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I am cutting and pasting some of my impressions of Star Trek from a number of places. When what I have said is a response to something someone else has said, I will include a brief summary of what was said to provoke my response. Here:
Corona Coming Attractions user Baelzar lamented the number of times Pine's Kirk "gets his ass beat." I respond:
It's an obnoxious staple of prequels for them to go out of their way to show you how Character X just isn't quite him/herself, yet. Consider Casino Royale's pre-smooth Bond not giving a damn how his martini is mixed, pre-World's Greatest Detective Batman getting burned like a chump and having to jump out a window while collecting samples/evidence in Batman Begins, Young Indy not knowing how to use a whip in Last Crusade, Obi-Wan being a hothead and Li'l Ani spinning because it's a "neat trick" in Phantom Menace (the next time we see him spin, it will be because Han Solo shot his ass from behind), Vito being small-time in Godfather II, Logan weeping like a bitch and being a constant softy in X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
It appears to be the nature of the beast.
* * *
Excelsior News user Master Ulic ponders whether it was necessary for Kirk to fire on Nero as the Romulan ship was being pulled toward the singularity, or just cruel. I respond:
If Nero had somehow managed not to be ripped through in such a way as to become a single-file chain of de-compounded atoms, and had, instead, managed to re-emerge in another time line, Kirk's/Spock's/the Enterprise's problem would have become someone else's problem somewhere and somewhen else. No? (Admittedly, I'm no physicist--astro, quantum, or otherwise.)
* * *
Excelsior News user Master Ulic laments having the Enterprise assembled on Earth instead of in space. I respond:
I suppose you could say the altered time line/reality was responsible for the NCC-1701 being built on the ground. Why not? It's no cheaper an out than any of the other alterations. Still, as you say, it makes no real sense, since gravity would compromise the building, and since the ship, itself, is not built to do the sort of grounded, runway takeoff it would need to get skyborne. What Pike says about their jump from the dock being a maiden voyage is misleading, too, since its trip from Earth into outer space would have been its maiden voyage (unless it had been lifted, as an entire unit, into space; this seems unlikely). It might make some sense to build some parts of it on Earth, but not the whole thing.
They don't do that comic book movie thing I hate too many times in this one. (They do it at least once, with Bones saying, "I may throw up on you," first, and then Kirk. They don't do it five times, as is done in ReBatman 1 and ReBatman 2.)
I have said before that I'm not a fan of rift-causing, multiple-reality-creating time travel fiction. I think it's lazy, since it allows you to do whatever the Hell you want. It was essential to them being able to make the movie they wanted to make,I suppose. I do like the meeting of the two Spocks, if only because it gave Nimoy the chance to crack something close to a joke. What I didn't like about the dialog of the scene was that Kurtzman and Orci made a show of using both "infer" and "imply," just to prove to us they knew the difference between the two words. (It didn't show as glaringly as it could have, since Nimoy is adept at handling all kinds of dialog, but if it had been encountered on the page, my editor's brain would have screamed at it. Using "infer" and "imply" so close together is akin to using "ambiguous" and "ambivalent" in the same sentence, or "affect" and "effect." It often reads like the writer has something to prove about her/his ability to use the English language.) I also thought a lot of the Vulcan dialog was unfortunate, since it sounded leaden in the mouths of some of the Vulcan actors. (Most notably the kids, but also Quinto.) Quinto was better than I was expecting (considering my constant frustration with his Heroes performances), but he's just not the actor Nimoy is, and there is no authority in his voice. Also, his posture is stiff and awkward, and he thrusts his head forward when he walks.
Some Easter eggs were more forced than others. Letting us know how Bones gets his nickname was too much. Dammit, Kurtzman and Orci, he's a doctor! There's your explanation right there. ("Sawbones" is a pretty common nickname for a doctor.)
* * *
Excelsior News user Ipsilon laments the uncharacteristic aggressiveness of Vulcans and humans for the movie's time frame, along with the lack of respect the movie appeared to show for canonical Star Trek. I respond:
I was irked by the bullying scene in which the Vulcan kids bully Kid Spock. If it works, it works only because they are kids. There aren't that many Vulcan kids in classic Trek, so maybe one could argue that their character refinement has to be earned, and that they are essentially brainwashed into being even-tempered logical beings.
I still don't buy it, though. A big part of Vulcanness, as I understand it, is supposed to be evolutionary. Maybe this is not the case. I guess, in my own mind, I just expected they would have a better mastery of their emotions at that age. The Vulcans do live a lot longer than humans, though, so maybe that age for them is not comparable to that age for humans.
The words they put in the kids' mouths weren't delivered very naturally. Ben Cross and Nimoy don't have any trouble delivering the same sorts of dialog, naturally, because they're fuckin' pros. (One problem is they gave the kids even more five-cent words than they did the adult Vulcans. My take on it is that S&O, hacks that they are, tried too hard to make the kids sound smart by giving them "extra smart" words to say [more so than the adult Vulcans, even], and cumbersomely syntaxed, exaggeratedly formal sentences. You could always argue that the adult Vulcans have less bulky dialog because they have learned to economize language and not try to be so flashy. I suppose. Seems a pretty weak argument to me.) One could point to the Romulans, with whom they share common ancestry, as disproof of this, but that would be somewhat akin to pointing toward humans as proof that chimps could and should be staying consistently bipedal. (I have just made a pretty weak argument of my own. Feel free to refute it.)
