Star Trek 1, 2, 3
In recent days I've watched the first three Star Trek movies. What I mostly wanted out of them was Kirk/Spock shippiness, and they didn't disappoint on that front. Below the cut I have some not-very-deep thoughts. Big spoilers, especially for The Wrath of Khan.
Star Trek: The Motion Piction
It deserves its fan nickname "The Motionless Picture." Dear god, who thought that a five-minute wordless flyover sequence of the Enterprise was a good idea? And then the even longer sequence near the end as the Enterprise flies through V'Ger? I can sort of understand the Enterprise one as geek fanservice (and I enjoyed it as such, initially, but then it went on and on and on), but the V'Ger thing . . . it's like someone gave the special effects department final cut of the movie.
However, all that pales besides the movie's truly appalling moment, which was when McCoy initially beamed up to the Enterprise. With his SCARY GIANT BEARD and his leisure suit open halfway down his hairy little chest. And his MEDALLLION.
I was traumatized, I tell you. Fortunately, once he shaved and got into uniform he looked more or less the same as always. (DeForest Kelley aged so little over the hiatus, in comparison to the other actors, that McCoy and Kirk seemed to be almost the same age in the movies.)
Spock's near-Kolinahr and his subsequent uber-Vulcan behavior were well-handled for the most part, I think; the scenes when Kirk, McCoy, etc. behaved with ordinary friendliness and Spock simply didn't respond were chilling (and showed how human Spock's behavior really had been). There was one serious misstep, I think, in an early-ish scene that had McCoy picking at Spock and Spock responding by saying something unflattering about human emotionalism. It came off as too similar to their usual bickering; Spock cutting McCoy dead would've been a lot more effective and would have given more impact to Spock's thawing out later.
Shippy handholding scene was shippy. Spock's embrace of emotion didn't seem to last very long, though, since as soon as he got out of sickbay he was back to being fairly Vulcan. But not as Vulcan as he could have been, which is something.
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
A better movie in all respects than the first one. There was some plot, and everything was brisker and wittier. Ricardo Montalban was good enough as Khan that I eventually stopped waiting for him to say "welcome to Fantasy Island." I'd expected to find Carol Marcus annoying but didn't; that'll teach me to judge any character (especially a female character) based on fanfic. Kirstie Alley completely failed to be convincing as Saavik, however. She came across as a breathless teenager rather than a Vulcan lieutenant.
Unfortunately, I was so spoiled for Spock's death (and resurrection in III) that the death scene wasn't hugely emotional for me. Not only have I read a ton of fanfic dealing with it, but I've seen clips of it in songvids and even read meta about its importance as quasi-slash (Henry Jenkins having famously said that slash is what happens if you take away the glass separating Kirk and Spock in that scene). Actually watching it felt overfamiliar, deja-vu-ish, and I was disappointed. Not with the scene itself, but with my own somewhat detached viewing. It was certainly well played, though, especially by Shatner. His performance in the films so far has been much better than was usual in TOS; I don't know if he'd calmed down a bit as an actor, or if he was helped by having more time and more takes, or if film directors had the authority to make him tone his hamminess down that TV directors didn't. Whatever the reason, Shatner relied mostly on body language, which even in TOS he was much better at than delivering lines, and it worked beautifully. The touching-hands-through-the-glass scene, of course, but also the way he put his hands on either side of Spock's head and obviously wanted to hold him, and the way he slumped down after Spock's death, which mirrored Spock's own collapse and showed that the life had gone out of Kirk too. He really had lost part of his soul, as Kirk of course would later say in Star Trek III.
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
This wasn't as good a movie overall as II, but in a lot of ways I liked it better. For one thing, Uhura, Sulu, and Scott all had stuff to do and at least one moment of awesome each, and that always makes me happy. Also, it was shippy as hell, which I'll get to in a moment.
