Star Trekkin... across the Universe...
Found out yesterday that duncandahusky and takaza were going to see the Star Trek movie last night. Since I couldn't join the group down on the south side of Chicago who were going to see it, I'd been entertaining the thought of going out to the Kenosha theater by myself, but decided that I'd rather see it with friends... and McHenry wasn't *that* far out of the way for me. :)
We were joined by jenwolf and aureth, and the 5 of us headed to the small, narrow McHenry theater to get our geek on. (Takaza even won a box of Raisinettes by knowing that Spock died in "The Wrath Of Khan". Geek. ;) (Then again, I was the one who was naming the movies after that, and discussing the fact that this was technically an odd numbered movie which meant that it was going to suck... ;) ))
Anyway... on to my review...
As I'm sure most of you know, I'm a geek... but I've never really considered myself THAT much of a Trekkie. I remember watching the old series with my dad (one of the few things I can specifically remember watching with him), and I've seen bits and pieces of all the other shows... I've seen all the movies, and even saw a couple of them in the theatre... but I couldn't tell you episode names (aside from "The Trouble With Tribbles" ;) ) or operational specifics about the Enterprise, or even what Kirk's dad's name was. With that said, I had a blast watching this movie.
Honestly, it's been so long since I've seen *any* of the Trek stuff-- movies, tv series, and ESPECIALLY the Original Series-- that I almost felt like I was going into the movie with no knowledge of the world. The first few minutes of the movie confused me, because I didn't realize that it was the elder Kirk... so I was all "How's he gonna get out of this one?" And then the captain called him "George" and I went, "Wait... wha?" Heh.
There was really only one point where I was so completely jarred out of the movie that I had to tell my inner monologue to shut up and enjoy the pretty, and that was actually at the very beginning of the movie when the Romulan ship first appears. My initial thought (which was echoed aloud by Jenne about 30 seconds later) was "They're fighting the Shadows? Oh, SHIT!" But then my brain moved on to "Why the hell would someone build a ship that looks like that? It's got all those tentacle-y things and all that wasted space. I guess it's not quite so bad when you realize the scale of the ship as compared to the Federation ship (whose name I can't remember) but still... can you imagine having your quarters all the way on one end of one of those tentacles and then have to walk ALL the way to the central body and then ALL the way out to the end of another tentacle to get to the mess hall?" X-D
At that point, though, I just let it go and went with the flow. I really hadn't read anything about the movie, so it hadn't quite clicked with me that this was supposed to be a "re-boot" (re-imaging, whatever) of the series, even though I knew that we had people who were playing "Spock", "Kirk", etc. I just hadn't really thought about it... or maybe I just thought that this was supposed to be a prequel type movie. I don't really know what I thought. But I wasn't expecting time-travel involved rewriting of history to create an alternate universe.
I like this universe, though. I like the casting choices... for the most part.
Zachary Quinto was fantastic. And even though I started the movie expecting him to telekinetically slice into someone's head, he actually made me forget about Sylar and he became Spock. So major props to him.
Chris Pine did an awesome job of giving us the Jim Kirk that we know and love, while still putting his own characteristics into the portrayal.
Bones was awesome. (But seriously... afraid of flying? I'm glad Kirk asked the obvious question. "You do realize that the Federation operates in space, right?")
Chekov and Sulu both made me laugh. (Chekov is the Weapons person, right? And did we have prior knowledge of him being a math wiz who could re-calculate trajectories and lock onto rapidly moving targets with the teleporter? That was another part where I kinda stratched my head for a bit before reminding myself to focus on the pretty.)
I liked Uhura. And I'm willing to accept the Uhura/Spock thing. Even though it really goes against everything that my brain is trying to scream at me about Spock. And I think that what I have the most problem with is that they must have hooked up *before* this story. I can understand it more if the events of this story caused Spock to re-evaluate his "feelings" and he therefore decided to enter a relationship with Uhura (Nia, was it? I didn't catch what they said her name was :) )... but before this, it seemed like he was really trying to be fully Vulcan, and so I have a hard time figuring out how Uhura got through to him in the first place. Anyway... I like the two of them together, though, so I'm ok with it.
The only character I didn't really care for was Scotty. :( And it wasn't really because of the actor, 'cause I think Simon Pegg's hysterical. I just didn't like the way Scotty was written. He seemed too ... I don't know ... hyper? psychotic? unintelligible? I just remember the Scotty from the original series being a little more down-to-earth. Yes, he was an engineering geek who sometimes spouted technobabble, but he didn't come across as being a complete social reject.
Aside from that, though, I thought the film was fun, and I can't wait to see another movie with this cast. There were enough throwbacks to the old series (I don't think they reversed the polarity of anything, but they managed to throw in all the other cliches and catchphrases from the original series that I can think of :) ) to make my inner geek giggle with glee, there was enough action to keep me awake after a long day at work (and to make me mutter "Oh, crap!" a time or two), there was enough pretty on the screen to satisfy the shallow female part of me that drools at such things, and there was enough Leonard Nimoy exposition for my inner critic to shut up and say "Ok, fine. We'll just go with it."
