SAW BOTH WOLVERINE AND TREK

...And it's interesting that here we have two movies, both re-interpreting franchises that began in continuing-serial formats for the purpose of intermittent-serial films. where both original franchises were very continuity-intensive.

The approaches of the two new films are essentially opposite to one another. While the X-MEN film franchise never did follow closely the continuity of the X-comics, once the first film established its own take on the mutants, that take then became canon with the scope of the films. Thus WOLVERINE is a fill-in-the-blank tale that establishes what happened with the character before he debuted in the X-films. The results are modestly enjoyable but not particularly inspired: I'll be surprised if WOLVERINE makes very many "best superhero film" lists.

J.J. Abrams' STAR TREK, though, goes out of its way to acknowledge the canon created by the continuing TV-serials and the intermittent bigscreen movies, and then subverts that canon by creating a new "timeline" which effectively gets the "Abramsverse" out from under the huge weight of TREK continuity built up by pioneer Roddenberry and his crew, and then continued (some would say run into the ground) by Rick Berman and his crew.

My main qualm about the new Abrams franchise, though, is that I question whether Abrams can wrap his mind around a science-fictional theme that doesn't involve crashing planets and messed-up timelines. I had little love for the reliance on technobabble seen in the Bermanverse, but the Abramsverse goes to the other extreme, giving us what is basically a thriller with SF elements that garnish it, like those ALIAS episodes where Sydney had to chase around after some super-doohickey or other.

Of couse, Abrams may not stick with the franchise as a director, and so there may be wiggle room for someone to build on his ideas and incorporate more of the best Roddenberry motifs-- perhaps in the way Louis Letterier made a better HULK movie by building on what Ang Lee established, and then cross-pollinating elements from the comic and TV series.

I give both WOLVERINE and TREK both a rating of "fair."