![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Okay, BH and I played hooky this afternoon to see the new movie. If you thought I was going to squee about it, please take another look at the icon for this entry. I did have some things I liked, and some things I didn't like. I will do my best to separate them so that you can read what you want and skip the rest.
If you already made a post on the movie, feel free to put a link in the comments! I know some people don't like it if you do that, so I wanted to make it clear I'm fine with it. I know a number of my friends have posted, but I can't remember whom specifically.
Both parts have major spoilers! Don't read until you've seen the movie, unless you want to be thoroughly spoiled.
The High Points (in no particular order)
Oh, my gosh! That was Karl Eomer? Bones was played by the guy who played Eomer in LOTR? I had to look up the actor because I thought he was dead on, and I didn't expect to like him; I have great fondness for DeForrest Kelley. Wow. Facial expressions, voice, mannerisms--yes, that's our McCoy! Loved him threatening to throw up on Kirk, fighting with Spock, smuggling Kirk onto the ship--he was definitely one of the highlights.
The visuals were often gorgeous. I loved the way Spock's future ship was imagined. Vulcan was gorgeous--until it wasn't, and my heart still aches for it. The visuals were also thought out: I thought the space jump looked great, I loved the people abandoning the Kelvin sliding down ropes, and I liked the look of the Enterprise--enough like the original to be believable, but updated enough not to look, well, outdated.
Zach Quinto does indeed make a very fine Vulcan. (Meanwhile, I never liked Captain Kirk, so nothing Chris Pine did bothered me a whole heck of a lot!)
I liked some things they did with the secondary characters, who never got enough development even with the movies:
- Uhura has top-notch linguistic abilities. She's also one of the more sensible people. Nichelle Nichols never got enough to do.
- I didn't think they could explain how Pavel Chekov, who is clearly younger than the others, could be their contemporary. He's a prodigy! Okay, that explains why they always kept him around, even though his best talent on the show seemed to be for screaming. (Nothing against Chekov or Walter Koenig; I always had a soft spot in my heart for poor, abused Chekov, who seemed often on the verge of being a redshirt.)
- We got to see Sulu do some fencing.
- Scotty has always been an underappreciated genius.
I liked that there were many call-backs to the original iteration of Trek: lines from the shows and movies, characters resurfacing (I didn't know Captain Pike would be there!), and a mention of "Admiral Archer's beagle"! I didn't even hear that one; Brilliant Husband had to repeat it to me. I heard "Admiral . . . beagle" and wondered why he was hissing "Archer! Admiral Archer!" at me and had to ask later. (Maybe it is time for that hearing test. I just hate to get a hearing aid before my Dad does.)
I was glad to see Leonard Nimoy, even if only briefly, and the two Spocks scene worked for me.
I liked that this Starfleet seemed a bit more racially integrated than the original one: we had People of Color in high ranks, not just manning comms. (I'm not counting green people or other aliens, I'm just counting humans.)
Brilliant Husband enjoyed it even more than I did. Maybe he should write an entry on it (hint, hint) and the good things I missed.
Read no further if you want to be sure I don't harsh your squee.
Oh My Frelling Gosh, WHY?
Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman were both born in 1973? I'm not that much older than they are, but maybe they're just younger enough not to remember when Star Trek was almost the only game in town, and not to realize how special it was.
They destroyed Vulcan. Until the final frelling scene, I thought they'd fix it! I thought, we can go back in time, we can change things; we can leave a message for future Spock to evacuate Romulus, so at least people won't all die; maybe with that red matter someone could even have made it back to the future to save Romulus. I'm really unhappy they destroyed Romulus too.
I have trouble enjoying a movie where billions of people die. That's not a romp (BH says it was never meant to be). That's not even a drama; that's a massacre. Abrams and Orci and Kurtzman (oh my!) seem to think that Star Trek is fun and funny. The real thing is. The real thing doesn't consider the loss of two major planets and billions (tens of billions?) of lives a happy ending.
I don't want to believe this ending. I can see bloopholes.
1. BH rejects this one: Nero is, as Spock says, "disturbed." Still, wouldn't you think he'd put some thought into whether, since he has just gone back to a time when Romulus still exists, he can save it, or at least make sure everyone evacuates?
