Episode 69 - Star Trek (2009)

Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. It's 2009 J.J. Abrams-led mission: to explore strange new ways to anger fans of the franchise, to seek out new life and new civilizations that will waste their money on total garbage, to boldly go where no man has gone before or ever wants to go again. Chris Pine plays James T. Kirk, a slimy tool bag whose life trajectory gets wildly altered when a time-traveling genocidal maniac appears out of nowhere and forces his dad into becoming a kamikaze. However, none of this ends up mattering because fate (and bad writing) leads him back to the same place he would have been all along with all of the same people around him. Zachary Quinto plays twenty-something Spock, an emotionally repressed half-human, half-Vulcan first officer with serious mommy issues. This guy is supposed to be all calm and logical, but he's about as prone to violent outbursts as Alec Baldwin. Eric Bana plays Nero, an interstellar space miner with Mike Tysonesque facial tattoos who loses his wife when a star explodes and destroys his home planet. Then, for no reason, he becomes hellbent on revenge against Spock, who was trying to save his home planet, and he ends up traveling back in time and decimating Spock's homeworld. Leonard Nimoy plays old Spock from an alternative timeline, a Vulcan ambassador who doesn't appear to be very good at diplomacy, because his actions lead to an interstellar incident that claims the lives of billions. Zoë Saldana plays Uhura, a beautiful communications officer who Kirk is obsessed with, but she ends up with Spock because no bad movie is complete without a love triangle. Karl Urban plays Bones, a physician and bitter divorcee who joins Star Fleet because he can't stand to even be on the same planet as his ex-wife. Simon Pegg plays Scotty, a bumbling engineer who always manages to narrowly get the crew out of jams through sheer dumb luck. John Cho plays Sulu, a katana brandishing helmsman who slices and dices his enemies faster than a Veg-O-Matic. Join us as we discuss James T. Kirk's creepiness in this, our desire to have Tyler Perry as Madea rather than just playing it straight here, and the likelihood of whether Jane Goodall banged any of her beloved chimps.  Tell us what you think by chatting with us (@filmsnuff) on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, or by shooting us an email over at [email protected]. This episode is sponsored by the Dream Dodger.  Visit our website at https://www.filmsnuff.com.