Star Trek (2009)

Wow. If you were not a Trek fan before (I was) you should almost certainly be one after watching this great prequel. Do you need to have watch the original TV series in the 70's to get this? No, but it will certainly help. You may not get the inside jokes, the puns, and the surprise relationships as much if you have not seen these characters on the little screen. And that is about half the movie.

The other half of the movie is an equal masterpiece. There are tributes or homage to so many other great space or action movies that I almost lost count. Can you spot them all? Star Wars, Top Gun, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Indiana Jones, and others get a heart-felt nod.

I highly recommend the Special Features on the DVD that covers the making of the film. In fact, I suggest watching that first and you may gain a greater appreciation of the special things done to give this movie a more authentic feel. One thing to note if you choose to not watch this feature, nothing was done via CG that could be done live. I was impressed and I hope you are too.

Leonard Nimoy reprises his role as Spock in a very interesting story twist. Zachary Quinto plays the younger Spock. I loved when the two meet at the end. Brilliant.

Chris Pine plays Captain Kirk and thankfully modeled his performance off of characters in Top Gun and Indiana Jones rather than the character from TV. All the rest of the cast were very good and totally believable as the younger versions of the familiar older characters many of us know and love so well.

Watch this movie with a Trekkie and a Star Wars fan and notice which parts they enjoy together.