1a. Okay, so Nero's a nutcase. Does not one single crewmember think to desert and see if the disaster can be averted with knowledge brought from the future? It's better to all the Romulans on board to destroy Vulcan than to save their own planet, their own parents, their own siblings, their own spouses, their own children? Are the writers on crack?
2. Even if I accept that Nero is a whacked-out captain with a completely whacked-out crew, since Nero spent a quarter of a century planning to capture Spock and make him watch the destruction of his home, don't you think Nero might actually keep Spock around to watch his reaction rather than cut him loose on a planet (planetoid? Moon?) with a Starfleet base? In what universe does this make sense, even (or especially) for a maniac?
Several times during the movie, I reminded myself that![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
astrogirl2 wrote this: "Possibly I will attempt my usual mental trick in such situations of pretending it's actually a historical drama produced in the Trek universe a century later. :)"
Brilliant Husband has gone that one better. We see a Spock who, in his old age, has become astoundingly emotional for a Vulcan (or half-Vulcan). BH suggested that Spock gets away, uses his remaining (huge!) stock of red matter to do more time-traveling and save the day, and writes this movie as a romance of what might have been. (That's even better than what I said, which, riffing off Astro, was "This is the twenty-fourth-and-a-half century's The Man in the High Castle, the frightening AU version of history."
After noting the destruction of two entire planets full of people, the rest of my quibbles may seem just that: quibbles. But I will not be stopped!
Spock and Uhura? When he is her teacher?! Ick! Just, ick! BH argues that she had a crush on him as a student, but she never acted on it until that moment in the turbolift, when she asked, "What do you need?" and kissed him. He argues that Spock, being very perceptive, isn't surprised, and of course he's working not to react. So they weren't actually lovers while he was her teacher.
I say: nice try, dear. Really. But I saw that moment and thought back to Spock's worry of "favoritism," and BH's "he's worried that he'll look like he's favoring his best student" just isn't logical. He hasn't convinced me there wasn't something already going on. Moreover, even if he's right, Spock is in command over Uhura. She's a junior officer. He's first officer and then captain! You can't do that. That strikes me as deeply, deeply wrong for Spock. Yes, our Spock learns to bend the rules and even the truth occasionally, but he hasn't learned it yet. He's still very cautious in dealing with human emotion. If he saw a crush, he would make darned sure not to take advantage of it.
Full disclosure: Brilliant Husband says I'm just jealous of Uhura; I did say I was always a Spock girl and never a Kirk girl, and I stand by that statement. And then I ask: why does the only major female character in the crew have to be a love interest for an even more important character? Orci says here that Spock needed a confidant, and Kirk clearly wasn't one yet. Why can't Uhura be a confidante without being a love interest?
More on Spock: as I said, Zach Quinto makes a very fine Vulcan. It's not his fault that the best he can do with his voice might resemble Leonard Nimoy on helium. It was almost always the voice that got me; I could let myself believe, and then he'd open his mouth. I also thought he could have shown less emotion—even before Vulcan was destroyed. BH imagined the director saying, "Zach, let's try that again—this time with less emotion." I kept flashing on Sheldon from Big Bang Theory for some reason! He has emotions; he just doesn't quite get other people's.
I'm afraid Sulu didn't quite do it for me either. There's only one George Takei. Sorry, John Cho: you made a valiant effort!
I like Simon Pegg; he's a funny guy. I did not like the lines they gave Scotty! Some of them were among the most unfunny in the movie. BH leaned over at one point and said, "Krod Mandoon in space!" Yeah, for a few moments, it was. That's not praise: Krod Mandoon was far more offensive, but I think I also laughed at it more.
Giving Kirk multiple different drug reactions didn't amuse me. It was at best silly.
If Spock decides to beat up Kirk, Kirk does not become acting captain. He goes either to sickbay or to the morgue. He suffers multiple broken bones and maybe fatal internal injuries. (And I say, "Goodbye, and thanks for all the fish." Benjamin Sisko, you are still my favorite Star Trek captain!)
I want Vulcan back. (BH says, "But this makes it interesting! Yes, it does hurt! It hurts Vulcans! They have to feel!" Heck, they always felt. I want their planet back, and billions of them. "I'm part of an endangered species?" Oh, Spock!) I want Romulus back.
I want my original series back! Oh, wait—I've still got them! In three boxes, one for each season! Thank goodness!
