However, I was dead wrong about which one would be an achiever and which would be a loser.

(1)  The Final Destination ($28.3 million, $9079 per screen):  This, frankly, is a bit stunning.  Not only did it trounce the Rob Zombie movie, it also handily beat the openings of the first three films in its own series … without having one single star in the cast.

Is there any doubt left that 3D can be a big draw?

(2)  Inglourious Basterds ($20 million, $6332 per screen, $73.7 million total):  Here’s an interesting fact.  This movie’s gross on Friday was down about 60% from its Friday gross last week, which is usually a sign of doom and gloom.  However, the weekend overall ended up being down only 47% from last weekend, which is a big turnaround from that second Friday.

What does this mean?

Well, who can say for sure, but it seems highly likely to me that it means the movie has good word of mouth among older audiences, who tend to go to the movies on Saturday and Sunday afternoons.

They also tend — as we’ll see with at least one other movie further down the chart — to cause a movie to stick around for a number of weeks, so this might be excellent news for the long-term prospects for the Basterds.  Tarantino and Pitt (not to mention the Weinsteins) are undoubtedly smiling widely over this one.

(3)  Halloween II ($17.4 million, $5754 per screen):  A very disappointing opening, considering that the first film in Zombie’s series opened to nearly $30 million.  Clearly, this movie was the victim both of disdain for the first movie and of the unexpectedly stout competition from The Final Destination.

I’d guess it’ll be a while before Hollywood opens two same-genre films on the same weekend agaain.

The budget on this movie was apparently only $15 million, so nobody will lose any money on the deal.  Still, a disappointment.

(4)  District 9 ($10.7 million, $3365 per screen, $90.8 million total):  Down 41% this weekend, it’s another good performance from the Blomkamp flick, which is now a lock to make $100 million.

(5)  G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra ($8 million, $2307 per screen, $132,4 million total):  Down 35%, which isn’t bad, I continue to be fairly impressed by how well this movie is doing.  Not a huge hit, by any means, but it’s doing similarly reobust business overseas, which probably means a sequel is a go.

(6)  Julie & Julia ($7.4 million, $2956 per screen, $70.9 million total):  Word of mouth continues to propel this movie into strong business.  It dropped only 16% this weekend, and I’m now starting to wonder if that magic — and mostly meaningless — plateau of $100 million isn’t doable, after all.  As I mentioned earlier, movies that really entertain older audiences tend to have long shelf lives, and if you want a great argument for that fact, look no further than this movie.

(7)  The Time Traveler’s Wife ($6.7 million, $2278 per screen, $48.1 million total):  This movie is also holding up well, and while Eric Bana can’t quite claim to be a box-office star yet, it’s clear that he still has potential.

(8)  Shorts ($4.8 million, $1568 per screen, $13.5 million total):  There isn’t much kiddie business to be had during this part of the summer, but this movie dropped only 24%, which is at least a mild rebound from a poor opening weekend.

(9)  Taking Woodstock ($3.7 million, $2691 per screen):  Not good.  Clearly, nobody much cared to see a movie about Woodstock that wasn’t really about Woodstock.

(10)  G-Force ($2.8 million, $1477 per screen, $111.8 million total):  If Disney World ever opens a ride based on this movie, I’m gonna crap in its doorway.

Elsewhere on the charts, there was another strong late-run performance from Harry Potter; the sixth film in the series is up to $294 million, and seems likely to hit the $300 million mark, which will make it the most successful entry since the first one.  Looks like those IMAX screens were pretty darn helpful, after all.

Also, both (500) Days of Summer and Ponyo continue to hold up well (dropping merely 9% and 19%, respectively).  Both films have proven to be very successful with the audiences they were aimed at.

Next weekend is Dragon*Con weekend for me, so this column will be taking a one-week hiatus.

(1)  District 9 ($37.3 million, $12,251 per screen):  Sony’s marketing department seems to have learned all the lessons there were to be learned from the successful opening of last year’s Cloverfield, and as a result, they got a pretty great opening weekend themselves.

It’s always impressive when a movie that is free of star actors opens well, and it’s doubly impressive when that movie isn’t based on a comic book or a bestselling novel or some other source with a built-in audience.  In this instance, it’s tempting to say that the star responsible for the successful launch is producer Peter Jackson; however, since his only hits were reliant not on his name but on the source material on which they were based, you can’t realistically say that the name “Peter Jackson” being on a poster is a name that guarantees ticket sales.

Instead, it appears that people responded to the trailers, which promised an inventive and substantial sci-fi action flick.  It’s an unmitigated triumph for director Neill Blomkamp, who will likely find himself in a situation to do whatever he wants to do next.

(2)  G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra ($22.3 million, $5571 per screen, $98.5 million total):  Falling 60% from its opening weekend, Paramount nevertheless has a solid performer on their hands with this one, which probably won’t make $150 million, but will certainly make enough of a dent that a sequel might well be a good investment.  Nobody seems to genuinely like the film except people who wear sweatpants out to eat, but the reception for the film has been surprisingly decent, and I’d expect the film’s dropoffs to level off quite a bit from here on out.

