We went to the cinema to see Star Trek yesterday. I was surprised by a lot of things in that movie. In a good way. It wasn't at all like the Star Trek I grew up with, which showed especially in the style of filming. I guess after taking up photography you start to notice those things a bit more quickly. The lighting was much more varied and at times more dark. The image I have of Star Trek when I grew up was that of a starship bridge, taken from a stable unmoving camera, with everything in focus and the entire set looking nice and clean. In this movie everything suddenly looks real. Things are dirty, the camera struggles to focus on all the action that is going on and things look downright chaotic at times.
All the action and shakiness makes the whole thing feel a bit more like a Michael Bay movie, which is not a nice thing to say for me, cause I think he terribly messed up with the Transformers movie. Still, Star Trek is saved by its characters. The lead characters were very strong, and really reminded me of their originals.
Still, one important point was lost, but that point has been lost for quite a long time in the Star Trek saga. Its creator's original vision was that the future was a 'happy' place, with everything in abundance, where people don't have to fight each other and war is not necessary, and if conflict arises it can be solved by talking, or at least both parties will understand each other after a small skirmish. This has been a recurring theme throughout the TOS and TNG series and movies and got thrown out when Gene Roddenberry died. Now the focus is on war and personal drama, which admittedly makes for a much more exciting screenplay, but is not true to the original vision. I do not believe that many people are unhappy about the direction Star Trek is taking though, myself included.
As you may have noticed from this post I was quite a fan 'back in the days' :D it was fun to be reminded of that. Let's hope that a lot of young people (oh no, I am no longer young!! o_0) will enjoy this movie and help keep Star Trek alive.