And now I want to see it again. :)
And I need to go searching for icons. :D
We were joined by jenwolf and aureth, and the 5 of us headed to the small, narrow McHenry theater to get our geek on. (Takaza even won a box of Raisinettes by knowing that Spock died in "The Wrath Of Khan". Geek. ;) (Then again, I was the one who was naming the movies after that, and discussing the fact that this was technically an odd numbered movie which meant that it was going to suck... ;) ))
Anyway... on to my review...
As I'm sure most of you know, I'm a geek... but I've never really considered myself THAT much of a Trekkie. I remember watching the old series with my dad (one of the few things I can specifically remember watching with him), and I've seen bits and pieces of all the other shows... I've seen all the movies, and even saw a couple of them in the theatre... but I couldn't tell you episode names (aside from "The Trouble With Tribbles" ;) ) or operational specifics about the Enterprise, or even what Kirk's dad's name was. With that said, I had a blast watching this movie.
Honestly, it's been so long since I've seen *any* of the Trek stuff-- movies, tv series, and ESPECIALLY the Original Series-- that I almost felt like I was going into the movie with no knowledge of the world. The first few minutes of the movie confused me, because I didn't realize that it was the elder Kirk... so I was all "How's he gonna get out of this one?" And then the captain called him "George" and I went, "Wait... wha?" Heh.
There was really only one point where I was so completely jarred out of the movie that I had to tell my inner monologue to shut up and enjoy the pretty, and that was actually at the very beginning of the movie when the Romulan ship first appears. My initial thought (which was echoed aloud by Jenne about 30 seconds later) was "They're fighting the Shadows? Oh, SHIT!" But then my brain moved on to "Why the hell would someone build a ship that looks like that? It's got all those tentacle-y things and all that wasted space. I guess it's not quite so bad when you realize the scale of the ship as compared to the Federation ship (whose name I can't remember) but still... can you imagine having your quarters all the way on one end of one of those tentacles and then have to walk ALL the way to the central body and then ALL the way out to the end of another tentacle to get to the mess hall?" X-D
At that point, though, I just let it go and went with the flow. I really hadn't read anything about the movie, so it hadn't quite clicked with me that this was supposed to be a "re-boot" (re-imaging, whatever) of the series, even though I knew that we had people who were playing "Spock", "Kirk", etc. I just hadn't really thought about it... or maybe I just thought that this was supposed to be a prequel type movie. I don't really know what I thought. But I wasn't expecting time-travel involved rewriting of history to create an alternate universe.
I like this universe, though. I like the casting choices... for the most part.
Zachary Quinto was fantastic. And even though I started the movie expecting him to telekinetically slice into someone's head, he actually made me forget about Sylar and he became Spock. So major props to him.
Chris Pine did an awesome job of giving us the Jim Kirk that we know and love, while still putting his own characteristics into the portrayal.
Bones was awesome. (But seriously... afraid of flying? I'm glad Kirk asked the obvious question. "You do realize that the Federation operates in space, right?")
Chekov and Sulu both made me laugh. (Chekov is the Weapons person, right? And did we have prior knowledge of him being a math wiz who could re-calculate trajectories and lock onto rapidly moving targets with the teleporter? That was another part where I kinda stratched my head for a bit before reminding myself to focus on the pretty.)
I liked Uhura. And I'm willing to accept the Uhura/Spock thing. Even though it really goes against everything that my brain is trying to scream at me about Spock. And I think that what I have the most problem with is that they must have hooked up *before* this story. I can understand it more if the events of this story caused Spock to re-evaluate his "feelings" and he therefore decided to enter a relationship with Uhura (Nia, was it? I didn't catch what they said her name was :) )... but before this, it seemed like he was really trying to be fully Vulcan, and so I have a hard time figuring out how Uhura got through to him in the first place. Anyway... I like the two of them together, though, so I'm ok with it.
The only character I didn't really care for was Scotty. :( And it wasn't really because of the actor, 'cause I think Simon Pegg's hysterical. I just didn't like the way Scotty was written. He seemed too ... I don't know ... hyper? psychotic? unintelligible? I just remember the Scotty from the original series being a little more down-to-earth. Yes, he was an engineering geek who sometimes spouted technobabble, but he didn't come across as being a complete social reject.
Aside from that, though, I thought the film was fun, and I can't wait to see another movie with this cast. There were enough throwbacks to the old series (I don't think they reversed the polarity of anything, but they managed to throw in all the other cliches and catchphrases from the original series that I can think of :) ) to make my inner geek giggle with glee, there was enough action to keep me awake after a long day at work (and to make me mutter "Oh, crap!" a time or two), there was enough pretty on the screen to satisfy the shallow female part of me that drools at such things, and there was enough Leonard Nimoy exposition for my inner critic to shut up and say "Ok, fine. We'll just go with it."
And now I want to see it again. :)
And I need to go searching for icons. :D