Baffled, I am

[sigma7]

Star Trek is every bit as good as I'd heard. I know, I can't believe it either. And I've been subjected to enough continuity reboots to loathe it on principle (and when I loathe on principle, I raise it to an art form). My two gripes, one simple, one not:

1. Goddamnit, JJ, yes, enough with the goddamned lens flares, already. I'm trying to watch a movie here, get the follow-spot OUT OF MY FACE SO I CAN SEE IT. It's like ten years ago when everyone got laser-pointers and started bringing 'em to movies except this time it's the director and AUGH SHIT I'M BLIND DAMMIT ABRAMS.

2. So the new Jim Kirk is a putz. Hey, say what you will about Shatner's Kirk, but you always got the feeling that he was a result of a relentless work ethic, a zero-gravity Machiavellian mind and entirely too much distilled awesome. When the chips fell, Kirk evaded punishment due to "mitigating circumstances" (i.e. "saving the planet") and got punished with the captain's chair -- he fell, but fortuitously so. Pine!Kirk fails upward so fast he hits escape velocity, proceeding to leapfrog every single person on the Enterprise, including probably Scotty's mineral Oompa-Loompa sidekick. Add to that the smugness of the Kobyashi Maru exploit -- I always envisioned it being a bit more subtle, but maybe that's the point, that Cameron's baby isn't a subtle man...still, despite the camaraderie between Kirk and Quinto!Spock at that point, I don't think anyone would've faulted our favorite half-Vulcan for screaming "ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?" and putting his fist through Kirk's head in front of the assembled mass of Starfleet and getting gray matter all over Admiral Ironsides.

And yet we don't hate Pine!Kirk, so obviously there's something working really well there. I blame the script -- the actors let it all go on the screen (except Bana, and that's also a script blunder...hard to feel the seething when it's all exposited instead of shown) and I think every one of the old crew gets more to do in this film than any single appearance they had in the olden days.

In terms of reviving the franchise, bringing in old fans as well as introducing a whole new audience, this could barely have gone better.

Comments

[blemt.livejournal.com]

Told you. :)

[beagle1971.livejournal.com]

Exactly what I thought about the Kobyashi Maru. Subtlety is lost on PineKirk, and he just ends up looking like a d-bag. Epic d-bag.

And Winona Ryder? Are there not dozens and dozens of better actresses who don't need age makeup to fit the part?

[spankingfemme.livejournal.com]

Yes, the new Star Trek = win! And broke the odd cycle of every odd Trek movie being bad! XD

[sigma7.livejournal.com]

I confess I lost count a while back. The only ones I'd go out of my way to watch now are (in relative order) II, VI, First Contact and IV. Generations, Insurrection and Nemesis had maybe one good scene in each film, but I'd rather see III (which needs a strong third act) and I (which I still think holds true to the idea of Star Trek if not compelling cinema) than any of them. V had one good musical beat and that's about it.

[spankingfemme.livejournal.com]

You pretty much sum it up there LOL! XD

[ravenword.livejournal.com]

I'm sad about the new Uhura. Her original character was shockingly progressive for the times; now she's just a useless love interest.

[roseneko.livejournal.com]

I was disappointed as well; while they made it clear she's one of the smartest people on the crew, they didn't actually do anything with her this time around. I'm hoping this is rectified in the sequel (which I think is going to be an even bigger test for the new franchise in a number of ways).

[sigma7.livejournal.com]

That was a wrong turn, I thought -- it was interesting to see a Spock/Uhura dynamic (though I'd think Spock to be a little more aware of the possible ramifications of a relationship with a student), but given the effort they went to make her interesting and useful (having xenolinguistics be useful for a change), she becomes foil to Spock in much the same way Bones becomes foil to Kirk (they contribute but contribute too much in the context of the main characters).

And roseneko had a great observation a while back -- in the more recent generation of movie re-imaginings, the first movie is solid if incomplete, but the second film really leaps into the meat of the matter. We saw it Nolan's Batman, I'm going to put Singer's X-Men in there, and if Singer'd had a shot at a second Superman I think he could've breathed a bit more life into it than what we saw in the first installment of that particular series. If there is a sequel to this flick and they keep the creative side mostly intact, I think we'll see a genuine improvement.

[rewil.livejournal.com]

Nothing Trek-related to say, as I have not yet ventured out, but here is a picture of Chewbacca offering an almond to a chipmunk.

[beeform]

That is the cutest thing! :-)

[manekikoneko.livejournal.com]

I liked Abrams explanation for the lens flare - that he wanted to make it seem like lots of stuff was going on just off camera - and to his credit, in the article I read about it, on io9 I think, he admitted that, in hindsight, he might have overdone it.

[sigma7.livejournal.com]

That's probably the best possible explanation for it -- I admit it's probably effective, but I'm glad he understands it might be a touch overdone. (I can't stop thinking of Homer Simpson editing a Ned Flanders available-bachelor tape and using nothing but star-wipes....) When he tells an entire story, I'm impressed with what he can do -- some of his work (I'm looking at you, Lost) falters when it doesn't have a strong narrative spine. But I never got bored with Star Trek -- it moves along at an impressive clip and it holds together well, so score one for JJ.

