Star Trek Into My Pants
Bought my ticket in advance, got to the theater half an hour early... and maybe two dozen people showed up by the time the movie started. I know it's a Thursday night, but I hope that's not indicative of attendance in general. Anyway, on to...
~It should've been called Star Trek XII: Tribble Ex Machina. Ah, well, not really any less believable than Essence of Spock floating around in McCoy's head.
~I admit, I'm a little disappointed that they went with the Khan storyline (I maintained my denial until they found Popsicle Dude in the torpedo -- which, uh, not great planning there, Khan), though I understand wanting to use a villain from the series (Nero was a bit of a weak point of STXI) and Khan is the most cinematically compelling. And I did like the twist the writers put on it, fitting Khan into the new timeline and making him both a direct mental and physical threat as well as a little more sympathetic (and a little less chest-oily).
~To go along with that, I appreciated that they acknowledged the major repercussions that the destruction of Vulcan had for the entire universe: the Federation secretly wanting to step things up militarily, Scotty's transwarp equation being taken and used in ways he never intended. It's not just the characters that changed; it's the Federation, too. It may not be what Roddenberry intended, but "space exploration" doesn't play as well on the big screen as "blowing shit up."
~Adored that little exchange in the elevator between Kirk and Uhura: "What would that even look like?" I'm actually glad that they continued Spock and Uhura's relationship, even if they only really scratched the surface (and mostly to make That Scene have more emotional resonance, even!), because I didn't like the way they introduced it, and Kirk being totally accepting of it kind of helps smooth things over for me.
~Surprise!Spock Prime! So, uh, I guess the entire bridge crew knows about that. (Except for the new guy in the back who's all "Two guys named Spock? What are the odds?") Though I really wanted to hear him say, "Motherfucking Khan? You blow that son of a bitch out of the sky right the hell now and keep everybody away from the radiation chamber. Uh, live long and prosper. Spock out."
~Okay, Carol Marcus in her undies was completely unnecessary and, worse, not balanced out by Chris Pine in his skivvies. C'mon, we even got to see Spock shirtless in TOS! But the point is: female exploitation = bad.
~While Khan's whole head-crushing thing was creepy, all I could think of were the gorillas from Congo.
~Poor Anton. Did he have any scenes with the rest of the bridge crew?
~ALL THE RUNNING. Well, maybe no more than Kirk did in the last movie. Still, if I were Chris, I would've kicked my feet up, sipped a daiquiri, and watched them do take after take of Simon running through the airlock bay and Zach sprinting around San Francisco.
~So: That Scene. I was totally right about Kirk being on the other side of the glass, but I guess that didn't take a genius to figure out. I didn't do much more than sniffle, but if I hadn't known it was coming, I probably would've cried. Like Spock. OMG. Actual tears. And so early in their friendship, too. That means it doesn't have quite the same impact as it did in Wrath of Khan, but it was still a really lovely moment, and I think it showed Kirk understands that no matter what Spock says, he can't turn off his feelings.
~I really wanted a post-credit sequence that was either a) the Nibiru worshiping a crudely-made model of the Enterprise, or b) Spock "tripping" over the power cord to Khan's cryopod.
~Love that the credits just had a huge space devoted entirely to LEONARD NIMOY. No "cast" or "special appearance by." Just LEONARD NIMOY. That's all you need to know, bitch.
Questions:
~What was in that duffel bag Khan had in London? My best guess is the portable beaming thingy, but where did he get it? Not from the exploding fake-library, obviously. And why was he just toting it around?
~What do you think Spock did to Khan in that brief mindmeld during their fight? I just thought that was really interesting that he used it as an offensive technique. Is there precedent for that?
~Does Bones just have a drawerful of dead tribbles just in case, or what?
~Did anyone else think it was kind of funny that Uhura waited through, like, two minutes of ragepunching before telling Spock that they needed Khan alive? In my head it went more like Uhura told Spock it was the only way to save Kirk, but Spock was all "NOT NOW WOMAN CAN'T YOU SEE I'M NOT DONE EMOTIONALLY COMPROMISING HIS FACE?" and Uhura sighed and had to stun both of them to get them back to Med Bay. "Sweetie, you can beat up on him some more after we take his blood." "HOW MUCH BLOOD DO YOU NEED? BECAUSE I CAN GET IT FOR YOU. WITH MY FISTS."
~Were they trying to say that the "Space, the final frontier..." monologue is the captain's oath? Because that's a weird-ass oath.
~OH, and what was up with the dedication to 9-11 workers?
I'm sure I'll think of some more stuff later, especially when I see it a second time. ;o) I'm actually not one to watch movies -- even ones I really like -- over and over again in the theaters. I think I saw The Phantom Menace four times (possibly because I was hoping it would start to suck less). But I'm sure I'll see Into Darkness at least once more.
