Dixon Carter Lee
Headliner
- Joined
- Nov 22, 1999
- Posts
- 48,682
THE GOOD
Gorgeous to look at. Abrams did more with one static shot of the Enterprise than Robert Wise did with the 10 minute back rub he gave it in "The Motion Picture". Vulcan finally doesn't look like a matte painting or Arizona with a red filter. Engineering finally looks the appropriate size for a Starship. Space is a cold, scary, silent, far away place. And Uhura has nice tits.
The old characters are brought to life nicely. McCoy's cadence is dead on. Kirk's arrogance and circumspect take on the universe is intact. Spock is nicely layered. Sulu, Chekov and Scotty are the young turks. And Uhura has nice tits.
Kirk actually beds a green chick! Talk about your cliches coming true. Abrams plays it nicely by keeping the lights off until the green chick's roommate (Uhura) comes into the room, turns the lights on, and you can see she's green. Then Kirk hides under the bed and watches Uhura get undressed. And Uhura has nice tits.
The music is pretty good. And, like Kubric and others who have tried to do something interesting with space, they set great themes against, futuristic floating hardware, and it sticks.
This Enterprise has heft. It's not a big shiny model, or a kitschy flat CGI painting. It feels heavy. It crackles and pulses with energy. A scary kind of other-worldly energy. The Transporters snarl and whirl like electrified tornadoes. It flies in three dimensions. (There is no "up"). It pops in and out of warp like the Goddamned, mother-fucking Millennium Falcon, whipping to a stop like an Indy Car pulling into the Pits. The Interior is enormous, and crowded -- I'm pretty sure they're hiding the Ark of the Covenant down there somewhere.
By the end we see the beginnings of a great Kirk and Spock working relationship. It takes time to get there -- but we get there.
THE BAD
Star Trek has lost what made it Star Trek -- the Utopian future in which we play out contemporary morality plays as we explore the nature of human existence. The ultimate Hero's Journey. Gone is Space as the Final Frontier, with all that the word "Frontier" brings to the table - exploration, discovery, an awakening of primal gifts, the expansion of culture, of the mind, the testing of the soul, of the body, of the character. Now it's Space Opera. Gone is "The Human Adventure". Now it's Battleship Gigantica, phasers on kill!
Nimoy has portrayed two Spocks. There's the Spock before "Wrath of Khan" -- cool, smart, strong, wise, the best First Officer in Star Fleet, and light years ahead of everyone else in the room. Then there's the second Spock, the one after "Khan" (after his resurrection), who is a little dumb and childlike, naive, and always a step behind everyone, the one who swims with whales, and is jut a little silly. That's the one we get from Nimoy here. Too bad. I miss Spock.
Scotty has a little alien teddy bear pal supposedly around for comic relief. Abrams should have listened to a character in his other project, "Lost". As Hurley said a couple of weeks ago "The Ewoks suck, dude."
THE SPOILERS
As expected, the "alternate reality" thing is both liberating (for future movies) and infuriating (no Talos IV? Aw.) It's also too painful. Kirk loses a father he was never supposed to lose. And not only does Spock lose a mother -- he loses a whole fucking planet. No matter how much you kill the bad guy, if he does that much damage to you, he wins, not you. That's a mistake of the screenplay.
Nero isn't interesting enough. His motive seems dumb -- blaming Spock for something he clearly didn't do. And then to wait around in the past for 25 years (you'll understand when you see the film) until Spock arrives -- ?? Geez, after 25 years don't you calm the fuck down a little and see things straight? And what did this giant ship do for 25 years while it hid from The Federation and The Romulans and The Klingons and everyone else? Cruise around, looking for good sushi? It's not well thought out by the screenwriters, and it shows.
AND FINALLY
Can someone tell Kirk that in the future they have this thing called "The Internet"? He spends the whole movie trying to get Uhura's first name. It's, like, so hard to find out. Do they not have Google in the 23rd century? (By the way, Uhura's first name is -- who cares? Uhura has nice tits.)
