Lol at the photo caption.

Thanks, Matt, I was wondering whether I should wait for this to go DVD or get to a theater near me. I'm a big Trekkie. And, regardless of where it came from, every director should take anything they want from Raiders, there's nothing intrinsically wrong with that. Great cinema should be repeated at every opportunity,

Early in this film, Admiral Pike tells Kirk that the young captain isn't yet mature enough to command, and we might say the same to J. J. Abrams. He, like Spielberg, still has some growing up to do. In the meantime, let us mourn the loss of Gene Roddenberry's vision, and in particular the camaraderie he instilled among the characters of The Original Series. Instead, this Star Trek rushes the dialogue to get to the next whiz-bang wham-blam, and it's only after the din subsides that we start to wonder: Doesn't space provide a better hiding place than seawater? Why does no one question the logic of a man ensconcing himself on an abandoned, lifeless planet? (Getting good sushi must be hell.) Can sensitive engineering devices really be repaired by banging into them full force with one's heels? How can you have a fistfight atop a vehicle careening through town at a zillion miles an hour? Why is that "weapons expert" out of uniform, and what is she doing in this film in the first place? How cadaverous will Leonard Nimoy have to get before we're done with him? Director George Cosmatos rose up for Tombstone; let's hope that someday J. J. Abrams tackles a similarly worthwhile script.

I take your point that because this film takes place pre-TOS we might logically excuse its lack of camaraderie among the cast, but I'm not expecting any sequels to improve upon the human element. It's snappy one-liners from here on out. The original Space Seed, with no CGI to distract it, told a more compelling story in under an hour with ample commercial breaks. As for Harris's flight into Klingon territory, what exactly was he going to be doing there all alone for eternity? There's only so much Xbox one can take, and even Osama wasn't alone in a cave at all. Surely you jest when you say that Abrams is about feelings. He's about technical wizardry. And lens flares.

It's not that I'm anti-Abrams (I liked the first two seasons of Alias, and the Abrams-produced Cloverfield) but Super 8 and most of the rest is really young-adult fiction, and it's in this way that I'll agree with you that the new Star Trek films continue in that vein. My guess is that Steven Spielberg is largely to blame (I'm thinking primarily of E.T. and Indiana Jones) for the juvenilization of cinema, and without him we might not have the likes of Quentin Tarantino and J. J. Abrams. I'm tired of all this boyish exuberance. For all the faults of the first Star Trek film, Robert Wise gave the project some gravitas. I say give the reins of the next Star Trek film to Walter Hill!

Yes, you're right that Lucas is equally to blame, although if Raiders was an homage to 30's cliffhangers then just as equally Star Wars was an homage to Errol Flynn swashbucklers and Japanese chanbara. Kurosawa could direct an action film with cojones, but Tarantino is just another precocious kid flinging dog shit with a wrist rocket, and "Django Unchained," for all its mayhem, was infantile. Hill has had his lightweight moments, but he can claim more than his share of mature action/adventure films with excellent scripts: Hard Times, The Driver, The Warriors, Streets of Fire, Extreme Prejudice, Trespass. That said, I ruefully admit that he hasn't directed a first-rate film in twenty years.