About fandom and STID reviews
I've read some nasty revews of STID from K/S fans.
I can see how much you can nitpick this movie (it's far from being perfect - but do find me a perfect movie) but sometimes I just want to butt in and scream "go nitpick every fucking episode of TOS and then we'll see if JJ had utterly fucked up with science so you have to go back watch TOS to restart your brain".
No, really, we're here bitching about:
Or, try to get at least objective and go the the theater with open mind: if, by the time you reach the chair and sit down with your stupid 3D glasses (let's not start about my hopeless quest for a 2D screening of the movie in Milan-Italy-second-biggest-city-slash-country-financial-capital), you've already set your mind onto the fact this movie'll suck, you'll criticize even the ugliness of the uniform boots as One Of The Movie Sins (which do are ugly and look like the fake-boots you get when buying cheap carnival-halloween costumes).
All in all, this is a movie, it's someone's fanfiction who made it on screen: what works for the author doesn't mean it has to work for you.
Enjoy that we've at least being given Star Trek again, that perhaps something will spawn out of the movie, be it a animated series, a new tv show, some videogame (new blood to the fic communities)... I dunno, pick what it suits you better. We all should remember this fact: Star Trek was basically dead (besides the few geeks who still bought the comics) before The Power That Be decided to put some money in a reboot.
Said this, everyone's entitled to their opinion. Just don't hold onto the smallest of the details to destroy a movie you didn't enjoy. :)
I can see how much you can nitpick this movie (it's far from being perfect - but do find me a perfect movie) but sometimes I just want to butt in and scream "go nitpick every fucking episode of TOS and then we'll see if JJ had utterly fucked up with science so you have to go back watch TOS to restart your brain".
No, really, we're here bitching about:
- how much those natives are cliché stupid dumb arrows bla bla. (...)
(Someone seems to have not even got why Bones and Kirk are running away. Wasn't it clear that they've stolen Something Very Important and that the natives are running after them to get the Yellow Scroll back? And that's the reason why Bones and Jim had stolen it to start with?) - the decision of saving those natives from the volcano. (and Kirk gets blamed when actually this might've been Spock's decision and Kirk just said "fine, go along" [on this. I guess having an Enterprise-religion certainly must be better than, you know, have those natives be wiped out from their planet]
(By the way, the way Spock antagonize Pike to the point that Pike orders him to head the fuck out of his office (with an implied "Before I decide to kick you too - or demote you to glorified computer"), makes me feel like this had really been Spock's plan and Kirk had just agreed. Spock wouldn't have antagonized Pike on "technicalities", if he hadn't liked the plan and thought that would violate Prime Directive to start with.)
(After a second view, I feel even more that the plan had been Spock's from the start. When he's about to be landed on the volcano, and Sulu - or was it Uhura, I don't remember - tell him that they can't do it, he argues that this might be the only chance to save those people and blah blah. If this was Kirk's plan, he would've said something different (among the line of "Captain, I have to abort the mission because ____") - (Again onto) breaking Prime Directive. (go tell Kirk Prime, who usually never had to face ANYTHING, not even a slap on the hand, because of it)
(Considering Prime Directive is the first, most important between the thousands of Starfleet rules, I do believe it can be a valid reason to be demoted, especially if you're a young cadet-gone-straight-to-captain who, with this mission, has just proved to NOT BE READY FOR THE CHAIR [that's the reason why he gets demoted, Pike was clear, and I've just seen the movie one time, for fuck's sake! Hell, even Kirk gets it: look at his face!]. If you can break rules and you don't even get a yellow card because of it, then why the rules are there in the first place? Again, Kirk and Amok Time. He did violate a direct order but oh-see-let's-forget-it-Kirk because T'Pau butted in and saved the day with a very plot-wise-handy retroactive request to bring Spock to Vulcan, a request that obviously cleans Kirk's file from everything he did from the start of the episode. Very believable, really. If you can buy this, then buy Kirk accepted to First Officing again instead of busted back to Academy Year One.) - Kirk fucking up his first real mission. (Who said this is their first mission? Let's pretend to not consider canon the comics that had been on going since 2009 - even though Orci said they are to be considered canon - but... really, do you really believe this happened two days after STXI ending credits? The movie is set in 2259, there outright tell you, while the last ended in 2258 so some months have passed by: even Kirks tells you plainly, when he says Pike he still has to loose someone of the crew since the beginning of his mission. Yes, I mean you who complain about "how the crew made friends" and "why Kirk calls Spock "Pointy").
