your stuff when doing a time travel story. You can’t just slap a story together half way and expect good results when time travel is involved. You have to have a really tight story, and you have to pay attention to every facet of your time periods, and how each would affect all of the others. Burton just didn’t have everything nailed down that well. Ironically, the film actually doesn’t suffer from a lack of identity. It’s a Burton film, and Burton films seethe with identity just due to Burton’s style. I think he really knew what he wanted to achieve, he just didn’t know how to achieve it.

This movie has some awesome special effects. The prosthetics, the props, and the CG effects are all really cool. And for the most part, these things are all utilized well. As I said, the exploration of ape culture is a thing. It can be kind of cool at times, when it’s not being completely off putting. There are some really awesome action sequences in this film as well, and the actors portraying the apes really come through the makeup, which adds to these sequences. There are individual parts of this film that actually work pretty well, they just don’t add up very well overall. I think Burton tried to too hard to throw back to the original material, and in so doing, lost sight of making a great film that could stand on its own. This is most evident with the metaplot, or lack thereof. Yes the time travel element could be considered an integral element of the PtoA franchise, but if that were really the case, then Rise of the Planet of the Apes should never have worked. Burton did exactly what most bad reboots do. They fall in the trap of trying to recreate the success of the original material by simply rehashing through the original material. What usually makes for a good reboot is coming up with new original material. Making a film that stands on its own within a franchise is hard, but the payout is definitely worth it. All of the best reboots choose to focus on building new mythology for themselves, don’t rely too heavily on what’s come before to prop themselves up. Honestly, name recognition should be enough for any filmmaker. Take what life has given you up to that point, and make a great film that hits the hallmarks of your franchise, but that builds it out in new and unexplored ways. Burton’s film did none of that, and it shows in the fact that after more viewing than I’m willing to admit to, I still don’t understand how we get from point A, the beginning at the space station, to point B, the Lincoln Memorial on the Earth run by apes. I wasn’t even aware that the space station had been orbiting Earth. I thought it was out in open space somewhere. Building on that, I didn’t realize that temporal anomalies had the power to change one’s spacial position as well. See, there are a lot of lazy holes in the story that could have been fixed with some relatively minor changes. If this movie fails anywhere at all, it’s here. It’s in the fact that it was kind of lazy, and as a result, missed a lot of great opportunities. Thankfully, we got another reboot that actually delivered some good movies.

All in all, this film really isn’t worth the watch. It’s eye catching, and imaginative in some regards, but it misses the spiritual point of its predecessors in a bad way, and that just makes the entire ordeal directionless, and not very entertaining. And yet, still fun somehow. That’s all for this week! Stay tuned for next week to see which reboot we roast next!

Reboot Rampage Month: Star Trek (2009)

The subject of this article started out going in a much different direction than it ended up taking, which is fitting since the modern reboot is designed to take a franchise that has been around for a while and push it in a different direction, usually one that isn’t very good, but we’ll get to that. We’re going to take a few weeks and look at some film reboots that, for better or worse, made lasting impacts on their respective franchises. Now a lot of people think that the reboot is a modern idea. Hollywood is running out of original ideas so they’re raping our collective childhood by rehashing all of the movies and TV shows that we used to love back in the day. However, the earliest examples I could find pertained to franchises like Tarzan, which got ‘rebooted’ in the 50s after four decades of using the same formula. Also, the Godzilla franchise cropped up. That series had been doing its thing for 30 years, and then got a reboot in 1984. So the idea of the reboot is not anything new, even if the term as it pertains to film and television is. I feel a need, as with most of my examinations, to establish some criteria to better define the term ‘reboot’ as the term has been used somewhat broadly in the past. First, I’m only going to look at movies as looking at a show could end up being a little more time consuming than I can afford. Two, for our purposes, the film needs to come from an established franchise, and make significant changes to the trajectory of the story that the franchise had been telling. So for example, under my criteria, Fant4stic Four would be a reboot, as there were already two films previously and it significantly altered the tone and story trajectory of the established canon, but The Incredible Hulk would not count as a reboot because 2003’s The Hulk is the only other existing big screen adaptation, and so there really wasn’t much there to alter in the first place. Now that we hopefully understand what we’re talking about, let’s look at our first reboot!

