oudeis on 26/5/2009 at 07:16
Well that was one seriously stupid movie. Just moronic.
I can understand rebooting the franchise: as ST quite correctly and cogently pointed out, the NG arc was played out. I can also understand with dispensing with much of the canon; as others pointed out with equal accuracy, most of it was horseshit. But if you are going to throw away precedent you need to come up with something better and no one will convince me they did that.
The villain was inherently weak and Eric Bana's performance only made him weaker. Making Kirk a quasi-tragic James Dean reincarnation might be great for the teenage girls but to me it made him a pussy. I liked the Spock-Uhura love angle, though. It was a total violation of canon but it worked for me.
I didn't have a problem with the canonical departures: I thought the
destruction of Vulcan was an act of collossal ballsiness and I salute them for it. It's the departures from common sense that aggravated me. Too many elements- scenes and sub-plots- seemed to have been written because they were 'cool' without any real attempt to integrate them into the movie. Kirk is going to go through four years of school without learning Uhura's first name? Please. A hack setup for the transporter pad bit payoff. The skydiving scene?
Extreme Sports Kirk FTW!!! And let us not forget the McGuffin, the Red Matter. Was that supposed to be some kind of future-era (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_mercury) Red Mercury? If this stuff is so fucking dangerous that a single drop can destroy a planet than why the hell is the Federation going to give Spock a bottle of the shit big enough to use in a water dispenser? Why would he need it? The magnitude of the plot holes and deus ex machina coincidences necessary for the story to progress are emblematic of the worst kind of shit writing. By the way, why did the Federation decide to dig a Grand-Canyon sized ditch in the middle of Iowa? Did someone foretell that it would be needed for a really cool but nevertheless dramatically critical moment in a young boy's life. For that matter, to reiterate what I posted many pages ago, WHY THE FUCK ARE THEY BUILDING AN INTERSTELLAR SPACESHIP IN THE MIDDLE OF A CORNFIELD?
And yet, for all of this- and the laundry list of other shortcomings- I liked the movie. It somehow coalesced into an enjoyable experience that reinvigorated a franchise that desperately needed it. The reboot was a success, and even if I didn't like it the box-office returns so far have guaranteed that there will be more in the same vein. Since I did like it, I have no problem with this and am looking forward to see what they come up with next.
p.s. I thought the new design for the Enterprise was better than any Federation ship seen yet, but if they were so keen on putting their stamp on the property why couldn't they have done something with those stupid fucking uniforms?
rachel on 26/5/2009 at 08:18
Quote Posted by oudeis
WHY THE FUCK ARE THEY BUILDING AN INTERSTELLAR SPACESHIP IN THE MIDDLE OF A CORNFIELD?
Artificial gravity systems calibration.
Plus, the workers are people too :( They gotta eat.
Matthew on 26/5/2009 at 11:44
Maybe the same reason the US used to put nuke silos in strange places?
I got nothin'.
ZylonBane on 26/5/2009 at 17:40
Quote Posted by oudeis
p.s. I thought the new design for the Enterprise was better than any Federation ship seen yet, but if they were so keen on putting their stamp on the property why couldn't they have done something with those stupid fucking uniforms?
Inline Image:
http://img136.imageshack.us/img136/6496/enterpriseondrugslf6.jpgDia on 26/5/2009 at 19:24
Quote Posted by TheivingME
I thought ENT season 3 was by far the best Star Trek season ever. Of all of them. Season 4 was cracking as well.
Sorry; but I disagree. After having watched the TNG series, DS9, and Voyager and am now watching (again) the first season of Enterprise, I feel just as disappointed as I did the first time I watched Ent on TV. Oddly enough, I can't put my finger on why, though. Ent just didn't (and doesn't) hold my interest as well as the previous ST series did.
Quote Posted by TheivingME
Season 3 was the first time a captain was shown to go from idealistic exploror to torturing PTSD effected psychotic. All the other treks the captains are utterly infallable. To the point where they are not even charachters anymore.
