Posted on 05/10/2009 12:14:38 PM PDT by pabianice
Edited on 05/10/2009 3:43:21 PM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
My wife and I saw the new Star Trek movie today. It is a long, very loud, two-dimensional, inadvertent look at what we as a society have lost in the past 40 years.
SPOILERS ***********************************************
The good news is that the FX and production are state-of-the-art. The bad news is that the plot is embarrassingly stupid and retro, the acting ranges from good to awful, and the production as a whole is one huge rock video. On top of that, the movie is so horribly loud that the audience had to block its ears several times.
J.J. Abrams, the man behind the incoherent "Lost," is the man behind this film, and it shows. Just as "Lost" long ago lost any semblance of sanity, his Star Trek is all about "updating the story." In the process of "updating," he has lost the bubble (as we Navy fliers say).
In touch with the contemporary 18-35 year old ethos, Abram's Kirk is a misunderstood genius who brawls and [expletive deleted by Mod] his way into his 20s, clearly not appreciated for what he is. He goes to Star Fleet Academy as an after-thought, challenged by a Star Fleet officer to do something worthwhile. Abrams rewrites and otherwise disregards the Trek canon at will to help support his thin as tissue rewrite of the Kirk-Spock legend. After all, today’s film-makers can’t be expected to actually be coherent over time. Do not expect anything in this film to gel with what has been told about Trek in the past 40 years; we are told that meddling with the time line has changed what we know to have been the case. What a lazy, dishonest way out.
The simple fact is that the original Trek was clasped to the bosom of the first fans because: (1) the stories were entertaining; (2) the acting was excellent (give William Shatner credit – why he has been vilified since is a discredit to a very fine actor; (3) the writing was largely imaginative, thanks to scripts from some of the greatest scifi writers of the 20th century; (4) given a meager budget, the show still looked good; and (5) teenaged boys who could not get dates adopted Trek like a starving man grasps a pizza.
The Trek saga had shown its age recently after Star Trek 10 cratered and there seemed to be nothing left for Trek to say. Paramount’s old cash cow needed to be put to sleep or somehow redone. Enter Abrams and a boat-load of new actors raised in the era of Grand Theft Auto IV and Madonna videos. The best-known actor in the new Trek (aside from Leonard Nimoy, who reprises Spock as a 200-year-old) is Zachary Quinto – the creepy character Syler from “Heroes,” which has been disintegrating for two years thanks to lack of plot). The rest of the cast are handsome/beautiful actors and actresses who are forced by the script to “re-imagine” the original characters. And this effort is largely disastrously bad. Perhaps the only successful one is Carl Urban, who does an excellent job of recreating Dr. McCoy in a younger version just the way we in the audience might have imagined (although in this version McCoy is also a graduate of Star Fleet Academy, unlike the original story line). The rest of the characters are pure Abrams: louder-than-life empty suits. Uhura is reduced to the love slave of young Spock (!) An Orion slave girl is now a Star Fleet cadet, bedding every other cadet she can find (very liberated). The new Kirk – Chris Pine – has the thankless task of trying to channel Shatner, a task he is clearly not up to. Instead, we see Kirk as a hot-headed, ready-fire-aim loose cannon.
The command architecture of the new “Enterprise” makes no sense, either military or literary, with the captain inexplicably making Officer Candidate Kirk the XO during Kirk’s first space mission, which he attends only through fraud. All the characters of the original Trek are made contemporaries in this re-telling and its hurts both story line and common sense. There is non-stop action (see: “video games”) but the audience is left unsatisfied since none of the characters are presented as more than two-dimensional cut-outs, with the names of familiar characters but no depth. You just don’t give a crap about any of them. The fighting scenes are ridiculous, with multiple killing blows given characters who suffer only a split lip(is it me or are today’s younger people such couch potatoes that they have never sparred in a dojo and are clueless about what being beaten senseless really does to someone?). So, after multiple beatings and phaser hits and jumps from 40 feet that do no damage to the people involved, the audience has been largely desensitized to what has occurred on-screen.
