drwex | To boldly go (Reply)

Among the notable events this weekend, we managed (finally) to get babysitting and go out to see the new Star Trek movie. If you've blogged your thoughts about it earlier I probably skipped them so as to avoid spoilers. I'd love back-links so I can catch up on peoples' reviews.

The opening bit was brilliant - pure Trek the way it was meant to be. Also very teary. In the preview we heard Pike say that Kirk's father had done these things - getting to see them up close in real time made it much better when that line came around in the movie.

All throughout the movie I found myself oscillating between "but, no!" (sorry, there's just no frelling reason to build a spaceship ON the planet's surface, not least of which is that Star Trek canon has established that the Enterprise-class vessels are not atmosphere-worthy) and "Oh, yes." I think the latter won out in the end because all of the people involved seemed to have a tremendous respect for what made Trek great in the first place.

Yes, the "Star Trek 90210" bit did grate on me somewhat, but I felt they did a good job blending the expectations of the past (Kirk having sex with green-skinned alien women) with at least some attempt to update things. Uhura is the most obvious example of that. The little scene where the cadets are being assigned to ships and she TELLS Spock in no uncertain terms what's going to happen and he just does it - whoof!

I'm too lazy to track down references this AM, but I have a recollection that Nimoy/Nichols' kiss was the first interracial kiss ever shown in a prime-time series and I appreciated that the movie-makers wanted to play up that relationship. ETA: commenters corrected me on that one. I should be less lazy. I still stand by the rest of the 'graph...

In the show it seemed to come out of nowhere; in the movie it's clearly a long-standing and fierce affection which really helps the bit where Spock's father confesses that he married Spock's mother because he loved her. It felt to me that the movie-makers were aware of how much work they needed to do to lift Trek out of its 1960s cultural context and into the current one. (Though I thought the Beastie Boys track was immensely unnecessary pandering.)

Yes, the movie had a plot, of sorts. Mostly it seemed to be an excuse to introduce the new characters and new reality, as well as ladle in doses of in jokes and references that original-Trek fans would get and love. When Admiral Pike came out in a wheelchair I really felt like the movie was made for people like me, "90210"-ism aside. The plot doesn't hold up to any real scrutiny, so I won't try. The makers needed to do a hard reset on the whole Trek universe in order to have the freedom to go in their own directions, and they did that. Again I found myself willing to let a lot of 'plot wrong' go because I was appreciating seeing those characters again. I'll probably be much more critical of the next movie (and I bet there will be more) but this one gets an almost-free pass for getting the universe itself right.

Finally, Nimoy-Spock remains a class act. I loved his appearance and his fitting in with the flow. Plus, you know, more references and in jokes to appreciate.