Movie Review: Star Trek

[etakyma]

Gwen and I saw Star Trek on Memorial Day - the theatre was about a third full, and she'd seen it once already.

I will preface the whole thing by saying I am a huge Trek fan from way back - I have quite the collection of tie-in novels - of mostly TOS. I've seen almost every episode of TOS in syndication, and while I can't quote episodes or anything, so I suppose I am not a hardcore fan or anything, I am a fan. I was pretty into TNG - it was on when I was in high school and through college. I was a casual fan of DS9, and loved Voyager. Enterprise got a little too fond of the throughline and lost me somewhere in the second season - although I have seen a smattering of episodes from all the seasons of it.

So my thoughts... It is a pretty good movie for an alternate reality. The one thing that kept it from being great was the Spock/Uhura crap which came out of no where and did not fit. And other than a couple of mis-cast players (Winona, I am looking at you), I think the acting was pretty damned good.

Liked Kirk as a hothead skirt chaser. Loved Pike. I think McCoy fucking rocked - as did Sulu (what was your combat training? Fencing. PRICELESS!) And Scotty was a welcome breath of fresh air by the time he showed up.

Chekov as the teenage brain trust was an interesting take on the character. Uhura did pretty well when she wasn't macking on Spock. And other than being a little too emotional Spock did okay.

One note about the timeline of the movie... If Spock is that far ahead of Kirk on his path, we should have seen Kirk's birth, Spock's bit with the bullies, and then the Kirk-steals-the-car clip, followed up with Spock goes into Star Fleet instead of the Vulcan Academy. It just makes so much more sense time-wise.

I hope the "director's cut" has the Klingon penal colony attack, because the whole "Kirk heard about it while hiding from Uhura and put the pieces together for..." makes no sense without it - and here's hoping with those scenes we find out WHY Nero attacked the Klingons.

I know what I *think* it was all about, but it never is stated why, when Nero waited so damned patiently for twenty-five years he all of a sudden wipes out a Klingon colony before going to destroy Vulcan. Also, Henry Jenkins plays a Klingon Extra and his day of filming ended up on the cutting room floor. Sad.

Also, why did they put a Star Fleet SHIPYARD in Iowa? Um... Getting the ships into space might be a little difficult from the fields of Iowa. I'm just saying. I know they had to justify Fleet presence in Iowa, but really? Shipyard? Couldn't have been a, I don't know, research facility? Or Shuttle Piloting for Dummies facility? Or dilithium crystal refining facility? Or, hell, almost anything but shipyard, because as picturesque as that shot with the shell of a Starship being built was, getting that sucker into space is a huge fucking problem. Remember, Star Fleet didn't have any ships capable of landing on a planet until Voyager. It was all shuttle crafts or beaming technology.

So besides the massive plot holes, it is a fairly exciting movie. I give it a solid B.

Classic moment in the theatre before we left - group of people were reading along with cast and asked "Who is Amanda Grayson?" to which Gwen and I piped up "Spock's mother." Yeah. Obviously not big fans - just there for the explosions.

Comments

[purestoneworker.livejournal.com]

Hi Amy, Look I finaly foud you guys, well some of you, on LJ, yay for me the detective. Anyway just wanted to say how much I agreed with your review. Me and Deb (sis) went to see it at 1/2 term and both loved it. BUT - there are buts, the whole Spock/Uhura thing was so wrong, it just didn't make any sence. The satrfleet ship yars are in orbit around Mars, it's been in more than one film and episode and book - yeah yeah closet trekie - what the hell use is it on earth!
Anyway I loved Chekov, but then I always did and he did used to take over from Spock at scince when Spock wasn't avialble.
Scotty was great, but then Simon Pegg always is.
And is it just me and Deb, or should Pike have 'Gibbs slapped' Kirk, more than once? But esspesialy in the bar.
Katy

[etakyma.livejournal.com]

Yay! I've had this LJ for over five years. I don't do a heck of a lot fannish here. Mostly Real Life stuff... And movie reviews are always part of that.

You did kind of get the feeling that as much as Pike admired Kirk's spirit, he still could have happily cuffed him every once in a while. Yeah, there were a number of issues with the re-imagining of TOS Trek. But it was a heck of a fun ride, movie-wise!

[purestoneworker.livejournal.com]

I'm the opposite, my LJ is mostly, well, all fan stuff, these days my mate Kerry and I have had heeps of fun comeing up with a slash multi fandom AU. I thoughaly enjoyed playing with Gibbs and Tony! Any way I do personal stuff on Twitter, I tried FaceBook, but it defeats me, way to complicated! So now I Twitter, which is so much simpler.