In advance of ComicCon, the preview poster for J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek reboot hits the tubes. (That’s Kirk (Chris Pine), Spock (Zachary Quinto), Uhura, (Zoe Saldana), and the Big Bad (Eric Bana) — click through for the individual one-sheets.) Still unseen: Bones (Karl Urban), Scotty (Simon Pegg), Sulu (John Cho), and Chekov (Anton Yelchin).
Hmmm. I’m only a casual Trekkie at best, and everything I’ve ever seen with Abrams’ name on it (MI:3, Cloverfield, the occasional episode of Alias and Lost) has been underwhelming. And I can’t say frontlining Uhura as the eye candy or introducing yet another putty-ridged-forehead baddy (He’s meant to be Romulan, apparently) gives me much enthusiasm for this. But I’ll probably see it nonetheless.
Alias had some pretty serious limitations, but Lost continues, through the fourth season, to knocks my socks off. It’s not the gritty realism of The Wire, but to me it’s more consistent than, say, BSG, and within the parameters of its own loopy, paranoiac logic I think it’s an ingenious exploration of all kinds of moral failure. That said, I’m pretty sure Abrams hasn’t been around since the pilot, so Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse probably deserve most of the credit.
The two biggest gigs for Kirk and Spock have been very well cast. And they picked a good nemesis. It’ll be interesting how the other actors portray their roles. I think this will lead to a new generation of trekkies. The older 50+ year old generation of trekkies were starting to look like an old folks home like the 90’s star trek films. I went to the Comic Con and the posters were not giveaways. You had to type your name in a computer then they said they would mail you the posters. Kinda silly.