![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivendellroseSaw the new Star Trek movie last night Friday. I am pleased to say that it was the best ever, IMHO, and that the fandom of my childhood is back and out of its nasty little funk of late. Woooo.
There are, naturally, SPOILERS for the movie in this cut. :D
Typical of Abrams, from what I know of him, to start from a place of "no, seriously, what the fuck is going on here?" I was sooooo confused for the first few minutes of the movie. I got as far as "okay, the Romulans have definitely got more interesting ship-design than they used to, and there's Nero (...*snerk* - the Classics geek in me cannot be unamused by seeing Eric Bana playing a Romulan named Nero when the last thing I saw him as was Hector. This was probably infinitely funnier to me since I just finished reading Ursula LeGuin's beautiful pastiche on the Aeneid. Anyway.)
I admit that I had completely forgotten whether or not Kirk's father was supposed to live into his adulthood, so the fact that this was the beginning of the AU was completely lost on me. I didn't really catch onto the AU thing until all the way into the bit with Vulcan, wherein I was feeling quietly smug that I knew what most of my friends didn't - there was no fear of them killing Amanda and Sarek! After all, we've seen them both in the series! Ahem. Yeah, I felt a bit dumb (and a bit shell-shocked) when it became clear that, no, that's the whole point - Amanda can die here, and all of Vulcan can be destroyed. Big change. (Side note - I barely recognized Winona Ryder as Amanda, it's been so long since I've seen her in something, but she did a beautiful job! And I'm not sure who the fellow they got to play Sarek was, but he was a suitable replacement for Marc Leonard. And no, I don't know how I still remember the name of the actor who played Spock's father, but I do. Obviously my brain at some point decided to give priority of place to random actors' names over silly little things like, y'know, everything I learned in my AP US History class. Because obviously I wouldn't ever need that again. :P
Aaaanyway. Speaking of the original actors.... can I just say that I nearly died of joy when adorable old Leonard Nimoy finally showed up? And I nearly cried at the end, when they gave him the honor of the traditional voice-over. Not quite, but by that point I was pretty well sapped up. Little bit of a nostalgia overload. ;)
The new actors were quite good, too, of course. Simon Pegg was as awesome as I'd expected him to be (and I don't think Abrams played Scotty for too much comic relief - goodness knows we needed some relief in the movie, and everybody got their little share of it. If Scotty had more than most, I think that's fair given that he was being played by a man who can definitely pull it. Anyway, maybe my memory's playing tricks on me, but I seem to recall Mr Scot getting his fair share of comedy in the original, so... no complaints here from me. The water tube thing was a bit lame, but... whatever. My only real complaint in this area was the little rock-monster-alien. Star Trek does not need its own crappy Ewok knock-off, thank you. If Abrams will let this one go for future movies, I will be well pleased.
Zoe Saldana (I may be misspelling her name, in which case I apologize) was lovely, poised, and did a great job, I think, of both paying homage to the original Uhura without being limited by her portrayal. I had a little squee that our lady of communications is now an expert xeno-linguist... and also that she wasn't having with any of Kirk's shit from day one. ;) Her part was small, but no smaller than, say, McCoy, so I have no complaints on this subject.
Karl Urban has just redeemed himself entirely, in my mind, for certain dubious movies he's done in the recent past. Much as I like the guy, I was a little unsure of his ability to play McCoy, but he came through in spades. ♥ I have a feeling McCoy will be jumping with Scotty and Uhura to the top of my "favorites" list for this new cast.
I... did not dislike Chris Pine's Kirk nearly as much as I always have Shatner's. That's about all I can say. He's still not the kind of character I like, and I don't think he ever will be, but I did empathize with him... while also laughing my head off as he was chased by big scary monsters. So yeah. He can stay, I like him well enough, and that's the end of it. Good job on the acting and all, I'm just... iffy about Kirk.
