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

[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.