"The wait is over..."But anyways....I was a naysayer a year ago, and even before that, but I'm now forced to eat my words because the new Star Trek KICKED MY ASS TO THE MOON!
I doubt there's any way I can review this in 1,701 words or less, but I'll try....
This is without a doubt the best breath of fresh air the Trek franchise has had in a long ass time. Things were at a height with Star Trek, way back when First Contact was huge, TNG re-runs were on in sindication, DS9 and Voyager were going strong too, and the STar Trek franchise was freakin' everywhere, even in Las Vegas with their own themepark....but then everything went to shit.
One bad move after another began to happen. Insurrection....shitty movie (sorry Ross) with very little of interest to it.
DS9 replaced Dax in the last season (the fuck?). Voyager pulled, what I felt, was a bunch of ratings grabbing stunts, paramount of which (pun INTENDED) was the introduction of the Borg as the main heavies (what about the Kazon?), and of course adding SevenofNine to the cast. Then DS9 ended on a really melancholy downbeat note, Voyager ended and felt more like a really rushed "deus ex machina" ending, which almost gave me the impression the show was on the bubble and rushed the ending in order to beat some mandate from the studio regarding cancellation. That same fate would befall "Enterprise".... And of course that show came after yet another shitty movie: "Nemesis" (sorry Rex), where yes the only cool thing about it was the vehicles....the Scimitar, the Argo, those little Reman jet fighters....but damn it Jim! -it's a movie, not a toy commercial!
Then there was Enterprise.... wow. Just.....wow. Probably the most polarizing Trek incarnation, even more so than the animated series...and yes I'll defend the animated series to the death!! Chekov or not!
People either really loved Enterprise or just really hated the piss out of it... I happen to stand in the latter group of urine loathers (sorry Ross -again). I think Enterprise to me was just not Star Trek....and my biggest problem with it all was the fact that it was a prequel. I always felt Trek should go FORWARD, not back. What was the point in showing us back stories about THE FUTURE???....and it was headed up by the dude from Quantum Leap???... I mean, I would try to watch Enterprise and get into it, but I kept expecting the hologram fucker with his "ziggy" palm pilot thingy to show up and be like "Sam! According to Ziggy if you don't prevent this event from happening Captain Kirk may never be born, and Spock will commit suicide at the age of 28!"
So Star Trek just seemed to be slipping off the face of the Earth...3 shows ended, movie series ran into the ground and another show that was forced to end prematurely due to the threat of cancellation. And what of Las Vegas?, They tore the fuckin' theme park down!!....THE FUCK?
So yeah, I was really skeptical about this new movie, especially it being yet ANOTHER prequel. Last one sucked, so why wouldn't this, right?
Well, I was wrong...really fucking wrong. Damn it does this kick ass. It doesn't insult or push aside anything that's not already established in the franchise and yet it gives you less of a prequel and more of an alternate re-telling of Star Trek from the begining. And the real beauty part about all this is, that it works for people who are new to Trek as well as those of us who know what the hell a "jeffries tube" is. I mean, I found myself unable to actually keep up with all the stuff that felt familiar to me... like the bullies messing with young Spock, or mentioning the USS Hood, or CYRANO-FRICKIN'- JONES!! (check the end credits)...
I'd need to see it again just to check out all those touches of continuity I might have missed!
On top of all that, the story is told in such a way that it captures all the humor that honestly seemed to be left out of all the other Star Trek series. The original show always felt like the crew was a family and there would be comedic moments that spawned from that relationship because you got the idea that these people had worked together for so long and knew eachother so well that they knew each of their crewmates tricks & foibles. The shows that came after the original all felt at times like they were trying too hard to be taken seriously, and made comedy seem like it was a bizarre/foreign concept at times. And this problem is not a factor with the Trek reboot. The chemistry of the people on screen amazes me considering that these people were all strangers to one another just a small time ago, both as characters and as actors.
Now despite the movie kicking my ass (listening to the soundtrack now and probably going to see it again tomorrow) there are a few flaws... First was the the fact that, to me, it seemed like they were trying too hard to invoke Wrath of Khan... from showing us Kirk taking the Kobayashi Maru, to actually lifting dialogue from the film ("You have been and always will be, my friend.") it seemed like they were trying to follow a formula set forth by that movie rather than forging ahead with something fresher. Which is what I felt was one of the problems with the last movie (Nemesis). I mean, in Star Trek '09 there's even one scene lifted straight from Wrath of Khan.... its one of ST2's most memorable (creepy!) scenes.
