Star Trek thoughts, round two

[swan_tower]

Since I was going to a Yoshida Brothers concert up in the city this evening, and kniedzw was going to the city for an IMAX showing of Star Trek with his co-workers in the late afternoon, I decided I might as well tag along and see what the space dive looks like when projected on a ginormous screen.

(Pretty good. Makes me wanna take up skydiving.)

Anyway, this is the post where I spoil like a spoilery thing, so I'll cut-tag again.


Bad things first, as is often my habit.

First of all, the science was phenomenally bad. Yeah, nobody watches Star Trek for the science (thanks to sovay for the link), and no doubt there's worse out there in the cumulative hours and pages of shows, movies, and books, but geez. I can forgive the space drill, but "red matter"? Those black holes? And there were definitely some logical holes in the plot.

Second, I could have done with just a hair less of shiny! colorful! action! The three scenes I'm thinking of particularly are 1) Kirk's youthful joyride (I found Spock's childhood scenes far more compelling), 2) the random snow-monsters that unfortunately recalled The Phantom Menace, and 3) Scotty in the water tube (though it did give him a couple of fun lines later).

And third -- this being the only one that really bothered me -- the destruction of planets with all their inhabitants en suite was just used too casually for my taste. Sure, it's a nice flashing neon sign informing viewers that the reboot reserves the right to change ANYTHING WHATSOEVER, but it didn't come across as nearly enough of a mind-shattering disaster.

The first two, I'm happy to skate over if the rest of the film entertains me enough (which it did). The third is more of a problem. Still, much to be happy about.

I think what impressed me the most is the decision to write the reboot into the narrative. There is an in-story, in-world reason why things will look familiar but not necessarily be the same. That's quite clever, and different from the approach taken by (say) the remakers of Batman and Bond.

And it had some interesting consequence, the most notable of which -- to me, anyway -- was the marginalizing of Kirk within the narrative. I think I particularly realized it when Uhura kissed Spock before they beamed onto the Romulan ship, but I'd accumulated niggling thoughts about it along the way: Spock being acting captain in Pike's absence, the way Nero's revenge was focused on him . . . if I'd come to this with zero knowledge of Star Trek, I almost would have thought Spock was the main character. Kirk isn't the center of this particular universe, which (as per my previous post) gives him lots of room to grow.

It also gives the people around him more chance to shine. Spock obviously gets a lot of attention, but I very much appreciated the way all the big secondaries from the original continuity got their moments of awesomeness. Chekhov probably wins the award for most adorable badassery (I giggle when he goes zooming down the corridor shouting "I can do this! I can do this!"), but Bones chasing Kirk around with injections, Scotty with the warping, Sulu on top of the space drill -- Uhura was, sadly, the only one who didn't get a really great moment along those lines, her contributions never quite rising to the level of "stand aside, folks; this is what I do." But she was interesting enough in other ways that I'm mostly okay with it.

Being not a big fan of the original series and movies, I can't judge the performances against their models the way a lot of people have been doing, but I liked them all a great deal. On a second viewing, I think I was the most impressed with Chris Pine, perhaps because my expectations for him started so low: I've never thought a whole lot of Kirk, and Pine seemed likely to be a pretty face cast in a moderately stereotypical role, such that my interest would mostly be on the people around him. But he's got a way of inflecting his lines such that his delivery isn't what my brain supplies from its database of How Heroes Talk, and that's always good. This is a Kirk I'm actually interested in. I can read a certain amount of what he's doing as posing, and that means I can read layers into him, which I never did with Shatner.

And, of course, lots of fun nods to the history of the franchise. My favorite was probably Engineer Olson; the instant Pike named him off as the third member of the sabotage party, my brain glossed him as Ensign Ricky -- and then he showed up in a red dive suit! Everybody got their famous line ("Dammit, I'm a doctor, not a physicist," "I'm giving her all she's got!," and my favorite, "Live long and prosper," because Spock manages to sound perfectly pleasant while also somehow making it translate to "Go to hell"). Maximum warp, phasers set on stun, all the characteristic motifs of Star Trek.

So what's my take-away? I'm glad this did well enough that they'll be making a second movie and might be able to launch a new TV series, and I'm curious to see where they go with it. Like Casino Royale, Batman Begins, and the first X-Men movie, this has done the work of setting everything up; hopefully, like those franchises, it will be followed by a second installment that can move onto newer, more substantial things. Now that all the characters have said their famous lines, and gotten fans excited by doing so, we can flesh them out more. Take Uhura farther (even -- gasp -- introduce a second important female character), complicate Starfleet and the Federation, play with the dynamic and growing friendship between Kirk and Spock. Any first installment of a reboot seems inevitably weighed down a bit by the past, but its job is to be fresh enough that there's momentum to move on. They have that now, and I hope they don't waste it.

