Bubbly Thoughts on Star Trek
Attempting to get back into online-community. I've been lurking for so long; I really need to actually try to interact with people, because I *know* I'm missing out on a lot.
Anyway.
Star Trek. I'm a bit more coherent about it now that I've had a couple of days to calm down a bit. My first thoughts were along the lines of OMGPrettyEnterpriseSpockPrettyPrettyOMGBonesBonesKirkAwesomeSpockUhuraYay! I think I can put it a bit more...eloquently, now.
As a former Trekkie who is really quickly becoming a Trekkie again, I loved this movie. It had a lot of what I remembered about Star Trek - the (gorgeous) ships, technobabble that doesn't (always) make real sense, the aliens I remembered (Vulcans, mentions of Klingons and Cardassians, etc), and the characters I loved when I was little. I will fully admit that I was really hesitant about getting excited over this movie when I first heard about it; I saw the trailer and got all bubbly and excited over it for about ten minutes, then realized that they could screw it up really badly. I was particularly worried about Spock, since the trailer showed the scene where he attacks Kirk and, not knowing the context, it made me wonder what they were going to do to his character.
But oh. I feel they got so much right with this movie. The characters all felt right to me; even if they weren't exactly the same person from TOS, they were fully realized characters that still felt like the characters that I knew. And the movie made me feel for them early on, with how they set up everything; in particular, I'm thinking of Spock's storyline. I loved how they set up, early on, the one thing that really drives him to emotional responses (his mother and everything associated with him), and carried that theme through the entire movie. It allowed for the viewers to see the humanity in him early on, while contrasting that with the Vulcan-ness that he was striving for ("I married her because it was logical"). I remember being kind of confused about the whole 'emotionless' Vulcan thing when I was little, because I just didn't get the whole idea of controlling emotions so that they don't control you. I think they did well at showing that in the film.
Also, the balance of the characters. With all of the remakes/comic book movies/etc these days, and with so many characters that fans know and love, I've seen several movies that sacrificed a lot of plot and character development to shove as many characters into some 2+ hours. I was worried about this happening in Star Trek, but I don't think it did. They had plenty of characters for me to squee over (Pike! Amanda! Sarek!), as well as all the characters that are generally thought of when one thinks of TOS. For the most part, I think the movie used everyone just the right amount to keep the story moving and coherent, but still showing us characters that we wanted to see. The movie was very much about Spock and Kirk (I almost felt like it was more about Spock than about Kirk, actually), but we got Bones and Uhura supporting them, and we had Chekov, Sulu, Scotty...we even got a random!Redshirt, which made me giggle even though the scene wasn't really giggle-worthy. While I would still love to see more of all the supporting characters (particularly Uhura and Bones and Sulu), I do feel as though, had they had much more scene time than they did, that the movie would have felt far more cramped and messy.
The plot itself was a little less air-tight then it could have been, and I've been avoiding thinking about the paradox, because that's way more complicated then I really care to think about, especially when I can be fangirling over other things. But I think it worked, overall, and while it wasn't a Time-Loop (I LOVE Time-Loops)(sounds like some sort of cereal), it was still interesting and fun. And sad; I sort of froze up when Vulcan was destroyed. I hated that part in terms of what happened, but it still...worked, I think. It worked for the story that the producers were trying to tell.
I also loved the Spock/Uhura. It worked for me, somehow. I originally thought that the concept of the 'ship came out of nowhere; then I started re-watching TOS and realized that Uhura definitely flirts with Spock in early episodes. She definitely flusters him in Charlie X and The Man Trap.
I hadn't really been expecting it in the movie; I had heard about it in passing on the internet, but thought it was only going to be a subtext-y thing. So I was kind of really caught off-guard by the turbolift scene. It threw me a little, but then I started watching both of their faces and their body language whenever they were interacting/reacting to the other, and I felt that it really worked. Plus, the fic I've ready is, for the most part, amazing. The 'ship has the long, drawn out get-together that I like in my ships, and it has the general feel of a relationship that's built on mutual respect. Plus, with two incredibly intelligent individuals, the 'ship has the potential for fics that can really focus on technical things that I can really geek out over. Plus, it makes me want to write a science-based fic from Spock's POV. :D
I honestly haven't wanted to ship a couple thing much since my Genma/Shizune and Scar/Lust days. I haven't wanted to be part of fandom like this since a looong time ago.