I’m not going to lie, I went into this movie with about as much enthusiasm as a 26 year old Trekkie who’d been a Trekkie practically since birth could muster. I saw this movie five times in the theaters. I jumped on the hype bandwagon almost immediately. That’s my round about way of saying that I was pretty excited for this movie to come out. That is, after I finally got over the disappointment of not getting the next chapter in The Next Generation film story. I had been totally underwhelmed with 2002’s Star Trek Nemesis, and in fact, thought it was just cinematic garbage. There were a couple of elements there that had they been the focus, might have made for a decent movie, but the whole thing just felt tired, and inauthentic. Characters didn’t feel right, the story was contrived and lack luster. Some of the themes could have been interesting if they’d been explored in an interesting way, but they weren’t. So I was really hoping that the old TNG cast would get one last shot at cinematic redemption, and also to go out with some finality, and fanfare. Alas, with the announcement of the reboot, all those hopes were dashed. There was a brief mourning period, then news started to leak, and then the excitement started to sink in. I was so excited, I dragged my wife to see Cloverfield just so we could see the teaser. I really didn’t like Cloverfield, but the teaser was great.

I will admit that I was just the tiniest bit concerned when I heard that a reboot was happening as my previous experience with reboots was limited to the 2001 Planet of the Apes. We may get back that later too, but for now, Star Trek! I had the usual concerns. Would they get the characters right? Would the story be any good? How would they handle the existing mythology? The usual concerns… So what did we get? Well, the movie starts with a mysterious vessel emerging from an opening in space. The vessel happens upon the USS Kelvin, and Federation deep space vessel on assignment near the Klingon neutral zone. The ship destroys Kelvin like it ain’t no thing, and in the process of saving hundreds of lives, George Kirk, Jimmy T’s pops, is killed. James is born just then, and it’s actually kind of a heartwarming scene. Then we jump a few years to Earth. Ol’ Jim is getting into trouble. He’s grown into a lost and directionless youth who commits acts of grand theft auto and listens to the Beastie Boys. He has his brush with the law, and then we jump to Vulcan. Young Spock is taking a test because that’s a Vulcan’s favorite pass time. Some Vulcan bullies start insulting him in order to illicit an emotional response, and they make the mistake of insulting his mom. Spock wails on the leader, and then there’s brief bit of wisdom from Spock’s dad. Next we see Spock turn down a position at the Vulcan Science Academy because the director insults mom again. Then we jump back to Kirk and he’s making trouble at a bar where Starfleet cadets go before they head to the academy, which for some reason is in Iowa? But he gets into a fight, and gets pulverized, but then Chris Pike gives him the recruiting speech, and he decides to join Starfleet. If you haven’t gotten it by now, we’re doing an origin story. I make light, but actually, it sort of works okay in this one instance. You hear that, Hollywood? Unless they’re completely unknown to the world, we don’t need anymore origin stories! Anyway, we get a chance to see all of these characters before they reach apex form, and it’s kind of fun. Kirk is reckless, but charming, Uhura is a bookworm, Spock is an arrogant ass, McCoy is a sarcastic ass, Chekov is the wunderkind boy genius, Sulu is unsure of himself, and Scotty is marooned for insubordination. The places where these characters start is actually really interesting, and the story as it pertains to them is also fun to watch.

