Six Reasons why the New Movie Isn't Just Bad "Star Trek," it's Also Just Bad Filmmaking

1. Continuity (my only "Trekkie" reason, but hear me out): Let's get this issue out of the way. Unlike die-hard Trekkies, I'd be willing to go along with the "the writers can do whatever they want" mentality if this was an actual, honest, complete reboot of the franchise, a brand new narrative that is inspired by Gene Roddenberry's vision but understood not to be a part of the same storyline. But the writers bend over backwards to explain that the continuity differences are actually a result of this being set in an "alternate reality" created by time travel. That's fine, but if that's the way they want to play it, they've got to play by the rules they've established, or else it's just sloppy writing, no two ways about it.

As near as I can figure, the only reason this alternate reality exists is the sudden appearance of a 24th century Romulan ship in the early 23rd Century, and it's disruption of the timeline caused by the Narada's attack on the Federation starship Kelvin. Since the newborn Jim Kirk's father is a casualty of the Narada attack, I can understand how Kirk's life would be radically affected by this event, but since the Narada disappears after it's attack on the Kelvin, I don't see how it can be interfering further with history. Therefore, I don't understand -- because the writers don't bother trying to justify it -- how the destruction of one starship causes massive changes in Starfleet. Starship design is completely different, uniforms are pointlessly inconsistent, etc. And how does any of this explain the romance between Spock and Uhura? Don't get me started on that yet, that's a whole other topic I'll talk about in a bit. For now, I just have to repeat that I'd have no problem with any of this if it was established as a brand new version of "Star Trek" unrelated to the other narrative, but if the writers are going to saddle us with a convoluted, half-assed "explanation" for the differences, they've got to apply some kind of logic to it.

2. The Romance between Spock and Uhura is the best example of how the "anything goes" attitude fails. The Spock/ Uhura romance is simply cringe-inducing. Anyone even remotely familiar with the character of Kirk can easily imagine him trying to pick Uhura up in a bar, but the Spock/ Uhura romance is so completely out of left field, it clearly exists for one reason and one reason only: to provide shock value for the Trekkies in the audience. Put another way, because it adds absolutely nothing of consequence to the story, the Spock/ Uhura romance is nothing but a thoroughly awkward and otherwise pointless twist included merely to remind the viewers that this is an alternate reality, so the writers feel like they can go in any direction they want. (Given the history of the characters, a romance between Spock and Christine Chapel would have made much more sense, but the writers aren't interested in making sense.)

3. The Story jumps along in leaps and bounds, as if the filmmakers knew they wanted to include certain scenes, and the rest of the script exists merely as an excuse for the writers to get from point A to point B. Actually, Alfred Hitchcock's writers often did the same thing, at Hitchcock's request, but the difference is that Hitch's writers actually bothered to come up with storylines intriguing enough to hide their artificiality. The key events in the latest "Star Trek" movie, by contrast, always seem to come out of left field, as if the writers sat around and said, "hey, wouldn't it be cool if this happens? Let's write that in!" and didn't give it a further thought. The result is an "anything might happen" feeling that sounds exciting, but is really just a cause for increasing indifference as you realize that there is little rhyme or reason to the events unfolding on the screen.

Furthermore, the writers' insistence to present the events in chronological order illustrates a poor understanding of story structure. On his website, Thom "Poobala" Holbrook illustrates how the addition of a simple prologue to Superman Returns would have greatly improved the film as a whole, and then questions why professional screenwriters failed to realize this, when it was so obvious to Holbrook himself, a casual viewer. The same could be said with Star Trek, a film with even less of an excuse because unlike Poobala's Superman Returns prologue, all of the material for a potential "Star Trek" prologue is already there in the story.

Opening Star Trek with a prologue featuring the events that set the story in motion would have done wonders for explaining what otherwise seems like completely random events, as well as the villain's motivations, not to mention why his technology seems so much more advanced than it should be. I can imagine how this could be done very well, but the writers instead chose to rush through an explanation with a flash-forward that doesn't take place until midway through the film. Did the writers think that keeping the villain's motivation a secret for most of the film would create an intriguing mystery? If that was their motivation, it simply doesn't work, for the following reasons:

4. The Villain: In the 24th Century, Romulus is about to be destroyed, so Spock attempts to save it with an experimental procedure that would, theoretically, prevent the Romulan sun from going supernova. (It's up to Spock since, apparently, out of all the scientists in the Federation and Romulan Empire, only a retired ambassador can come up with a theory on how to prevent the supernova.) Spock's plan to save Romulus fails, and so Romulan captain Nero swears revenge. So, to recap: Romulus was going to be destroyed anyway, and Nero swears revenge on the one man who actually tried to save his home world. What the fuck?

Since most of the film unravels before we learn of Nero's "revenge" motivation, we mostly have to simply accept the fact that he does the things he does simply because he's a bad guy. When Nero's back story is finally revealed, however, it does remarkably little to explain his agenda: he wants to kill Spock's best friend, destroy Spock's home world, and also destroy Earth, apparently just for good measure, or maybe because he blames the entire Federation in addition to Spock (it's really unclear). Considering that all of this is allegedly because he seeks revenge against one man, Nero's plan is so beyond overkill that the only way to comprehend his actions is to just completely ignore the "revenge" storyline, and go back to saying, "o.k., he's a bad guy because he's a bad guy, end of story."

5. The Cast is uneven. Some of the actors, like Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto, slip into their roles with ease; considering how much we associate these characters with other actors, it's a pleasant surprise how quickly we accept Pine as Kirk and Quinto as Spock. Simon Pegg is hilarious as Scotty; his interpretation of the role has little to do with James Doohan's performance, but Pegg runs with his broad caricature and makes it his own. By contrast, Karl Urban plays Dr. McCoy as if he's doing a bad imitation of DeForest Kelley. We never get the sense of McCoy as a real person, and Urban seems so distracted trying to act like Kelley, that he's got no chemistry whatsoever with Pine as Kirk, despite the fact that we're supposed to be witnessing the birth of a friendship. Anton Yelchin also seems distracted by pre-established aspects of his character, struggling with Chekov's accent as if he was in desperate need of a dialect coach. We eventually warm to Yelchin's interpretation of the character, but it shouldn't be such a struggle for the viewer.

6. The Direction is an exercise in hyperkinetic chaos. The editor went nuts with how many times he cuts from one shot to another in any given scene, and in most of those shots, the camera is almost constantly floating about like a drunken dragonfly. The result of all this constant motion is that the movie ostensibly looks cool, but there is -- no pun intended -- no appreciation or establishment of space. Even though almost half the movie takes place on the Enterprise bridge, for example, I have no idea what that bridge would look like if I was standing on it. The layout of the Romulan ship is even more unclear.

The scenes that suffer the most from this hyperactive direction are the action sequences. When Kirk and Sulu fought the Romulans in hand-to-hand combat, that should have been an exciting action scene. Instead, I was just confused. How many Romulans are they fighting, exactly? Where are each of the combatants in relation to the others? Too many unresolved questions, all of which could have been answered easily enough if J.J. Abrams had simply instructed his cinematographer and editor to calm down and stop moving all over the place so we can see what the heck is going on.

Don't get me wrong, Star Trek will do great at the box office. You've got a popular director, lots of action, and cool visuals, and these days, that's all it takes. But a movie's artistic value and commercial value are two very different things, and with awkward romance, incoherent story, incompetent direction, ineffective villains, and an uneven cast, Star Trek should not be mistaken for a decent motion picture.