Space Iowa: Just Like Regular Iowa
So I finally got around to seeing the Star Trek Reboot (do we have an official name/acronym for that yet?) Saturday morning. I was a little unsure coming in about some of the casting (looking at you, Zach Quinto), not to mention the whole J. J. Abrams ridiculousness, but it blew my expectations out of the water.
Abrams really has a boner for alternate universes, doesn't he?
I can understand why some die hard trekkies wouldn't dig it. Vulcan goes boom, characters die, and an entire alternate reality path is spawned by playing fast and loose with canon, but weirdly, it works. It really, really works. Possibly because halfway through I mentally declared it fantastic fanfiction with incredible special effects and felt much better.
The new cast was phenomenal, even those I didn't think I'd be able to unsee out of other roles. Pine's Kirk was charming and perfect in the role, and oozed sexual tension with everybody, male, female, whatever. Quinto made an excellent Spock, to the point where Sylar was completely forgotten. Karl Urban, the casting I resisted the most, actually did the best job taking on his character, even if he couldn't really pull off an accent. I spent half the movie wondering when Scotty would show up, and Simon Pegg is awesome at everything, so clearly didn't disappoint.
Uhura and Chekov were harder to peg, just because their characters didn't have a lot to do. I've adored Zoe Saldana for years, but her role was small and didn't have as much to build from as some of the others. (Also why was she the only main female character? Come on Star Trek, it's 2009!) If he didn't have to be so young, I'd have rather seen Enver Gjokaj playing Chekov since I've completely fallen in love with him.
And now the main thrust of this post, which is FUCK YEAH SULU. My experience with TOS is pretty limited: I've seen all the movies and the episode where everybody's going crazy and Spock's crying and Sulu runs onto the bridge shirtless and starts harassing people with a sword. Sulu is my favorite. Always has been, largely because George Takei is awesome. However, John Cho can bring it too. Sword fighting on space drill platforms, failing at warp speed, flying in cannons blazing to save the day, it was amazing. FUCK. YEAH. SULU.
I also loved the little shoutouts, things like specific quotes, the worm they gave Pike, Delta Vega, Admiral Archer and his beagle (!!!)
All of this makes me want to write more Enterprise fic, because that will still be my first and the one that I love best.
Abrams really has a boner for alternate universes, doesn't he?
I can understand why some die hard trekkies wouldn't dig it. Vulcan goes boom, characters die, and an entire alternate reality path is spawned by playing fast and loose with canon, but weirdly, it works. It really, really works. Possibly because halfway through I mentally declared it fantastic fanfiction with incredible special effects and felt much better.
The new cast was phenomenal, even those I didn't think I'd be able to unsee out of other roles. Pine's Kirk was charming and perfect in the role, and oozed sexual tension with everybody, male, female, whatever. Quinto made an excellent Spock, to the point where Sylar was completely forgotten. Karl Urban, the casting I resisted the most, actually did the best job taking on his character, even if he couldn't really pull off an accent. I spent half the movie wondering when Scotty would show up, and Simon Pegg is awesome at everything, so clearly didn't disappoint.
Uhura and Chekov were harder to peg, just because their characters didn't have a lot to do. I've adored Zoe Saldana for years, but her role was small and didn't have as much to build from as some of the others. (Also why was she the only main female character? Come on Star Trek, it's 2009!) If he didn't have to be so young, I'd have rather seen Enver Gjokaj playing Chekov since I've completely fallen in love with him.
And now the main thrust of this post, which is FUCK YEAH SULU. My experience with TOS is pretty limited: I've seen all the movies and the episode where everybody's going crazy and Spock's crying and Sulu runs onto the bridge shirtless and starts harassing people with a sword. Sulu is my favorite. Always has been, largely because George Takei is awesome. However, John Cho can bring it too. Sword fighting on space drill platforms, failing at warp speed, flying in cannons blazing to save the day, it was amazing. FUCK. YEAH. SULU.
I also loved the little shoutouts, things like specific quotes, the worm they gave Pike, Delta Vega, Admiral Archer and his beagle (!!!)
All of this makes me want to write more Enterprise fic, because that will still be my first and the one that I love best.