Not my step-father's Star Trek

Friday night I saw Star Trek and was quite happy with it. I am, not however, a Trekkie, or even much of a Star Trek fan, so my enjoyment of the film might be quite different from that of a true fan. In fact, growing up I wasn't all that thrilled with the original series, which my step-father watched almost every Sunday or Saturday afternoon. Maybe I was too young to follow the plots, or maybe it was a case of familiarity breeds contempt. So the latest movie reboot felt like a breath of fresh air.

For starters, it took me a while to get used to seeing actors younger than me playing some of the leads. However, there was a certain charm is seeing the characters start out at the beginning of their careers, most of them fresh out of Starfleet Academy. And, it was great fun to see Kirk as bright ne'er do well skirt chasing bar brawler from Iowa. More sobering, and perhaps this helped anchor the movie, was the depiction of Spock not as someone who's purely logical, but as someone who is struggling to find his way as a half-Vulcan/half-human. To me that seemed more realistic than than the original series's portayal of him. But maybe I wasn't paying enough attention to the original.

I would say Star Trek is worth seeing in the theater, at full price. I would even go so far as to say it is sitter worthy for those of you with children.