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Star Trek -- not really a review, just some ramblings
Lots of big kabooms, among other things [g].
Even though this really isn't a review till towards the end, it's probably going to get spoilery, so, even though I only know one person on my FL who hasn't seen it yet, I'm going to put it .
My knowledge of Star Trek in any of its former incarnations is mostly garnered from the media and the folks I've begun hanging around with in the last ten years or so. I watched a few of the TOS episodes as a teenager when they were in early reruns back in the 70s, and I saw the first few movies (up to the one with the whales) in the theater. When they were first-run. I haven't seen any of the spin-off series. That said, I'm not sure how anyone could grow up in America and not know who Kirk, Spock, Bones, and co. are. Heck, I even know who Data is and who played him, and he was in a series I never saw.
It's been a long time, okay? The main reason I decided to go see it is all the gushing I've been reading on DW and LJ.
Also, my space opera fandom is the Vorkosiverse, pretty much full stop. If I can shoehorn a universe into the Vorkosiverse timeline, that makes me happy. I think of Firefly as taking place somewhere on the other side of Jackson's Whole early in Barrayar's Time of Isolation, okay? That's how my brain works.
I managed that quite nicely with the new Star Trek movie, esp. since it apparently takes place somewhere between the settlement of Beta Colony and the discovery of Barrayar. There is this Federation thingy, but governments don't last forever [g]. And Star Trek and the Vorkosiverse both have this lovely future-retro thing going (although I could have done without ST's miniskirts and boots -- yes, I know the original series had them, but there's only so far you should go with the nostalgia, 'kay?).
So in addition to all the TOS injokes, half of which probably soared right by me, I was sitting there going, ooh, combat drop shuttles without the shuttles! Lookee, Kirk has a Camp Permafrost of his very own! And so on. And so forth. Not to mention the parallels between Kirk's early career disasters and Miles's (did I ever mention how happy I am that Miles is not that obnoxious?).
On a more -- no, I'm not going to say mundane -- level, the acting was great fun to watch, too. I was especially enamored of Karl Urban's McCoy (I could watch Karl Urban read the phone book, actually) and Simon Pegg's Scotty (I'd been wondering where he was until he showed up...). Zachary Quinto was apparently channeling Leonard Nimoy rather than just playing Spock, because he was quite wonderful. That must have been an incredibly intimidating thing to do, to play opposite the guy who created the role. Was the original Chekov that hard to understand? Never mind, he was adorable. And somehow I managed to miss that Eric Bana was playing the villain, and you could have knocked me over with a feather when the credits rolled, because I did not recognize him. At all.
It was fun. I do not begrudge that two hours in my life at all, which is more than I can say for some movies whose titles we won't mention. I'll probably put it on my Netflix queue when it comes out on DVD and watch it again.
And that's about as high a praise for a good popcorn movie as I can give [g].
ETA: Okay, okay, it seemed like everybody on my FL had seen the movie. Turns out there's bunches of you that haven't. Mea culpa, okay?
Even though this really isn't a review till towards the end, it's probably going to get spoilery, so, even though I only know one person on my FL who hasn't seen it yet, I'm going to put it .
My knowledge of Star Trek in any of its former incarnations is mostly garnered from the media and the folks I've begun hanging around with in the last ten years or so. I watched a few of the TOS episodes as a teenager when they were in early reruns back in the 70s, and I saw the first few movies (up to the one with the whales) in the theater. When they were first-run. I haven't seen any of the spin-off series. That said, I'm not sure how anyone could grow up in America and not know who Kirk, Spock, Bones, and co. are. Heck, I even know who Data is and who played him, and he was in a series I never saw.
It's been a long time, okay? The main reason I decided to go see it is all the gushing I've been reading on DW and LJ.
Also, my space opera fandom is the Vorkosiverse, pretty much full stop. If I can shoehorn a universe into the Vorkosiverse timeline, that makes me happy. I think of Firefly as taking place somewhere on the other side of Jackson's Whole early in Barrayar's Time of Isolation, okay? That's how my brain works.
I managed that quite nicely with the new Star Trek movie, esp. since it apparently takes place somewhere between the settlement of Beta Colony and the discovery of Barrayar. There is this Federation thingy, but governments don't last forever [g]. And Star Trek and the Vorkosiverse both have this lovely future-retro thing going (although I could have done without ST's miniskirts and boots -- yes, I know the original series had them, but there's only so far you should go with the nostalgia, 'kay?).
So in addition to all the TOS injokes, half of which probably soared right by me, I was sitting there going, ooh, combat drop shuttles without the shuttles! Lookee, Kirk has a Camp Permafrost of his very own! And so on. And so forth. Not to mention the parallels between Kirk's early career disasters and Miles's (did I ever mention how happy I am that Miles is not that obnoxious?).
On a more -- no, I'm not going to say mundane -- level, the acting was great fun to watch, too. I was especially enamored of Karl Urban's McCoy (I could watch Karl Urban read the phone book, actually) and Simon Pegg's Scotty (I'd been wondering where he was until he showed up...). Zachary Quinto was apparently channeling Leonard Nimoy rather than just playing Spock, because he was quite wonderful. That must have been an incredibly intimidating thing to do, to play opposite the guy who created the role. Was the original Chekov that hard to understand? Never mind, he was adorable. And somehow I managed to miss that Eric Bana was playing the villain, and you could have knocked me over with a feather when the credits rolled, because I did not recognize him. At all.
It was fun. I do not begrudge that two hours in my life at all, which is more than I can say for some movies whose titles we won't mention. I'll probably put it on my Netflix queue when it comes out on DVD and watch it again.
And that's about as high a praise for a good popcorn movie as I can give [g].
ETA: Okay, okay, it seemed like everybody on my FL had seen the movie. Turns out there's bunches of you that haven't. Mea culpa, okay?