Space… the Final Frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.

In 1966, nobody had the vaguest ideas how these words would change the world. From computer science to medicine and architecture, almost every chapter of art and knowledge was somehow inspired or touched by what is now known as the most influential sci-fi series of all times. Star Trek has inspired scientiest, philosophers, visionaries and has shaped the childhood as well as the adult life of millions.

Criticized by some, worshipped by others, Star Trek became a daily presence since 43 years ago starting with the original series and continuing with Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager and eventually Enterprise, the only series to date not specifically bearing the name Star Trek. Can you imagine that? Almost half a century during which nearly every day has seen one episode related to Star Trek airing somewhere on this planet. That’s quite an achievement that has offer one Gene Roddenberry immortality and the title of a visionary.

Unlike the series, no Star Trek movie managed to rise above mediocrity with two notable exceptions: The Wrath of Khan and First Contact. Of course, this comes with little surprise since each and every time the movie-makers have tried to gather the essence of years and years of fiction that have built an entire universe to such a great detail that any intrusion from an outsider is recognized and deeply frowned upon with more promptitude than arab islamists revolting against the Mohammed cartoons.

The Star Trek universe has no rival among any of the fictional universes created to date. Star Wars, Chtulhu, Middle Earth, Forgotten Realms, Wheel of Time, Pern and so many others cannot hope to surpass the details outlined in these over 40 years of existence anad active development.

Now, after 7 years of hiatus from the big screen, Star Trek has returned in full-force with another movie entitled simply “Star Trek” as if to complete the circle with an odd number.

To recap a bit of Star Trek mythos, the first ship bearing the name was the USS Enterprise NX-01, commanded by Jonathan Archer (portrayed by Scott Bakula in the “Enterprise” series). The second was the NCC-1701, commanded chronologically by Robert April (portrayed by series creator Gene Roddenberry ), Christopher Pike (portrayed by Jeffrey Hunter in the original series and by Bruce Greenwood in the latest movie), James T Kirk (portrayed by William Shatner in the series and by Chris Pine in the current movie), Willard Decker (Stephen Collins) and eventually Spock (my one true favorite Leonard Nimoy). Subsequently, the Enterprises were added a letter: A through E in the cannonical chronology, where A still belongs to the old series, B belongs to the first “The Next Generation” based movie and the C through E to the “The Next Generation” series.

This latest movie takes place on the first NCC-1701, with several moments hinting that the chronology might deviate from the canon, as Pike states that this is the “new flagship” as well as stating that baptism ceremony for the ship will have to wait.  I will not go into the story’s details, but I will underline a few pro’s and con’s. To make it fair, I will start with the con’s:

- cinematography: too speedy and in many moments it’s very hard to tell what’s going on while in others it’s too slow. Some clips of the first battle against Nero’s ship were hard to make sense of and instead of some nice shots tracking fazer fire or flying torpedoes we get a messy mix of fast camera movement that makes little point and gets spectators dizzy. Likewise, the end shots of slow-motion torpedoes going against Spock’s ship were of little effect as some slow-motion tracking shots would’ve felt nicer.

- Simon Pegg’s rendition of Montgomery Scott: personally I hated the first series’ Kirk with every bone in my body. Scott was the one I really liked next to Spock as the old fluffy guy was very kind, calm and … well … nice. Pegg was just overacting and quite a lot, not to mention the cheap laughs brought in by his predictable ugly partner. Very cheap and predictable.

- Anton Yelchin as Checkov: not nearly as good as the original one portrayed by Walter Koenig. He seemed nervous and just lost there, not to mention his hair looks near blonde. Come on now! Of course, his efforts to imitate Koenig’s “w” were nice. And funny. Damn funny. But if “wision” was there instead of “vision”, why wasn’t there “keptin” instead of “captain” too?

And the pro’s:

- John Cho as Sulu: mighty fine Sulu. Who would have even though that casting a chinese in a japanese’s role would be a bad idea?

- nurse Chapel: she’s not really seen, but her name is mentioned. Nice touch there.

- Eric Bana as Nero: if someone would’ve suggested Bana as a Romulan, I would’ve laughed hard, but now that I’ve seen it, Eric makes a great Romulan, not to mention he’s the only true Star Trek fan in the whole cast. That was a surprise for me.

- Karl Urban as Leonard “Bones” McCoy: very cool McCoy.

- the Kobayashi Maru test: pretty good depiction, notice Kirk eating an apple. In the “Wrath of Kahn” movie, Shatner is also eating an apple while remembering the test.

- Kirk’s infection: i really liked “Bones” chasing Kirk with the shots while Kirk is running to warn the captain.

Overall, a pretty satisfying experience that should put this movie alongside “Wrath of Khan” and “First Contact” in the list of “Star Trek” movies worth seeing (but still, only 3 out of 11 is a bad record). I’m sure many will call the movie clicheed and kitschy but let’s not forget: nowadays everything related to Star Trek is clichee. That’s to be expected about something that made the sci-fi genre and has been around for 40 years: it’s a walking clichee. In fact, Star Trek invented about everything that’s clichee in sci-fi making Gene Roddenberry contend with Arthur C Clarke and “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” about who produced the most enduring clichees.

In the end, a few nice details about Star Trek in general:

- this movie is the first not to cast the original actors (that would be hard, many are dead) – but it was great to see Leonard Nimoy again

- in Iowa, the fictional birthplace of Kirk, there’s a stone engraved with the text: “Future birthplace of captain James T Kirk, 2228″

- in the city of Vulcan, USA, there’s a statue replica of USS Enterprise NCC-1701-A

- this move was the last for Majel Barrett, Roddenberry’s widow, who died two weeks after her last scene. She was the voice of the Starfleet Computer in all the series and all the movies, for 43 years.

- the initial trailer showing scenes of what was thought to be the construction of the Enterprise and ending with Nimoy seeming reciting the introduction starting with “Space … the final frontier” features voices overs from president JFK (“mankind’s eyes now look into space”), Neil Armstrong  on the moon landing (“the eagle has landing”) and Cape Canaveral technician wishing “godspeed, John Glenn” to astronaut John Glenn, 10 seconds before the takeoff of his last mission into space aboard Discovery.

- the end of the movie has Nimoy reciting what seems to be the famous intro that starts with “Space … the final frontier”. However, despite the movie depicting the old Enterprise, this is not the intro to the old series. The intro to the old series is the one which starts this article. The one Nimoy is reciting is actually the intro of the “The Next Generation” series.