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beccatoriaYay! I really loved the Star Trek movie! It's the first time I've actually been really excited about Trek since, um, the last few seasons of DS9?
I was really impressed with the tone of the film. I think they manged to mix the hopeful nature of the franchise with a more modern filming style and narrative while not quite losing the sixties feel. It kind of reminded me of the pseudo-seventies of Superman Returns.
I'll get the biggest "OMG YOU DID IT!" moment out of the way. This film had time travel. So when they destroyed Vulcan, my initial response was to disbelieve that it would actually happen, and my next response was to be genuinely shocked because okay, obviously this is an alternate timeline (I really didn't know much about the movie before I went in; I thought it was just a prequel) but I then spent the rest of the movie just waiting for them to "fix it all" and return us to the "right" history. Which actually worked really well in terms of tension for the end sequence, because I spent the ENTIRE THING really tense cus every time there was a black hole (which, whut? Star Trek: black holes do not work that way, but...whatever, neither does anything else in your science) or red matter or something, I was like, OH THIS IS WHERE IT'LL HAPPEN, DAMN.
(Aside, I had a similar experience in Hancock where I spent the entire end sequence desperately stressed that Mary was going to get refrigerated so that Hancock could be angsty and immortal forever, and then, OMG THEY DIDN'T DO THAT. Which I feel kind of weird about because I dislike having to be stressed by stupid, evil cliches, but at the same time, when you use them in order to increase appreciation for not doing that, perhaps it is well-played.)
So anyway, then it didn't happen and I was like, OMG did they just like, reboot Star Trek kinda? Like, is this Ultimate Star Trek?
I'm sure it'll piss off some people, and since if they did anything like this to Star Wars I would flip out, I do get that. But I really like it. Perhaps it's just that Star Trek has long established the concept of alternate universes so I don't feel like anything else got invalidated, and probably it's also because I don't think Trek has anything like the deliberate coherent cross-media canon that Star Wars cultivates (although I think they were starting to move in that direction), and finally, I'm far less invested in it as a universe because I've always found it kind of bland, but...for me I thought it was awesome and really, really exciting. I totally want to see the next movie.
I do confess I still basically think Kirk's kind of an ass, although I got slightly more of a sense in this that he was supposed to be at least a little (though probably not as much as I thought and certainly when he was all, WE HAVE TO FOLLOW THEM, I was...and do what when you get there, jerk?) But you know, I could deal.
Although I do really wish that the rebooted alternate timeline had included Spock, not Kirk as the captain and Kirk as his first mate like, forever not just for a while. Cus that'd be awesome. SPOCK FOREVER.
Which brings us to Spock. Dude, Zachary Quinto is really, really good in this. I mean, I realised I loved Spock when Kev made me watch Star Trek: the Undiscovered Country and I was like, "ARGH, I will HATE IT," but then it was actually pretty awesome almost entirely because of Old Spock and his Old Man Voice which has only gotten cooler.
Seriously people. That voice. I wish it resided in the body of a hot person. *sigh*
So anyway, Spock and Old Spock were fantastic. Great performances by both and I really felt, more so than the original series or films, that this was a movie equally about Spock. Before, Spock did get a lot of screen time but in a more general sense the character was always important via Kirk, and in this film, I didn't feel that. And I honestly thought he had the most interesting plot and character trajectory.
Something specific that I think helped both with Asshole Kirk and Awesome Spock was what they did with Uhura.
I mean, this franchise needs more girls, frankly, and while I appreciated the fact that they went out of their way to establish a character for Uhura and make her extremely accomplished in her field, she didn't really get that much of a storyline beyond Spock. However, I did really enjoy that storyline.
Firstly I thought the romance was really nicely handled. It was understated and simply existed. It wasn't explained to the audience, and didn't need to be. I loved the scene with them in the elevator and the fact that it wasn't entirely clear that they really were in an official relationship until the scene on the transporter pad. No one turned into an irrational fruitloop. No one was unprofessional. No one got refrigerated. No one was a damsel in distress. It was a really nice background...not even storyline, just fact that significantly improved on three characters:
1) Uhura. While I hope she gets more to do in future films (of which I hope there is at least one, if not many!) I thought this was a nice commentary on her character and temperament, that she would choose a man like Spock, and the way she conducted herself in that situation, in defiance of most cliche romantic tropes.
