All the feels
I didn't have a chance to catch up on a LOT of things, but I did get to watch a few, and I seem to have thoughts on all of them.
* First of all:
I LOVED that A) they finally did the reveal to Juliette; B) in a non-heat-of-the-moment-moment, Monroe is entirely aware he should NOT be the first person to reveal himself in their little cadre, so Rosalee and Bud went first; C) she reacted freaked out, but resolute, and D) she ADAPTED. It felt like a cheat on Nick's part, that he ended up not even being there for the reveal, but considering how well it went the last time he tried to tell her, it was probably for the best. I did love him going over for dinner and trying to feel her out and her use of "volga" for the flowers; they're kind of adorable.
I continue to love the ambiguity of Renard and what he's actually doing.
I was also cracking up about the less than creative name of Portland. Hey, still better than Weed!
Next season, please!
* Second, we have .
* I appreciate the creative insult and bleak humor of turning a brass player into a stringed instrument, and will ignore the "really, that's going to produce a sound and one you appreciate?" aspect of it.
* I continue to be impressed by the simultaneous subtlety and not of this show. Will and Alana making out in front of VAGINA Will carved into his chimney/fireplace, for instance! Thank you, Dr. Freud.
Question for those who have been paying attention: had Will been to Lecter's office before the first time he dreamed about the Death Elk? I know it showed up around the time the Shrike did, and he'd been to the hunting lodge with all the antlers, but since elk have very, very different kinds of antlers from those in the Shrike's lodge, I'm assuming that the fact that he keeps seeing/dreaming about the elk is at least his subconscious equating it with Lecter (and the statue Lecter ended up using to kill Tomas with, which I kind of loved). There have been a couple of moments recently, too, where it feels like somewhere in a part of Will's mind, little lights keep coming on when he's talking with Lecter: not enough to make him truly suspect Lecter of something (at least not until this week's episode), but enough to say, at least on a low level, something is Not Right, even if he can't quite tell what that is yet.
* Poor Franklin. So many people wanted to kill you. I kinda sympathized with them, too.
* I love Gillian Anderson so far. I'm wondering how much she knows about Lecter. I love that we're getting tidbits of information on her and him at this point.
So glad there's five more episodes of this.
* Aaaand then there's Star Trek Into Darkness. Right before I left to go see it, I posted to Twitter "Off to see what is, by all accounts, either the greatest thing to ever hit geekdom or a a great blight upon the Earth, aka Star Trek." Which is pretty much the reaction I've seen across fandom. I managed to remain MOSTLY unspoiled, which I think is something of a miracle, and even tried to avoid most people's reaction, though obviously not entirely.
Short, non-spoilery review: I liked it, quite a lot. In fact, I like it more, the more I think of it.
I have lots of thoughts, and most of them are still kind of disjointed, but here's some spoilery ones:
My starting place for the reboot universe, the thing that JJ Abrams did right off the bat that without it I probably would hate this thing, was that he made it an alternate universe: in that way, it's not an etch-a-sketch shake trying to obliterate TOS or "improve" it, but instead lives along side it, the what if of branching pathways. I heart the multiverse, as I've said before.
So let's go from there.
* I thought it was beautifully shot, and the pacing was great.
* As I pointed out as we were leaving the theatre and passed a White House Down stand-up: anyone can blow up the White House; but destroying Alcatraz is pretty awesome and different! :-)
* I love that everyone at least got their own small moment of BAMFery in this. EVERYONE.
* Never trust Peter Weller, especially if he's being paternal. Good rule-of-thumb for life. (Exceptions: if he's a cyborg or wearing a cowboy hat/chaps at the time.)
* I loved Bruce Greenwood as Pike again. Is it better that he died rather than live in a zoo/paradise? (Well, since the latter was pretty much a death metaphor, I guess it's a toss-up.)