[jb-helfrich.livejournal.com]

I liked the core of the reboot. There were a lot of decisions and story points that I question.

The whole "get Jim on the ship" bit was silly. Star Trek does not require sight gags. Instead of interrupting Kirk's hearing, have the committee return in his favor. You leave the key point of the Spock-Kirk relationship at that point (Spock thinks Kirk is a hothead and rule breaker) and skip the humor. Kirk can be a senior cadet, making Pike choosing him as the new First Officer less glaring. It's not like the story hinged on the tension of "will he get kicked out of the academy for cheating after saving the planet?"

Also, Kirk running from giant monsters was out of place. If Kirk engineered a rock slide to crush the giant monster, the scene is redeemed, but as it is, it's fluff.

If there is a Starfleet outpost 14 kilometers away, why is SpockPrime sitting in a cave? Was he left there 15 minutes ago or three days ago? Either way, start walking, don't make a fire. Call up Vulcan, give the super secret password, tell them to get off the planet now please. *sigh*

Star Trek has played fast and loose with physics before. Star Trek has never boldly thumbed its nose at physics as it did in this movie. Science fiction must remain internally consistent.

Why did it take 5 minutes to get from Earth to Vulcan, and multiple hours to get back? Why does a faster than light ship get stopped by a black hole sucking in at light speed? If the engines can't produce enough power to get out of the black hole, how does an uncontained explosion make it possible? Inside the general laws of Star Trek physics, you could make a plausible explanation for a couple of these. Try.

SpockPrime's exposition was so damn wooden, even where it wasn't contradictory, that it was almost unwatchable. I was so glad Nimoy actually turned on the acting skills for the final scene with Spock.

The villain disappearing into a singularity caused by red matter which has previously been used for time travel? I saw what you did there, JJ.

There were a lot of good points--the nod to the expanded universe stories and previous continuity (going out of their way to say that all the old stories still happened and and potentially are still happening; it will be interesting to see how the established print media lines adapt to the changes, or if they just ignore them) and subtle in jokes were great. The cast managing for the most part to be new but still recognizable versions of the old characters was also good. (Karl Urban was being DeForest Kelly doing Leonard McCoy, rather than just being McCoy, so it came off like an imitation. But that was my only complaint on that front.)

For the most part, my complaints have the feel of "notes from the studio"--the sight gag and the monster chase most resemble "required" scenes, with a lot of other changes flowing from them--so I hope that the original script and/or a director's cut finds it's way out at some point. And I think the reboot will go places. But coming out of the movie, I couldn't shake the feeling that it could have been a great movie, instead of a good reboot.

[sigma7.livejournal.com]

Even for Trek physics, yeah, there's some really awful stuff going on there, and I went into it forewarned and forearmed with reviews like this one (or, hell, even this one) and I still had my disbelief adequately suspended in the context of the film's through-line. Not that the criticisms of the physics or the plot-driven conveniences (Scotty/Spock, the dramatic pull from the singularity) are invalid, just that I can see why they're there -- the chase and the escape especially iron out what'd be some relatively slow moments of the movie, and I think (I hope) they were aiming for a frenetic film, trying to get more kinesis in one Trek film than all the others put together, and on that note I can see why they did what they did....

Nimoy's first appearance...I think I was reading stone-cold stoicism when we should've been reading something else at that point, and you're right -- especially given the colors the younger Spock has shown, there could've been more there, and yes, we do see that much more clearly in the end. (So what does future!Spock do now?) Urban was uber-Kelley, yeah, but I think that appealed more to my nostalgia enough to get a pass from me. Am looking forward to the DVD, if only for the cut Klingon scene....

[jb-helfrich.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'd read the Bad Astronomy one. And some stuff, like "Red Matter" I can forgive as plot device necessity. But some stuff was just sheer lazyness, not wanting to find a better way or at least come up with consistent behavior. I know Trek gets dinged for technobabble, which is valid, but it's also a part of the franchise.

The chase scene was just a wasted opportunity. Show some of that Kirk-vs-Gorn ingenuity and have him kill the big one, then have Spock chase off the smaller one who's circled back around or something. Instead it could have been written as "Kirk gets chased into cave by monster which is driven off by old man with torch. SFX: Go nuts" ILM didn't even go that nuts; they just recycled the big monster gets eaten by bigger monster gag from Phantom Menace.

Nimoy's first appearance was just flat. That wasn't SpockPrime suppressing his emotions like in the original series, or openly struggling with the confilcts like Trek 1 3 and 4, or at peace with his dual nature in the other ones. That was Nimoy reading cue cards. If it was an attempt to do that later version of SpockPrime clamping down, it was a mistake--there's no example of that in his other appearances to give the fans (or even Nimoy) reference points for the portrayal, and he's not on screen long enough for us to understand it. The later scenes were a familiar version of Spock, though it may have been helped by Nimoy having done the same basic speech in a couple scenes with Savvik.

As for what he does now, I think he concentrates on curing whatever that is his father had/will get.

Urban...felt more like a SNL Trek skit than a major movie performance. It was a good imitation, but he didn't make the part his like the other actors did.

I sound more down on the movie than I really am. I just look at all the missed opportunities and wonder what it could have been.