(3)  The Time Traveler’s Wife ($18.6 million, $6233 per screen):  Not an especially terrific opening weekend, but it’s respectable enough.  It’s been a busy summer for Eric Bana, who — between Star Trek and Funny People and now this — has been in a slew of high-profile releases.  This is the only one that leaned on him as a lead, and the mixed results are indicative of the kind of career he’s having: good enough that he keeps getting work, but never quite good enough to push him into the next level.

The same might be said of co-star Rachel McAdams, who at one point seemed like she might turn into the next Julia Roberts circa 1995, but now seems like she might turn into the next Julia Roberts circa 2005.

(4)  Julie & Julia ($12 million, $5121 per screen, $43.3 million total):  Down a surprisingly hefty 40% this weekend, it seems unlikely that it’s going to be a big performer.  With the summer coming to an end and the glut of high-profile pics aimed at women slowing down, though, don’t be surprised if it starts picking up steam.

(5)  G-Force ($6.9 million, $2256 per screen, $99 million total):  In the dregs of a deep recession, America can still find $100 million dollars lying around to spend on the movie about a secret spy force of talking guinea pigs.

Motherfucker.

(6)  The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard ($5.6 million, $3070 per screen):  The moment I realized that I had no interest in seeing this movie was the moment I found out that the film’s title is not The Goods, but The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard.  Looks like America also couldn’t be bothered.  Looks like that boost from co-star Ed “The Hangover” Helms never happened.

(7)  Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince ($5.1 million, $1855 per screen, $283.8 million total):  Factoring in inflation, it looks like this is one is going to be very marginally less successful than Order of the Phoenix.  I guess the series has gotten as popular as it’s going to get, but that’s proven to be pretty darn popular.

(8)  The Ugly Truth ($4.4 million, $1628 per screen, $77.4 million total):  Probably will only get one more weekend in the top ten, but it’s been a solid performer.

(9)  Ponyo ($3.5 million, $3868 per screen):  Making nearly twice what I expected it to make, you can’t quite call this movie a hit, but I don’t think it’s something anyone ought to feel ashamed of, either.  Miyazaki’s movies, apart from a cult crowd, have never caught on here in America, so the fact that (out of the top ten movies) Ponyo had the fifth-best per-screen average this weekend seems like a small triumph.  It’ll probably fade fast, but a final gross of close to $10 million is likely, and that’s not bad for a low-scale release like this one.

(10)  Funny People ($3 million, $1165 per screen, $47.9 million total):  Trust me, nobody at Universal thinks this is even the slightest bit funny.  The budget, according to Box Office Mojo, was $75 million.  Compare that to the $30 million spent on District 9, and try and figure out what good it did anybody to spend $75 million on this mess of a film.

Next weekend, it’s Tarantino versus Rodriguez, as both Inglourious Basterds and Shorts hit the screen.  Don’t be surprised if it’s neck-and-neck as to which one comes out on top.

Where you goin’, Judd Apatow?

(1)  G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra ($56.2 million, $14.025 per screen):  We live in an era that can easily find a true blockbuster making around $56.2 million on its opening day, so it’s hard to be too impressed by this opening weekend.  On the other hand, it’s a decent enough rollout, and I won’t be the least bit surprised if it holds up relatively well over the next few weeks.  The movie seems to be entertaining the type of people who are likely to be entertained by a movie like this; they might well make it a genuine hit.

Is it just me, or does the movie kinda remind you of a feature-length version of one of those clips of films Vincent Chase is supposedly starring in on Entourage?  You know, you see those clips of Aquaman or Medellin and you’re not sure if you’re supposed to actually think they look awesome, or if you’re supposed to be kinda amused by the idea that someone would think you would think they look awesome.  G.I. Joe is kinda like that, and Channing Tatum is about as appealing a lead as Vincent Chase … which ain’t sayin’ much.

(2)  Julie & Julia ($20.1 million, $8539 per screen):  This opening feels maybe just a wee bit weak to me; I was kinda thinking it might get closer to $30 million.  Still, when you consider how many of the tickets were probably sold at the discounted senior-citizen price, this is a fairly solid, if unspectacular, opening.  I’d expect the legs to be considerable; don’t be surprised when the movie ends up making $100 million.

(3)  G-Force ($9.8 million, $2816 per screen, $86.1 million total):  Speaking of movie that are going to make $100 million, please pardon me for a moment while I vomit bits of fried chicken into my upper throat region.  Mmm, they’re bitter.

(4)  Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince ($8.8 million, $2570 per screen, $273.8 million total):  Looks like those IMAX screens helped a little, but only a little.  This movie has nothing much to be ashamed of, but considering that ginormous opening day was pretty darn ginormous, well, it’s all felt like a big letdown since then.  In reality, though, it’s performed the same way all of the Potter films have done since the first one.  The next one comes out in the fall, and I’ll be interested to see if the return to the days of falling leaves and visible breath prompt an uptick in the receipts.