Here I'll have to agree with you. For me it was definitely fascinating to watch Archer go from an idealistic idiot to an obsessive nutcase. There were times when I thought T'Pol should've just phasered him & been done with it. You do get hints of this same type of behavior in an ST captain in DS9 though. Sisko becomes obsessed with Michael Eddington when Eddington turns out to be a member of the Maquis and Sisko jeapordizes ship and crew just to capture him. Picard, on the other hand, was so straightlaced and by-the-book that he seemed to be a caricature of himself.
All in all, I still liked Voyager best of all the ST series.
I have yet to see the latest ST movie. To be honest, Generations nearly caused me to stop going to the theater to see ST movies for ever. My ultimate favorite ST movie will always be (I think it's#4?) The Voyage Home with the original cast. Doesn't get much better than that imho.
Yeah; I have far, far too much time on my hands. :(
doctorfrog on 26/5/2009 at 19:49
Me, I'm a big Star Trek nerd, but it's not my religion. It is my favorite series of all time, though. I didn't like Voyager, I watched only one episode of Enterprise, they were just that bad. However, I'm watching Voyager on DVD these days in my 2-years-running campaign to recapture my earlier nerd years, and although it is still terrible, I'm enjoying it anyway.
I understood the movie, even if I didn't like most of it. I understand the changes they had to make, I understand why it couldn't be like the other movies or TV series. I didn't like the changes, though, and a whole lot of it stank of too many cooks on one pot, trying to please too many fans who really, really like the Transformers movie. They did, however, through a few tasty bones to those of us who still have some love for the old series.
Red matter, that's some hard core shit, man! A Romulan tentacle-rape 'mining ship.' It's shocking that after so many years of mastering unreal special effects, we still don't know how to integrate them into good storytelling without completely overwhelming the movie. It's a cake made entirely out of frosting. Fuck you, Michael Bay, and anyone who watches your movies.
I'd list my favorite issues with the flick, but they've mostly been listed already. Suffice to say, I agree with almost everyone with a complaint, and almost everyone with a word of praise.
For the most part, I'm hoping that this relaunch will generate new interest and life into the franchise, and things improve here on out. The one thing that this movie may have gotten the most right was what was most loved about the original series, that is, the relationships between Kirk, Spock, and Bones. The surfaces of these characters were at least done fairly well.
And good christ, why does engineering look like a massive desalinization plant?
dj_ivocha on 27/5/2009 at 00:04
Quote Posted by doctorfrog
I watched only one episode of Enterprise, they were just that bad.
I don't understand how you can say a whole series is bad by just watching one episode. That's like saying you hate all TNG movies while only having seen Nemesis, or like saying you only watched the Voyager episode Threshold and hate the whole series because it's about lizard humping. ;)
ZylonBane on 27/5/2009 at 01:56
Quote Posted by Dia
All in all, I still liked Voyager best of all the ST series.
This is the sort of thing that you really shouldn't admit in public.
doctorfrog on 27/5/2009 at 07:39
Quote Posted by dj_ivocha
I don't understand how you can say a whole series is bad by just watching one episode. That's like saying you hate all TNG movies while only having seen Nemesis, or like saying you only watched the Voyager episode Threshold and hate the whole series because it's about lizard humping. ;)
It's pretty easy, you see, I just didn't give it a fair shake. Yet I'm pretty sure my revulsion was pretty dead on. Seeing Threshold and judging Voyager by it is similarly out of proportion but completely reliable.
Hey, it's TNG "Where No One Has Gone Before" mixed with a Brundle-Fly. Quite a bit of Voyager is TNG: Rehashed with some Berman-approved plot/tech twist thrown in.
Seeing Nemesis out of context would put me off of watching movies.
Funny thing is, since I've decided to re-watch everything having to do with Star Trek, ever, I will eventually watch all those episodes, and probably enjoy a lot of them. So it all worked out in the end :)
Matthew on 27/5/2009 at 10:08
Including the animated series?