And that's where my cast-round-up gets a bit... shady. I'm torn on the subject of Spock. On the one hand, Quinto was... not bad. That said, I think that there's a sense in which, as much as I would have not enjoyed the movie half as much without him, I think it was a bit stupid to show Quinto and Nimoy in the same movie playing the same part. Spock is enough of an iconic and beloved character to begin with that there was always the possibility of people (...probably like me...) not being welcoming to the idea of him being recast. For me, seeing him together with Nimoy was something like the kiss of death for my ability to regard Quinto as Spock. It's entirely subconscious, but it's true - once I saw (...and heard!) the genuine article, it was clear to my mind that Quinto's not Spock. He bears a striking resemblance. He puts in a lot of effort trying to carry off the same gravitas and dry humor. He goes into a fit of rage. Aaaand... I just didn't care. I honestly could not tell you if the defect was actually in Quinto's acting or not (The Boy insists that it was Quinto, but he's feeling bitter about the end of the last season of Heroes, so he's not exactly well-disposed toward him right now, either, despite not having the background I have with Star Trek), or if it was just that my poor little heart gets thrown right back into the throes of pre-adolescent crush the minute I hear Leonard Nimoy's voice. ♥ So... I guess I'm reserving judgment. I was not pleased this time over, but I loved everything else well enough that I'll give him another chance in the next movie.
It feels really weird to say that, after the last few movies. I hated Insurrection, and I refuse to this day to even see Nemesis. But I'll almost certainly buy the new movie when it comes out, might even see it again before it leaves theaters, and I'm quite excited for the next one! Talk about a successful restart on the franchise.
(Note to Paramount: Do not think this gives you the right to start putting out crap again. If you go the way of George Lucas again, again I shall disown you. You've way past burned out your loyalty points with me, and this one movie only gives you enough credit to give it another shot. :P)
There was only one product placement that I noticed (Nokia, first ten minutes of the movie when young!Kirk is stealing his stepfather's (?) car), which... make me nervous, but then I was deeply relieved that no others showed up. I have a semi-irrational hatred of product-placement.
Also, randomly - I just want to note that there were no half-naked dancing girls in this movie. You know why? Because the only Orion slave-girl we saw? Was not a slave-girl. She was a student at Starfleet Academy. ♥ That made me happy.
Also - in reference to Uhura and Spock's kiss. I've always suspected. I cannot tell you how smug I felt when that happened. Very cute.
Oh, and the previews were a total bust. And I'm including my moment of unwilling "squee!" when I heard Christopher Eccleston's voice in the GI Joe trailer in that. That was embarrassing, that was. It just... caught me off-guard, that's all. And his voice is really sexy.
There are, naturally, SPOILERS for the movie in this cut. :D
Typical of Abrams, from what I know of him, to start from a place of "no, seriously, what the fuck is going on here?" I was sooooo confused for the first few minutes of the movie. I got as far as "okay, the Romulans have definitely got more interesting ship-design than they used to, and there's Nero (...*snerk* - the Classics geek in me cannot be unamused by seeing Eric Bana playing a Romulan named Nero when the last thing I saw him as was Hector. This was probably infinitely funnier to me since I just finished reading Ursula LeGuin's beautiful pastiche on the Aeneid. Anyway.)
I admit that I had completely forgotten whether or not Kirk's father was supposed to live into his adulthood, so the fact that this was the beginning of the AU was completely lost on me. I didn't really catch onto the AU thing until all the way into the bit with Vulcan, wherein I was feeling quietly smug that I knew what most of my friends didn't - there was no fear of them killing Amanda and Sarek! After all, we've seen them both in the series! Ahem. Yeah, I felt a bit dumb (and a bit shell-shocked) when it became clear that, no, that's the whole point - Amanda can die here, and all of Vulcan can be destroyed. Big change. (Side note - I barely recognized Winona Ryder as Amanda, it's been so long since I've seen her in something, but she did a beautiful job! And I'm not sure who the fellow they got to play Sarek was, but he was a suitable replacement for Marc Leonard. And no, I don't know how I still remember the name of the actor who played Spock's father, but I do. Obviously my brain at some point decided to give priority of place to random actors' names over silly little things like, y'know, everything I learned in my AP US History class. Because obviously I wouldn't ever need that again. :P
Aaaanyway. Speaking of the original actors.... can I just say that I nearly died of joy when adorable old Leonard Nimoy finally showed up? And I nearly cried at the end, when they gave him the honor of the traditional voice-over. Not quite, but by that point I was pretty well sapped up. Little bit of a nostalgia overload. ;)
The new actors were quite good, too, of course. Simon Pegg was as awesome as I'd expected him to be (and I don't think Abrams played Scotty for too much comic relief - goodness knows we needed some relief in the movie, and everybody got their little share of it. If Scotty had more than most, I think that's fair given that he was being played by a man who can definitely pull it. Anyway, maybe my memory's playing tricks on me, but I seem to recall Mr Scot getting his fair share of comedy in the original, so... no complaints here from me. The water tube thing was a bit lame, but... whatever. My only real complaint in this area was the little rock-monster-alien. Star Trek does not need its own crappy Ewok knock-off, thank you. If Abrams will let this one go for future movies, I will be well pleased.
