I thought the overall product was quite good. Abrams accomplished what he set out to do and he stayed close to home. This is definitely a Star Trek movie, even if it's presentation is a bit updated. It's almost cheesy enough, but serious enough to make me think, is this what Gene Roddenberry ultimately had in mind in the 1960s. It doesn't take itself or the franchise quite as seriously as the Next Generation universe. The problem is that the Star Trek canon is probably the most developed in all of popular sci-fi culture. And it's cumulative, in that all the movies and episodes all exist in the same universe and play off each other (different from say the James Bond movies or the Batman franchise). So writing and producing a Star Trek movie is much more difficult than it would seem and the filmmakers really pulled it off by really re-magining tried and true concepts and story ideas. It's different but its not so far off so as to seem foreign. It's both new and familiar.
That being said, I feel like this is an Abrams-ized version of Star Trek; that is to say for however well it's done, it seemed to lack the grandiosity of a motion picture. I kept thinking this is what you'd get if you had a huge budget on a TV special. The first thing that came to mind was that it was somewhat of a Trek-ified Michael Bay movie, minus the visual polish. Mindel's cinematography and Abram's constantly moving camera are solid, but will ultimately date this movie. To me the lens flares become a bit annoying and many of the camera moves are explicitly cleche. It's almost as if I would've preferred a bit more texture and richness to the visual style. Despite the awesome CGI, the whole thing, visually, feels too light on it's feet (which of course is the director's style). The Michael Bay movies flawed as they are and light on substance are at very least very heavy on visual substance, beautiful lighting and cinematography can take even a movie like Pearl Harbor and at least make it visually appealing. Star Trek: Generations wasn't a great movie, but Alonzo's cinematography makes that film a singularly bold visual entry in the series (even if much of the interiors might be a bit over-moody).
The real problem I had though was more with the Production Design, which looked convincing in some scenes, but seemed not to create a convincing 23rd century immersive universe. It was like the world hadn't changed all that much since the modern day. It was nice to see someone besides Zimmerman offer a look at how the ship interiors should look, but the interiors for the Delta Vega station were unconvincing. The 1940's klaxon horn on the ice planet was especially weird. I find MacDowell's work in Minority Report or Nigel Phelps' work in The Island to be much more compelling. Similarly even a bad film like AEONFLUX presented a more compelling visually engaging dialogue. There was a real opportunity to be bold here, especially with conceptualist John Eaves being one of the only legacy Trek veterans on the project. When i think Star Trek movies I think of bold defining visual statements: VGER in TMP, Genesis in ST:III, the Klingon Bird of Prey and the Golden Gate Bridge, the Praxis explosion in Star Trek VI and the Borgified Enterprise-E in First Contact. This film certainly didn't hugely disappoint me, but I can't help but wondering what if on a few key production personnel decisions. That being said, Paramount hired J.J. Abrams and this is probably the best you can ever hope for, which isn't really all that bad. I just wonder if this new found approach, popular as it is has any real staying power.