(5)  Funny People ($7.8 million, $2615 per screen, $40.4 million total):  Judd Apatow officially takes one on the chin.  The opening weekend was a slight disappointment; the second weekend is a near-disaster, plummeting 65% and wiping away any chance that this one could turn into a word-of-mouth hit (like Apatow’s previous films, The 40-Year-Old and Knocked Up).  This may also wipe away any chance Adam Sandler may have had at becoming a bankable star in serious roles.  Since previous efforts like Punch-Drunk Love, Spanglish, and Reign Over Me all fizzled, he managed to make it to a fourth strike; surely he’s out by this point.  Kind of a shame, since this undoubtedly means we’re due for another decade of incredibly, abysmally unfunny fart gags, dick jokes, and Rob Schneider cameos.  Kill me now.

It’s also another blow to the budding stardom of Seth Rogen, who has been in several commercial misfires in a row (including Zack and Miri Make a Porno and Observe and Report).  Sony must be feeling pretty nervous about that Green Hornet movie he’s making for the director of flop Be Kind, Rewind (Michel Gondry).  If Rogen now can’t manage to hit in an Apatow flick, it may mean America has dumped him.

And frankly, the more I think about it, the less I like Funny People, which has occasional flashes of inspiration but is largely a movie with no sense of direction.

(6)  The Ugly Truth ($7 million, $2353 per screen, $69 million total):  Man, this thing has made $70 million?  Seriously?

(7)  A Perfect Getaway ($5.6 million, $2670 per screen):  For a movie with not a great deal of promotion starring Milla Jovovich and zero zombies, this could have actually gone a lot worse.  Universal clearly dumped the movie into the marketplace, and can’t have been expecting much more than what they got.

(8)  Aliens in the Attic ($4 million, $1287 per screen, $16.2 million total):  Man, for a second weekend, that is a terrible per-screen average.  How on earth did Fox manage to get this thing onto over 3000 screens?

(9)  Orphan ($3.7 million, $1643 per screen, $34.8 million total):  Oughta be on DVD any second now.

(10)  (500) Days of Summer ($3.7 million, $4559 per screen, $12.3 million total):  Playing on about 800 screens, that per-screen average suggests that Fox would have been better advised to turn those 3000 screens showing Aliens in the Attic to this little arthouse darling.  Considering how many movies come out next week, it won’t be easy to get into many more theatres than it’s already in, and that might well keep it from blossoming into a true hit.

Speaking of next week, man, I dunno if I’m just out of practice from taking a week off or what, but I have no frickin’ clue what anything is going to make.

The winner of the weekend will probably be either G.I. Joe or District 9, which certainly has the ‘net a-buzzin’ … but that doesn’t always translate to bucks.  I think it’s going to end up in second place with a bit more than $20 million.

The Time Traveler’s Wife would smell like a hit in February, but in August, it seems like a castoff.  I think women might be busy seeing Julie & Julia and not caring about Eric Bana.  Also, Rachel McAdams might once have seemed sure to be The Next Big Thing, but she’s been off the radar for too long for me to think she’s got any real pull.  I think this movie will be lucky to do $15 million; then again, it’s based on a best-seller, which sometimes helps.

The Goods might benefit from a desire in fans of The Hangover to see another raunchy comedy, but I honestly have no sense of how well this movie has been promoted.  BoxOfficeMojo.com lists it as opening on only 1500 screens, which does not seem like a vote of confidence.  I’m gonna say $12 million.

Bandslam … what the fuck is a Bandslam, and does anyone care?

That leaves Ponyo, which gets an overly optimistic 800-screen release and will be lucky to crack $2 million unless I’m badly mistaken.  And in this instance, I hope I’m VERY badly mistaken.

The great thing about Star Trek — the franchise, not Star Trek the movie — is that it’s an enormous universe, and you can pick and choose how involved you want to get in it.  For the most casual fans, there are the movies, which offer more or less self-contained adventures.  Next level, the television series; if you don’t feel the need to see all of them, that’s fine, pick any single one of the five, and you can get a seasons-long experience.  Next level, completist urges toward seeing all five series; that’ll set you back about a year even if you watch several episodes each day, but you may find tantalizing connections that reward that type of commitment.

From there, there is the expanded universe of the hundreds and hundreds of original novels, comics, and games, which will take you literally years to fully digest.  After that, Trek ceases to become a hobby, and becomes instead a full-fledged lifestyle.

Any new Star Trek production has to sort of choose where it wants to land on the fan-level spectrum in terms of its appeal.  The new movie has clocked in at the first level, opening itself up to untold millions of people who never wanted to get involved in the franchise before (some of them may not have any clear idea that there even is a franchise outside of this movie).  This is the first time in a long while that that has been the case; the last was probably 1987, when Star Trek: The Next Generation debuted in syndication.  Each successive film and series has been insular in a way that kept most audiences at arm’s length.