New!Saavik was better than old!Saavik, but I still didn't give a damn about her or David Marcus. The thing I've liked least about the first three Star Trek movies has been this tendency to introduce new characters and give them as much storyline as the series stars (and more storyline than Uhura, Sulu, and Scott). And really, David Marcus was just in the movie to die and give Kirk more angst, and Saavik was just in the movie so regenerated!teenage!Spock could go through pon farr. Which was silly in itself and irritating in terms of canon, since Spock's first pon farr happened when he was fortysomething and first officer aboard the Enterprise. I'd have been quite happy if that, along with all the Saavik and David stuff, had been cut entirely and more time had been spent developing McCoy's story. His hosting Spock's katra was so important, but it was barely even sketched in. In particular, I'd have liked to see more about its emotional effects on McCoy; not only would it have been great character development, the plot needed it. Everyone, including the Federation, thought McCoy was losing his mind and had "deep emotional problems" but we really didn't see it onscreen.
Anyway, on to the shippiness. Hot damn. Sad!Kirk caressing Spock's empty chair. Kirk telling Sarek, "Your son meant more to me than I can say," and Sarek's expectation that of course Spock would've given Kirk his katra, and then the mind meld where Sarek started repeating things Spock had said, and it was all firelit and intense and I swear to god I thought for a second they were going to kiss, which would've been weird as hell but highly awesome. The whole resurrection scene was great, especially Spock going down the line person by person and obviously thinking "Is it you that I for some reason desperately want to find? No, not you - next?" (Including to Saavik, whom he presumably had pon farr sexx0rs with--although since he was katra-less and pretty much mindless at the same, I suppose there's no way any kind of bond could have resulted.) And then, at the end, he found Kirk. The way the two of them looked at each other was just amazing, and I especially loved the bit when everyone started crowding around Spock, welcoming him back, and he and Kirk just kept looking at each other. Nimoy did a great job with Spock's confusion and loss of memory, too--there was a boyish quality he brought out that worked very well.
Interestingly, I see a lot less Kirk/Spock/McCoy OT3ishness in the movies than I did on the show. The Kirk-Spock relationship was always central in TOS, of course, but McCoy got pretty sidelined in the movies. Kirk was always at center stage and there wasn't much Spock-McCoy interaction. There's room to write K/S/M, certainly, especially given the katra situation, but what the text itself was foregrounding was definitely Kirk and Spock's bond. ETA: I almost forgot about the amazing moment during Search for Spock when McCoy told regenerated!Spock (who of course was unconscious) that he'd missed him and he didn't think he could bear to lose him again. That line, in fact, is more emotional than any of the dialogue between Kirk and Spock--with them it's all looks and body language, or declarations about each other to third parties.
*****
Star Trek: The Motion Piction
It deserves its fan nickname "The Motionless Picture." Dear god, who thought that a five-minute wordless flyover sequence of the Enterprise was a good idea? And then the even longer sequence near the end as the Enterprise flies through V'Ger? I can sort of understand the Enterprise one as geek fanservice (and I enjoyed it as such, initially, but then it went on and on and on), but the V'Ger thing . . . it's like someone gave the special effects department final cut of the movie.
However, all that pales besides the movie's truly appalling moment, which was when McCoy initially beamed up to the Enterprise. With his SCARY GIANT BEARD and his leisure suit open halfway down his hairy little chest. And his MEDALLLION.
I was traumatized, I tell you. Fortunately, once he shaved and got into uniform he looked more or less the same as always. (DeForest Kelley aged so little over the hiatus, in comparison to the other actors, that McCoy and Kirk seemed to be almost the same age in the movies.)
Spock's near-Kolinahr and his subsequent uber-Vulcan behavior were well-handled for the most part, I think; the scenes when Kirk, McCoy, etc. behaved with ordinary friendliness and Spock simply didn't respond were chilling (and showed how human Spock's behavior really had been). There was one serious misstep, I think, in an early-ish scene that had McCoy picking at Spock and Spock responding by saying something unflattering about human emotionalism. It came off as too similar to their usual bickering; Spock cutting McCoy dead would've been a lot more effective and would have given more impact to Spock's thawing out later.
Shippy handholding scene was shippy. Spock's embrace of emotion didn't seem to last very long, though, since as soon as he got out of sickbay he was back to being fairly Vulcan. But not as Vulcan as he could have been, which is something.
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
A better movie in all respects than the first one. There was some plot, and everything was brisker and wittier. Ricardo Montalban was good enough as Khan that I eventually stopped waiting for him to say "welcome to Fantasy Island." I'd expected to find Carol Marcus annoying but didn't; that'll teach me to judge any character (especially a female character) based on fanfic. Kirstie Alley completely failed to be convincing as Saavik, however. She came across as a breathless teenager rather than a Vulcan lieutenant.