And even another part where I sat there and thought "Man this looks like the Mutara nebula scene from ST2.
Which brings me to the other problem....the villian. If the movie is envoking Khan so much, the villian should be at least half as memorable as Khan himself, right? Well despite a similar story/motivation (waiting in isolation for 25 years, desperately wanting revenge) "Nero" certainly is no Khan....not even within spitting distance of Khan. Eric Bana does a good job with what he has, but the problem is there's just not much there. I mean they could of put any new character there and the movie would be the same. Same can be said for his race. I feel the only reason they made him a Romulan, despite the excuse to include the old continuity's Spock (Nimoy), was to also connect this with the last movie "Nemesis" where the Romulan empire seemed to be in a heap of shit...which would make this new movie a prequel, AND a sequel, AND a reboot all in .one.
Wow...so you *CAN* have your cake and eat it too. Good to know. I guess JJ Abrahms doesn't believe in the no-win scenario either. LOL
What I will say I liked about the villian Nero though was his final scene...I wont spoil it, but there's something admirable about him being so strong in his convictions to make the choice he made in the end, even if it was completely psychotic!
So to sum it all up REAL FAST, because I'm going to be late for work....
The GOOD: ALMOST EVERYTHING!!
The BAD: Too much Wrath of Khan and Nero was kinda....blah.
The UGLY: The little dude that follows Scotty around....still cute though.
The HOT: UHURA'S ROOMMATE!! MUTHA FUCKIN' GREEN CHICK!! And Spock's mom being a MILF!...MILFs in SPACE! I'm sure Roddenberry would be all over that!
Joy
Devious Comments
i'm pumped to see the new movie, i wanted to see it opening night but i had to go to that Toronto thing. i'm hoping to see it either tonight or tomorrow!!! almost everyone i talked to at the con about it said it was awesome.
But yeah, the new movie kicks all manner of ass! I still couldn't get over Karl Urban as McCoy...there was times where I was sitting there thinking I was watching DeForest....it was uncanny.
And I really thought I would hate Sylar as Spock, but he's dead-on perfect.
Chekov who looked nothing like what we remembered (they ditched the '60s Beatles hair cut)but he could do the russian accent way better...in fact I was convinced they got an authentic russian to play the part. His spazing out in one scene "I CAN DO THIS! I CAN DO THIS!" I thought was priceless.
In fact, every character gets a little moment in the sun there, no one is there as set-dressing.
Though I'm anxious to know if there's any deleted scenes, because Nurse Chapel is mentioned, but to the best of my knowledge never seen or heard.
The music in this was really fucking good too...I've been listening to the score every day now. I like the new theme for this installment, it sounds grandiose, and full of importance. But the one thing I thought kicked major ass is how they used the theme from the original show, and borrowed a page out of 007. In Casino Royale you only heard little hints at the classic James Bond theme, until the credits actually rolled, that's when it was like "Ok NOW he's Bond, so play the fucking song"....Well same with Star Trek. Its a prequel up until the very VERY end and the credits roll and THEN we hear the theme from the show when everything comes together and you can say "Ok NOW its Star Trek"... I just thought it fit perfectly.
Man, I could keep going on and on about every little detail, but dont waste time here reading this shit, GO SEE IT! Hurry! RAAAAAAWWWN!!!
GET TO DUH CHOPPAAAHHH!!!!
:LOL:
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Save the whales YA DUMB SON OF A BITCH!
yeah, i agree Insurrection is really regular-episodey, but i find the movie so damn funny and that's mostly why i like it. it's almost as funny, or just as funny, as Star Trek 4, which is my favorite one. the other thing i really like about Insurrection is that in every Star Trek series/movie, the aliens are almost always inferior to humans in some way; like Worf learning to deal with humans, humans teaching aliens about emotion and "fun" or whatever, but Insurrection had the aliens as superior to and teaching the humans. the crew goes down to the planet and they just assume the aliens are primitive on appearances alone, but then the aliens are like "oh, we had warp technology but we didn't like it" and Picard's all "...oh. whoops, sorry" ooh, burned! i like that the crew was kind of humiliated/embarrassed in that respect, that humans in the future are still presumptuous and draw premature conclusions, and that humans still have a lot to learn when they're not surprising alien entities with their irrational, unpredictable human minds or whatever.
i know i'm going to weep a single man-tear when old Spock shows up in the new movie.