In deciding to reboot the franchise, Paramount has made an interesting decision: they’ve risked the abandonment of the most devoted fans in favor of courting an entirely new fan base.  The initial announcement of the reboot idea drew widespread ire from the fan community, who were unclear how anyone could even consider casting new actors for the iconic roles of Kirk and Spock?

If this gamble had failed, not only would Paramount have failed to win over new fans, it would probably also have lost the existing fans forever.  This was no gamble; this was a game of Russian roulette.

Luckily, the people making the movie — director J.J. Abrams and writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman — were canny enough to realize that that gamble was just too great.  So they set about tailoring the movie to appeal to new audiences, while simultaneously bringing along old fans by casting the new movie not as a reboot but as an alternate-universe tale, complete with the inclusion of Leonard Nimoy as Spock, thereby making the movie a sequel (from a certain point of view).

So the question is now hanging out there: did they succeed?  I’ve already given you my thoughts on how successful the film is as a standalone film (very).  So how is it as a part of the Star Trek franchise?

The short answer: terrific.

The long answer follows.

First things first.  This movie is a departure from the pre-existing stories, and in major ways.  Star Trek canon has now been fundamentally split into two parts.  For the record, we will refer to everything prior to this movie as having occurred in Universe A; this movie’s setting is in Universe B.  Also, I will refer to this movie as Star Trek (2009), and to the original series as Star Trek (original).  (Fuck…!  When you’ve got to glossarize things in that fashion, you know you should probably find a new hobby.)

The most fundamental change to the franchise made in the creation of Universe B is the style of the filmmaking.  Star Trek (2009) feels rather like a response to the documentary-style approaches of Firefly and Battlestar Galactica (2003), both of which have siphoned off significant portions of the Trek mystique over the past few years.

First, Firefly became the Little Show That Could; its followers were so rabid that they convinced Hollywood to make a movie out of the show only a few years after Fox canceled it.  This level of fan devotion and organization was territory Star Trek (original) had always claimed as its own; its tales of letter-writing campaigns of yore were, after Firefly, no longer quite as legendary as they once had been.

Then, Battlestar Galactica (2003) became a darling amongst fans, critics, and the media for dealing with social issues in a unique, provocative way.  Man, that show was relevant.  When was the last time Star Trek had been socially relevant?  All of the spinoff series took occasional stabs at it, but rarely did anyone take notice outside of fan circles; now, here was a new show, getting mentioned in Time magazine and getting its cast and crew invited to the United Nations to give a lecture on humanitarianism (!).

One common denominator between Firefly and Battlestar Galactica (2003) was that sort of shaky-camera visual approach, as well as a greater realism in the cinematography, effects, and acting.  Oh, and no doofy-looking aliens with bumpy foreheads. This had been coming in space-based sci-fi television for a long time.  In a very real way, nearly every sci-fi show from the late ’70s on was a reaction to Star Trek (original) in one way or another. And mostly, they could only approach Trek by going away from it.

Battlestar Galactia (1978) was mostly an attempt to cash in on the success of Star Wars, but they turned to the planet-of-the-week format of Star Trek for story ideas, most of them strictly barrel-bottom in quality.

Star Trek: The Next Generation, which debuted in 1987, refined some of the ideas of Star Trek (original) by expanding the types of jobs the crew performed; that show also put families aboard the ship, and advanced the technology to reflect the ’80s idea of what the future might hold.  Up to this point, Trek was still the primary idea of what televisied outer-space sci-fi could (and should) be.

When Babylon 5 came along in 1993, however, creator J. Michael Straczynski constructed a conscious jazz riff on those notions.  He made the setting a contentious, dangerous environment, as opposed to the plush, comfortable, (mostly) secure Starfleet trappings of The Next Generation.  Instead of characters who (mostly) got along all the time, he populated his show with characters who (mostly) never got along; sometimes, they were actively trying to kill each other.  This show was also set on a space station, rather than on a starship; the characters would have to actually deal with their problems, rather than fly away from them every week.  The biggest change was that Babylon 5 was (supposedly) a single long story, with a pre-determined beginning, middle, and end; this was a response to criticisms that on The Next Generation, the reset button got pushed at the end of each episode.

Debuting at about the same time as Babylon 5, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was also a space-station-set story, and this one was also somewhat grittier than The Next Generation, with characters who didn’t all like each other.  (Claims have circulated for years that Straczynski pitched his ideas for Babylon 5 to Paramount during the ’80s, and that they purloined that pitch for Deep Space Nine; the two shows do share some striking surface similarities, but they differ wildly in execution.)  Deep Space Nine had a spiritual element to it, something that had been mostly lacking in Star Trek up until that point.  Eventually, the show even became highly serialized, with stories taking multiple episodes to play out. 

Star Trek: Voyager was essentially The Next Generation with a thin coat of character conflict.