2) Spock. It further helped to make him a full partner in Headliner Status along with Kirk. I won't say it "humanised" him because I dislike it when they "humanise" Spock. Spock is a being, he exists, he has feelings and he chooses to try and negotiate his emotional experiences with logic which works and fails to work to varying degrees. But it did give us a real chance to see the character in a new and interesting situation - one which we do not usually get to see Spock in, and it was handled with poignancy and understatement. Much of the film was dedicated to Spock's continuing struggle with his national and emotional identities, and I still think that the scene with him and Uhura in the elevator told me the most about him.
3) Kirk. Suggesting a pairing with Uhura as with the original series (yeah I know she kind of ended up hanging out more with Scotty in the movies *shudder*) would have made it very difficult for him to do the whole "girl on every planet" thing without seeming like a total jackass. Which, he doesn't so much do in this movie, but it's indelibly associated with the character in most of our minds and he certainly seems like something of a ladies' man. Secondly, it would have been very hard to write that as anything other than another tired cliche of "guy is a jackass to girl until she sees the light." The fact that Kirk doesn't get the girl he's interested in and instead she chooses Spock is a really subtle way of stopping the film from sliding into the old Manly Man > Actual Smart Person logic of the original series.
So yeah. I thought that was a story decision that not only very nicely yelled out, "Hi, this is a different universe where stuff's similar, but also different," but also improved on all three of the characters it affected.
And, um...I think that's everything?
Obvs, it was also a good adventure story and Karl Urban as Dr McCoy is a THING TO BEHOLD. But I think those were the two things I really wanted to comment on.
GO SEE IT! :)
I was really impressed with the tone of the film. I think they manged to mix the hopeful nature of the franchise with a more modern filming style and narrative while not quite losing the sixties feel. It kind of reminded me of the pseudo-seventies of Superman Returns.
I'll get the biggest "OMG YOU DID IT!" moment out of the way. This film had time travel. So when they destroyed Vulcan, my initial response was to disbelieve that it would actually happen, and my next response was to be genuinely shocked because okay, obviously this is an alternate timeline (I really didn't know much about the movie before I went in; I thought it was just a prequel) but I then spent the rest of the movie just waiting for them to "fix it all" and return us to the "right" history. Which actually worked really well in terms of tension for the end sequence, because I spent the ENTIRE THING really tense cus every time there was a black hole (which, whut? Star Trek: black holes do not work that way, but...whatever, neither does anything else in your science) or red matter or something, I was like, OH THIS IS WHERE IT'LL HAPPEN, DAMN.
(Aside, I had a similar experience in Hancock where I spent the entire end sequence desperately stressed that Mary was going to get refrigerated so that Hancock could be angsty and immortal forever, and then, OMG THEY DIDN'T DO THAT. Which I feel kind of weird about because I dislike having to be stressed by stupid, evil cliches, but at the same time, when you use them in order to increase appreciation for not doing that, perhaps it is well-played.)
So anyway, then it didn't happen and I was like, OMG did they just like, reboot Star Trek kinda? Like, is this Ultimate Star Trek?
I'm sure it'll piss off some people, and since if they did anything like this to Star Wars I would flip out, I do get that. But I really like it. Perhaps it's just that Star Trek has long established the concept of alternate universes so I don't feel like anything else got invalidated, and probably it's also because I don't think Trek has anything like the deliberate coherent cross-media canon that Star Wars cultivates (although I think they were starting to move in that direction), and finally, I'm far less invested in it as a universe because I've always found it kind of bland, but...for me I thought it was awesome and really, really exciting. I totally want to see the next movie.
I do confess I still basically think Kirk's kind of an ass, although I got slightly more of a sense in this that he was supposed to be at least a little (though probably not as much as I thought and certainly when he was all, WE HAVE TO FOLLOW THEM, I was...and do what when you get there, jerk?) But you know, I could deal.
Although I do really wish that the rebooted alternate timeline had included Spock, not Kirk as the captain and Kirk as his first mate like, forever not just for a while. Cus that'd be awesome. SPOCK FOREVER.