And old Spock (the credits refer to him as "Spock Prime" like he's a damn transformer) gets in some really memorable moments. The most touching to me was him meeting up with Kirk who he hasn't seen in like 95 years. It echoes their meeting at the end of ST:III.
Shit, I think when this is over you're going to end up doing the drunken Zephram Cochrane "Oobie Doobie" dance.
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Save the whales YA DUMB SON OF A BITCH!
loved the new cast, they were all great. loved Old Spock of course. loved that they spent so much time with New Spock's mixed heritage. loved the Uhura/Spock relationship. i see a lot of people complaining about Nero, but i actually really dug him, despite him not really having much to do and having kind of a dopey backstory. and nevermind about what the hell was he doing for 25 years between the Kelvin destruction and present day (read somewhere he was in a klingon prison but they cut that out. still kind of lame). why didn't he just go to Romulus and go "hey i have this really powerful ship from the future!" get them to build more ships like that, then conquer the Federation or something.
but yeah i really liked Nero and the other romulans because of how unstuffy they were, they were such opposites of the usual Trek villains. my absolute favorite part in the movie was when Pike was still captain and they're hailed by Nero's ship and Pike's all "i am captain christopher pike of the USS enterprise blah blah" all stuffy and stately like he should be, then Nero comes up over the viewscreen all casual and unshaven and he's just like "hey. i'm Nero." so great.
my most hated thing about the new movie was Sarek. WORST Sarek. i like that this movie is all-new interpretations/versions of the old characters, so i can accept this new guy being different than the previous Sarek, he has to be and he should be different, but you have to be as good or better than the previous incarnation. so come on, man, you gotta step it up. so bad. every time he showed up i was like "UGGHGGHH."
it was also kind of dumb how Kirk randomly found Spock in that ice cave. i don't know. they should've just cut out the monster chase and had Kirk go straight to the Starfleet outpost and have Old Spock there, that would've made fine sense instead of being some weird implausible deus ex machina or whatever.
anyway yeah it was good except for Spock's dad, really. can't wait to see what they do next! i guess that was almost my review there, i guess i'll cut-and-paste and crosspost this on my blog, haha.
Anyways, yeah I barely noticed Sarek to be honest with you. And as for the "happy coincidences" what really bugged me wasn't the monster chase, it was the fact that Kirk, Spock, AND SCOTTY were all marooned on the same planet.... But I think its a thing where the director could of walked on screen ala Rod Serling from Twilight Zone and said "Ok these characters are gonna meet and then shit happens and they all end up on the Enterprise via some technobabble bullshit, NEXT SCENE!" and suddenly they're on the ship and I'd be perfectly 1,000% cool with it!
And humor wise, I found it ridiculously funny, but maybe that's just me. I mean, McCoy having to hypo stab Kirk like 15 times, and then the Kobayashi Maru test...Jesus, I had tears running down my face! Interesting thing was when I saw it the second time, the audience wasn't all trekkies I suppose and none of them got "the joke" so to speak, since they probably didn't have years and years of built up expectations from knowing about this incident from Star Trek II.
"One torpedo each, lets try not to waste ammunition here."
Dude, it was frickin genious!
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Save the whales YA DUMB SON OF A BITCH!
haha yeah, the McCoy stabbing Kirk stuff was funny. i thought Karl Urban was great as Bones. still, nothing quite as funny as Worf silently shaking his head and looking mortified when Picard tries to get him to sing along to HMS Pinafore.
Admit it, you're just a TNG fanboy!
Speaking of which, the "Countdown" comic helps fill the gap between Nemesis and Trek '09, and features next gen cast. You might want to pick up the trade if you don't have it already.
Make it so:
[link]
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Save the whales YA DUMB SON OF A BITCH!
hmmm maybe i'll check out that Countdown thing. and in the meantime hope that in several years we'll get a Next Gen reboot with young versions of the characters! then they can mess around with continuity and have young Guinan.
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