- Uhura facing Spock and emotions on the journey through Klingon. (I actually liked that scene, very much - and I always bashed the pairing. And she wasn't as misplaced as it seems, because she knew Kirk thought the same as she did, so why not speak up when the three of them couldn't run away from the discussion? Fine, talking in a meeting room on the Enterprise would've been better but, again, you would've bought three minutes of a 2h movie wasted on that?)
- (Again onto) Females not professional and Uhura be only emotional. (Though someone pointed out that K/S interactions were emotional as well. Why, if you're femminist, decide to use double-standards? That applies to "women needs to be saved" and "women crying" too - see later)
- Carol's bra scene. (fine, that was gratuitous, but could we please watch it from the other side? Namely, girls in Starfleet can change clothes in a room where their male co-workers are without the need to set up a very old-stilish, prudish shield? It would be such a great improvement if in 23rd century males and females could share the same shower rooms and they just acted as co-workers, despite the gender, where the gender didn't matter anymore? I may point you to my pre-STID written fic for this one, though I haven't been totally radical, there.)
- Chapel. (I might be dumb, but I didn't read that scene as in "Chapel has left to go elsewhere because you broke her heart". Yes, she was mentioned to show how males can be dicks, but I felt it that Chapel has decided on her own to go where she liked more to be, and not just because a James Kirk bedded her and not videocalled her the next day. That's a good disservice you're doing her, more than the authors bringing her up to show how Jim is a dick with women)
- Khan not being Indian. (British owned India for quite some time, WTF?)
(About this. If we got a so-called-PoC actor for Khan, then we'd get the "racist-they-used-a-non-white-as-territorist" bashing, and you'd be whining about Hollywood always using muslims-Asians (the new Germans) to play the baddie. So that proves you'd never be happy. Unless all the characters were PoC and the villain a caucasian.) - Women being scared, women act emotionally, women damsel in distress. (Now. Bones gets shit scared when he has his hand stuck in that torpedo. Carol, instead of being the-pussy-woman-who-needs-to-be-saved, stands up against the order to beam out and stays, saving Bones's ass. Yes, she cries out when on the Vengenace but, would we really want women on screen to look like assholes-without-emotions? As far as I know, one of the biggest heroine of the screen, Ellen Ripley, do is a kickass woman but shows some emotion as well. Women with no fear are the same as men with no fear, or women all-hot-and-perfect-banging-the-geek-a-la-Megan-Fox-in-Transformers: unbelievable fake.)
(Actually, as someone pointed out I don't remember where, the damsels in distress here are Bones (torpedo), Jim (Vengenace; on Klingon planet, when he's beaten up). In the previous movie we had Great-Balls-Pike as the biggest damsel in distress! I do want to find back the comment about Pike damsel in distress, it was epic. ;_;) - Uhura's in skirt during action scenes. (No, seriously? First: on Klingon she gets trousers! Second: she should've changed her skirt before beaming down to Spock and Khan? "Yep McCoy, I'm gonna bring Spock and Khan back, just wait until I change my uniform and I get into that S&M suit for spacejump, BRB!")
- the need to enter warp core room without protection. (... uh. Now. The whole Wrath of Khan and Search For Spock revolved around that, remember? You bought Spock going in unprotected - minus gloves - but Kirk has to stop and wait to put the full-white protection suit on - and let the Enterprise have intercourse with a San Francisco tower in the meantime - when it's already actually established, from Scotty, that "entering there it means death"?)
- the whole "that's what you would've done" as a bad joke/homage to WoK. (Hasn't seriously crossed your mind that here Kirk might've just wanted to say "hey, in my place you would've pulled this stupid stun too, with your 'the need of the many' shit, so don't look at me like I'm a dumb blondie for saving the ship at the cost of my life", without any implication to what Spock Prime did?)
(I know we're used to the new trope "Spock Prime Made Them Do It", but not everything Kirk says and does revolve around something Prime did or said. They only had that meld about supernovas, Kirk hasn't got the "James T. Kirk and Spock, the lives of the most kickassing commanding duo Starfleet ever had" 4D movie while in that cave, sorry.) - Spock getting all yahrgggggggggg on Khan. (Now, he got all yarghhhhhhh on Kirk the previous movie and we were fine, but now it doesn't make any sense when he looses his shit because his captain and someone who confessed to want to be - and to already consider himself - his BFF has died? This is always the same Spock who's felt outcast and who's practically established to not have any real friend except girlfriend Uhura, so he might've just, you know, taken bad that the only one willing to do ANYTHING - including loosing his ship - for him had just died. If someone breaks every known rule to save your sorry ass, that means he cares for you and, never too late, Spock got it, so yeah, loosing control.)
