the meme comes round again

Jun 23, 2009 15:04

Name a fandom, and I'll give you the scoop on at least three of my unpopular opinions related to that fandom.

*****

fandom: pegg and/or frost, fandom: torchwood, fandom: star trek, memes

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kindkit June 23 2009, 21:49:02 UTC
I'll do both--I think I have enough unpopular opinions to go around!

TOS

1. Most of the ideas the show puts forward are not, at least so far, very deep or unconventional.

2. "It was the sixties" is not an adequate excuse for the show's sexism. Other 1960s shows (e.g. Doctor Who) are very different and much less offensive.

3. NEEDS MOAR SULU! I love Spock, Kirk, and McCoy enormously, but Sulu just lights up the screen with his charisma.

Reboot

1. This applies to TOS as well: Calling Spock things like "pointy-eared freak" is fairly racist and characters who do it need a smackdown.

2. The lines that Kirk's stepfather has in the film are not proof that he abused ickle!Kirk. Having said that, I don't think it's implausible that Kirk was abused (physically or sexually), but I'm suspicious of how quickly and pervasively it's become fanon. If not handled thoughtfully, it's just cheap woobification of a character who, let's face is, is kind of a smug asshole.

3. When Bones says, "I'm a doctor, not a physicist" it's more painful than awesome. It yanked me right out of the film because it's so clearly a shout-out to the original show, and Karl Urban delivers the line as as shout-out rather than as something his McCoy would actually say.

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dancesontrains June 23 2009, 21:52:10 UTC
I agree with everything apart from the 'I'm a Doctor...' reference.

I should watch more old-school Who after I'm done with the TOS rewatch; it should wash out the nasty taste from the mouth.

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kindkit June 23 2009, 22:01:39 UTC
It probably didn't help that, since I hadn't seen any TOS before seeing the film, I only knew the line as a pop culture joke.

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doyle_sb4 June 24 2009, 10:38:24 UTC
1. This applies to TOS as well: Calling Spock things like "pointy-eared freak" is fairly racist and characters who do it need a smackdown.

It's alarming how pervasive this is through all the Treks - the main characters are held up as shining examples of Federation tolerance while making sneery jokes about Vulcans or whinging about having Ferengi passengers on the ship ("make sure they're not stationed anywhere near my quarters").

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kindkit June 24 2009, 20:47:27 UTC
Wow, I'd have expected newer Treks to do better about that. I was certainly very disturbed to hear it in the movie, but the movie is not exactly well thought-out or carefully written.

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