Which brings us to Spock. Dude, Zachary Quinto is really, really good in this. I mean, I realised I loved Spock when Kev made me watch Star Trek: the Undiscovered Country and I was like, "ARGH, I will HATE IT," but then it was actually pretty awesome almost entirely because of Old Spock and his Old Man Voice which has only gotten cooler.
Seriously people. That voice. I wish it resided in the body of a hot person. *sigh*
So anyway, Spock and Old Spock were fantastic. Great performances by both and I really felt, more so than the original series or films, that this was a movie equally about Spock. Before, Spock did get a lot of screen time but in a more general sense the character was always important via Kirk, and in this film, I didn't feel that. And I honestly thought he had the most interesting plot and character trajectory.
Something specific that I think helped both with Asshole Kirk and Awesome Spock was what they did with Uhura.
I mean, this franchise needs more girls, frankly, and while I appreciated the fact that they went out of their way to establish a character for Uhura and make her extremely accomplished in her field, she didn't really get that much of a storyline beyond Spock. However, I did really enjoy that storyline.
Firstly I thought the romance was really nicely handled. It was understated and simply existed. It wasn't explained to the audience, and didn't need to be. I loved the scene with them in the elevator and the fact that it wasn't entirely clear that they really were in an official relationship until the scene on the transporter pad. No one turned into an irrational fruitloop. No one was unprofessional. No one got refrigerated. No one was a damsel in distress. It was a really nice background...not even storyline, just fact that significantly improved on three characters:
1) Uhura. While I hope she gets more to do in future films (of which I hope there is at least one, if not many!) I thought this was a nice commentary on her character and temperament, that she would choose a man like Spock, and the way she conducted herself in that situation, in defiance of most cliche romantic tropes.
2) Spock. It further helped to make him a full partner in Headliner Status along with Kirk. I won't say it "humanised" him because I dislike it when they "humanise" Spock. Spock is a being, he exists, he has feelings and he chooses to try and negotiate his emotional experiences with logic which works and fails to work to varying degrees. But it did give us a real chance to see the character in a new and interesting situation - one which we do not usually get to see Spock in, and it was handled with poignancy and understatement. Much of the film was dedicated to Spock's continuing struggle with his national and emotional identities, and I still think that the scene with him and Uhura in the elevator told me the most about him.
3) Kirk. Suggesting a pairing with Uhura as with the original series (yeah I know she kind of ended up hanging out more with Scotty in the movies *shudder*) would have made it very difficult for him to do the whole "girl on every planet" thing without seeming like a total jackass. Which, he doesn't so much do in this movie, but it's indelibly associated with the character in most of our minds and he certainly seems like something of a ladies' man. Secondly, it would have been very hard to write that as anything other than another tired cliche of "guy is a jackass to girl until she sees the light." The fact that Kirk doesn't get the girl he's interested in and instead she chooses Spock is a really subtle way of stopping the film from sliding into the old Manly Man > Actual Smart Person logic of the original series.
So yeah. I thought that was a story decision that not only very nicely yelled out, "Hi, this is a different universe where stuff's similar, but also different," but also improved on all three of the characters it affected.
And, um...I think that's everything?
Obvs, it was also a good adventure story and Karl Urban as Dr McCoy is a THING TO BEHOLD. But I think those were the two things I really wanted to comment on.
GO SEE IT! :)
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no subject
Date: 2009-05-08 08:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-09 04:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-08 09:14 pm (UTC)OMG, no. lie. Despite being a huge Urban fan, I was seriously skeptical about him being McCoy. Bones was always my favorite! But damn if he wasn't made of awesome.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-09 04:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-09 12:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-09 04:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-10 04:34 pm (UTC)Me too. It's been marketed for, what?, two years as a prequel. And the way the commercials were edited I was sure we were going to get as canon that Kirk and Uhura hooked up before they were assigned to Enterprise together and that was always there between them, we just didn't know it, and UGH. But, THANK GOD, they didn't go there. And while I suspect the writers opted to pair Uhura with Spock for shock value, it works awesomely for all the reasons you stated.
Of course, if the film really wanted to push bounderies, in the next film we'd find out that McCoy's marriage fell apart because he's gay and Kirk has been whoring around because he was unwilling to accept the truth about his sexuality and Kirk/McCoy becomes canon. ;)