As the movie passes two hours and I was thinking strongly of a bathroom break, the story ends on an Alice And Wonderland plane. The new Kirk, having won the day through impossible fighting skill, genius IQ, daring good looks, and sheer force of will, is promoted from Cadet (E-2) to Captain (O-6) and given command of Enterprise. I couldn’t help myself – I burst-out laughing. Abrams – impatient with how the real world works and a child of I Want It Now! – simply discards any sense of reality and ends this story with Kirk in command of Enterprise without having had to bother with inconveniences like advancing through the ranks by proving competence and maturity and receiving the endorsement of his superiors – a process which actually take 21-22 years in the real military. Presto! We have Jimmy Kirk, boy genius, in command. This may seems fine in Abram’s world of Hollywood dementia, but all it did was make the audience at this showing laugh.
The rest of the plot is a re-telling of The Wrath of Khan. Ricardo Montelban had more dramatic flair in one finger than the current bad-guy actor (Eric Bana) has in his entire body. He’s a menacing as your junior high school guidance counselor.
In a broader sense, this movie shows what we have lost. Look at Flight of the Phoenix. The 1965 film with Jimmy Stewart, Richard Attenborough, Hardy Kreuger, Ernest Borgnine, et all, is gripping story-telling. The 2004 remake is hideously bad, with non-dimensional characters and an awful script yukking it up in a tale of desert survival. Today’s audiences don’t know the difference. Today’s audiences don’t know the difference between a qualified, patriotic presidential candidate and an empty suit who really shows his hatred for his own country.
Apace, the new Star Trek dumbs-down Trek to the 12-year-old level and leaves the viewer bored and with an ear-ache. The first sequel is due out in 2011.
Other stuff:
Why is the Federation fleet so always tactically inept?
If you can deliver three cadets via “space diving” to a drill head, why can't you deliver three smart bombs, or the future equivalent thereof?
And why isn't your boarding party heavily armed?
And why don't phasers have lanyards?
If you are using a risky means of delivering troops to a small target (like “space diving”), why don't you spread the mission-critical equipment between the boarding party members so that any one or two them can accomplish the mission? (Also why don't you just shoot the cable or drill head with your phasers - it worked for Spock...)
If you're going to beam on to an enemy ship why don't you take a BIG party equipped with all sorts of nifty future mayhem, so that you can lay waste their ship and crew while rescuing the hostage?
Why did the Vulcan Science Academy send the entire blob of “Red Matter” with Spock, instead of one or two primed “devices.”
And why didn't Spock jettison the stuff before he was captured?
Anyway, I got in a lot of trouble bringing this up with my wife...
BTW: I was raised on first-run, first generation Star Trek and liked it to the point of fighting for a later bedtime just to watch it...
Off the screen stuff - Got this from a well informed fan.
Nero is apparently the most competent sapient in the known universe:
He got the technology to turn his humble mining vessel into a super-dreadnought by stealing it from the Borg.
He spent some or most of the missing 25 years in a Klingon prison; somehow he managed to escape and reacquire his ship; somehow the Klingons never captured it or or didn't learn anything from it and left it intact for him to steal back. I guess that's when they lost those “47 warbirds.”
OOOoookaaaay?
The thing I could not wait to see but was not in the movie was a light saber fight...
Why is the Federation fleet so always tactically inept?
Because they’re the Federation, like Pike said “peace keeping and humanitarian efforts”, not much tactics.
If you can deliver three cadets via “space diving” to a drill head, why can’t you deliver three smart bombs, or the future equivalent thereof?
Because shooting would have been noticed. The plan was to blow up the miner before the bad guys noticed and maybe even have time to run away having successfully stopped it from hurting the planet anymore.
And why isn’t your boarding party heavily armed?
Which boarding party? The divers? Para-infantry don’t tend to be that well armed.
And why don’t phasers have lanyards?
Same reason most people don’t lanyard their pistols today, strings are great at getting caught in stuff.
If you are using a risky means of delivering troops to a small target (like “space diving”), why don’t you spread the mission-critical equipment between the boarding party members so that any one or two them can accomplish the mission? (Also why don’t you just shoot the cable or drill head with your phasers - it worked for Spock...)
