Star Trek (2009)

I don't care what any Trek fan says, this has all the heart and spirit of Roddenberry's original vision. Just because it's spiced up with a bit of action doesn't mean it's entirely devoid of intelligence.

Even if all the pieces don't fit cannon - or, in some cases, pass scientific muster - the end result is a roller-coaster of an adventure with great actors who don't mimic their characters but embody them in such a way that it does tribute to the actors who first portrayed them.

I recently had a discussion where I realized that plot holes don't really bother me that much. For those uninitiated, a plot hole is defined as when a logical inconsistency appears in the fabric of the established rules for your fictional world.

For a world such as Star Trek there will be certain expectations for how the tech will look and work, and there will be sticklers for the cannon and history of the world.

I notice these things, but I don't let an inconsistency in an established cannon affect my experience of a movie.

As with plot-holes, so do I often forgive cannonical flubs or inconsistencies. Even if the science isn't particularly sound, if the story and overall plot make some semblance of sense, what a scene adds to the overall story is more important than whether some sort of flaw is present in explaining all the events.

This is a very long-winded way of saying I don't care what flaws there are in this story because it's a fun, exciting romp that does justice to the source material.

That was all I could have asked for from a Star Trek movie.

This movie somehow goes beyond my expectations of what it could have been. It's not just nostalgia. By making this an alternate reality that is also directly tied to and affected by the "Prime" universe, J.J. Abrams and co. have found an elegant solution to keeping the original timeline intact. For fans who don't like this story, the original cannon has not been erased, this isn't a reboot that says it didn't happen.

There is a very comfortable feel to this film. I haven't seen it nearly as many times as, say, Ferris Bueller or Stand by Me or other movies from my childhood. Yet it feels like I've been watching it all my life. Each time I revisit it, even though I know what's coming it still finds way to surprise me and the thrills don't just fade, they increase.

Maybe my response is more emotional than logical, but I like it, and that's my humble opinion.