What I hope most of all is that the movie brings people back to the original series. I hope to have time to watch some on DVD this summer—and share them with Small Child.
If you already made a post on the movie, feel free to put a link in the comments! I know some people don't like it if you do that, so I wanted to make it clear I'm fine with it. I know a number of my friends have posted, but I can't remember whom specifically.
Both parts have major spoilers! Don't read until you've seen the movie, unless you want to be thoroughly spoiled.
The High Points (in no particular order)
Oh, my gosh! That was Karl Eomer? Bones was played by the guy who played Eomer in LOTR? I had to look up the actor because I thought he was dead on, and I didn't expect to like him; I have great fondness for DeForrest Kelley. Wow. Facial expressions, voice, mannerisms--yes, that's our McCoy! Loved him threatening to throw up on Kirk, fighting with Spock, smuggling Kirk onto the ship--he was definitely one of the highlights.
The visuals were often gorgeous. I loved the way Spock's future ship was imagined. Vulcan was gorgeous--until it wasn't, and my heart still aches for it. The visuals were also thought out: I thought the space jump looked great, I loved the people abandoning the Kelvin sliding down ropes, and I liked the look of the Enterprise--enough like the original to be believable, but updated enough not to look, well, outdated.
Zach Quinto does indeed make a very fine Vulcan. (Meanwhile, I never liked Captain Kirk, so nothing Chris Pine did bothered me a whole heck of a lot!)
I liked some things they did with the secondary characters, who never got enough development even with the movies:
- Uhura has top-notch linguistic abilities. She's also one of the more sensible people. Nichelle Nichols never got enough to do.
- I didn't think they could explain how Pavel Chekov, who is clearly younger than the others, could be their contemporary. He's a prodigy! Okay, that explains why they always kept him around, even though his best talent on the show seemed to be for screaming. (Nothing against Chekov or Walter Koenig; I always had a soft spot in my heart for poor, abused Chekov, who seemed often on the verge of being a redshirt.)
- We got to see Sulu do some fencing.
- Scotty has always been an underappreciated genius.
I liked that there were many call-backs to the original iteration of Trek: lines from the shows and movies, characters resurfacing (I didn't know Captain Pike would be there!), and a mention of "Admiral Archer's beagle"! I didn't even hear that one; Brilliant Husband had to repeat it to me. I heard "Admiral . . . beagle" and wondered why he was hissing "Archer! Admiral Archer!" at me and had to ask later. (Maybe it is time for that hearing test. I just hate to get a hearing aid before my Dad does.)
I was glad to see Leonard Nimoy, even if only briefly, and the two Spocks scene worked for me.
I liked that this Starfleet seemed a bit more racially integrated than the original one: we had People of Color in high ranks, not just manning comms. (I'm not counting green people or other aliens, I'm just counting humans.)
Brilliant Husband enjoyed it even more than I did. Maybe he should write an entry on it (hint, hint) and the good things I missed.
Read no further if you want to be sure I don't harsh your squee.
Oh My Frelling Gosh, WHY?
Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman were both born in 1973? I'm not that much older than they are, but maybe they're just younger enough not to remember when Star Trek was almost the only game in town, and not to realize how special it was.
They destroyed Vulcan. Until the final frelling scene, I thought they'd fix it! I thought, we can go back in time, we can change things; we can leave a message for future Spock to evacuate Romulus, so at least people won't all die; maybe with that red matter someone could even have made it back to the future to save Romulus. I'm really unhappy they destroyed Romulus too.
I have trouble enjoying a movie where billions of people die. That's not a romp (BH says it was never meant to be). That's not even a drama; that's a massacre. Abrams and Orci and Kurtzman (oh my!) seem to think that Star Trek is fun and funny. The real thing is. The real thing doesn't consider the loss of two major planets and billions (tens of billions?) of lives a happy ending.
I don't want to believe this ending. I can see bloopholes.
1. BH rejects this one: Nero is, as Spock says, "disturbed." Still, wouldn't you think he'd put some thought into whether, since he has just gone back to a time when Romulus still exists, he can save it, or at least make sure everyone evacuates?
1a. Okay, so Nero's a nutcase. Does not one single crewmember think to desert and see if the disaster can be averted with knowledge brought from the future? It's better to all the Romulans on board to destroy Vulcan than to save their own planet, their own parents, their own siblings, their own spouses, their own children? Are the writers on crack?
