posted
Exactly. Everyone's bitching about a scene in engineering that lasted about five seconds. When I saw the movie with my dad (who is a smart guy but hardly a ST fan like I am), he never even noticed the beer tanks until I pointed it out to him. Do you know what he said to me? "All you have to do is add a few futuristic gizmos to an ordinary background, and you can get away with it all looking like it's from the future."
Of course, he's apparently never met anyone from the TrekBBS.
Registered: Jun 2000
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posted
Keyboards on the wall? It must be.. The Future! That's all it takes to dupe the average Star Trek fan, but thank the maker it didn't fool the few genuine Trekkies out there. They saw through its lightweight humour, vibrant action and entertainment and noticed it was just a movie out to entertain and make a few bucks.
I think no matter how rabid a trekker you are, you should be happy the movie is as popular as it is. Endlessly picking over the bones of long gone telly series and very spotty movies isb't that popular a hobby as it once was. New life, even if it is a bit different, is better than no life.
-------------------- www.kennyscrap.com - where I download crap I make.
Registered: Jun 2003
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Well the film's popularity is not a reason to like or dislike it. I think many of us are glad that it was popular because it signals that there is still life in one of our favorite franchises and so we will get more trek out of this. I'm not sure anyone is making an argument that this movie was bad only because it was different.
So I enjoyed this movie very much. At the same time I acknowledge that this movie had some serious problems, and shall enumerate them for you here:
I would say chief among my problems with this movie is a dramatic one: The motivation of Nero. Great bad guys make the good guys that much better. What made Khan such an iconic villain? His single-minded need to best Kirk. How did that movie let us know about that? Through numerous references to that very thing, up to and including his Second in command asking (somewhat reluctantly) why with a Starship and Genesis that they needed to get Kirk. It was right there in the movie on the screen for us to watch it and we had a palpable sense of how much Khan hated and resented this man and years of torturous existence had ...blah, blah, yes. We get it. Nero? Not so much. Reading the prequel comic gave me some answers to questions that had been bothering me (ie. Nero's motivations, a mining ship with how many torpedoes?, etc.), but those things weren't in the movie and unfortunately for the movie that means they don't count. And so in the context of the movie Nero is a ranting kill-crazy madman intent on imploding the Federation in his miles-long super-ship. Bond villains get more depth than this. It pains me to say it, but hell, even Shinzon (with his for no apparent reason psychic molester powers) came across as more sympathetic and therefore terrifying. It's especially frustrating having seen what JJ can do with a good bad guy. Alias was by far not my favorite show, but watching Ron Rifkin square off with Victor Garber is still among my favorite things on TV. I love Eric Bana, but I don't think the story let us see into the gearbox of what was driving him to get Spock, to destroy Vulcan, to annihilate the Federation. Anyway, my point is for all the talk of using Genesis to blow up planets, Khan never did that and only scarred-up and crippled an old trainee cruiser. Nero blew up a planet in the second act, shredded a flotilla of Starships and didn't have half Khan's menace.
Kirk should not be bratty. I know it's new. Things are different, but for all his bravado, Kirk still shouldn't be a brat. Arrogant, headstrong, cocky, self-involved? Absolutely. But not a brat. During the Kobayashi Maru test Kirk was a brat. Arguments can be made for some of the other scenes, but his brattiness bugged me. Friends have convinced me that perhaps early brattiness may be later shaped into the unshakable confidence we've come to adore. But I will be ever-vigilant against brattiness.
Another Kirk related sticking point was his preposterous rising through the ranks. Three years? There's "This kid's got the makings of a first rate Starfleet officer," and then there's "Let's give him command of our newest and bestest, giganticest ship, right now, today..." That's crazy pants and no organization as complex and deliberate as Starfleet-- no organization anywhere ever could possibly hope to work this way.
Spock on Uhura: Now maybe this is me getting into "it's different and that's bad territory, but..." I have difficulty accepting that Spock would violate the student-teacher relationship in a smootchy-smootchy way. Now perhaps that was their first kiss and I am just being silly, but their implied relationship--it just goes against what Spock is all about. Flirty? Absolutely. (Plenty of that in TOS), but this seemed much more familiar. I liked the story beat of Kirk not getting the girl. That's funny and even a cute wink to fans of TOS, but young teacher, the subject, of schoolgirl fantasy... Too much. Too MTV.
Transwarp beaming? Very silly, but possibly saved by Simon Pegg's delivery of the description of what that'd be like. "Shooting a bullet with a smaller bullet while riding on horseback, blindfolded..." (or something) For some reason, I think I would have had much less a problem with it had the shuttle taken off after Enterprise.
