It was the 1970′s, I recall my older sister being a great fan of the Star Trek series and that may have been how I became hooked on the adventures of the USS Enterprise. Whether on television or later in the theatres each of the main characters left their mark; Kirk, Spock, McCoy (Bones), “Scotty”, Sulu, Uhura and Chekov. There were other characters that graced the screen but these seven characters became the trusted and brave crew we turned up to see. In the make up of such a diverse crew, everyone had a chance to identify with someone.

Fast forward to 2009, Star Trek opened last week and the fans turned out to beam aboard the USS Enterprise yet again. When I saw the commercials I was a little hesitant, with so many disappointing youth centric movies out there I was concerned Star Trek was about to follow the same path. I didn’t look it up online either before going to the theatre. Maybe I should have, as I must confess I got a little lost in space for awhile trying to piece together the “alternate reality”. Thankfully, that was explained to me later.

The movie overall turned out to be good. Each of the new actors did a fine job of adopting the roles of the beloved crew, some developing better as the movie progressed. Though it is the portrayal of the younger years, it was easy to pick out trademark characteristics and this garnered lots of chuckles throughout the movie. The one person that I thought nailed his character right from the start was Simon Pegg who played “Scotty.”

Then there was the character of Uhura….

Uhura who? This is where I think the ball was dropped. Who is this Uhura? My recollection of Uhura is that she is a strong, regal, intelligent, professional woman on the crew, but we get little of that in this film. We start off with her party girl self, sashaying into the bar all cute. A fight ensues, after some large guy takes it upon himself to rescue her from Kirk’s advances. (Any strong woman could have handled that herself) The fight has Kirk getting hit around while she stands there. The big laugh comes when he gets spun around and his hands end up on her breasts. (Like we haven’t seen that a million times, and by the way if that happened it would hurt) All of this was so cliche, it didn’t seem like the right introduction for her character.

We get a glimpse again of her apparent strength when she states in no uncertain terms why she should be on the Enterprise, go girl! Then we are taken back down a notch by her constantly locking lips with Spock and running to his side whenever he is in stress. Not to mention the line in which she inquires, after passionately kissing away his woes, how she can make things better? Give me a break! Even when he is about to beemed off the Enterprise she arrives to plant a long smoocher, which her fellow crew members view, and then she promptly returns back to her post. Yes, remember the deck…where you do your job as a communications specialist?

She (oddly enough we didn’t get to see this) uses her linguistics training to interpret a transmission that becomes a crucial piece of information, in fact it drives the rest of the movie. But, we learn of her discovery while watching her strip down to her undies. (Deja Vu, I have seen the guy under the bed or in the closet before, innocently placed in a position to watch some girl get changed as soon as she walks in the door)

The characteristics of Uhura were not properly represented, unlike the male characters. She was reduced to two snippets of potential Lieutenant qualities and the rest was cute girl, running around in a short dress, in love. I recognize that the short skirt attire is in keeping with the original series but if you are going to imagine something now, you would think they could at least have Uhura hold on to her professionalism.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed Star Trek overall, despite the lack of worthwhile female characters. It was worth the time spent. It intertwined the old with the new well enough to make it deserving of the millions that it made on opening week. That doesn’t however mean I can’t voice my disappointment with the treatment of the Uhura character. Hopefully, any future Star Trek movies will do better. I’ll keep myself open to the possibility of better character development for her and more women that last longer in presence and dialogue than the three others in this movie.

Sub note :

The trailers before the movie looked like it would be a summer full of male dominated movies. What a surprise, testosterone rules.

The standard seems to be throw in some twenty something year old women, assign them the appropriate tight fitting, low cut attire, have them bend over, run for their lives, kick ass when they need to, but ultimately most will end up in the arms of a man to make life complete or to save them from the enemy. Despite all the hard work by the female actors more reviews will incorporate the words”she’s hot” in it and then quickly resume the talk about special effects and story/actor features.

I’m not sure how many men would part with their time or cash to watch years worth of movies with a ratio that resulted in a disproportionate amount of women on the screen instead of men. Women who actually had good lines, a chance to fully develop the character and because of their full participation and numbers in the story some of them could be …get ready for it….women over 40.  Wynona Ryder just finished playing Spock’s mother and she is only 38, I think we can do better than that. There is a whole bunch of women in history, fictional and present day stories to create that could be very interesting. Explore real women not the current fascination with cartoons, graphic novels and recycled kids stories. Come on Hollywood, throw us something!