only going forward, and things are getting worse

[extemporanea]

Celebrated my apparent return to something vaguely resembling actual health (yay antibiotics!) by taking myself off to see the new Star Trek this morning. Um.

See, this film has generated a lot of buzz, and various trekkoids of varying degrees of frothing fandom have been fairly positive about it, and said it feels like Star Trek. Only problem is ... (deep breath, braces self) ... I disagree. I really didn't like it, and didn't think it felt like Star Trek at all. Which is a dicey position to take because, while I have an undying devotion to the unrealistic fizz of Alias and JJ Abrams in general, I haven't watched a hell of a lot of Star Trek in the first place, so what do I know? I know what impressions I have of it; more generally, I know what I like, sf wise. This wasn't it.

Things I liked about Star Trek:

• The cast. I thought they were largely well cast and somewhat endearing, and worked well as young hot-shots. I particularly went for Bones, and I thought Spock pulled it off. Not enough Simon Pegg, though.
• Um, not much else, actually.

Things I didn't like about Star Trek:

• It was loud, scrappy, confused, over-busy and visually disorienting. My sense of the series has always been a kind of stripped-down essentialism - it had a moral and narrative clarity which this film simply lacked.
• The spaceships. Not a single moment of "ooooh, cool!", which is what I watch space opera for.
• The plot. It covered too much area with too little in the way of rationalisation, leaving gigantic holes all over the show. Too much time travel, transporter hopping, poor reasons for doing stuff, cadets mysteriously in charge, bad characterisation.
• The "science". Bleah. Typical JJ, in fact - giant red balls of mysterious stuff which have actual effect on anything only when the narrative actually demands it.
• Chekov's Russian accent - kept doing a Souf Effrican vowel-flattening thing, very distracting.

Overall, not an actively unpleasant way to spend a couple of hours, but really not Star Trek. Sorry.