Star Trek

First: The new Star Trek kicks ass and takes names. It is a good movie, for fans and newcomers alike. As a fan since the days when bad behavior meant not being allowed to stay up to watch the original series, and as a fan of all six series, including the cartoon, and all ten prior movies, I was worried about this movie. I needn't have been, it is excellent. J.J. Abrams and his team show respect for the property they were working with. They didn't just take the name, they took what was best about Trek and they presented it for a 21st-century audience.

Second: If you were worried about all the sex in the movie that seemed to be suggested by the trailers, there was less sex and much less nudity than appeared on TV in the last series, Star Trek: Enterprise.

And now, if you haven't seen it, stop reading. Spoilers follow.

The movie includes the following popular Trek cliches:

• Kirk says "Kirk to Enterprise."
  
• Spock says "fascinating."
  
• McCoy declares, "I'm a doctor, not a physicist!"
  
• When Kirk, Sulu, and some guy in a red uniform go out on a dangerous mission, you don't have wonder which one isn't coming back.
  
• When Kirk asks Sulu which martial art he's studied, the answer is "fencing."
  
• All the Starfleet officers are heroes (in the original series episode, "City on the Edge of Forever," Harlan Ellison wanted to make an Enterprise officer a drug dealer, but Gene Roddenberry wouldn't let him).
  
• The survival of the Federation is at stake, and the Enterprise, with a crew of cadets, is the only ship in range.
  
• Scotty is a technical genius, and manages some nice miracles under pressure.
  
• Chekov is the new Wesley Crusher, a 17-year-old whiz kid.
  
• Now we know why he's called "Bones."
  
• Bad time travel, this time by flying into a "black hole" and coming out "the other side" in a different century.
  
• Nimoy as Spock is still an insufferable know-it-all. Quinto's Spock isn't so bad.
  
• Majel Barrett as the voice of the computer, one last time.
  
• "Phasers on stun."
  
• "Shields down to 20%."
  
• McCoy calls Spock a "pointy-eared hobgoblin."

New things I liked:

• The new Enterprise, beautiful, sleek and powerful. On this ship, "fire all phasers" takes on a whole new meaning.
  
• The pace was much quicker, without sacrificing any of the intellect.
  
• Actually getting to see Kirk take the Kobayashi Maru test; he was a real jerk about it.
  
• The new uniforms.
  
• The new actors. Without exception, they took on familiar characters and made them their own without losing any of what we loved best about them.
  
• The reference to "Admiral Archer's prize beagle." (Jonathan Archer was Captain of the first warp five starship in the last series, and went to space with his pet beagle.)
  
• 2009-quality special effects.

Things I didn't like:

• Nimoy as Spock. If we're going to make a break, let's make a break.
  
• Kirk spends too much time dangling over precipices, in at least three different scenes.
  
• Eric Bana, his character Nero, and most of the plot. Ricardo Montalban's Kahn remains unchallenged as the greatest Trek bad guy.
  
• The camera work was made up of too many shots of too little duration.

Phaser fu, sword fu, precipice fu, no breasts, six gallons of blood. Five stars, the Regular Guy says, "check it out!"

(Cross-posted to Southern Appeal.)