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.
I know a few women who went only to appease their husbands or boyfriends and loved the movie. One girl has gone back to see it a second time.
My son is going back this evening to see it. This will be his second time now.
He said it was the best movie he's seen in a long time. He was very much impressed.
David Farragut was placed in command of a captured British ship at the age of 12, and himself taken prisoner by the Brits at 14.
To be honest my distaste from the term orginates here...
http://exposingtheleft.blogspot.com/2007/09/hillarys-purple-prose.html
I 100% agree that Urban got down McCoy perfectly.
Oh, and the idea of Kirk becoming captain of the Enterprise (Starfleet's flagship) when he's only a cadet is not believable.
Looking forward to seeing it myself either this week or next week.:)=^..^=
Abrams seems to operate his shows on such story arcs, and Paramount would be smart to encourage such. That way the Star Trek genre be could renewed every 10 years with new ideas and new energy. Paramount would never go bankrupt!
So after the timeline is reset after 5 movies, a new rebirth and refreshing of the Star Trek franchise can be enjoyed by all as well as fresh profits for Paramount!
Dr. Who has had a few successful reimaginings, so why not Star Trek?
I just wish that James Cameron could have had a crack at one of the Star Trek movies, or perhaps a stand alone Federation based movie with lots of fire power, sweating space soldiers and lots of mean Borg to fight! Cameron’s take on character depth would really give Star Trek some punch, not that Abrams does that badly!
A realistic “Gilligan’s Island” would only get you so far, though. The things they’ve done in “Lost” could keep you tuning in forever practically. However, I believe they have one, maybe two more seasons left before it’s all over.
Plus, you can’t just watch an episode every now and again or else you’ll never keep up. My wife and I got the prior seasons through Netflix and all the other episodes are available for free at abc.com.
“Lost” is an outstanding show. I’ve never had a show keep me guessing for as long as this one has. It’s a helluva lot of fun.
I’ll bet the ladies loved the Uhura /Spock thing! Well at least Kirk won’t have to worry about Spock needing to “POM FARR” every seven years...Uhura will take things well in hand!
Haven’t seen the movie. However, “But that’s because it’s a fantasy movie”...
As a rule, it is MORE important for a fantasy to keep realistic where it can so that the audience will relate to it as a real story. Just tossing sanity out whenever it is inconvenient is a classic sign of truly bad fantasy.
I was planning on going to see it, but if all the people who like it consider “Lost” to be great TV...
to me a serious dramatic serial has to be at least a little bit believable. Lost quit being that very quickly.
I haven’t, but I’ve been hearing lukewarm reviews at best. Is it worth watching?
“. “Lost” is the best show on TV now that “Battlestar Galactica” is over. “
Thumbs down on both of those.
Endless, but inaccurate.
How so?
The original series makes Spock's personality disorders perfectly clear and for an affair to blossom with Uhura is just beyond the pale as far as I am concerned. I don't need to see the movie to know I wouldn't like it on that point alone.
Anything that messes with the time line and the character type of the original is not a good movie IMO.
Lukewarm!!??? Surely you jest! YES, watch it. Last show of the season Tuesday on Fox Network. Leonard Nimoy makes his first appearance UNTIL next season!!
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