Set Phasers to Fabulous

[okosut]

On October 17, 2008, when it was looking pretty likely that Barack Obama was going to be the next president, pollster and pseudo-Orwellian wordsmith Frank Luntz popped up on Bill Maher's show. He and Bill had a short (but apparently memorable, because I remembered it) argument about why the Democrats lost in 2000 and 2004. Frank thought it was

Comments

[lauradi7]

There is also the (jokey?) comment that came up in a couple of reviews that a really unfortunate bit (not the movie as a whole) is because Bad Robot re-used a part from Cloverfield.

For TOS Spock/Uhuru footage, see embeds in this post
http://community.livejournal.com/deadbrowalking/356425.html#cutid1

Also interesting (the May 11th blog post. I disagree entirely with the guy in the comic about which font would be better).
http://www.pvponline.com/2009/05/11/the-font-snob/

[okosut]

I assume that's referring to the monster attacks on the ice planet? Yeah, that wasn't the most creative sequence. My first thought was "there's always a bigger fish" from Star Wars: Episode I, not exactly the movie you probably want to be reminding people of.

Wow, I sure don't remember seeing that Uhura serenading scene before. You learn something new everyday.

I couldn't possibly agree more with that post. That was absolutely my favorite part about the new movie.

[thegreatgonz]

I'd say it was 4. bad because it got back to classic Trek in at least one way: its treatment of women. Sure, Uhura's a little more of a substantive character (and a much more competent communications officer) than she was in the first 6 movies (can't really speak to the series), but other than her it's pretty much an all-male cast. If they'd been a little less committed to maintaining Trek continuity, they could've pulled a Galactica and made, say Sulu or Scotty a woman (or even Spock, though that would be tricky). Or how about Nero? He could've been a woman with no continuity problems. Even less excusable is the fact that they reverted to the original series costumes, with pants for the men and miniskirts for the women. Given how fast and loose they played with other aspects of the production design (notably the engine-room-as-sewage-treatment-plant), there's no excuse for that. I'd also dock it a few points for its extensive (but presumably unintentional) resemblance to NemesisI'm still trying to make up my mind, but on the whole I'

[okosut]

You're certainly right about that. Maybe one female character on the bridge of a starship was revolutionary and forward thinking in 1966. It sure ain't now. I like the idea of making Sulu or Scotty a woman. You could even make an argument that it would retain continuity as long as it was a character born at least 9 months after Kirk, because from that point on the whole time line changed, right? Who knows what could have been affected by Nero's appearance. But, I can't imagine how bat-shit crazy fans would have gotten if they'd announced that Scotty would be a woman. Sigh.

How similar was it really to Nemesis? I think I've completely blocked that movie out of my memory. In any case, given that it was totally different in that I cared at all about what happened to the characters, I don't really mind some plot similarities.

[thegreatgonz]

Making Sulu a woman also has a nice resonance because in the old continuity (or whatever fandom decides to call it), the Enterprise-B had a female Sulu helmsman (Hikaru Sulu's daughter).

The similarities to Nemesis mostly have to do with the Romulans- both movies have a huge Romulan ship with pointy bits, gloomy green interior lighting, an ugly bald crew, and a planet-destroying superweapon headed for Earth. Both climax with the Captain and his nonhuman, unemotional subordinate fighting a running firefight through said ship, and with the ship destroyed by its own superweapon due to the suicidal actions of said logical, unemotional subordinate. It's not that there's anything wrong with those things per se, it just brings back bad memories.