Saturday, May 23, 2009

Movie: Star Trek

I do not recall a Hollywood movie ever getting ratings this high on rotten tomatoes.

I liked it a lot too. It does an amazingly good job of capturing the spirit of the original series which to my mind has always been the best (though holding this view requires not putting too much weight on the quality of the acting). The idea of starting the original characters off on a different timeline is also very clever, as it limits the amount of effort at continuity they have to put into future movies. There are plenty of touches to please the hard core - like including Captain Pike (and, apparently, a tribble, though I missed this) - but the movie is also, I would think, accessible to those who only know Star Trek from the bits that have reached popular culture at large.

This will brand me as a nerd forever (too late, I know), but I really enjoyed this movie. Some of that is person-specific as Star Trek has both a nostalgia element for me and reminds me of my father but some of it is because this is just a lot of fun.

Bonus: Greg Mankiw discusses the role of economics in Vulcan education.

Bonus: NYT review. I am starting to like the NYT film reviewer. Oh dear.

Bonus: Star Trek (2009) movie wikipedia page.