Star Trek Movies

Okay, thank you so much, laddical! I didn't wanna spend $12 and be all, "Hmmm, this makes no sense to me whatsoever."

Just came back from round two. I feel a lot more comfortable saying that I really enjoyed it. Wish something could be done about whitewashing Khan, but the story works for me. I'm even more comfortable with the fact that it *is* Khan rather than just some previously unknown character. And I came out of it thinking that all of the "callbacks" - including the big two at the climax - make a lot of sense given the nature of alternate universes as Star Trek has always dealt with them. Yeah, they're totally fanservice. But I also think they have some thematic value given the notion that this reboot is running an accelerated parallel path to the Original Series (accelerated in the sense that in the Prime Timeline, Kirk is still a few years away from taking command of the Enterprise in 2259 [the Five Year Mission doesn't even start until 2266], whereas he's been in command for well over a year at this point in Into Darkness).

The whole

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mostly pisses me off because it casts a pall over what was SUCH a good movie. I know after the first movie I was hoping for more of Simon Pegg's Scotty and Karl Urban's McCoy, and I am so glad we got more of them. They're probably hands down my favorite characters in the films. I only wish the original actors who played them got to see them because they are just so good. Karl Urban's line, "I'm a doctor not a torpedo technician!" and his constant poker metaphors on the bridge were just pure gold. I really hope they keep giving those two more to do, along with support from Sulu and Chekov. The whole cast is so good in their roles, it makes up for the occasionally clunky dialog. They really do come across as a team that cares about each other.

I also loved all the Spock and Kirk stuff. Quinto and Pine manage to be true to the original characters, but they've both found ways to make them their own. And Uhura got to actually do her job! And show off her skills in Klingon! And save Spock's (and by extension Kirk's) ass!

Anybody else figure that the next film is going to almost HAVE to involve a major confrontation with the Klingons at some point? And since this time line is sped up, will the Khitomer incident be earlier as well, getting the Enterprise involved? My Trek fan-girl is still all abuzz!

I went in prepared for THE THING and expecting nothing more than a summer blockbuster popcorn movie, so I ended up enjoying it fairly well. Probably not something I'll see again, but it was entertaining. Cumberbatch was EXCELLENT and I so wish he could have just not been that character so I could have enjoyed it more. Has Abrams made any comment about it yet? I'd love to hear his attempt to justify his decision.

I was also prepared for The Thing

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Other than that, I thoroughly enjoyed it as a summer popcorn flick. It didn't feel quite as well paced as the first one - which kept my attention far more rapt - but I had fun.

One thing I haven't seen discussed.

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Gilraen wrote:
One thing I haven't seen discussed.

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That was one point I appreciated very much.

Coneycat wrote:

Gilraen wrote:
One thing I haven't seen discussed.

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That was one point I appreciated very much.

That was the most Star Trek moment in the whole movie.

For me, the most Star Trek was Scotty refusing the warheads and chastising Kirk about being explorers, not soldiers.

I know that the lack of exploration has been a long complaint about Trek as the corners of the galaxy got filled in and politics in the discovered areas became something of a default plot setting - but I think people looking to the movies to fix that are looking in the wrong place. The movies have never successfully captured the TV shows. And when they've tried - The Motion Picture, The Final Frontier - they get pilloried for being "overlong episodes" (among other sins, of course). The movies, by their nature, have to be big and epic and have mass appeal - all stuff that skews hard away from the introspective and exploratory nature of the series.

My point I guess is this: Star Trek should continue to make movies. It should continue to make movies in the Abrams-timeline. But the platonic ideal of Star Trek will always be TV, and at some point it's going to have to go back to that - in the Abrams-timeline or somewhere in the original continuity. Until that happens, Star Trek is never going to truly feel like Star Trek.

laddical wrote:For me, the most Star Trek was Scotty refusing the warheads and chastising Kirk about being explorers, not soldiers.

See, I thought it was the least Star Trek in that he had to say it. And the dialogue was so terrible in that scene (and throughout the movie), at least in part because it was such a non-Star Trekky thing to have to remind your captain that he's not Conan the Barbarian in Space. The first movie, I think, did well in that the enemy was actively blowing up planets. Khan? Was chilling in Klingon territory and not yet even twirling his mustache.