OK only having one guy with the bombs was dumb. As for shooting the cable, same reason they didn’t shoot the bottom, they were trying to be sneaky.
If you’re going to beam on to an enemy ship why don’t you take a BIG party equipped with all sorts of nifty future mayhem, so that you can lay waste their ship and crew while rescuing the hostage?
The more people you send over the more people you have to worry about getting back. The plan was they’d beam into an empty room and get to be sneaky, large boarding parties don’t sneak well.
Why did the Vulcan Science Academy send the entire blob of “Red Matter” with Spock, instead of one or two primed “devices.”
Who says it was the entire blob? And who knows how much they would have needed to stop that super nova, that thing was supposed to be a threat to the whole galaxy, just might need more than one black hole for that.
And why didn’t Spock jettison the stuff before he was captured?
Jettison it where? He came out of the black hole with Nero’s ship right in his face.
The Web site went live in 1998, any movie reviews aggregated for before that are not as accurate.
Of the others, I really shouldn’t comment because I have never been able to make it through Black Hawk Down and have no interest in seeing the others. There are of course several reasons to give them bad reviews and they aren’t politically motivated (I’m assuming that is what you are getting at here, not sure why as Star Trek is pretty apolitical from my viewing). From the bits I have seen and what I have heard, Black Hawk Down and Passion of the Christ both seem to be the worst traits of both (normally very good) directors. An Inconvenient Truth is the most likely to get a favorable review due to politics, but I’m not going to immediately disregard the possibility that Gore could make a compelling (if not totally factual) documentary.
Summer movies are almost always far more divisive than this one has proven to be on Rotten Tomatoes. I hate to go making bold statements, but I would bet nothing else released this summer will come close to that.
I posted that list because rottentomatoes is not very accurate about what is and isn't a good movie.
As far as Black Hawk and Passion of the Christ, they were two of the best ever made of their subjects, war and religious.
I agree that it isn’t always an accurate predictor. Usually a high 90’s score is a pretty good indicator as is a low score. There are lots in the middle that can be very good or very bad. Rarely have I been seriously disappointed in a movie that has 80%+ positive reviews. When over 200 people see a movie and they all agree that it is good, I think it is safe to say that the average persons chances of liking the movie are pretty good.
I agree. I find his lack of faith in the Force disturbing.
I thought the same thing! A souless villain(Jaws)would have been more terrifying that Nero. A fan movie has already done it a few years ago- I think its called Star Trek: New Voyages.
Pushing 40 I grew up on those old series re-runs and always loved the JFK idealism of the show and the charachters as well as the subtle social commentary: “He’s black on the right side and I’m black on the left!”
In the last 3 decades I have remained loyal to the original series and tolerated some of the iterations better than others:
The Next Generation- “Welcome to Federation Cruises”
I pretty much ignored this while in college. The major problems I had with it was that it was too PC. Add a French Captain, A full time therapist, The Galaxy’s most sentient dildo (Data), a Handicapped Chief Engineer, an annoying bartender, Doogie Howser and the Ridiculous Plot Device (Hollow Deck)...I thought it sucked.
Every episode involved either some moral dilemma for one of the crew, The emotional growth of Robots or a dandy named Q. Every problem was solved by altering the ships engines to emit Tachyon particles or the power of debate.
Deep Space 9- “Hope you didn’t see Babylon 5”
Political intrigue and interpersonal conflict in outer space was never more boring. The major problems I had with it was that it just wasn’t Trek enough. Plot was almost entirely driven by conflcts between a Captain and his teenage son, a tackless doctor who has given mental steriods to keep up with his peers, a “shapeshifter” who can appear as the guy from “Benson” at will, a woman with freckles on her back and a parasite that gives her IBS and makes her incredibly interesting and a race of short, greedy loats named the Ferengewitzes.
Star Trek Voyager- “You’ve Come a Long Way, Janeway”
The mission of this crew is to Boldly go where everyone has been all along- nuff said. Major characers include: an annoying Hologram, a sexy Borg, a Chicana-Klingon with hair problems, A proud Tribal Leader who sheds a single tear whenever the crew throws anything away,a waif and her boyfriend, a part-time chef from the planet Pedophilia.
