Star Trek movie (spoilers under cut and in comments)
Some no-spoilers preliminary thoughts on the new Star Trek movie, in no particular order:
-The biggest doubt I had is that they would sacrifice established continuity for the sake of telling a Darker and Edgier story of the origins of Kirk & Co. Much to my surprise, they managed to do the latter without doing the former. If you get down to brass tacks about why your average Trek fan hated Enterprise, the recent TV series, it's that the show disregarded everything we already knew about the pre-Kirk era. The reason Star Trek works and Enterprise didn't is that Enterprise threw continuity out the window, and Star Trek holds it up to a funhouse mirror.
-The cast was phenomenal. Zachary Quinto is 95% the Spock that Leonard Nimoy was. Chris Pine ... well, he's 80% of Shatner's Kirk. But Simon Pegg was 99% of Doohan's Scotty, and Karl Urban, wow. Urban was 100% as much McCoy as De Kelley was.
-Going back to that first point, not only did they not sodomize continuity with a rusty phaser set to stun, they went out of their way to put in little things that appeal directly to the hardcore fans. Names and phrases only recognizable to those who have dressed in a Starfleet uniform at least once. Kind of like throwing scraps of steak to the dog, and I think I just insulted myself with my own metaphor. (Dammit Jim, if getting excited about 'set phasers to stun' is wrong, I don't want to be right!) Anyway, on a more general level, parts of the movie felt as iconic to me as the original series. I was very impressed with this. The reason the original series was so successful in the first place is that the characters are larger than life, and I feel they managed to capture at least some of that here.
-One thing I didn't like was that the science was even worse than usual. Red matter? C'mon guys. And a supernova threatening the entire galaxy? No way. They had a perfectly servicable plot; just say the supernova threatened the Romulan system instead, which is effectively what happened anyway.
-That is not how black holes work. How many times do I have to say this, guys? Black holes are not interstellar vacuum cleaners hoovering up everything that so much as looks in their direction. From the point of view of their interaction with other bodies in space, like planets and starships, they're just like a normal star only smaller. The danger is that, while a regular star has layers of superheated gas keeping you at a safe distance, the black hole lets you get too close to escape.
-I was very surprised that Vulcan stayed destroyed. Halfway through the movie I would have bet money that with all the time travel going on they would have gone back and saved it.
-Spock and Uhura? Come onnnnnn. So out of character for him. I call shenanigans.
-References I liked: Pike in a wheelchair. The reckless redshirt dying five minutes into the mission on the planet. "Fascinating." "I'm a doctor, not a physicist." "Set phasers to stun." Planet Delta Vega. Sulu fencing. Chekov pronouncing Vs as Ws and just generally being unabashedly Russian. Kirk being smarter than he appears.
-Did it seem to anyone else that the three acts of the movie played like the original Star Wars trilogy? First act, farm boy whose father was killed by the bad guy gets called to action by older mentor and helps to destroy the bad guy's destroying machine. Older mentor gives himself up to the enemy. Second act, the good guys get their asses kicked by the bad guy and farm boy ends up stranded in a frozen wasteland and menaced by a monster in an ice cave. New older mentor gives him the remaining guidance he needs to win the day. Third act, a small fuzzy creature joins the group and farm boy gets into a hand-to-hand fight with the bad guy. The cavalry shows up just in time to blow up the bad guy's other destroying machine. And farm boy gets a medal at the end. The only thing missing was a fight scene in a bar OH WAIT.
Ebert, in his review, laments the lack of the original series' cerebral quality. It's true, in recent years Star Trek has increasingly distanced itself from playing with notions of science and philosophy. However, and this is especially true of the new movie, it has continued to address questions of humanity, particularly the interplay between self-determination and heritage. When you consider that Gene Roddenberry's original vision for Star Trek was a better, brighter vision for humanity's future, I think that's the most important question of all. Hopefully this new Star Trek will continue to raise it.