Unfortunately, I was so spoiled for Spock's death (and resurrection in III) that the death scene wasn't hugely emotional for me. Not only have I read a ton of fanfic dealing with it, but I've seen clips of it in songvids and even read meta about its importance as quasi-slash (Henry Jenkins having famously said that slash is what happens if you take away the glass separating Kirk and Spock in that scene). Actually watching it felt overfamiliar, deja-vu-ish, and I was disappointed. Not with the scene itself, but with my own somewhat detached viewing. It was certainly well played, though, especially by Shatner. His performance in the films so far has been much better than was usual in TOS; I don't know if he'd calmed down a bit as an actor, or if he was helped by having more time and more takes, or if film directors had the authority to make him tone his hamminess down that TV directors didn't. Whatever the reason, Shatner relied mostly on body language, which even in TOS he was much better at than delivering lines, and it worked beautifully. The touching-hands-through-the-glass scene, of course, but also the way he put his hands on either side of Spock's head and obviously wanted to hold him, and the way he slumped down after Spock's death, which mirrored Spock's own collapse and showed that the life had gone out of Kirk too. He really had lost part of his soul, as Kirk of course would later say in Star Trek III.
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
This wasn't as good a movie overall as II, but in a lot of ways I liked it better. For one thing, Uhura, Sulu, and Scott all had stuff to do and at least one moment of awesome each, and that always makes me happy. Also, it was shippy as hell, which I'll get to in a moment.
New!Saavik was better than old!Saavik, but I still didn't give a damn about her or David Marcus. The thing I've liked least about the first three Star Trek movies has been this tendency to introduce new characters and give them as much storyline as the series stars (and more storyline than Uhura, Sulu, and Scott). And really, David Marcus was just in the movie to die and give Kirk more angst, and Saavik was just in the movie so regenerated!teenage!Spock could go through pon farr. Which was silly in itself and irritating in terms of canon, since Spock's first pon farr happened when he was fortysomething and first officer aboard the Enterprise. I'd have been quite happy if that, along with all the Saavik and David stuff, had been cut entirely and more time had been spent developing McCoy's story. His hosting Spock's katra was so important, but it was barely even sketched in. In particular, I'd have liked to see more about its emotional effects on McCoy; not only would it have been great character development, the plot needed it. Everyone, including the Federation, thought McCoy was losing his mind and had "deep emotional problems" but we really didn't see it onscreen.
Anyway, on to the shippiness. Hot damn. Sad!Kirk caressing Spock's empty chair. Kirk telling Sarek, "Your son meant more to me than I can say," and Sarek's expectation that of course Spock would've given Kirk his katra, and then the mind meld where Sarek started repeating things Spock had said, and it was all firelit and intense and I swear to god I thought for a second they were going to kiss, which would've been weird as hell but highly awesome. The whole resurrection scene was great, especially Spock going down the line person by person and obviously thinking "Is it you that I for some reason desperately want to find? No, not you - next?" (Including to Saavik, whom he presumably had pon farr sexx0rs with--although since he was katra-less and pretty much mindless at the same, I suppose there's no way any kind of bond could have resulted.) And then, at the end, he found Kirk. The way the two of them looked at each other was just amazing, and I especially loved the bit when everyone started crowding around Spock, welcoming him back, and he and Kirk just kept looking at each other. Nimoy did a great job with Spock's confusion and loss of memory, too--there was a boyish quality he brought out that worked very well.
Interestingly, I see a lot less Kirk/Spock/McCoy OT3ishness in the movies than I did on the show. The Kirk-Spock relationship was always central in TOS, of course, but McCoy got pretty sidelined in the movies. Kirk was always at center stage and there wasn't much Spock-McCoy interaction. There's room to write K/S/M, certainly, especially given the katra situation, but what the text itself was foregrounding was definitely Kirk and Spock's bond. ETA: I almost forgot about the amazing moment during Search for Spock when McCoy told regenerated!Spock (who of course was unconscious) that he'd missed him and he didn't think he could bear to lose him again. That line, in fact, is more emotional than any of the dialogue between Kirk and Spock--with them it's all looks and body language, or declarations about each other to third parties.
*****