Stargate SG-1 set its action on Earth, at Stargate Command … and rather than using a starship to send people out exploring, it used, well, a Stargate.  This story was not set in the future, but in our present, and featured military characters interacting with scientists.  There was plenty of character conflict, but the focus was still primarily on exploration.  Also, the show featured the same flat, television-style cinematography that all the previously mentioned shows featured.  It also featured aliens that weren’t particularly alien (with the occasional exception).

Farscape turned that on its head somewhat, offering up both a more rich visual palette and an increased diversity in the type of aliens it portrayed.  It featured a wide variety of puppetry techniques courtesy of the Henson company, and while they might have always looked like puppets, they also generally looked like damn good puppets.

When Enterprise debuted, it offered up a slightly more advanced visual style, but it also returned to the same type of storytelling its Star Trek brethren had been doing for the past fourteen years; nobody was thrilled.  It was only during the show’s final season, when writers began trying to tonally link the show with Star Trek (original) that fans really began to embrace the show, but by that point there were too few of them left to make an impact on the ratings.

When Firefly and Battlestar Galactica (2003) came along, those show’s producers decided to ditch the concept of aliens altogether, instead focusing on the human characters and using every filmmaking technique at their disposal to create a storytelling universe people could very much relate to.  The widespread feeling was that the storytelling approach of shows like The Next Generation had become irrelevant.  Fans responded with wild enthusiasm.

That’s part of the sci-fi climate into which Star Trek (2009) entered when production began.  That’s the television side.  The cinematic side included the successful but also very criticized Star Wars prequels, which seemingly sacrificed fidelity to the original series (and its fans) in favor of appealing to a new generation children.  Apart from that series and the dystopian action flick trilogy of The Matrix and its sequels, sci-fi movies were more or less extinct.

Abrams and company seem to have paid close attention to all of these lessons, and they began by focusing on the visuals.  The cinematography in Star Trek (2009) is rich, deep, unafraid of shadow and of “accidental” lens flares.  Abrams doesn’t go quite as far into docu-realism as, say, Battlestar Galactica (2003), but he goes much, much further than any Star Trek series or film had ever gone before, and really, there’s no going back.  This is a good thing, as it beckons the viewer — the modern viewer, at least — into the story; the flat, blandly lit visuals of The Next Generation and Voyager and the two Stargate series have long since lost their appeal, and only a fool would fail to recognize that.  Abrams is no fool.

And yet, by making his film look so different from the many episodes of television which comprise the Trek era of 1987-2001, Abrams is in some ways blatantly disrespecting a sum total of 21 seasons worth of franchise continuity.  That’s bound to ruffle a few feathers, or at least to create a sort of optical disconnect for people who go back and watch those hundreds of episodes.

What Abrams has actually done is marry the docu-realism of modern sci-fi television with the hyper-colorful design approach which was frequently taken by Star Trek (original).  He’s toned both down, and met somewhere in the middle, armed with a $150 million budget and the good sense to not allow the CGI to overwhelm things the way George Lucas did in his Star Wars prequels.  The result, from a visual standpoint, is nirvana.

In order to make that goal a reality, Abrams has also had to refine the way many things within Universe B look in comparison to how the same things look in Universe A.  For one, he’s done away with the many years of changes to Starfleet uniforms: though this film’s costume designers make their own mark on the Trek franchise with their red Starfleet cadet uniforms (as well as black uniforms, and color-coded spacesuits), what we get in Star Trek (2009) are essentially the gold, blue, and red uniforms from Star Trek (original).  This is both an implicit criticism of the Next Generation-era uniforms and a welcome return to the style of the ’60s, and it’s more successful than I’d have ever thought possible.  Abrams seems to have intuited that those designs mean something to people; it was a great decision.

Most of the other elements, though, are in for a major redress.  Sickbay looks basically the same, and the transporter room is simply a variation on the same theme, but the bridge is astonishingly different, and engineering may as well be a different thing altogether.  The bridge, with its shiny white surfaces, has been called an Apple store in space, and I was skeptical of it based on the photos first revealed to the public.

However, in the finished film, this new bridge becomes far and away my favorite starship bridge of the entire franchise, mainly due to how very busy it is.  There seem to be about a dozen people working at various stations at any given time, and somehow you get the sense that what each one of them is doing is of key importance.  But the layout is basically the same, with the captain’s chair still commanding the center of attention.  Firefly and Battlestar Galactica (2003) had done away with this style of ship’s bridge design, but Abrams correctly realizes that that would have been a major miscalculation for a Star Trek movie.

Best of all is the new viewscreen.  The viewcreen in the previous series had always been just large, multifunctional computer screens which could receive video signals.  This one is also literally a window onto space; when it’s not in use, you can see out of it (or into it from outside).  There are some great background shots of the ship’s hull as seen from the viewscreen; this gives a tremendous amount of depth to the image, and is a huge step in making outer space seem realistic.  Whoever made this decision deserves applause.

