This might end up being a long messy post and that's my fault.
I had a full on Star Trek week last week and as much as I enjoy sharing my take and reading everybody's insight, I'm an incredibly lazy typer, which makes it worse for me since the amount of episodes I watched and wanna talk about accumulates and also I forgot some observations here and there.
So since I've last posted I've watched Obsession, Wolf in the Fold, The Trouble with Tribbles, The Gamesters of Triskelion, A Piece of the Action, Star Trek 2009, ST Into Darkness, and The Immunity Syndrome.
I haven't intended to see the movies anytime soon, I'll explain later.
Obsession, I liked it okay, basically for the scenes where Spock and McCoy ganged up on Kirk and questioned his mental state.
Wolf in the Fold, pretty boring with some funny highlights, not even a good Scotty episode even though he has a central role in it. It's one of these ST instances where I felt the premise couldn't carry the entire 50 minutes, "women are more easily and more deeply terrified, generating more sheer horror than the male of the species." Spock, can't rely on a Vulcan to be PC hehe
The Trouble with Tribbles, I must have rewinded the scene with Kirk chest deep in tribbles about 4 times, I laughed so hard, especially his exchange with McCoy where at one point he was too fed up to respond to McCoy with words and just gave him a "Don't" look heh, he kept getting hit in the back of the head by tribbles as he carried on the discussion
, just a truly fun episode beginning to end.
They seem to keep taking Chekov's Russian nationalism up in tune, I wrote about this in previous posts and I still find it interesting.
Klingons just don't have any redeeming qualities as yet, they're consistent douchebags.
The Gamesters of Triskelion, eh.. decent concept but something was missing, perhaps the awful guest stars broke this episode for me.
A Piece of the Action, yeah baby, lil something for me here, I'm a big fan of 20's-40's gangster atmosphere, pretty funny and entertaining episode and a rather interesting concept with the whole culture being based around one book, I'm not sure if they meant to have it stand for religions or not but so far Star Trek has never been one for symbolism, if there's a point Kirk just out and says it in a speech at one point or another, but it's possible.
I was at Costco yesterday with my wife and she saw the trailer for Beyond on a TV there and:
Her: I'm really up for some science fiction, wanna go see that?
Me: As far as I know this is the third Star Trek movie of this franchise, I don't know anything about it.
Her: Look it up.
Me: I really don't want to since I'm trying to go in production order and I've got several seasons and movies of different incarnations of Star Trek to go through before I can see these.
Her: Are these reboots?
Me: I would assume so since I've just seen Spock in that trailer.
She went on to sell me on checking them out anyway, they had the first two movies on BluRay for 16$ so we got them and saw them back-to-back the same night.
Star Trek 2009, I started off prejudiced as soon as I saw Abrams in the beginning of the movie, I had vowed years ago to never watch anything by any dimwit that was involved in Lost, I have made a point out of remembering the creators names as to not ever see shit from them again. But there we were, I thought the mofo snuck up on me and boy has he won me back.
It would be difficult for me to understand how this movie isn't every fan's wet dreams, I found it amazing and I've only been a fan for a year or so and have only been watching TOS. It caters to old fans deliciously while still making new fans and being relevant to people who were never fans of Star Trek, like my wife. Excellent movie and I would have said the best movie I've seen this year except I watched Into Darkness right after and loved it even more.
Let me dwell a bit on why I loved these movies:
- Most of the cast seem to have been chosen because they resemble TOS cast and they have been clearly instructed to act like TOS cast, there was little to no "reinventing" shit, Zachary Quinto and Karl Urban were playing Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley, respectively, the script didn't tell them anything, the portrayals of TOS actors seemed to have been their only guide and they somehow pulled it off without looking like hacks or stupid imitations, they were simply great. I could say the same about Chris Pine, who dialed down the "Shat" a bit but kept the Kirk's aura intact, about John Cho for Sulu and Anton Yelchin for Chekov.
Simon Pegg's Scotty and Zoe Saldana's Uhura were a tad different but not in a bad way, Pegg's Scotty is a bit too heavy on the comedy side than James Doohan and Saldana's Uhura was a bit too nosy, judgmental and involved compared to Nichelle Nichols, I'm not too fond of these changes but I don't mind them.
- I don't view this as a reboot, which is great. I find it to be a great and suitable direct continuation from TOS, aside from having Leonard Nimoy there, the story itself and the timeline change was just a great Star Trek style way to make these movies and still make them feel connected to the world they once started off in.
- All the catchphrases and subtle references were very endearing and directed at old fans, I mean I'm a new fan and I loved it.
- The action and the special effects were superb.
Khan, now if you guys remember I didn't like Space Seed and I know he returns for the 1982 movie but I haven't seen that yet so my take was still rather negative about him just from Space Seed. After watching Into Darkness I'm more assured that the only reason I didn't like Space Seed is the horrendous acting from the Khan and McGivers actors, but the plot is probably one of the best for TOS. Benedict Cumberbatch, who I have not seen in any role before but was aware of him, did a splendid job in my opinion, he was terrifying and likable, I dare compare his performance to Heath Ledger's Joker in that aspect.
I was not aware Cumberbatch was playing Khan at all, we were watching his scene in captivity when Kirk asked him who he was, "A remnant of a time long past. Genetically engineered to be superior so as to lead others to peace in a world at war." and I sat up and told my wife "Holy shit he's Khan!!!", poor lady was startled haha.
I just read on Wikipedia that there were some ciritism over Cumberbatch playing Khan, who's of native American origins, they say some said it was white washing which I didn't care for since he did a superb job and also the original Khan actor was Mexican ffs.
Wonderful movies, I can't wait to see the third one.
Gun to my head to say something I didn't like about the movies, I'd say the Spock/Uhura romance, just felt unnecessary, cheesy, forced and nonsensical tbh.
The Immunity Syndrome, back to TOS from the movies, good episode, first time seeing Kirk in an almost surrendering attitude, it was almost like he had felt his demise along with the crew was certain and one point in this episode, he never really gotten to that point, it almost looked like he was at peace with it too!
My wife doesn't watch TOS with me but she walked in near the end of the episode and watched a bit as she was warmed up to the Enterprise crew from watching the movies the night before and funny enough she made the same point I just read from Kotowboy about Spock being left out on a mission to die, Kirk and McCoy being on the bridge struggling for a way to bring him back and McCoy saying "Spock! We're trying to save you, damn it!", my wife asked me if this happens often and I told her honestly I've only seen it on Into Darkness and this episode, just coincidence that I happened to see them around the same time.
Topic: Star Trek: The Next Threaderation (Read 259079 times)