Again, the extra aggressiveness of the cadets, the notion of the Federation being a "peacekeeping armada" (instead of an exploratory organization), and the massive size of the new Enterprise could be explained away by the butterfly effect caused by the destroying of the Kelvin. Since I am not a fan of butterfly effect Sci-Fi (did I say this, already? I did?), I am disinclined to be too supportive of the changes.
Concerning being respectful of Star Trek's history, I don't think anyone involved with the movie gave a shit's undigested corn kernel about honoring anything post-TNG (by which I mean any series released after, and not anything after it in Trek chronology). The common charge is that they tried to make the movie more Star Wars than Star Trek. This is a charge the filmmakers have levied against themselves, so there really is no reason to try to refute it.
These guys wrote Transformers, so I don't suppose all that much faith should have been put in them to begin with.
(This one doesn't have much to do with Star Trek. I have thrown in a link to a Star Trek-themed YouTube video to make up for this.)
A recent clip from Lost tells me that the folks in the Abrams crew don't appreciate the original Star Wars trilogy's structure as much as they should.
It could all be chalked up to Hurley's . . . whatever (here's where I admit that I have only seen three or four episodes of Lost; from what I understand, though, he is supposed to be somewhat childlike/naive), but I take issue with his assertion that Luke and Vader could have talked everything out in/on Bespin. Vader needed to witness the Emperor killing Luke before he could turn back to the Light Side, and Luke needed 1.) to have the emotional security of knowing Leia and Han were back with the Rebellion and fighting, and 2.) to confront the Dark Side fully by having the threat of Leia being turned waved in front of his face.
I understand what Lucas was going for with the Ewoks. He wanted to show a comparably small-in-stature, technologically ill-advanced race overcoming by virtue of tenacity and tactical-advantage-by-way-of-familiarity-with-the-landscape. He wanted to show the big bad US paying the price for being out of its element during Vietnam. The Ewoks are only moderately successful as an analogy.
It wasn't until the Internet age that people who had been kids when Return of the Jedi came out were informed that they were supposed to hate the Ewoks for being cutesy. Sure, the stuff with Wicket W. Warrick *is* cutesy, but those little fuckers are pretty fierce. (And apparently not above cooking and eating humans.) Also, the scene where the one dies and the other tries to wake it up is one of the most touching in Return of the Jedi.
Corona Coming Attractions user Baelzar lamented the number of times Pine's Kirk "gets his ass beat." I respond:
It's an obnoxious staple of prequels for them to go out of their way to show you how Character X just isn't quite him/herself, yet. Consider Casino Royale's pre-smooth Bond not giving a damn how his martini is mixed, pre-World's Greatest Detective Batman getting burned like a chump and having to jump out a window while collecting samples/evidence in Batman Begins, Young Indy not knowing how to use a whip in Last Crusade, Obi-Wan being a hothead and Li'l Ani spinning because it's a "neat trick" in Phantom Menace (the next time we see him spin, it will be because Han Solo shot his ass from behind), Vito being small-time in Godfather II, Logan weeping like a bitch and being a constant softy in X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
It appears to be the nature of the beast.
* * *
Excelsior News user Master Ulic ponders whether it was necessary for Kirk to fire on Nero as the Romulan ship was being pulled toward the singularity, or just cruel. I respond:
If Nero had somehow managed not to be ripped through in such a way as to become a single-file chain of de-compounded atoms, and had, instead, managed to re-emerge in another time line, Kirk's/Spock's/the Enterprise's problem would have become someone else's problem somewhere and somewhen else. No? (Admittedly, I'm no physicist--astro, quantum, or otherwise.)
* * *
Excelsior News user Master Ulic laments having the Enterprise assembled on Earth instead of in space. I respond:
I suppose you could say the altered time line/reality was responsible for the NCC-1701 being built on the ground. Why not? It's no cheaper an out than any of the other alterations. Still, as you say, it makes no real sense, since gravity would compromise the building, and since the ship, itself, is not built to do the sort of grounded, runway takeoff it would need to get skyborne. What Pike says about their jump from the dock being a maiden voyage is misleading, too, since its trip from Earth into outer space would have been its maiden voyage (unless it had been lifted, as an entire unit, into space; this seems unlikely). It might make some sense to build some parts of it on Earth, but not the whole thing.
They don't do that comic book movie thing I hate too many times in this one. (They do it at least once, with Bones saying, "I may throw up on you," first, and then Kirk. They don't do it five times, as is done in ReBatman 1 and ReBatman 2.)
I have said before that I'm not a fan of rift-causing, multiple-reality-creating time travel fiction. I think it's lazy, since it allows you to do whatever the Hell you want. It was essential to them being able to make the movie they wanted to make,I suppose. I do like the meeting of the two Spocks, if only because it gave Nimoy the chance to crack something close to a joke. What I didn't like about the dialog of the scene was that Kurtzman and Orci made a show of using both "infer" and "imply," just to prove to us they knew the difference between the two words. (It didn't show as glaringly as it could have, since Nimoy is adept at handling all kinds of dialog, but if it had been encountered on the page, my editor's brain would have screamed at it. Using "infer" and "imply" so close together is akin to using "ambiguous" and "ambivalent" in the same sentence, or "affect" and "effect." It often reads like the writer has something to prove about her/his ability to use the English language.) I also thought a lot of the Vulcan dialog was unfortunate, since it sounded leaden in the mouths of some of the Vulcan actors. (Most notably the kids, but also Quinto.) Quinto was better than I was expecting (considering my constant frustration with his Heroes performances), but he's just not the actor Nimoy is, and there is no authority in his voice. Also, his posture is stiff and awkward, and he thrusts his head forward when he walks.
Reply
* * *
Excelsior News user Ipsilon laments the uncharacteristic aggressiveness of Vulcans and humans for the movie's time frame, along with the lack of respect the movie appeared to show for canonical Star Trek. I respond:
I was irked by the bullying scene in which the Vulcan kids bully Kid Spock. If it works, it works only because they are kids. There aren't that many Vulcan kids in classic Trek, so maybe one could argue that their character refinement has to be earned, and that they are essentially brainwashed into being even-tempered logical beings.
I still don't buy it, though. A big part of Vulcanness, as I understand it, is supposed to be evolutionary. Maybe this is not the case. I guess, in my own mind, I just expected they would have a better mastery of their emotions at that age. The Vulcans do live a lot longer than humans, though, so maybe that age for them is not comparable to that age for humans.
The words they put in the kids' mouths weren't delivered very naturally. Ben Cross and Nimoy don't have any trouble delivering the same sorts of dialog, naturally, because they're fuckin' pros. (One problem is they gave the kids even more five-cent words than they did the adult Vulcans. My take on it is that S&O, hacks that they are, tried too hard to make the kids sound smart by giving them "extra smart" words to say [more so than the adult Vulcans, even], and cumbersomely syntaxed, exaggeratedly formal sentences. You could always argue that the adult Vulcans have less bulky dialog because they have learned to economize language and not try to be so flashy. I suppose. Seems a pretty weak argument to me.) One could point to the Romulans, with whom they share common ancestry, as disproof of this, but that would be somewhat akin to pointing toward humans as proof that chimps could and should be staying consistently bipedal. (I have just made a pretty weak argument of my own. Feel free to refute it.)
Again, the extra aggressiveness of the cadets, the notion of the Federation being a "peacekeeping armada" (instead of an exploratory organization), and the massive size of the new Enterprise could be explained away by the butterfly effect caused by the destroying of the Kelvin. Since I am not a fan of butterfly effect Sci-Fi (did I say this, already? I did?), I am disinclined to be too supportive of the changes.
Concerning being respectful of Star Trek's history, I don't think anyone involved with the movie gave a shit's undigested corn kernel about honoring anything post-TNG (by which I mean any series released after, and not anything after it in Trek chronology). The common charge is that they tried to make the movie more Star Wars than Star Trek. This is a charge the filmmakers have levied against themselves, so there really is no reason to try to refute it.
These guys wrote Transformers, so I don't suppose all that much faith should have been put in them to begin with.
Reply
A recent clip from Lost tells me that the folks in the Abrams crew don't appreciate the original Star Wars trilogy's structure as much as they should.
It could all be chalked up to Hurley's . . . whatever (here's where I admit that I have only seen three or four episodes of Lost; from what I understand, though, he is supposed to be somewhat childlike/naive), but I take issue with his assertion that Luke and Vader could have talked everything out in/on Bespin. Vader needed to witness the Emperor killing Luke before he could turn back to the Light Side, and Luke needed 1.) to have the emotional security of knowing Leia and Han were back with the Rebellion and fighting, and 2.) to confront the Dark Side fully by having the threat of Leia being turned waved in front of his face.
I understand what Lucas was going for with the Ewoks. He wanted to show a comparably small-in-stature, technologically ill-advanced race overcoming by virtue of tenacity and tactical-advantage-by-way-of-familiarity-with-the-landscape. He wanted to show the big bad US paying the price for being out of its element during Vietnam. The Ewoks are only moderately successful as an analogy.
It wasn't until the Internet age that people who had been kids when Return of the Jedi came out were informed that they were supposed to hate the Ewoks for being cutesy. Sure, the stuff with Wicket W. Warrick *is* cutesy, but those little fuckers are pretty fierce. (And apparently not above cooking and eating humans.) Also, the scene where the one dies and the other tries to wake it up is one of the most touching in Return of the Jedi.
* * *
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAaX8Aq6smQ
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