As for engineering, it is likely to prove to be the most controversial design element in the film.  It appears to be a redressing of a factory, or some other industrial site, but I suspect that the thing is just a set made to remind us of an industrial setting.  There are pipes running every which way, and the whole thing has a lived-in, cluttered look that is entirely alien to Star Trek.  Truthfully, I haven’t yet decided whether I like this as a Star Trek design element.  But on their own, I like the lower-deck sets quite a lot, so I’m inclined to go with it.

The design changes to the Enterprise itself, of course, have been widely debated by fans.  The nacelles, which are oversized and perhaps reminiscent of hairdryers, are the major point of contention.  Personally, I do not care about these elements.  I never much liked how the Enterprise-D looked, nor did I care for the Voyager design; didn’t stop me from liking those shows, and I’d say this new Enterprise design is more successful than either of those ship designs.

Other refinements include Abram’s approach to the way Star Trek aliens look.  Firefly could skip having aliens; Star Trek cannot, and should not.  But they don’t have to look like garbage, and Abrams seems determined to avoid that trap without falling in the alternative trap of overly-CGed aliens that you get in, say, Attack of the Clones.  I mentioned in the first part of my review how much I like the alien nurse in the opening sequence; I’d like to reemphasize it here.  There is also a CGI alien on the crew of the Kelvin; he looks a bit like Lt. Arex from the animated series.  The only other particularly alien aliens we see (that I remember, at least) are a brown-skinned alien on the Enterprise and Keenser, Scotty’s colleague on Delta Vega.  Both of these are full-head makeup jobs, and they both look quite good.  Otherwise, we get a green-skinned Orion and bunches of Vulcans and Romulans whose ears look surprisingly good.  And the Romulans — thank  you, J.J., — do not have the retarded forehead ridges they had during the Next Generation era (nor do they wear those wretched gray suits with shoulder pads).

But enough of how Abrams has changed the look of the Trek universe.  The big question on a lot of people’s minds prior to the movie’s release revolved around what, if any, changes Abrams might have made to the philosophical underpinnings the franchise always had.  Roddenberrianism, we’ll call it, by which I mean: the fundamental belief that by the time in which Star Trek (original) is set, mankind will have solved its societal and political problems, united under one worldwide government, and become a progressively-minded race which roams the stars not for militaristic or economic gain, but for scientific purposes.  In other words, human civilization has become a utopia, and one which holds as its highest law the principle of the Prime Directive: thou shalt not interfere with the development of alien civilizations who have not yet achieved warp capability.  How, many fans wondered, would J.J. Abrams and his writers integrate these fundamentally Roddenberrian philosophies into the new Universe B?

This is a difficult issue to wrestle with, in some ways, because the franchise’s approach to Roddenberrianism has not always been consistent.  Even during the three-season run of Star Trek (original), the Prime Directive would occasionally be forgotten about, and the series completely dodged answering questions about how humanity had gotten to this utopian ideal, or about how human society actually functioned back on Earth.  Few, if any, fans seemed to care, either.

By the time Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan came about, Roddenberry had been forced out of the franchise by Paramount.  They brought on board a new production team, headed by Harve Bennett, who was a complete Trek neophyte.  In developing the movie, Bennett brought a more militaristic edge to the proceedings, one which viewed Starfleet as being something of a naval force in space.  These elements were not heavy-handed or belabored, and fans bought them immediately … perhaps because the original series episode “Balance of Terror” (long a fan favorite) had already contained such elements.  Bennett was simply emphasizing one of the elements he himself responded to most strongly when he finally got around to watching the series.

Over the course of the next few films, the militaristic aspects would be more subdued, but they certainly made a return in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.  In this film, Starfleet personnel collaborate with Klingon traitors to keep peace talks between the Federation and the Empire from succeeding.

In part, this film was a reaction to the Roddenberry-created Star Trek: The Next Generation, which jumped forward decades into the future, and contained elements such as a Klingon Starfleet officer.  In virtually all respects, The Next Generation represented a refinement and furthering of Roddenberrianism, sometimes (so go the complaints of dissenters) to the detriment of the series.  The show was often criticized for having a lack of conflict between its key personnel; the characters, some said, were simply too perfect to be interesting.  (This isn’t the venue for me to say why that opinion is a load of horseshit, but it was a frequent complaint, and a perceived problem for the franchise.)

The Undiscovered Country does not play terribly well when viewed through the lens of Roddenberrianism.  The notion that a widespread conspiracy could exist within Starfleet and the Federation runs completely contrary to that philosophy.  Even worse, Captain Kirk — though never himself a conspirator — spends the first two-thirds of the movie on a racist rant against the Klingons, due to the death of his son at their hands three films earlier.  This is not the James T. Kirk I know and love.  Members of his crew follows suit; this is not my Enterprise crew.  Valeris, a Vulcan, is a key member of the conspiracy; this is not my brand of Vulcan logic.  The Undiscovered Country is what happens when you completely forget the principles upon which the franchise was founded.