Back to that mysterious vessel, that’s our actual plot. The vessel is a Romulan mining ship from the future that’s commanded by one Nero. Nero is super mad because the Spock that everyone already knows and loves failed to save his planet from a supernova, and Nero’s wife was killed as a result. As a result, Nero is on a vendetta to destroy everything that Spock holds dear, as well as the entire Federation just for good measure. So obviously, our heroes have to stop Nero. This is where this movie really breaks down for me. I get that time travel and alternate universes seemed like a necessity here because who wants to take on 40 years of the other stuff, but Nero is quite possibly one of the dullest, and most irritating villains in Star Trek history. Shinzon was more enjoyable. Nero scream whines his way through the entire film. His backstory is glossed over so badly that it’s nearly impossible to connect with him, and as a result, his motivation just feels forced, and half hearted, despite all of the irritating things that Eric Bana tried in order to sell it. See, the destruction of Romulus is a big deal, but I think that the event would have had more impact if the actual event had been shown. Instead, we get anecdotal stories from Nero and Spock Prime as he went on to be known. This lessens the impact for the viewer, and makes it hard for them to create an emotional connection. And it has been my experience that relatable villains make the best villains. Nero isn’t one. He’s a melodramatic, angsty bag of hot air. And it’s really too bad because we get some great characters from the main Starfleet cast. At this point, every character feels familiar, but just different enough to be their own thing. They’re all fleshed out really well. It almost feels like the production team figured out how they wanted to approach rewriting the main characters, and then tried to build a script around that concept.

There are some other flaws. Oh there are flaws. First, and JJ has paid dearly for this, there are soooo many lens flares. Not a great idea. I’m not a particularly huge fan of some of the design elements. They did try to take some familiar design cues and update them, but if you ask me, they focused on the wrong elements. The JJ-prise just looks awful. The proportions are so off that it just looks like a hot mess. I get a little confused about the time frames. Kirk spends three years in the academy and then gets the newest ship in the fleet? I’m confused. But it’s cool. It’s probably no easy feat showing that progression in a two hour film. On the pro side of the the column, the uniforms are a little on the bland side, but I appreciate that they stay pretty close to the original designs. I liked the Jellyfish ship. It’s got some cool lines, and it manages to take a simple concept and make it look pretty elegant. I liked the design of most of the shuttles. They looked rugged, and capable, which are characteristics that you would want from a utility vehicle. I also liked the sets that I got to see on Vulcan. They were sufficiently Vulcan looking enough to really sell that environment. I actually really enjoyed the scene where young Kirk destroys the Corvette. I was shocked, and a little sad, but it was kind of cool. In fact, pretty much everything about the origin story is cool. I really appreciate that this movie feels somewhat familiar, but different. It’s taken me years to get to that point, and I may be giving this movie some good will because of Beyond, but it actually does kind of feel like a Star Trek movie. I recently likened it to Undiscovered Country, only if that movie was made to be understood by third graders. Star Trek 2009 isn’t your typical cerebral, thought provoking Trek. It’s been packaged to attract the widest possible audience. It relies really heavily on action, but it does the action well, and the action makes it exciting. It does take some time to show the gallant crew coming together and learning to work as a team, and also to show them puzzling out exactly what’s going on. These are things that are a part of Star Trek. They’re maybe not the things that I would have focused on had I been in charge, but they are the things that are probably going to expose new audiences in the most effective and positive way. They’re going to make Star Trek accessible. And these things do come across as familiar to the hardened fan.

Don’t go into this film expecting a Wrath of Khan, or an Undiscovered Country experience. This movie couldn’t be bogged down by that much insight, and philosophy. And don’t go into Into Darkness at all. Go into this movie expecting a really fun romp through the stars with characters that will entertain and remind you of their counterparts in all the right ways. Go in expecting to be entertained, and wowed by great action sequences, phenomenal special effects, and awesome explosions. Expect a fun score from Michael Giacchino, and expect some great character moments. This is a good reboot. I’m not sure what else I can say except this is definitely one to to keep around the house. It’s got good rewatch value. Stay tuned next week as we continue reboot rampage! I’ve got some doozies in store for you!