The Inquisitr » J.J. Abrams

Star Trek review – No spoilers

Dennis Bjørn Petersen — Sat, 09 May 2009 09:27:32 +0000

I saw the latest Star Trek movie yesterday. To give it a fair review I thought I would sleep on it, because I was so excited after leaving the cinema yesterday, it would just have been one praise after the other.

I’m sorry to say, that one night of sleep didn’t change that at all. With a 96% review at Rotten Tomatoes and 8.4 on IMDB I’m confident it will make about $92 million at the box office this weekend.

“Set your phasers to stunning.”

The awesomsauce: You don’t have to be a Trekkie to watch this movie. You don’t need to know anything about the Star Trek universe, characters or technology. You’ll miss some references (I noticed a few lines from “Wrath of Khan”) and some Kirk-Spock moments, but that’s details. The story is great, the jokes hilarious and the special effects are very well made without been too unreal.

The actors are spot on. Especially Zachary Quinto (who probably is used to playing emotionless on Heroes) nails Spock. You don’t see Sylar (bad guy from TV-series Heroes), you see Spock in him. Chris Pine makes a great James T. Kirk. In a few scenes you can actually see him make some of the classic Kirk faces and movements. I think he has spent many hours watching William Shatner’s Capt. Kirk. The same goes for Karl Urban. His Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy is simply brilliant. I can see DeForest Kelley’s Bones immediately and of course you get a “Dammit I’m a doctor not a *something*”-line.

JJ Abrams succesfully reboots the Star Trek franchise!

The less good: I’m not going to waste many letters on this. If you are a hardcore Trekkie I’m sure you don’t like the engine room of the USS Enterprise. The warp drive looks like something from gas/hydro plant, but c’mon that doesn’t change the awesomeness of this movie. I did miss one thing. The classic Star Trek theme. When you see the Star Trek logo/badge you always expect it, but soundtrack composer Michael Giacchino has a surprise up his sleeve. You can actually recognize a few classic notes from time to time. (and yes the classic theme can be heard later on in the movie)

To sum up: This movie brought several tears of coolness I’ve only experienced a few times before (as Superman rescued Lois Lane in the plane, so good to hear the Superman theme again or when I heard the Indy theme in Indy 4). Go this the Star Trek movie and you’ll feel just like me – JJ Abrams; we want to see this crew’s next space adventure ASAP!

I give it 10 out of 10, just because I’m still thinking of this movie.

*UPDATE* Star Trek made $72.5 million in North American ticket sales in its first weekend. Not enough to beat Wolverine’s $85 million record last weekend, but I doubt Star Trek will drop 68% next weekend as Wolverine did this weekend.

J.J. Abrams considering Cloverfield Sequel

Duncan Riley — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 11:42:46 +0000

Appearing in San Francisco to promote Star Trek, J.J. Abrams told an audience that the team behind Cloverfield is looking at a possible sequel, or follow up movie.

“We’re working on one right now,” Abrams said. “The key obviously is with a sequel, certainly with this film, is that it had better not be a business decision. If you’re going to do something, it should be because you’re really inspired to do it. It doesn’t guarantee anything and it doesn’t mean that it’s gonna work, but it means you did what you did and not because you’re trying to make a buck. We have an idea for something that’s pretty cool that we’re playing with. It’s something that would be related to ‘Cloverfield’ and hopefully we’ll do something sooner than later, because the idea’s pretty sweet.”

Cloverfield grossed $170 million worldwide on a $25 million budget.

Best of Fringe’s “The Observer” Mashup

Duncan Riley — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 03:34:43 +0000

One for fans of the excellent series Fringe: a user mashup of the appearances of “The Obsever.”

Michael Cerveris plays the role and although you don’t always catch him, he’s usually in every episode.

Enjoy:

Star Trek latest: new Enterprise revealed, scene previews shown

Duncan Riley — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 07:59:22 +0000

The first shot of the new look Starship Enterprise from the J.J. Abrams Star Trek movie is out (picture above).

If it looks like the old Enterprise, just more modern looking, there is a reason. Abrams told Entertainment Weekly (also image source) that “If you’re going to do Star Trek there are many things you cannot change. The Enterprise is a visual touchstone for so many people. So if you’re going to do the Enterprise, it better look like the Enterprise, because otherwise, what are you doing?”

In related news, 400 lucky journalists got their first look at 4 scenes from the yet to be completed movie, with JJ Abrams and Simon Pegg doing the scene introductions.

DenofGeek offers the best description of what was shown here but warning: serious spoilers in the descriptions.

New Star Trek movie pictures

Duncan Riley — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 03:01:07 +0000

UPDATE: see the New Star Trek Trailer via the link.

It’s still 7 months away from hitting the screens, but the first shots from the forthcoming J.J. Abrams refresh of the Star Trek series have been released.

Single photos have been released to different sites, and there’s some question over who had them first, so a number of them below, with references to the source as much as I can gather, although the links may be incorrect.

Deck shot (MTV)

Untitled (JoBlo)

Spock (AintitCool)

USS Kelvin (TrekMovie)