I don't hate J.J. Abrams. For the life of me, I can't say that he's at all a bad, or evil person. What I can say, with all due respect, is that he cannot tell a story. At all.
My first experience with his work was admittedly the 2009 re-imagining/re-branding/reboot/let's-use-every-word-but-"retelling" of Star Trek. I was (and still remain) quite open to the idea of establishing a fresh, separate branch of the Star Trek franchise to spark new interest. Hell, the entire fad of "re-imaginings" isn't at all a fresh idea, nearly every work of classic literature, fable, and mythology has been remade nth-teen times, in every language, for every audience and culture that stumbles upon them. It's human nature, and it serves no disservice to the original work or author(s). Through assimilation, such work only gains a far greater lifespan, in both adapted and original forms.
And to be frank, my interest in the ongoing production of the officially licensed intellectual entity known as "Star Trek" was and has been in decline for the past several years. I still retain an encyclopedic knowledge of much of the technology, spacecraft, and characters in Star Trek, but I no longer wait for or am concerned about it's future or it's popularity. I grew up during the final seasons of The Next Generation in the early '90s, and even after viewing all the Star Trek films and shows (except Voyager, which I will get to out of sheer curiosity), I'm a institutionally-committed fan of the original show from 1966-69. For all the obvious improvements in scientific understanding, budget and production improvements, and arguably more consistent writing, I still prefer the originals for the atmosphere, background and production concepts, and what were arguably some of the most talented and brightest men to ever work on anything (esp. Gene L. Coon, Matt Jefferies, William Ware Theiss).
With that bit of exposition established, here's the short summary of my review of the new Star Trek film:
After the first 10 minutes, said film is one of the most obnoxious, self-deprecating, artless, boring, and hollow films I've ever seen.
If you've read this far, and saw the film, your response to this might be that I would have never enjoyed it, because it wasn't made for me.
"After all, the films own press describes it as 'not your Father's Star Trek', so what were you expecting?"
What I expected, quite honestly, was to be pretty disappointed, figuring that the series/franchise that I had grown up with and had been inspired by since childhood was simply being retooled as a sci-fi/action-adventure, with little to no subtlety or narrative message beyond what the public image of the Trek brand was already. At the very least, I expected a lot of high-intensity, kung-fu style action scenes of Starfleet badasses mowing down demonic hordes of vaguely racist (though now fully CG) alien-caricatures of current cultural boogey-men. Basically, the intent of the film would have been to tear down the recognizable elements of the Trek anthology to build an epic-trilogy akin to the Star Wars Prequels or the Lord of the Rings.
I fucking wish I could have seen that film.
I'd be ecstatic to see something even remotely resembling that. Hell, 90% of all Trek fan-literature is not much more than that. Even the original show itself wasn't beyond utilizing sensational techniques or style, but there, it used those methods and tropes to make some kind of narrative point or theme, even when the result was almost unwatchable.
The new Trek film was a "piece of shit," but that has nothing to do with it's either adherence or breaking of franchise canon, whether real or imagined. And yet, one might ask, if this is true, why then was it undoubtedly an astronomical success financially?
Okay, I should be more clear. 2009's Star Trek was a "piece of shit" as a motion picture. According the the common, public definition, a motion picture is a story or narrative conveyed through a series of images and sound projected in rapid sequence. Without a doubt, this film had almost no story. There was a sequence of events, yes, but the cause and effect relationship between those events, the characters, and the interplay between them is practically non-exsistent. The framing and characterization of the main players has (almost) no impact in how they act and react to events with the film.
On the other hand, 2009's Star Trek was a success and an incredible achievement as pure entertainment and as a celluloid version of a theme park ride. It was flashy, gritty, sexy, violent, explosive, loud, and had pretty people dressed up in costumes. And it made a shit ton of money.
However, the biggest sin of this film (for me) was this feeling that large parts of the film were deliberately made to cynically insult the audience, regardless of whether they be layman or Trekkie. Months after seeing the film, I couldn't shake this feeling. I hated talking about the film because it seemed a juvenile and petty concept. I then decided to take a look at Abrams' other work and interviews, to get an arguably more "pure" look at the man's talents as a storyteller.
After all, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, the masterminds behind the Transformers live-action films, were the brains behind this, so it couldn't be all Abrams' fault, right?
Little did I know, cynicism is a large component Mr. Abrams work. As I'll explain throughout this series of essays (Mystery, Boxed), Abrams cannot apparently tell the difference between entertaining an audience and telling a story which entertains. Whenever he feels criticized, he takes it out on his audience through defacing and mocking whatever icons, themes, or tropes they happen to like.
Despite being a universally amicable guy in real-life, when in the director's chair, he becomes an insecure, cynical jerk.