Gorgeous to look at. Abrams did more with one static shot of the Enterprise than Robert Wise did with the 10 minute back rub he gave it in "The Motion Picture". Vulcan finally doesn't look like a matte painting or Arizona with a red filter. Engineering finally looks the appropriate size for a Starship. Space is a cold, scary, silent, far away place. And Uhura has nice tits.
The old characters are brought to life nicely. McCoy's cadence is dead on. Kirk's arrogance and circumspect take on the universe is intact. Spock is nicely layered. Sulu, Chekov and Scotty are the young turks. And Uhura has nice tits.
Kirk actually beds a green chick! Talk about your cliches coming true. Abrams plays it nicely by keeping the lights off until the green chick's roommate (Uhura) comes into the room, turns the lights on, and you can see she's green. Then Kirk hides under the bed and watches Uhura get undressed. And Uhura has nice tits.
The music is pretty good. And, like Kubric and others who have tried to do something interesting with space, they set great themes against, futuristic floating hardware, and it sticks.
This Enterprise has heft. It's not a big shiny model, or a kitschy flat CGI painting. It feels heavy. It crackles and pulses with energy. A scary kind of other-worldly energy. The Transporters snarl and whirl like electrified tornadoes. It flies in three dimensions. (There is no "up"). It pops in and out of warp like the Goddamned, mother-fucking Millennium Falcon, whipping to a stop like an Indy Car pulling into the Pits. The Interior is enormous, and crowded -- I'm pretty sure they're hiding the Ark of the Covenant down there somewhere.
By the end we see the beginnings of a great Kirk and Spock working relationship. It takes time to get there -- but we get there.
THE BAD
Star Trek has lost what made it Star Trek -- the Utopian future in which we play out contemporary morality plays as we explore the nature of human existence. The ultimate Hero's Journey. Gone is Space as the Final Frontier, with all that the word "Frontier" brings to the table - exploration, discovery, an awakening of primal gifts, the expansion of culture, of the mind, the testing of the soul, of the body, of the character. Now it's Space Opera. Gone is "The Human Adventure". Now it's Battleship Gigantica, phasers on kill!
Nimoy has portrayed two Spocks. There's the Spock before "Wrath of Khan" -- cool, smart, strong, wise, the best First Officer in Star Fleet, and light years ahead of everyone else in the room. Then there's the second Spock, the one after "Khan" (after his resurrection), who is a little dumb and childlike, naive, and always a step behind everyone, the one who swims with whales, and is jut a little silly. That's the one we get from Nimoy here. Too bad. I miss Spock.
Scotty has a little alien teddy bear pal supposedly around for comic relief. Abrams should have listened to a character in his other project, "Lost". As Hurley said a couple of weeks ago "The Ewoks suck, dude."
THE SPOILERS
As expected, the "alternate reality" thing is both liberating (for future movies) and infuriating (no Talos IV? Aw.) It's also too painful. Kirk loses a father he was never supposed to lose. And not only does Spock lose a mother -- he loses a whole fucking planet. No matter how much you kill the bad guy, if he does that much damage to you, he wins, not you. That's a mistake of the screenplay.
Nero isn't interesting enough. His motive seems dumb -- blaming Spock for something he clearly didn't do. And then to wait around in the past for 25 years (you'll understand when you see the film) until Spock arrives -- ?? Geez, after 25 years don't you calm the fuck down a little and see things straight? And what did this giant ship do for 25 years while it hid from The Federation and The Romulans and The Klingons and everyone else? Cruise around, looking for good sushi? It's not well thought out by the screenwriters, and it shows.
AND FINALLY
Can someone tell Kirk that in the future they have this thing called "The Internet"? He spends the whole movie trying to get Uhura's first name. It's, like, so hard to find out. Do they not have Google in the 23rd century? (By the way, Uhura's first name is -- who cares? Uhura has nice tits.)
