When it was announced that there would be a new Trek film in 2009, directed by J. J. Abrams, like many longtime fans I cringed a little and went “Oh god, why? WHY? Of all the directors in all the world, why did this have to be thrown into his lap?”.  I was so upset over the fact that they were making a new Trek film and setting it, loosely, in the TOS universe that I didn’t bother to go see it in the theatre. I made the decision to wait until it was released on DVD and borrowed it from a friend of mine, to watch while my son was at school. I expected to be seriously disappointed.

While I had loved Zachary Quinto as the twisted villain Sylar on the tv show Heroes, I didn’t quite think he could pull off the part of Spock. You can give a man a set of pointy ears, but that doesn’t make him a good Vulcan. I was afraid he would let me down by playing one of my favorite characters badly. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised. There is a scene near the beginning of the film where Spock is telling the Vulcan Science Council that he’s going to join up with the Starfleet Academy rather than take them up on their offer to join them. He makes a short speech in defense of his choice and at the end, he raises his hand and gives the traditional send off “Live Long and Prosper”. But the way Zachary Quinto delivers it, the tone of his voice and the look in his eyes, it’s more like he’s giving the Vulcan Science Academy the finger. I actually kind of liked that. He definately took Spock and made the character his own, instead of just aping what Leonard Nimoy had done forty or so years ago on the original series.

I also wasn’t anticipating that I would like Chris Pine as the irrepressible Captain James T. Kirk, but again, I was surprised. I had only seen him in one other film, The Princess Diaries II: Royal Engagement, in which he played a fairly laidback royal. Like his costar Zachary Quinto, I didn’t think that he could pull off such an iconic role and still make it his own. Fortunately, I was wrong. Chris Pine brought fresh energy and a fresh take on the boyish Captain Kirk with a twinkle in his eye and a grin that seemed to go on for miles.

Sadly I must also  admit, that when I saw John Cho as Sulu, my brain immediately went to the role he played in the stoner film Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle.  I think the comment I made to someone around the time I saw one of the first trailers which featured a 2 second spot of Cho as Sulu was something along the lines of “What the heck do they think this is, Captain Kirk goes to White Castle?”.

Although I’d never seen Simon Peg in any other films, I think that he tackled the role of Scotty with a charm and humor that I found comforting.  Scotty has never been one of my favorite characters in the Trek-a-verse, but I know others like him very much and if he’d not been pulled off as well as he was by the impressive Mr. Peg then there would’ve been a great outcry from the fans.

One of the hobbies I like to keep up is knitting and as a knitter, I can appreciate good knitwear when I see it. When the movie originally came out in theatres, I know that there were knitters who saw the film three, four times not because they were Trekkies, but to study the knitwear in the movie. On one of the knitting forums I frequent (www.ravelry.com) there was a discussion several pages long as people tried to deconstruct Scotty’s overly large floppy knit hat so that they could write their own pattern. There was also a discussion at least six pages long (as I recall) about what kind of material Spock’s sweater (the one he wore on Vulcan) might have been potentially made of, since it was shown during a scene on Vulcan where he is speaking to his mother the Lady Amanda.  Vulcan is a desert world and concievably, there would be no reason for anybody to be wearing sweaters at all. The general consensus was that the Vulcans had come up with some kind of material that could heat or cool the wearer as the weather and temperature dictated which would, in my opinion, be the only way you’d be able to wear such a thing on a hot, dry, desert planet like Vulcan.

I have to admit, I am eagerly awaiting the 2013  film..I am eager to see where the next movie will take us. Because even if they tread over old familiar ground, I know that they’ll be able to do it in a way that makes it seem fresh and original. I’m anxious to see Chris Pine back in the captain’s chair and Zachary Quinto reprise his role as the iconic Spock. I’m really looking forward to seeing how the relationship between Spock and Kirk develops over the next film or two because that was always one of my favorite parts of the original series…Spock and Kirk were the original bromance. I’m also curious to see how the writers, producers, etc handle the Uhura/Spock romance that was hinted at in the 2009 film. I don’t believe that Spock/Uhura is cannon, but it certainely was intriguing because you could see in those scene that Spock was really fighting back his emotions.

I’m sure that whatever the writers, directors, actors, producers and all the members of the cast come up with, it will be a wonderful film that will continue to breathe new life into the franchise which has been limping sadly along, barely breathing, since the cancellation of “Enterprise”. Whatever it is they put up on the screen, I know I will watch it and be entertained.

Live long and prosper.