Comments

[wadam.livejournal.com]

I saw it again yesterday, and all I can think now was: those poor miners.

That said, I agree with you about just about everything here, but feel that I liked it a lot less than you did. I had a hard time getting past the science. And I really really don't like Chris Pine. But overall, I think that there was more good than bad, and as you say: I'm excited to see how this develops in slightly more substantive directions in future movies.

[beccastareyes]

I'm an astronomer, and went to the movie with about thirty of my closest friends from the department. Most of us had a great time, while rolling our eyes at the science. I'm used to Trek disguising its corny science with a little more trek-nobabble and subspace whatsits.

(Okay, I did have to say something to the Martian geologist sitting next to me at the Saturn shots, because the movie's science adviser is the lead of the Imaging Team on Cassini, and she had her advice partially ignored there. It was still a gorgeous shot, though.)

[(Anonymous)]

I'd agree with most of the things you said.

Of the problems you mentioned the things I'd agree with the most are, yes the science was pretty iffy. However, this is also from the universe where just about any problem can be solved by realigning the main deflector dish to emit and inverse tachyon pulse so. . .

It was kind of a bummer that Uhura didn't get to do anything super cool, especially because they established that she was a super linguistics ninja, but they didn't actually let her do anything super cool with her linguistics ninjatude.

I didn't really think about it until you mentioned it but, yeah the destruction of and entire planet and therefore almost an entire race wasn't really handled with the gravity that it should have been.

I think my favorite thing about the movie though was that they rewrote the continuity from within the universe, it was an extremely smart move that I did not expect at all. It's also kinda' hard to go wrong with space sky diving.

If they make another one I'll definitely go see it.

Tony

[akashiver.livejournal.com]

Thanks for pointing out that Kirk was no longer the center of the ST universe. I'd noticed the focus on Spock, of course, but I hadn't thought about how that was a deviation from previous ST ventures. Kirk does becoem a little more interesting when it's not all about him, and I do think Pine did a great job. Going into this film, I was fully prepared to love Spock and secretly dislike Kirk; leaving it, I love Spock and like Kirk. That's a small triumph of acting and writing.

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

The science was egregious (I noted that Roger Ebert gives more signs of knowing science than the entire Star Trek franchise) but... Trek is fantasy; I have less forgiveness for the plot holes. People should make sense even if the universe doesn't.

I realized last night the movie only barely passes Bechdel's Test (brief conversation between Uhura and her Orion roommate about her work, which clues Kirk in); akashiver and I disagree about whether that matters.

[c0untmystars.livejournal.com]

My friends and I laughed really hard over the "red matter" partly because it's ridiculous but mostly because the Giant Red Ball of Doom is something JJ Abrams used on Alias. The almost-excessive amounts of action and some of the visuals they used were also really Alias-influenced... I could have done with more quieter moments.

And as soon as the monster appeared in the snow I wondered, "WTF, are they on Hoth?" From what I've read JJ Abrams was a Star Wars fan in his youth rather than a Trekkie so it struck me that he used several really strong Star Wars-style visuals, when the cadets were all queuing to get into the ships and then when the one guy dangles Kirk over the precipice Darth Vader-style.

[jc-alford.livejournal.com]

Ditto on most of the comments in this thread, especially the action sequences. I couldn't help but think "insert obligatory action moment" when Kirk's on the snow/ice planet (is there an action quota for summer blockbusters?), and I too had an Empire Strikes Back Moment; even Kirk's outfit echoed Luke's.

Secondary characters need more development, though it's understandable why they couldn't do it in this film. I don't need Uhura do be "badass" per se, but I want a well rounded, interesting character with emotional complexity and an identity that's her own. Another female would be great, but not if it's to add more window dressing; do something with the one you have first. I wonder if they will go the love triangle route.

I was upset with the destruction of Vulcan and it's casual treatment. Since the science is bad anyway, part of me hopes they'll somehow "fix" it, though I doubt it.

While it's true the plot focuses on Spock, I still thought of Kirk as the main character. Or rather, I thought of the two as equals. Spock was more compelling with his family, planet, Uhura, etc., but I too was surprised at how much I liked Kirk since usually Kirk is...Kirk.

Overall, the movie was genuinely entertaining and I look forward to where this universe will take us.