Thankfully, the worst scene in the new “Star Trek” could have been worse, but wasn’t.
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I’ve had mixed emotions about seeing the new Star Trek flick. At this point I’m waiting til the crowds die down a bit, at which point I will take my son. I guess once a Trekkie always a Trekkie. Maybe I’ll have a few things to say about it on my blog (actually the new one, now that Mahatma X Files is no more) after this weekend and have had a chance to see it.
Heh. It could have been wedding pictures. Kirk/Spock wedding pictures.
I love Shatner’s Kirk. I grew up on Shatner’s Kirk. But he’s dead. Dead a good long while, and in a fashion that did not totally suck. I also love Nimoy’s Spock, but we could have done without him this go around. So, I’m doubly glad that they didn’t try to shoehorn Shatner into the reboot as well.
I will always love the original cast and crew. They shepherded me through my illicit late nights, along with the Wild, Wild West, when I should have been asleep. They showed me so many wonderful things, not the least of which; that people were just people. I loved Uhura before society taught me that some people were supposedly ‘different’ just because their skin was ebony and smoooth. I didn’t understand the black/white, white/black episode until much later in life. And then I was somewhat baffled that it was needed in the first place.
But I don’t need a reboot to remind me of the progenitors. I have three seasons and six movies if I want get nostalgic for the originals. I am tremendously thankful for what they gave me. But Bill Shatner got an acceptable send off in Generations and Nimoy has had more than his share of continuation in the movies and TV series. Respectfully, their time in Trek is over. So I am not at all disappointed that the proposed Shatner appearance was cut. It just wasn’t needed. And neither was Nimoy’s quite frankly, although it didn’t bug as much as as it did some others.
I saw the new flick for the second time today and loved it better the second time around. There is nary an Original Series ep or flick that cannot be picked apart for science or continuity issues.
And I don’t care.
The reason why I loved TOS and, to a lesser or greater extent, TOS movies, was because of the characters.
And that’s why the latest flick rocks balls. Almost to the T, each new actor captures the essence of TOS characters. Chris Pine, inflection and gesture-wise, is virtually nothing like Shatner. Yet he is still James T. -fucking Kirk to the nines. Zach Quinto is almost exactly what I would have envisioned a young Spock to be. Outwardly in control with emotion seething under the surface. This is what Spock eventually became, after 20+ years of Roddenbarry et al figuring out what Vulcans really where. And all of the rest of the cast falling into pretty much what I expected of the characters, some of which was stuff that I had filled in for myself because it had only been implied on screen, or in some cases, in books.
I’ll probably see it a third time, when the theaters quit exempting it from bargain matinee and discount passes. I’m trying to remember that last movie I went and saw again in the theaters. In a few minutes of thinking, I can only recall The Dark Knight. I’m not saying that the new Trek is Dark Knight caliber, but they do both reside in my own semi-exclusive club of multiple in-cinema views.
After re-reading the above, all i have to say is; / ramble off
.
Just went and read Lileks. He (of course) said most of what I said, and better.
But he did remind me of my most major issue: WTF was up with the engine room? Did they run out of money for a real/CGI set? I mean I understand (and support) the idea of an engine room that connects more with our idea of what an engine room looks like. But to go from the slick, white touchscreen-o-rama of the bridge to the inner workings of the latest about-to-explode-whatever on 24 is just….dude.
Maybe Lileks has noted this already (I haven’t read it yet), but—I think Chris Pine works so well as Kirk because of the same reason you describe for Spock: by now we know what the character was supposed to be, and it doesn’t have to be gradually built up through trial and error by someone who’s figuring it all out for the first time. We know what the Kirk/Spock/McCoy dynamic is supposed to be like, the way the TOS actors didn’t know at the time. All that stuff came about organically, originally, but it took time, and it wasn’t all there until it was more or less too late to develop it as groundwork.
This time, the characters are so well defined as to be archetypes. The actors know just what to do; they don’t have to guess at motivations or fumble around for what might work best. They can just dig up inspirational memories of beloved characters, lock on target, and go.
Hey, it might have distracted from the horror that is Nimoy.
…by now we know what the character was supposed to be, and it doesn’t have to be gradually built up through trial and error by someone who’s figuring it all out for the first time.
Thus Hollywood’s love affair with remakes.