Zoe Saldana (I may be misspelling her name, in which case I apologize) was lovely, poised, and did a great job, I think, of both paying homage to the original Uhura without being limited by her portrayal. I had a little squee that our lady of communications is now an expert xeno-linguist... and also that she wasn't having with any of Kirk's shit from day one. ;) Her part was small, but no smaller than, say, McCoy, so I have no complaints on this subject.
Karl Urban has just redeemed himself entirely, in my mind, for certain dubious movies he's done in the recent past. Much as I like the guy, I was a little unsure of his ability to play McCoy, but he came through in spades. ♥ I have a feeling McCoy will be jumping with Scotty and Uhura to the top of my "favorites" list for this new cast.
I... did not dislike Chris Pine's Kirk nearly as much as I always have Shatner's. That's about all I can say. He's still not the kind of character I like, and I don't think he ever will be, but I did empathize with him... while also laughing my head off as he was chased by big scary monsters. So yeah. He can stay, I like him well enough, and that's the end of it. Good job on the acting and all, I'm just... iffy about Kirk.
And that's where my cast-round-up gets a bit... shady. I'm torn on the subject of Spock. On the one hand, Quinto was... not bad. That said, I think that there's a sense in which, as much as I would have not enjoyed the movie half as much without him, I think it was a bit stupid to show Quinto and Nimoy in the same movie playing the same part. Spock is enough of an iconic and beloved character to begin with that there was always the possibility of people (...probably like me...) not being welcoming to the idea of him being recast. For me, seeing him together with Nimoy was something like the kiss of death for my ability to regard Quinto as Spock. It's entirely subconscious, but it's true - once I saw (...and heard!) the genuine article, it was clear to my mind that Quinto's not Spock. He bears a striking resemblance. He puts in a lot of effort trying to carry off the same gravitas and dry humor. He goes into a fit of rage. Aaaand... I just didn't care. I honestly could not tell you if the defect was actually in Quinto's acting or not (The Boy insists that it was Quinto, but he's feeling bitter about the end of the last season of Heroes, so he's not exactly well-disposed toward him right now, either, despite not having the background I have with Star Trek), or if it was just that my poor little heart gets thrown right back into the throes of pre-adolescent crush the minute I hear Leonard Nimoy's voice. ♥ So... I guess I'm reserving judgment. I was not pleased this time over, but I loved everything else well enough that I'll give him another chance in the next movie.
It feels really weird to say that, after the last few movies. I hated Insurrection, and I refuse to this day to even see Nemesis. But I'll almost certainly buy the new movie when it comes out, might even see it again before it leaves theaters, and I'm quite excited for the next one! Talk about a successful restart on the franchise.
(Note to Paramount: Do not think this gives you the right to start putting out crap again. If you go the way of George Lucas again, again I shall disown you. You've way past burned out your loyalty points with me, and this one movie only gives you enough credit to give it another shot. :P)
There was only one product placement that I noticed (Nokia, first ten minutes of the movie when young!Kirk is stealing his stepfather's (?) car), which... make me nervous, but then I was deeply relieved that no others showed up. I have a semi-irrational hatred of product-placement.
Also, randomly - I just want to note that there were no half-naked dancing girls in this movie. You know why? Because the only Orion slave-girl we saw? Was not a slave-girl. She was a student at Starfleet Academy. ♥ That made me happy.
Also - in reference to Uhura and Spock's kiss. I've always suspected. I cannot tell you how smug I felt when that happened. Very cute.
Oh, and the previews were a total bust. And I'm including my moment of unwilling "squee!" when I heard Christopher Eccleston's voice in the GI Joe trailer in that. That was embarrassing, that was. It just... caught me off-guard, that's all. And his voice is really sexy.