Roddenberry died in 1991, and it was not long after that the franchise began to show signs of wanting to drift away somewhat from his philosophies.  By the time the second spinoff series, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, premiered, the producers were actively seeking out ways to side-step Roddenberrianism.  If we can’t have a troubled human society, they figured, we’ll just set the series near a troubled alien planet.  Deep Space Nine would eventually encompass all manner of societal defects that the other series could never fully wrestle with, and that is likely a big part of the reason why many fans hold this as their favorite of all the series.  The militarism runs rampant, as well; the Federation even becomes involved in a series of major wars, offering many opportunities for battles both in space and on land.

I, too, am a Deep Space Nine fan, but I have to wonder: if you have to run away from the Roddenberrian philosophies, are you truly doing Star Trek anymore?  For my tastes, Deep Space Nine strays too far too often to be fully satisfying as a Star Trek series.  Both Voyager and Enterprise are more restrained in their approach to that subject; instead, they try to defeat the curse of being stale and emotionless (a complaint unjustly tossed at The Next Generation during its seven seasons) by bringing in more sex, more character conflict.  They were mildly successful in retaining the Roddenberrian ideals, but for all intents and purposes, the ideals died with the man.

Which brings us to Star Trek (2009).  In some ways, Abrams has dealt with the issue of Roddenberrianism by simply not dealing with it.  At no point is the Prime Directive mentioned in this film.  Starfleet is referred to as a “peacekeeping and humanitarian armada.”  What does that mean?  It seems to mean an armada that is dedicated to peace but totally prepared to open up a can of whoop-ass if opening up a can of whoop-ass is necessary.  To me, that seems to be a direct return to how Starfleet was portrayed in the original series: vaguely.  These people seem to be essentially well-armed scientists, which fits in nicely with Roddenberrianism as seen in, say, “Errand of Mercy.”

Most importantly, Abrams has allowed the characters to be thoroughly flawed (or otherwise complicated) and, therefore, interesting.  I say “allowed,” but he’s really just amplified their original characteristics.  Kirk here is a brash hothead, but he’s generally not wrong; Spock is wrestling with his human side; McCoy is a bitter, paranoid divorcee; Uhura is a brilliant linguist with a compassionate nature; Scotty is a work-obsessed genius with an obliviousness to social niceties; Chekov is a wet-behind-the-ears whiz kid (who has as much in common with Wesley Crusher as he does with the Chekov of Universe A).  Only Sulu here is bereft of any real character traits, unless badassery is a character trait; perhaps sequels will do better by him.

There have already been complaints from long-time fans over the decpictions of some of these characters.  Spock’s emotionalism, and his romantic relationship with Uhura, have drawn the most complaints.  But the humans in general are more rough around the edges, and less idealized, than maybe we’re used to seeing in Star Trek.  The bar full of brawling cadets, for example, might seem a bit out of place.  Until, that is, you remember the bar full of brawling officers in “The Trouble With Tribbles”; and those fellows were Starfleet graduates.

The fact of the matter is that J.J. Abrams has changed nothing, from a standpoint of Roddenberrianism.  What he’s done is to make the characters more recognizably human, and by doing that, he actually makes the whole endeavor seem more optimistic, more bright-eyed and full of enthusiasm for the future.  Those people are us! They’re not just some futuristic version of us; they curse, they drink, they fight, they fuck, they get sick, they get angry … but they get the job done.  They know their stuff, and they concentrate on doing what needs to be done.  And when they do their jobs well, they’re rewarded for it.

I was initially thrown off by the apparent ease with which Kirk (and some other officers) are promoted during the course of this movie, but then I thought about it.  Kirk, during the events depicted here, literally saves Earth, and possibly the entire Federation.  If that doesn’t merit an instantaneous promotion to Captain, well, I don’t know what does.  And if Pike’s ability to recognize that potential in him doesn’t merit an instantaneous promotion to Admiral…?  Same deal.

There is, of course, a lot to pick through in this movie; we’ll be doing it or years to come.  But here are a few more points I want to briefly touch upon before winding this thing down:

• The casting, top to bottom, is perfect.  Chris Pine is an excellent Kirk, and an instant movie star; Zachary Quinto, though not blessed with Nimoy’s awesome voice, makes a wonderful Spock; Karl Urban is perfect as McCoy; Zoe Saldana is sexy, empathetic, and wonderfully  snarky as Uhura; Simon Pegg makes for fine comic relief as Scott; Anton Yelchin makes me actually like Chekov; John Cho does fine as Sulu, though he has little to do; Bruce Greenwood makes you want to see a prequel series with him as the star; Eric Bana is menacingly effective; Leonard Nimoy, though obviously an elderly man at this point, is dignified and funny and moving; Chris Hemsworth and Jennifer Morrison make fine parents for Kirk, while Ben Cross and Winona Ryder make fine parents for Spock.  I also enjoyed seeing Rachel Nichols as a scantily-clad, big-bosomed Orion lady; Clifton Collins Jr. as a Romulan; and Faran Tahir (of Iron Man) as the ill-fated captain of the Kelvin.  And heck, even Tyler Perry did fine in his role as the head of Starfleet Academy.  J.J. Abrams is a genius when it comes to casting; I’ll probably never doubt his instincts again.
• If you had told me a year ago that the Beastie Boys song “Sabotage” would be included in this film, and that I would not only accept it, but feel like applauding while it was playing, I’d have said you were all kinds of “Naked Time”-like crazy.  Well, silly me, because that scene is fucking awesome.
• The casual racism of the Vulcan sitting at the head of the Vulcan Science Academy (that’s W. Morgan Sheppard, who played the warden of Rura Penthe in The Undiscovered Country; he also played the first Soul Hunter on Babylon 5) is not the most plausible plot point this film has to offer.  Racism would never be logical to these people, and while I understand the necessity of that sequence to the film’s overall structure, I don’t think it works very well.  Therefore, I shall now pretend that that fellow was a Romulan in disguise.  (The scene is, however, a nice callback to “Journey to Babel.”)
• The destruction of Vulcan (and death of Amanda) is a monumental event in Trek history.  Again, if you’d told me a year ago that this was happening, I’d have crapped in my hand and then slapped you.  But as amusing as that might have been, I’d have been wrong.  The potential for stories for sequels (and potential television spinoffs) is bountiful, and since the strain of being the member of an endangered species will almost certainly result in added pressure on Spock to honor his Vulcan heritage, it’s going to be interesting to see where Abrams and co. take this.
• McCoy is depicted as a divorcee in this movie … will we get to see his daughter, Joanna?  Joanna is never mentioned in this movie, and might well not exist in Universe B (she didn’t technically even exist in Universe A!).  She is a character in at least one novel, and one of the episodes planned for the never-filmed season four of the original series was for Captain Kirk to become romantically involved with McCoy’s daughter.  Might Abrams go down this road at some point?
• Admiral Archer’s beagle, huh?  Now, this comment is interesting for at least two reasons.  One: it means that Enterprise can be considered canon for both Universe A and Universe B, as the events depicted in this movie could have had no impact on what happened during the course of that series (excepting the Next Generation sequences of the series finale).  Two: this cannot have been Porthos that Scotty beamed out of existence, since he would have been much too old to still be alive.  Also, might we see Scott Bakula reprise his role at some point in a future sequel?  Probably not, but such fun ideas are part of the appeal of this franchise.
• I love that they slapped a uniform from Star Trek: The Motion Picture on Pike at the end of the movie.  But I’m confused; am I supposed to assume that he has been crippled, or is this merely a callback to “The Menagerie”?  Pike appears to be walking, though with help, when he and Kirk are escaping the Narada, so until I get proof to the contrary, I’m going to assume that he’s not crippled.  Like I said, the prequels are calling you, Bruce.
• The Kobayashi Maru sequence is nearly perfect … except I’d like to know how Kirk cheated.  Did he reprogram the test himself?  Was Gaila the Orion somehow implicit?  (Also, is she now dead?  What ship was she assigned to?)  Kirk eating the apple is a fantastic callback to The Wrath of Khan, and is one of the best bits of staging in the movie.  Kirk is so confident that he brought a snack; now that’s cocky.  On the other hand, why are the cadets during this sequence wearing Kelvin-era uniforms?  I get why they’re doing it from a thematic point of view (to emphasize that Kirk is thinking about his father); but why are they doing it from a plot point of view?
• Nero’s obsessiveness is believable because, as Spock says, Romulans and Vulcans share a common ancestry, and as Sarek says, Vulcan emotions run deeper even than human emotions.  Thus, both Nero’s blind fury and Spock’s more contained fury feed off of each other and achieve believability in the process.  You can argue that it doesn’t belong in Universe A, but over here in Universe B, it suits me just fine.
• The bar in Iowa serves something called “Budweiser Classic,” which is cool.  They also serve the Abramsverse drink Slusho, as well as a Cardassian beverage.  But aren’t the Cardassians too far away for the Federation to have encountered them at this stage of warp-speed development?  Isn’t that a plot hole?  I’m just sayin’.
• Love the new transporter effect.  Love it.

At the end of the day, I find it hard to call this movie anything other than a complete success.  A few minor plot points aside, this is a dynamically entertaining film, one that re-energizes the franchise of which it is a proud new component.  After the twin failures of Nemesis and Enterprise, it would have been easy for Paramount to let the whole endeavor fade away into memory, but instead, here we have a probable smash hit that will almost certainly make Trekkies out of millions of new fans.

Some of those new Trekkies are bound to become smitten by the original series and movies, and by The Next Generation and its movies.  Some of them will even discover Deep Space Nine and Voyager, and I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if Enterprise – which has the virtue of being the most recent of the series — is also rediscovered in a major way.  In all respects, this is a new lease on life, not just for the franchise overall, but for each of its individual components.  Even if this new film chucked the entire history of the franchise out the window, it would have been worth doing if regenerating the rest of the franchise had been the result.  The fact that the new movie — and Universe — is instead respectful of what came before it, well, that’s icing on the cake.

It’s a good time to be a Star Trek fan.