I dunno, I really felt the Star Trek was pasted on. And while I agree that a tv series is best for the nature of Trek, the things that were wrong with the movie were pacing, logic, and gratuitious nekkid lady, not innate Star Trek flaws.

So I saw Shatner and met Takei yesterday...

Really? Tell, tell!

Yeah, you can't just throw that out there and not elaborate!

I'll elaborate more when I'm off my phone.

I went to Bimonscificon Sunday. The first two days got a load of bad press because it was just swarmed and people couldn't get in. I almost bagged it but a couple of friends went down and I figured if we couldn't get in we could still have some fun downtown. I also had to see just a bit of the cosplayers.

I guess the bad press scared enough people away because the Shatner panel was supposed to be a separate ticket event and the event staff was waving people in.

Shatner told a story about using his Dobberman's frozen sperm to inseminate a breeder in Texas and driving a rental car all the way back seeing the tornados. Just about every question he'd go on some crazy Shatner tangent. Someone asked him about his favorite villain on the show trying to tee him up to a "KHHHHHAAAAAAAANNNNN!!!!!", but he talked about how envious he was of Ricardo Montablan's upper body and related that Ricardo was a dancer, but was disabled because a horse fell on him and his legs were disabled, so he focused on upper body.

Shat seemed genuinely humbled by some of the people that he inspired in the sciences. He talked about the Canadian astronaut on the space station calling him from orbit and crediting him.

Shatner is like Walken. I would watch those guy read a shopping list just because of the delivery.

The toupee is no more. It's a plug job now.

Takei was there all weekend and I had the good fortune to get to his autograph booth right at opening and only have to wait about 5 minutes. He was effusive and funny that whole time too. I had him sign a pic for a mother's day gift (shit went down around the holiday). He asked me if I wanted it signed with "Happy Mother's Day" or "Happy Belated Mother's Day". I opted for the latter and he told me to blame it on him saying I was just waiting for him to get into town. I told him I admired him for everything he's being done with his life, but I was kicking myself later for not thinking to tell him he's proving Fitzgerald wrong about there not being second acts in life.

I also met Neal Adams the comic artist and Erin Grey from Buck Rodgers. I told Adams about Marvel the Untold Story prompting me to reread late 60's X-Men run and lamented it was a missed opportunity that they canceled it during his run. He said they were planning to cancel it in two issues, but he wiggled ten out of them. Had they known that the sales picked up and there was underhanded business going on with distributors it might have kept going. It would be an interesting alternate future though where there was the X-men relaunch with Wolverine and Adams did his groundbreaking work on Batman. He didn't have any X-Men prints for sale so I got the infamously dated Speedy is a junkie cover signed.

I was surprised about how sheepish I was around Erin Grey. She still looks great. I told her about how I was trying to get my younger friends who like BSG to watch Buck Rodgers.

Into Darkness hit Netflix Streaming this weekend, and as a result someone commented to me that Abrams Trek is essentially like a comic book movie version of Trek, and that hit on my problems with it in a nutshell. Because the whole thing feels like it came together by one person writing a summary about Trek-- not as a series but as a pop-culture phenomenon-- and then someone else who had very little knowledge of that read it and highlighted the parts they thought would be cool, and then handed it off to other people, also with no knowledge of it, and told them to write the script. It's the elements of Trek, distilled down in a vacuum.

Saw Star Trek Beyond tonight, and it was so much better than Star Trek Into Darkness. It was fun and enjoyable, but also had the heart of Star Trek.

Sure, there were plot holes, moments where I had no idea what was going on, and moments where I thought "gravity doesn't work like that," but it was so, so, SO much better than Star Trek Beyond.

I got verklempt at Leonard Nimoy and Anton Yelchin, particularly at the end.

Best movie use of a Beastie Boys song EVER.

Two moments that hit me in the feels were the 'in loving memory of Leonard Nimoy' and 'For Anton' during the end credits, and when

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I thought it was very enjoyable and it was a fun entertaining evening out at the cinema. I think the characterisation was a bit more spot on than it was in In Darkness.