a fannish post whaaaaaaaaaaaaat?
Why yes! I have opinions on entertainment media, and here they are.
Secret Life of Pets
I hesitate to even admit I watched this, but I feel the need to warn people off of it. It's dumb. Very dumb. I saw it with my mom, who doesn't even like animation, and whose interest in the movie was inexplicable until we were walking out of the theater and she admitted that she expected the "Secret Life" was going to be that the pets were spies or crime solvers or something. Which, let's admit it, would also have been dumb, but not nearly as dumb as the insipid buddy movie with Perky Smitten Girl, Oblivious Boy, and Aggressively Bizarre Villain that we got. Complete, by the way, with a near-drowning scene, because I guess All Dogs Go To Heaven taught us nothing about traumatizing children through the medium of innocently-marketed cartoon animal movies?
ST:Beyond
Was ridiculous, with too many explosions, so basically what I expected. I am not a hardcore Trek fan by any means. I just like Adventures in Space, and greatly enjoy the vast ecosystem of adventure/romance fic the franchise has spawned. So my criticisms should be taken in that light.
- I'm just tired of CG explosions and debris everywhere. It's hard for the eye to follow, and I would rather a more simple practical effect of (for example) a wrecked corridor on a ship with real-life smoking wires, than an exceptionally detailed CG rendering of same.
+ To give the CG artists credit, the rendering of the space station was delightful. Really creative, lush details, great angles and "camera" work, and really showcasing the kind of cosmopolitanism the Federation is supposed to be about.
- I guess we're to pretend STID never happened, though? In only three years the corruption has been righted and this super wonderful station exists and there's no wars to worry about, and Kirk and everyone else believes in the Federation again? I dunno, maybe there'll be tie in novels or something to address the huge change in tone in such a short time. I'm not really complaining about the change, per se, as I'd prefer Fun Adventures in Space to Gritty Nu Trek, but, uh, it's weird it was never mentioned at all.
- Trying not to be spoilery, but I was annoyed with how a certain piece of information was presented. But given how vague actual canon has been about the limits of certain forms of communication, I'm not sure my presumption that this information would have been known already is reasonable. At any rate, it was clearly presented for the audience's benefit, so I got over it.
+ So little romance. Practically none at all, in fact.
- I'm 100% sure the reason there was no romance was because there was so much screen time given to stuff exploding.
- I feel like whoever was directing Karl Urban had a different vision of the movie than everyone else got. "No, Bones! Make it more campy!" Like, there were a lot of homages and callbacks, which were mostly unobtrusive, but I really felt they erred in trying to stick an OTT TOS Bones into a movie where the general feel has been updated. It came across as very jarring and forced. If they wanted Bones to be a cranky country doctor, they should have just let Urban come up with his own version of cranky instead of trying to get him to mimic Kelley's delivery.
- I spent way too much time thinking about how the extremely small bad guy ships would have neither the mass for momentum, nor the space for engine/fuel required for acceleration, to have the massive damage power they displayed. I mean, transporter "science" and such, I can handwave, but it would have been nice to get a throwaway line about how the ships had to be some super-dense alloy or something.
+ The Shatner look looks good on Chris Pine
- Chris Pine sounds ridiculous when they make him drop his voice as low as possible for dramatic voiceovers and emotional lines. Dude, just talk normally! Your voice is loads better with actual inflection.
+ I loved how the crew got split up so everyone could showcase their competencies. More lines and more problem solving got spread around, and it felt like an actual ensemble adventure instead of The Kirk Show.
+ The new character was very competent, and seems to be set up to come back? I hope so!
+ So pretty. The cool blue filter they use for the ST movies is just really nice to look at. The color and lighting choices were good, and the updated uniforms were more flattering, while still retaining that classic 20th century polyester charm.
Secret Life of Pets
I hesitate to even admit I watched this, but I feel the need to warn people off of it. It's dumb. Very dumb. I saw it with my mom, who doesn't even like animation, and whose interest in the movie was inexplicable until we were walking out of the theater and she admitted that she expected the "Secret Life" was going to be that the pets were spies or crime solvers or something. Which, let's admit it, would also have been dumb, but not nearly as dumb as the insipid buddy movie with Perky Smitten Girl, Oblivious Boy, and Aggressively Bizarre Villain that we got. Complete, by the way, with a near-drowning scene, because I guess All Dogs Go To Heaven taught us nothing about traumatizing children through the medium of innocently-marketed cartoon animal movies?
ST:Beyond
Was ridiculous, with too many explosions, so basically what I expected. I am not a hardcore Trek fan by any means. I just like Adventures in Space, and greatly enjoy the vast ecosystem of adventure/romance fic the franchise has spawned. So my criticisms should be taken in that light.
- I'm just tired of CG explosions and debris everywhere. It's hard for the eye to follow, and I would rather a more simple practical effect of (for example) a wrecked corridor on a ship with real-life smoking wires, than an exceptionally detailed CG rendering of same.
+ To give the CG artists credit, the rendering of the space station was delightful. Really creative, lush details, great angles and "camera" work, and really showcasing the kind of cosmopolitanism the Federation is supposed to be about.
- I guess we're to pretend STID never happened, though? In only three years the corruption has been righted and this super wonderful station exists and there's no wars to worry about, and Kirk and everyone else believes in the Federation again? I dunno, maybe there'll be tie in novels or something to address the huge change in tone in such a short time. I'm not really complaining about the change, per se, as I'd prefer Fun Adventures in Space to Gritty Nu Trek, but, uh, it's weird it was never mentioned at all.
- Trying not to be spoilery, but I was annoyed with how a certain piece of information was presented. But given how vague actual canon has been about the limits of certain forms of communication, I'm not sure my presumption that this information would have been known already is reasonable. At any rate, it was clearly presented for the audience's benefit, so I got over it.
+ So little romance. Practically none at all, in fact.
- I'm 100% sure the reason there was no romance was because there was so much screen time given to stuff exploding.
- I feel like whoever was directing Karl Urban had a different vision of the movie than everyone else got. "No, Bones! Make it more campy!" Like, there were a lot of homages and callbacks, which were mostly unobtrusive, but I really felt they erred in trying to stick an OTT TOS Bones into a movie where the general feel has been updated. It came across as very jarring and forced. If they wanted Bones to be a cranky country doctor, they should have just let Urban come up with his own version of cranky instead of trying to get him to mimic Kelley's delivery.
- I spent way too much time thinking about how the extremely small bad guy ships would have neither the mass for momentum, nor the space for engine/fuel required for acceleration, to have the massive damage power they displayed. I mean, transporter "science" and such, I can handwave, but it would have been nice to get a throwaway line about how the ships had to be some super-dense alloy or something.
+ The Shatner look looks good on Chris Pine
- Chris Pine sounds ridiculous when they make him drop his voice as low as possible for dramatic voiceovers and emotional lines. Dude, just talk normally! Your voice is loads better with actual inflection.
+ I loved how the crew got split up so everyone could showcase their competencies. More lines and more problem solving got spread around, and it felt like an actual ensemble adventure instead of The Kirk Show.
+ The new character was very competent, and seems to be set up to come back? I hope so!
+ So pretty. The cool blue filter they use for the ST movies is just really nice to look at. The color and lighting choices were good, and the updated uniforms were more flattering, while still retaining that classic 20th century polyester charm.