Live Long and Prosper, JJ Abrams

You've got some mighty big shoes to fill, boy.

Few words can describe how I feel about JJ Abram's newest Star Trek movie. I went to see it with my guy last night, and I'll be seeing it again today with my family (happy mother's day, mum!).

Suffice to say, when you've got a movie as big as Star Trek going up on the big screen, you can expect that the special effects are going to be top-notch. Industrial Light and Magic has never failed to deliver, and I must say that it was a very, very good idea to go with them. The Enterprise has never looked more majestic, space warfare has never looked so impressive. And what can I say about the Romulan mining vessel's design? My mouth dropped open when I saw it. The perfect marriage between menace and beauty... it was like watching the Reman warbird from Nemesis multiplied by 20!

There isn't much I can say about the story without giving anything away, but suffice to say that as a tried and true Star Trek fangirl, I was *not* disappointed. It's the best writing to have graced the series since Next Generation's "First Contact", and featured Abram's excellent character development from his prior television work.

There were easter eggs and nods to fans galore, my favourite of which was when Scotty made a reference to beaming Admiral Archer's prized beagel to prove a point! As Enterprise fans will know, a popular joke in the series was when Captain Jonathan Archer refused to let them beam his dog Porthos aboard the first Enterprise. Hehehe. (I personally quite liked Enterprise, and since this latest movie seems to have moved into an AU anyway, only Archer's series is left as canon! What a twist for the more canon-obessesed fans, lol.)

Beam me up, Scotty!

As for the acting-- I have to say that all of it was top-notch! The AU explains away any discrepancies from our original crew to these handsome new boys and girls, and I absolutely adore the new Kirk and Spock. Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner will always have a place in my heart, but Pine and Quinto do a pretty good job of stepping into some mighty large shoes. I didn't expect Sulu to be quite so funny, but I suppose when you've got "Harold" playing the character, you can expect to see some interesting changes.

In the end, my only complaint about this marvelous, wonderful bit of cinema is that they changed the original theme. It was the same complaint I had about the cancelled Enterprise series (my god, singing in a Star Trek opening theme? :O), and though the new theme wasn't *that* bad, it was still pretty disappointing. After all, can anyone forget the first time they heard the words "Space... the final frontier" over the haunting melody of the original theme?

And speaking of spiels... only Captains of the Enterprise have ever had the honor of uttering the Trek VO intro until now (Kirk, Picard, Archer). With the new Star Trek movie, JJ Abrams has proved that some traditions may be bent to better a universe.

Live long and prosper!