2. Even if I accept that Nero is a whacked-out captain with a completely whacked-out crew, since Nero spent a quarter of a century planning to capture Spock and make him watch the destruction of his home, don't you think Nero might actually keep Spock around to watch his reaction rather than cut him loose on a planet (planetoid? Moon?) with a Starfleet base? In what universe does this make sense, even (or especially) for a maniac?
Several times during the movie, I reminded myself that
astrogirl2 wrote this: "Possibly I will attempt my usual mental trick in such situations of pretending it's actually a historical drama produced in the Trek universe a century later. :)"Brilliant Husband has gone that one better. We see a Spock who, in his old age, has become astoundingly emotional for a Vulcan (or half-Vulcan). BH suggested that Spock gets away, uses his remaining (huge!) stock of red matter to do more time-traveling and save the day, and writes this movie as a romance of what might have been. (That's even better than what I said, which, riffing off Astro, was "This is the twenty-fourth-and-a-half century's The Man in the High Castle, the frightening AU version of history."
After noting the destruction of two entire planets full of people, the rest of my quibbles may seem just that: quibbles. But I will not be stopped!
Spock and Uhura? When he is her teacher?! Ick! Just, ick! BH argues that she had a crush on him as a student, but she never acted on it until that moment in the turbolift, when she asked, "What do you need?" and kissed him. He argues that Spock, being very perceptive, isn't surprised, and of course he's working not to react. So they weren't actually lovers while he was her teacher.
I say: nice try, dear. Really. But I saw that moment and thought back to Spock's worry of "favoritism," and BH's "he's worried that he'll look like he's favoring his best student" just isn't logical. He hasn't convinced me there wasn't something already going on. Moreover, even if he's right, Spock is in command over Uhura. She's a junior officer. He's first officer and then captain! You can't do that. That strikes me as deeply, deeply wrong for Spock. Yes, our Spock learns to bend the rules and even the truth occasionally, but he hasn't learned it yet. He's still very cautious in dealing with human emotion. If he saw a crush, he would make darned sure not to take advantage of it.
Full disclosure: Brilliant Husband says I'm just jealous of Uhura; I did say I was always a Spock girl and never a Kirk girl, and I stand by that statement. And then I ask: why does the only major female character in the crew have to be a love interest for an even more important character? Orci says here that Spock needed a confidant, and Kirk clearly wasn't one yet. Why can't Uhura be a confidante without being a love interest?
More on Spock: as I said, Zach Quinto makes a very fine Vulcan. It's not his fault that the best he can do with his voice might resemble Leonard Nimoy on helium. It was almost always the voice that got me; I could let myself believe, and then he'd open his mouth. I also thought he could have shown less emotion—even before Vulcan was destroyed. BH imagined the director saying, "Zach, let's try that again—this time with less emotion." I kept flashing on Sheldon from Big Bang Theory for some reason! He has emotions; he just doesn't quite get other people's.
I'm afraid Sulu didn't quite do it for me either. There's only one George Takei. Sorry, John Cho: you made a valiant effort!
I like Simon Pegg; he's a funny guy. I did not like the lines they gave Scotty! Some of them were among the most unfunny in the movie. BH leaned over at one point and said, "Krod Mandoon in space!" Yeah, for a few moments, it was. That's not praise: Krod Mandoon was far more offensive, but I think I also laughed at it more.
Giving Kirk multiple different drug reactions didn't amuse me. It was at best silly.
If Spock decides to beat up Kirk, Kirk does not become acting captain. He goes either to sickbay or to the morgue. He suffers multiple broken bones and maybe fatal internal injuries. (And I say, "Goodbye, and thanks for all the fish." Benjamin Sisko, you are still my favorite Star Trek captain!)
I want Vulcan back. (BH says, "But this makes it interesting! Yes, it does hurt! It hurts Vulcans! They have to feel!" Heck, they always felt. I want their planet back, and billions of them. "I'm part of an endangered species?" Oh, Spock!) I want Romulus back.
I want my original series back! Oh, wait—I've still got them! In three boxes, one for each season! Thank goodness!
What I hope most of all is that the movie brings people back to the original series. I hope to have time to watch some on DVD this summer—and share them with Small Child.
Tags: