MOAR META!

[idvo]

Movie dialogue taken from: http://www.chakoteya.net/movies/movie11.htm

Unlike my last essays, this one has a much more bitter sarcastic tone to it ^.^

Now, on That Essay (which, I’ve decided is its new official title), I got a lot of responses where people pointed out that Uhura’s discovery of the Romulan signal is a Very Important Aspect of Reboot’

Comments

[1bill_sookie]

Great. I wanted to see Uhura do somthing to. The whole time I was thinking that NOW would be her moment of being bascially more then an extra... but it never happened. As for the Vulcans, I would love to hear what you think about it.

[idvo]

IKR? It really confuses me when people claim that nu!Uhura does so much more than TOS!Uhura, when she, um, doesn't. Hopefully she'll have more to do in the next film. As for the Vulcan thing, this older post of mine is a starting point for my opinion. Most of my thoughts are still in that swirly, "OMGWAT" stage, though, so I'm waiting until I'm a little more coherent before writing anything down.

Anyway, I'm glad you enjoyed this one!

[joyful]

I personally have no clue what they're going to do about the Vulcans. I'm hoping that because of her implied part-Romulan heritage, and the fact that she was in space far from Vulcan when Spock rescued her, Saavik is still alive. Actually, she's probably very young now, if born at all.

It's just...it the TOS movies, which I watched as a child before I ever saw the TOS episodes, Saavik was my favorite character. I didn't even mind that she was recast.

[idvo]

I really have to watch those movies. I know pretty much everything that happens, from reading meta and watching clips, but still. Lazy me is lazy. There's this Reboot K/S fic where Kirk and Spock find wee!Saavik and raise her as their own; I know that's not the kind of relationship you're looking for, but it at least shows that others are thinking of Saavik, too. If the writers never address her character in the next films, you can always have her survive in your head!canon. She lives in mine ^.^

OT-ish: I hate recasting. I haven't seen any Saavik scenes, so I can't say how I feel about that decision, but in other instances of it I get really irritated. Probably the worst one for me was with Vivian's character on Fresh Prince. Janet Hubert did such a good job. When they cast Daphne Maxwell Reid it seemed like the whole character changed. The same happened in Roseanne with Becky, but they addressed the recasting a few times (and it was hilarious when they did ^.^). Not to mention they switched between the two actresses every now and

[bigmamag]

How interesting! You know, I always knew that they shafted Uhura, but never how much until I realized that dude, the one thing she brought to the table was only important because Kirk relayed the information and Spock signed off on it. You don't see Scotty having his beaming-fu claimed by Kirk or Spock, or Chekov's master plan of hiding behind Saturn being explained by someone else and then Spock approves. Uhura doesn't even get to explain what she found! I think the only moment that was purely given to Uhura to be awesome was to demand to be on the Enterprise. Hey, at least she got on the ship due to her accomplishments and not because Spock snuck her on. :P (though yes, Kirk would have gotten on had he not cheated, so Uhura definitely wins on this point.)

[idvo]

I really love the scene where she demands to be on the Enterprise. It's awesome how she asserts her BAMFness, and it's fun seeing Spock caught her web of logic! But yes, the signal was her discovery; she should've gotten far more credit for it than she did.

[joyful]

If she doesn't get more screen time and more time to prove her BAMF-ness in the next one I will be very disappointed. Also, I'm hoping for more McCoy awesomeness that doesn't revolve around Kirk, and more Chekov. You can never have too much Chekov. More Scotty would be nice too.

[idvo]

MOAR EVERYBODY! Well, maybe not Kirk and Spock, they hog the camera enough as it is. Divas. Maybe they should get fen to write the next script? We'd do it for free (probably), and it would be less fail-y (hopefully).

My humble wish list for XII:

1) Uhura BAMF-ness.
2) McCoy awesomeness.
3) Scotty says "fuck you" to the laws of physics.
4) Sulu and Chekov bromance, with botany and math equations.
5) Chapel (only not as a part of some weird Chapel/Spock/Uhura/Kirk quadrangle thing. Ew).
5) Kirk and Spock play Tri-D chess (opening and closing scenes, preferably; I love me some bookends).

Is that so much to ask?

[ariadnechan]

I love Tos Uhura with all my heart!!
i love that she do things all the time and Gene was so clever to make think the executives that she will be like a secretary with a phone.

But she have ideas, hack thingies, fight, she can't act undercover (like in mirror mirror) She express her opinion, and even when nobody say it explicitly she takes the conn a lot and act like first officer for Scotty acting captain all the time asking question and being all first officer.
in tas she even take the ship in her hands and make away teams, she make teams and all and save the day
(and all this happens in the 60-70s)
but we see her doing more undercover, diplomatic relationships, dancing naked, to distract the enemy, and kicking stupids brats(in the search of Spock)
She even find that the prove was talking whale!!!

I know in the movies she have less work to do but you can neglect her awesomeness!!

in the novels she finally settled as and admiral chief of undercover operations, and espionage!!

[idvo]

Uhura is so very awesome! A lot of people really don't give her the credit she deserves.

"in the novels she finally settled as and admiral chief of undercover operations, and espionage!!"

I didn't know this. This is awesome! It gives me a lot of ideas regarding her characterization for fanfiction (which will be useful once I get around to writing fics instead of thinking about writing fics ^.^;;).

Thanks for commenting!

[prue84]

You're totally write on this one. I still can't really like nu!Uhura because of her characterization (.. let's call it "characterization"...) but I'm sure I would have liked her more with a scene like your. Which, by the way, doesn't make Kirk less awesome. Actually, it makes him more human (talking about the Kelvin again and shown as serious which is an unusual thing, seen from Uhura's POW). So, it would be a win-win! ;)

[idvo]

Thanks! I think I have issues with how everyone is characterized in Reboot. I understand that they're all slightly different due to the new timeline and everything, but they all seem to be missing something that I can't quite put my finger on. With Uhura, most of her development is tied into Spock and his problems, so we never really get to see her as just herself. And yeah, a scene like that with Uhura would make him more awesome; in his other scenes with her, he's usually cocky or sarcastic, and it would be nice to see him be more serious with her ^.^

[prue84]

Yes. Uhura feels she has been included at all in the movie only because Spock needed to make out with the hot babe, which is quite annoying, especially considereing how nice and BAMF was TOS!Uhura. I mean, besides TOS... in the MOVIES, dammit! Just one example above all: how she acts with the brash newbie in TSOS, poiting the phaser to him; she is particularly... sexy, actually, though Nichelle was away from her sex-on-two-legs years (aka "Mirror Mirror and her abs").

I hope the authors will rectify this - and, probably, to do so they should forget the whole Spock/Uhura, as that would help. Spock would be Spock again and Uhura the BAMF we all know (hopefully). Oh well... we'll see.

P.S: Many typos especially in my previous comment. My English is particuarly bad these days! =_=

[aleniakalain]

The feminist part of my soul (which is to say 90% of my soul) have a real and deep hate for the characterization of Uhura in reboot.
The first time I watched reboot I knew nothing about Star Trek, I'd never watched the series nor the movies and so I like to think that my opinion of her is pretty unbiased by the whole K/S shipping that came later.
I clearly remember in that scene when she assert her supposed BAMFness with Spock by demanding to be assigned to the Enterprise, that the first impression I had was not for her to be awesome, but for her to be awesome so that Spock would look awesome by extention for having her as his apparently girlfriend.
It bugged me no end and it only got worst when she did nothing at all for the rest of the movie. She is treated like the super-hot Mary Sue character - which is said to be hyper-intelligent, which is said to be super-badass, but never shows it - and which became so popular in the last years for any kind of action movie.

[idvo]

...but for her to be awesome so that Spock would look awesome by extention...

I never looked at it like that, but it's really true! She's just treated like this trophy that, instead of Kirk "winning" her, Spock does (which is supposed to be some kind of twist on the typical "hero gets the girl" trope, a trope I hate, but that doesn't make it any better that she's reduced to a prize). I don't remember who it was, but someone pointed out that her name goes into this power play between Kirk and Spock ("So her first name's Nyota?" "I have no comment on the matter."). Spock is the one who says it first, not Uhura, so even the revelation of her name is given to someone else. Ugh.

I desperately want more more action movies to have deeply characterized female protagonists, instead of the practically one-dimensional girlfriends/wives/mothers who act to further the characterization of the male characters.