Star Trek Enterprise- “Vulcan Girls are Easy”
Should have been better. Forgettable charchters, Ship looked weird. No Robots.
The Movies- “Avoid odd numbered films”
First watch The Wrath of Khan and then watch The Wrath of Khan.
Full disclosure: I also nearly cried when Spoke died.
Star Trek 2009 was awesome!
And that The Enterprise crew saves the Galaxy about a dozen times is somehow believable? Do you believe that 007 is an expert at skiing, car racing, flying, piloting a space shuttle, scuba diving, speaks 15 languages and has never been shot?
It’s a movie!
Anybody who likes it has too much 'Red Matter' in their brains.
Chekov wasn’t even in TOS “Space Seed”!
“And my Beloved Wife!”
Agreed.
What on earth did someone find to complain about “Blackhawk Down” about? I thought it was a very well done movie, showed our troops in a positive, respectful light and shed some light on the horror and confusion of combat for those of us who have been fortunate enough to never have to experience.
Heh, I had to look up the term “TOS”...
I couldn't find the famous review by Owen Gleiberman but here are a few comments from some reviewers about the factual movie.(Far less than 2% of of Special Operations units are black, this is true for all branches of the military .
"The film has been the subject of protests in New York City; the group A.N.S.W.E.R. (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism, www.internationalanswer.com) argued that it presents the war as a "race war," and Village Voice film reviewer Geoffrey Gray notes that while there were only two African-American soldiers stationed in Somalia, the starkness of white U.S. soldiers fighting against Africans plays into Ridley Scott�s racist film aesthetic (2/6/02)."
http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9903E3D61031F93BA15751C1A9679C8B63 "In ''Black Hawk Down,'' the lack of characterization converts the Somalis into a pack of snarling dark-skinned beasts, gleefully pulling the Americans from their downed aircraft and stripping them. Intended or not, it reeks of glumly staged racism. The only African-American with lines, Specialist Kurth (Gabriel Casseus), is one of the American soldiers who want to get into the middle of the action; his lines communicate his simplistic gung-ho spirit. His presence in this military action raises questions of racial imbalance that ''Black Hawk Down'' couldn't even be bothered to acknowledge, let alone answer.
http://www.countingdown.com/features?feature_id=476361 "This leads to a more disturbing thought. Of course, Somalis are black. So it goes without saying that everyone our soldiers shoot at and kill in Black Hawk Down is black. Them's the facts, unfortunate visual though it may be. But were ALL our soldiers really white? Now, I absolutely do NOT know the facts about this. But, knowing what today's Army does look like, it does seem very hard to believe that every single one of our soldiers (except for that one black guy I mentioned earlier) in Mogadishu was white."
http://www.flakmag.com/film/blackhawk.html "Blinders on, Black Hawk Down comes shamefully close to depicting what looks like an all-white police force battling against a gang of black criminals."
Good Lord.
So...it is presented as a race war? That is their complaint? I assume the comments you posted were the reviewers, not yours.
Unbelievable. Simply unbelievable.
Liberals are deluded. That is why they are so damned dangerous. If they were to pursue their utopian BS at some location in a jungle with their own money trying to achieve their own version of reality where they could all drink the poisoned kool-aid when actual reality sets in, power to them.
The problem is, they are doing this with OUR society with OUR money and with OUR lives.
Um....I enjoyed it. A lot. Then again, it goes back to that olde saying....”To each his/her own”.
I also like (am hooked on) Lost.
It sounds like this reviewer thinks it is more like an old John Wayne movie. I don't know...I read a book a while back called "No True Heroes" about the battle for Fallujah, and there were PLENTY of first hand accounts of Marines who were just itching to get into the fight to avenge the death or injury to fellow Marines. As I recall, there was at least one time a bunch of Marines were left steaming because they were prohibited from getting out and engaging the enemy.
I don't think any of these people hang around military people much.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.