Guys, They Are Making A Star Trek Movie

LOOK IT'S A ROMULAN BAD GUY WITH BLUE TATTOOOOS THIS MUST BE A SERIOUS FILM

So by now you may have heard that J.J. Abrams spent his summer vacation making a Star Trek movie. Well, the folks at that bastion of mediocrity, Entertainment Weakly, have seen fit to get some of the first photos of the reboot reimagining causality milkshake that is Star Trek (just Star Trek, I guess, no fancypants sub-titles here, folks!). The above photo of Eric Bana's antagonist Romulan, Nero, makes me fear for the film, but it's not all bad news. Not all.

Look, it's James T. Kirk sitting in the captain's chair, with an embarassed McCoy behind him! What I like about this picture: apparently they are keeping the basic uniform styles, but with deeper primary colors. Nice to see they're keeping the short-skirted yeoman outfits, also. What I don't like about this picture: someone must have thrown Herman Zimmerman out a window, because this set looks like an Apple Store Genius Bar threw up all over it. Abrams even says it in the article! Seriously, though, the sets look waaaay too "antiseptic sci-fi" for my tastes, but then again I got used to the woodgrain paneling on TNG's bridge, so whatever. Well, I never got used to it, but I accepted it as a product of the times. But that bridge in the picture is sooooo Galaxy Quest it goes beyond self-parody about 365° to become self-parody again.

Look, it's the old crew of the Enterprise, sans Spock, which is okay since we've already seen what he looks like anyway. I was a bit wary of Karl Urban being McCoy, but it looks like he's got that constantly-constipated espression DeForest Kelley had, so maybe he'll work out. I am anxious to see what Simon Pegg does with Scotty, since he is awesome and I have full faith that he will not screw this up. Nobody ever paid much attention to Chekhov, Sulu or Uhura anyway, so expect them to get like five lines of dialogue a piece. Even Scotty's never got to do much more than complain about engines overheating or whatever. Star Trek was always a 3 man show, so the question is really how well Kirk, Spock and McCoy work out, though I would like to see Chekhov say "wessel".

I'm still very much on the fence about this whole thing; it doesn't look like a disaster but I think it's really going to come down to the story and the acting. They seem to have a pretty good set of actors, and J.J. is a capable, if insane, director.

I think the real question mark is the writing team of Kurtzmann & Orci, who previously brought us Transformers, which was not exactly epic screenwriting. Maybe Kirk and Spock will be in Kirk's quarters and Captain Pike will get the wrong idea or something, because that's some hilarious comic relief. Maybe Scotty will be fixing the engines and the computer will spit oil at him in a playful manner. Maybe they will bury the franchise. Maybe.