Maybe! Star Trek rebooter J.J. Abrams has made no secret of his intense hatred for Trek and its plastic-ear-wearing followers, or his overwhelming preference for George Lucas’s more popular space-based film saga. So is it any surprise that his new movie is so similar to Star Wars? In today’s Observer, Christopher Rosen points out the parallels.
Mr. Abrams’ perfect summer confection is literally the movie Star Wars fans had hoped The Phantom Menace would be: a fun, exciting, realistically unrealistic thrill ride, filled to the brim with a devil-may-care sense of humor and earned bravado. You can really see Mr. Abrams’ crossover work in the way he portrayed the characters. There’s Kirk-as-Han Solo; Young Spock-as-Luke Skywalker; Future Spock-as-Obi-Wan; Scotty-as-Chewy; Uhura-as-Leia; Bones and Chekov-as-C3PO and R2D2; and while there’s no Darth Vader, Eric Bana’s Nero does fly around in a massive space station that could give the Death Star a run for its money.
Rosen’s completely right, and gives several more examples — but you know what? For as long as contractual barriers and George Lucas’s stubbornness prevent Abrams from being handed the keys to the Millennium Falcon and giving us the Star Wars we all want, we’re totally cool with this.
What Will George Lucas Do?: J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek Looks Oddly Familiar [NYO]