To sum up: As your friendly neighborhood Star Trek ubergeek, it is my official report that the new Star Trek movie is indeed a successful enterprise.
-The biggest doubt I had is that they would sacrifice established continuity for the sake of telling a Darker and Edgier story of the origins of Kirk & Co. Much to my surprise, they managed to do the latter without doing the former. If you get down to brass tacks about why your average Trek fan hated Enterprise, the recent TV series, it's that the show disregarded everything we already knew about the pre-Kirk era. The reason Star Trek works and Enterprise didn't is that Enterprise threw continuity out the window, and Star Trek holds it up to a funhouse mirror.
-The cast was phenomenal. Zachary Quinto is 95% the Spock that Leonard Nimoy was. Chris Pine ... well, he's 80% of Shatner's Kirk. But Simon Pegg was 99% of Doohan's Scotty, and Karl Urban, wow. Urban was 100% as much McCoy as De Kelley was.
-Going back to that first point, not only did they not sodomize continuity with a rusty phaser set to stun, they went out of their way to put in little things that appeal directly to the hardcore fans. Names and phrases only recognizable to those who have dressed in a Starfleet uniform at least once. Kind of like throwing scraps of steak to the dog, and I think I just insulted myself with my own metaphor. (Dammit Jim, if getting excited about 'set phasers to stun' is wrong, I don't want to be right!) Anyway, on a more general level, parts of the movie felt as iconic to me as the original series. I was very impressed with this. The reason the original series was so successful in the first place is that the characters are larger than life, and I feel they managed to capture at least some of that here.
-One thing I didn't like was that the science was even worse than usual. Red matter? C'mon guys. And a supernova threatening the entire galaxy? No way. They had a perfectly servicable plot; just say the supernova threatened the Romulan system instead, which is effectively what happened anyway.
-That is not how black holes work. How many times do I have to say this, guys? Black holes are not interstellar vacuum cleaners hoovering up everything that so much as looks in their direction. From the point of view of their interaction with other bodies in space, like planets and starships, they're just like a normal star only smaller. The danger is that, while a regular star has layers of superheated gas keeping you at a safe distance, the black hole lets you get too close to escape.
-I was very surprised that Vulcan stayed destroyed. Halfway through the movie I would have bet money that with all the time travel going on they would have gone back and saved it.
-Spock and Uhura? Come onnnnnn. So out of character for him. I call shenanigans.
-References I liked: Pike in a wheelchair. The reckless redshirt dying five minutes into the mission on the planet. "Fascinating." "I'm a doctor, not a physicist." "Set phasers to stun." Planet Delta Vega. Sulu fencing. Chekov pronouncing Vs as Ws and just generally being unabashedly Russian. Kirk being smarter than he appears.
-Did it seem to anyone else that the three acts of the movie played like the original Star Wars trilogy? First act, farm boy whose father was killed by the bad guy gets called to action by older mentor and helps to destroy the bad guy's destroying machine. Older mentor gives himself up to the enemy. Second act, the good guys get their asses kicked by the bad guy and farm boy ends up stranded in a frozen wasteland and menaced by a monster in an ice cave. New older mentor gives him the remaining guidance he needs to win the day. Third act, a small fuzzy creature joins the group and farm boy gets into a hand-to-hand fight with the bad guy. The cavalry shows up just in time to blow up the bad guy's other destroying machine. And farm boy gets a medal at the end. The only thing missing was a fight scene in a bar OH WAIT.
Ebert, in his review, laments the lack of the original series' cerebral quality. It's true, in recent years Star Trek has increasingly distanced itself from playing with notions of science and philosophy. However, and this is especially true of the new movie, it has continued to address questions of humanity, particularly the interplay between self-determination and heritage. When you consider that Gene Roddenberry's original vision for Star Trek was a better, brighter vision for humanity's future, I think that's the most important question of all. Hopefully this new Star Trek will continue to raise it.
To sum up: As your friendly neighborhood Star Trek ubergeek, it is my official report that the new Star Trek movie is indeed a successful enterprise.