~It should've been called Star Trek XII: Tribble Ex Machina. Ah, well, not really any less believable than Essence of Spock floating around in McCoy's head.
~I admit, I'm a little disappointed that they went with the Khan storyline (I maintained my denial until they found Popsicle Dude in the torpedo -- which, uh, not great planning there, Khan), though I understand wanting to use a villain from the series (Nero was a bit of a weak point of STXI) and Khan is the most cinematically compelling. And I did like the twist the writers put on it, fitting Khan into the new timeline and making him both a direct mental and physical threat as well as a little more sympathetic (and a little less chest-oily).
~To go along with that, I appreciated that they acknowledged the major repercussions that the destruction of Vulcan had for the entire universe: the Federation secretly wanting to step things up militarily, Scotty's transwarp equation being taken and used in ways he never intended. It's not just the characters that changed; it's the Federation, too. It may not be what Roddenberry intended, but "space exploration" doesn't play as well on the big screen as "blowing shit up."
~Adored that little exchange in the elevator between Kirk and Uhura: "What would that even look like?" I'm actually glad that they continued Spock and Uhura's relationship, even if they only really scratched the surface (and mostly to make That Scene have more emotional resonance, even!), because I didn't like the way they introduced it, and Kirk being totally accepting of it kind of helps smooth things over for me.
~Surprise!Spock Prime! So, uh, I guess the entire bridge crew knows about that. (Except for the new guy in the back who's all "Two guys named Spock? What are the odds?") Though I really wanted to hear him say, "Motherfucking Khan? You blow that son of a bitch out of the sky right the hell now and keep everybody away from the radiation chamber. Uh, live long and prosper. Spock out."
~Okay, Carol Marcus in her undies was completely unnecessary and, worse, not balanced out by Chris Pine in his skivvies. C'mon, we even got to see Spock shirtless in TOS! But the point is: female exploitation = bad.
~While Khan's whole head-crushing thing was creepy, all I could think of were the gorillas from Congo.
~Poor Anton. Did he have any scenes with the rest of the bridge crew?
~ALL THE RUNNING. Well, maybe no more than Kirk did in the last movie. Still, if I were Chris, I would've kicked my feet up, sipped a daiquiri, and watched them do take after take of Simon running through the airlock bay and Zach sprinting around San Francisco.
~So: That Scene. I was totally right about Kirk being on the other side of the glass, but I guess that didn't take a genius to figure out. I didn't do much more than sniffle, but if I hadn't known it was coming, I probably would've cried. Like Spock. OMG. Actual tears. And so early in their friendship, too. That means it doesn't have quite the same impact as it did in Wrath of Khan, but it was still a really lovely moment, and I think it showed Kirk understands that no matter what Spock says, he can't turn off his feelings.
~I really wanted a post-credit sequence that was either a) the Nibiru worshiping a crudely-made model of the Enterprise, or b) Spock "tripping" over the power cord to Khan's cryopod.
~Love that the credits just had a huge space devoted entirely to LEONARD NIMOY. No "cast" or "special appearance by." Just LEONARD NIMOY. That's all you need to know, bitch.
Questions:
~What was in that duffel bag Khan had in London? My best guess is the portable beaming thingy, but where did he get it? Not from the exploding fake-library, obviously. And why was he just toting it around?
~What do you think Spock did to Khan in that brief mindmeld during their fight? I just thought that was really interesting that he used it as an offensive technique. Is there precedent for that?
~Does Bones just have a drawerful of dead tribbles just in case, or what?
~Did anyone else think it was kind of funny that Uhura waited through, like, two minutes of ragepunching before telling Spock that they needed Khan alive? In my head it went more like Uhura told Spock it was the only way to save Kirk, but Spock was all "NOT NOW WOMAN CAN'T YOU SEE I'M NOT DONE EMOTIONALLY COMPROMISING HIS FACE?" and Uhura sighed and had to stun both of them to get them back to Med Bay. "Sweetie, you can beat up on him some more after we take his blood." "HOW MUCH BLOOD DO YOU NEED? BECAUSE I CAN GET IT FOR YOU. WITH MY FISTS."
~Were they trying to say that the "Space, the final frontier..." monologue is the captain's oath? Because that's a weird-ass oath.
~OH, and what was up with the dedication to 9-11 workers?
I'm sure I'll think of some more stuff later, especially when I see it a second time. ;o) I'm actually not one to watch movies -- even ones I really like -- over and over again in the theaters. I think I saw The Phantom Menace four times (possibly because I was hoping it would start to suck less). But I'm sure I'll see Into Darkness at least once more.