There were other problems, but my heart's not in it. I camped out to see this movie and have seen it 3 times so far. I'd watch it again and can't wait to get it in HD. Which is to say that for all it's faults, I still found a lot to like in this movie. Great pacing, with exciting stunts and effects. Thought the lens flares were beautiful, and other than the brewery set for one or two short scenes, I loved the production design. I found the humor to be spot on. I look forward to seeing what else they can do with this.
Registered: Sep 2000
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quote:Originally posted by Axeman 3D: I think no matter how rabid a trekker you are, you should be happy the movie is as popular as it is. Endlessly picking over the bones of long gone telly series and very spotty movies isb't that popular a hobby as it once was. New life, even if it is a bit different, is better than no life.
So right. I've had to sit through every armchair quarterback say "Trek need to take a decade off" or "it need a cooling off period" or some such horseshit. I say, yake the new fans, hopefully they'll get intrested in TNG and DS9 and see what it's really all about when it's done right. I also think JJ deserves a break- this was a far better movie than either Nemesis, STV or TMP- for diffrent reasons but true nonetheless.
Buuut.
I own this movie- I've seen it twice- once in the theatre and once at home. I tried a third time to watch it and all the problems came to the forefront and I have not bothered with it since.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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quote:Another Kirk related sticking point was his preposterous rising through the ranks. Three years? There's "This kid's got the makings of a first rate Starfleet officer," and then there's "Let's give him command of our newest and bestest, giganticest ship, right now, today..." That's crazy pants and no organization as complex and deliberate as Starfleet-- no organization anywhere ever could possibly hope to work this way.
Believe it or not, this was the only main sticking point of the movie for me. I could pretty much forgive everything else as just light-hearted fun, but I seriously think the ending stretched credibility.
Pike tells Kirk that he'll graduate the Academy in four years, and could be a captain in eight. As he's boarding the shuttle, he tells Pike he'll do it in three, and we then go on to see Kirk living up to his promise. So far, so good. So he got through in three years. That leaves five years more to get a captainship, according to Pike. So why the hell didin't they just have the tagline "Five Years Later," and promote Kirk from commander to captain, instead of promoting him from cadet to captain? I mean, it was the end of the damn movie! Who cares that five more years would have passed? The same crew could conceivably stay on the Enterprise for five years, and it would have made a hell of a lot more sense. Methinks this should have been a re-write that the strike might not have made possible.
Registered: Jun 2000
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posted
I can't say it was the only sticking point for me, but it was a case of the straw that broke the camels back. I agree that if that ending had made more sense I would have had a more positive outlook on the whole thing, and probably would have felt more forgiving of other issues.
-------------------- The flaws we find most objectionable in others are often those we recognize in ourselves.
Registered: Jun 2001
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Another thing that didn't work in the context of the scene was Pike's promotion to admiral. So he's in command of Starfleet's newest ship for one hour, and he's then suddenly promoted to admiral and has the ship taken away from him by a cadet? Huh? Again, the passage of time here would have made way more sense.
-------------------- "A film made in 2008 isn't going to look like a TV series from 1966 if it wants to make any money. As long as the characters act the same way, and the spirit of the story remains the same then it's "real" Star Trek. Everything else is window dressing." -StCoop
Registered: Jun 2000
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Maybe they felt bad about crippling him when they removed that giant fucking Ceti Eel. "Whoops! well, here's a promotion to a desk job, now that you cant move. Sorry old bean but that was a huge bug you had in your head!"
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
Yes, he got the proverbial gold watch. I thought the wheelchair was a fun touch. Anyone else think it was a reference to old-Pike's black Davrosmobile?
Registered: Aug 1999
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posted
Whether a person posts 5000 times on a Star Trek bulletin board, or just once, that's proof enough that said person has no life.
Buh-bye, and thanks for your stimulating, erudite conversation. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.
Registered: Jun 2000
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quote:You mean I have a life and havent posted 5000 times? I must not have a valid opinion because I spend time away from the computer and this forum...
No, "2 post newbie" means that you don't introduce yourself or give us any way to relate to you, but in the space of two posts you alienate most of the members on this forum by effectively saying that everyone who remotely likes the new movie are sad, deluded people who have no right to call themselves fans, and that by definition you are the real kind of Trekkie others should be compared to. With no prior history here.
Sorry, the correct term should've been "poser".
Registered: Aug 1999
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To be fair: most of the members of this forum are sad and at least somewhat deluded. So I mean maybe he's half right...
I think the heart of the matter is that making bold statements without citing any specific problems does not add a whole lot to the conversation. I do find I'm very curious to hear what issues people have with this movie. I have found Jonah Peregrinus's comments to be especially illuminating.
Registered: Sep 2000
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