(Further on this. Spock Prime never really acted like the logic Vulcan whenever Kirk was believed to be death either.) - Uhura be the one beaming down to stop Spock. (yes, you're having a "compromised" Spock and do you remember who was the one bringing Spock out of his killkillkill mode last time? Not Security Officer n°2, thank you. So why should they beam down a security officer? So to stun Spock in order to capture Khan and get beaten up by Khan when devoid of your resident superalien's fighting skills?)
- Use of Khan's blood over any other Khan-pal. (Perhaps Bones didn't feel like risking with another augment he hadn't tested? Also, Khan HAD ANYWAY TO BE seized, so that's a moot point)
(Also. Khan-pal had to be unfrozen in order to be able to use their blood. Which would kinda go against any logicality that would tell you to NOT wake up another Khan.) - ethics of taking Khan's blood without asking Khans if he was right with it. (no, really, this one!! Nothing better to find to criticize the movie?? "Hey megalomaniac, bat-shit insane old man, could I pick some of your blood to resurrect my captain? Hm, what? You're out cold so you can't answer? Fine, let's wait when you're awake" [...] "Hey Khan, now are you up for some transfusion so I may get back my captain-friend?" "No. STHU GSY." "Thanks anyway." [...] "Sorry Spock, you spared Khan for nothing because I haven't got his permission to draw some blood hence Jim has to remain dead. Congrats for the promotion on field.")
- The science. (I get the point, really, but we're coming from Spock's brain) and biology-blood-cures-everything (we're coming from the fucking Genesis de-aging a fucking corpse back into life!)
- Racisms, sexism. (I feel many movies become racists or sexists only when you start pointing it out. You don't feel it like sexist - besides that stupid bra scene - until you start bitching about it; sometimes the best way to get your point is to not yell about it to every corner. Like NOT making facebook anti-groups or rantings about sexist advs)
(I mean. We've got five series full of white-people, with the only alien thrown in there just to give you the impression that yes, this is a Federation of planet and one non-white to give you the impression that yes, this is not United States Conquered the Rest of the Planet or Caucasians Are The Only Earth Inhabitants. But we're here complaining about a two-hours movie with no-speaking other women/non-white people. When you barely have the time to give some space to eve the seven main characters...)
(Also. We seem to invoke here Female Quote, which is so much wrong I won't start ramble about it. But women should get to captain - or on the bridge, like Uhura did in the previous movie - for their own merits, not because they're women - hence pretending 50/50 at the captains meeting it's just wrong.) - the lack of women on the bridge. (thank you, you got a senior/commanding crew that's already estabilished). [Cheer that we got Carol as a new addition. Unless we kill off Chekov or Scotty, we're not getting any woman in any prominent role. Sorry.)
(Oh, speaking about that. Someone even went as far as to say that we should've got a female-Bones to even the male/female quota. No, SERIOUSLY?????)
(Also, on the bridge there has been at least four women, not including Uhura or Carol. The brown-alien, the red-hair-tied-in-a-bun (she does speak, if I remember right, as she did in the last movie), the black beefy one replacing Chekov (she does speak) and the white-haired one. Other non-main-characters men who speak? Beside the bald android-human? Only security men, but see? Not on the bridge. The shuttle driver? Not on the bridge - and in the previous movie there was that dominatrix-like woman who submitted Bones on the shuttle, so we're even.) - Right morals. (Now... who said Starfleet has to be ethically perfect? Remember a madman have wiped out from existence one of the Federation founding planet. Plus, nobody can be "ethically perfect". Who said Starfleet have to? I fucking hate this "American" attitude. Because I'm sure as hell Europeans don't think themselves to stand on moral rights so they're entitled to force their morals on the rest of the world.)
Or, try to get at least objective and go the the theater with open mind: if, by the time you reach the chair and sit down with your stupid 3D glasses (let's not start about my hopeless quest for a 2D screening of the movie in Milan-Italy-second-biggest-city-slash-country-financial-capital), you've already set your mind onto the fact this movie'll suck, you'll criticize even the ugliness of the uniform boots as One Of The Movie Sins (which do are ugly and look like the fake-boots you get when buying cheap carnival-halloween costumes).
All in all, this is a movie, it's someone's fanfiction who made it on screen: what works for the author doesn't mean it has to work for you.
Enjoy that we've at least being given Star Trek again, that perhaps something will spawn out of the movie, be it a animated series, a new tv show, some videogame (new blood to the fic communities)... I dunno, pick what it suits you better. We all should remember this fact: Star Trek was basically dead (besides the few geeks who still bought the comics) before The Power That Be decided to put some money in a reboot.
Said this, everyone's entitled to their opinion. Just don't hold onto the smallest of the details to destroy a movie you didn't enjoy. :)