* I thought Benedict Cumberbatch made an awesome, if not-quite-what-I-was-expecting Khan. Frankly, I could listen to him recite pretty much anything for a couple of hours and be happy. I was, however, amused by the fact that genetically engineered perfection still has very English teeth. :-)
I also liked the fact that this wasn't a re-working of Wrath of Khan (although there are obvious call backs to that--more in a minute), but instead "Space Seed." It's not Khan driven for revenge so much as Khan trying to do what Khan does: take over, be awesome, maybe pick up a modern chick on the way (not happening this time around, but oh, well). I also liked the workaround of what to do with your nearly indestructible supermen: back in the deep freeze. Which, I think, opens all sorts of possibilities for the future.
(One wonders if Spock Prime, right when Spock contacted him or later, let him know, "What ever you do, don't send him to Ceti Alpha 5.")
* Kirk's death scene: that was a tricky, risky thing to have in there. So many of us have a deep, deep emotional reaction to that scene. I remember seeing Wrath of Khan in the theatre for the first time and just SOBBING from the point Spock knocks out McCoy and Scotty to the end of the movie. The second time I went to see it, it was to get most of the rest of the dialog I missed because I was crying so hard.
The death of Spock in TWoK was gut-wrenching not only for the self-sacrifice, but for the fact that it was about all the things these two men had ever been to each other ending. It's just this gut-wrenching loss of someone who has always been not just a friend but a part of another person, having that person die inches from you and being unable to touch them.
In this, though, with Kirk's death, it's about not the death of someone closer than a brother, but the death of all the potential before you can grasp it. They're just realizing what they are and what they could be to each other--not just what Kirk and Spock Prime were, but what these two, with their new and exciting sets of damages, could be--and in that moment knowing it won't ever happen is heart-breaking. (Okay, it's then inevitably, almost immediately negated, but that just means they'll have their moment some other time. They're not Kirk and Spock Prime, but they are Kirk and Spock: self-sacrifice will happen.)
* Scotty is, always, awesome.
Now I want to go and rewatch the first reboot movie, as well as all of TOS and their movies. And see this one again.
Originally posted at Dreamwidth. There are currently
DW comments. Please comment at Dreamwidth if possible.
* First of all:
I LOVED that A) they finally did the reveal to Juliette; B) in a non-heat-of-the-moment-moment, Monroe is entirely aware he should NOT be the first person to reveal himself in their little cadre, so Rosalee and Bud went first; C) she reacted freaked out, but resolute, and D) she ADAPTED. It felt like a cheat on Nick's part, that he ended up not even being there for the reveal, but considering how well it went the last time he tried to tell her, it was probably for the best. I did love him going over for dinner and trying to feel her out and her use of "volga" for the flowers; they're kind of adorable.
I continue to love the ambiguity of Renard and what he's actually doing.
I was also cracking up about the less than creative name of Portland. Hey, still better than Weed!
Next season, please!
* Second, we have .
* I appreciate the creative insult and bleak humor of turning a brass player into a stringed instrument, and will ignore the "really, that's going to produce a sound and one you appreciate?" aspect of it.
* I continue to be impressed by the simultaneous subtlety and not of this show. Will and Alana making out in front of VAGINA Will carved into his chimney/fireplace, for instance! Thank you, Dr. Freud.
Question for those who have been paying attention: had Will been to Lecter's office before the first time he dreamed about the Death Elk? I know it showed up around the time the Shrike did, and he'd been to the hunting lodge with all the antlers, but since elk have very, very different kinds of antlers from those in the Shrike's lodge, I'm assuming that the fact that he keeps seeing/dreaming about the elk is at least his subconscious equating it with Lecter (and the statue Lecter ended up using to kill Tomas with, which I kind of loved). There have been a couple of moments recently, too, where it feels like somewhere in a part of Will's mind, little lights keep coming on when he's talking with Lecter: not enough to make him truly suspect Lecter of something (at least not until this week's episode), but enough to say, at least on a low level, something is Not Right, even if he can't quite tell what that is yet.
* Poor Franklin. So many people wanted to kill you. I kinda sympathized with them, too.