Anyway.
Star Trek. I'm a bit more coherent about it now that I've had a couple of days to calm down a bit. My first thoughts were along the lines of OMGPrettyEnterpriseSpockPrettyPrettyOMGBonesBonesKirkAwesomeSpockUhuraYay! I think I can put it a bit more...eloquently, now.
As a former Trekkie who is really quickly becoming a Trekkie again, I loved this movie. It had a lot of what I remembered about Star Trek - the (gorgeous) ships, technobabble that doesn't (always) make real sense, the aliens I remembered (Vulcans, mentions of Klingons and Cardassians, etc), and the characters I loved when I was little. I will fully admit that I was really hesitant about getting excited over this movie when I first heard about it; I saw the trailer and got all bubbly and excited over it for about ten minutes, then realized that they could screw it up really badly. I was particularly worried about Spock, since the trailer showed the scene where he attacks Kirk and, not knowing the context, it made me wonder what they were going to do to his character.
But oh. I feel they got so much right with this movie. The characters all felt right to me; even if they weren't exactly the same person from TOS, they were fully realized characters that still felt like the characters that I knew. And the movie made me feel for them early on, with how they set up everything; in particular, I'm thinking of Spock's storyline. I loved how they set up, early on, the one thing that really drives him to emotional responses (his mother and everything associated with him), and carried that theme through the entire movie. It allowed for the viewers to see the humanity in him early on, while contrasting that with the Vulcan-ness that he was striving for ("I married her because it was logical"). I remember being kind of confused about the whole 'emotionless' Vulcan thing when I was little, because I just didn't get the whole idea of controlling emotions so that they don't control you. I think they did well at showing that in the film.
Also, the balance of the characters. With all of the remakes/comic book movies/etc these days, and with so many characters that fans know and love, I've seen several movies that sacrificed a lot of plot and character development to shove as many characters into some 2+ hours. I was worried about this happening in Star Trek, but I don't think it did. They had plenty of characters for me to squee over (Pike! Amanda! Sarek!), as well as all the characters that are generally thought of when one thinks of TOS. For the most part, I think the movie used everyone just the right amount to keep the story moving and coherent, but still showing us characters that we wanted to see. The movie was very much about Spock and Kirk (I almost felt like it was more about Spock than about Kirk, actually), but we got Bones and Uhura supporting them, and we had Chekov, Sulu, Scotty...we even got a random!Redshirt, which made me giggle even though the scene wasn't really giggle-worthy. While I would still love to see more of all the supporting characters (particularly Uhura and Bones and Sulu), I do feel as though, had they had much more scene time than they did, that the movie would have felt far more cramped and messy.
The plot itself was a little less air-tight then it could have been, and I've been avoiding thinking about the paradox, because that's way more complicated then I really care to think about, especially when I can be fangirling over other things. But I think it worked, overall, and while it wasn't a Time-Loop (I LOVE Time-Loops)(sounds like some sort of cereal), it was still interesting and fun. And sad; I sort of froze up when Vulcan was destroyed. I hated that part in terms of what happened, but it still...worked, I think. It worked for the story that the producers were trying to tell.
I also loved the Spock/Uhura. It worked for me, somehow. I originally thought that the concept of the 'ship came out of nowhere; then I started re-watching TOS and realized that Uhura definitely flirts with Spock in early episodes. She definitely flusters him in Charlie X and The Man Trap.
I hadn't really been expecting it in the movie; I had heard about it in passing on the internet, but thought it was only going to be a subtext-y thing. So I was kind of really caught off-guard by the turbolift scene. It threw me a little, but then I started watching both of their faces and their body language whenever they were interacting/reacting to the other, and I felt that it really worked. Plus, the fic I've ready is, for the most part, amazing. The 'ship has the long, drawn out get-together that I like in my ships, and it has the general feel of a relationship that's built on mutual respect. Plus, with two incredibly intelligent individuals, the 'ship has the potential for fics that can really focus on technical things that I can really geek out over. Plus, it makes me want to write a science-based fic from Spock's POV. :D
I honestly haven't wanted to ship a couple thing much since my Genma/Shizune and Scar/Lust days. I haven't wanted to be part of fandom like this since a looong time ago.