* I love Gillian Anderson so far. I'm wondering how much she knows about Lecter. I love that we're getting tidbits of information on her and him at this point.
So glad there's five more episodes of this.
* Aaaand then there's Star Trek Into Darkness. Right before I left to go see it, I posted to Twitter "Off to see what is, by all accounts, either the greatest thing to ever hit geekdom or a a great blight upon the Earth, aka Star Trek." Which is pretty much the reaction I've seen across fandom. I managed to remain MOSTLY unspoiled, which I think is something of a miracle, and even tried to avoid most people's reaction, though obviously not entirely.
Short, non-spoilery review: I liked it, quite a lot. In fact, I like it more, the more I think of it.
I have lots of thoughts, and most of them are still kind of disjointed, but here's some spoilery ones:
My starting place for the reboot universe, the thing that JJ Abrams did right off the bat that without it I probably would hate this thing, was that he made it an alternate universe: in that way, it's not an etch-a-sketch shake trying to obliterate TOS or "improve" it, but instead lives along side it, the what if of branching pathways. I heart the multiverse, as I've said before.
So let's go from there.
* I thought it was beautifully shot, and the pacing was great.
* As I pointed out as we were leaving the theatre and passed a White House Down stand-up: anyone can blow up the White House; but destroying Alcatraz is pretty awesome and different! :-)
* I love that everyone at least got their own small moment of BAMFery in this. EVERYONE.
* Never trust Peter Weller, especially if he's being paternal. Good rule-of-thumb for life. (Exceptions: if he's a cyborg or wearing a cowboy hat/chaps at the time.)
* I loved Bruce Greenwood as Pike again. Is it better that he died rather than live in a zoo/paradise? (Well, since the latter was pretty much a death metaphor, I guess it's a toss-up.)
* I thought Benedict Cumberbatch made an awesome, if not-quite-what-I-was-expecting Khan. Frankly, I could listen to him recite pretty much anything for a couple of hours and be happy. I was, however, amused by the fact that genetically engineered perfection still has very English teeth. :-)
I also liked the fact that this wasn't a re-working of Wrath of Khan (although there are obvious call backs to that--more in a minute), but instead "Space Seed." It's not Khan driven for revenge so much as Khan trying to do what Khan does: take over, be awesome, maybe pick up a modern chick on the way (not happening this time around, but oh, well). I also liked the workaround of what to do with your nearly indestructible supermen: back in the deep freeze. Which, I think, opens all sorts of possibilities for the future.
(One wonders if Spock Prime, right when Spock contacted him or later, let him know, "What ever you do, don't send him to Ceti Alpha 5.")
* Kirk's death scene: that was a tricky, risky thing to have in there. So many of us have a deep, deep emotional reaction to that scene. I remember seeing Wrath of Khan in the theatre for the first time and just SOBBING from the point Spock knocks out McCoy and Scotty to the end of the movie. The second time I went to see it, it was to get most of the rest of the dialog I missed because I was crying so hard.
The death of Spock in TWoK was gut-wrenching not only for the self-sacrifice, but for the fact that it was about all the things these two men had ever been to each other ending. It's just this gut-wrenching loss of someone who has always been not just a friend but a part of another person, having that person die inches from you and being unable to touch them.
In this, though, with Kirk's death, it's about not the death of someone closer than a brother, but the death of all the potential before you can grasp it. They're just realizing what they are and what they could be to each other--not just what Kirk and Spock Prime were, but what these two, with their new and exciting sets of damages, could be--and in that moment knowing it won't ever happen is heart-breaking. (Okay, it's then inevitably, almost immediately negated, but that just means they'll have their moment some other time. They're not Kirk and Spock Prime, but they are Kirk and Spock: self-sacrifice will happen.)
* Scotty is, always, awesome.
Now I want to go and rewatch the first reboot movie, as well as all of TOS and their movies. And see this one again.
Originally posted at Dreamwidth. There are currently
DW comments. Please comment at Dreamwidth if possible.