So anyone that reads my wife's blog knows that last weekend she and I got to go see an early preview of "Star Trek." I got the tickets from work.. the only catch was that the premiere was at ten in the morning.. which isn't so bad for normal people but I work the night shift. Anyone that knows me though, knows that I can make big sacrifices if geek things are involved. So I got up at 7AM in order to get to the theaters by 8AM... to make sure we got in..
Turns out we were like tenth in line. There was no real need to get there so early. The crazy thing is that a lot of people at the front of the line were not "Star Trek" fans. That kind of caught me by surprise... Then I started remembering all of the people who had told me throughout the week that they had never seen a "Star Trek" movie or TV episode. Many considered it a matter of pride. Boo!! I say to them. Boo!! What if I had done the same thing with "Harry Potter." I considered it a matter of pride for a while to not have read any of the books. But eventually with some strong encouragement I gave in... and now my life is better for it.
So my point is that even though some people may think "Star Trek" carries a stigma.. that shouldn't stop people from giving it a try.. I held out watching the original series because I thought it looked cheesy and outdated.. But I started watching the show last year to prep for the new movie.. And let me tell you it's worth watching.. Sure there are some ultra crappy episodes.. But the characters are just cool.. and they are fun to get to know.. And some of the plots would make good movies.. So check it out..
I won't even talk about how good "The Next Generation," "Deep Space Nine," or some episodes of "Voyager" were... I'm reserving judgement on "Enterprise"... haven't seen enough episodes. And the movies.. some awesome, some not so awesome.. Check out the even numbered ones... except for 10... eh.
Finally... now I come to the good part.. The new movie.. It's very good. I think it's a movie for fans and non fans alike. As the time of this writing "Star Trek" has a 100% approval rating at Rotten Tomatoes. Not a bad sign.. The casting in the movie was impeccable. Pine embodies everything that is Kirk.. Quinto isn't exactly an unemotional Spock... but the script necessitates that. Karl Urban is perhaps my favorite.. he becomes Bones.. Everyone else was great as well. Once the movie starts it doesn't really stop.. Great movie.. I will give it an official grade after I see it for the second time on Friday in IMAX.
Also I saw "Wolverine" over the weekend.. Not a great movie.. but worth a matinee or dollar theater.. Not a lot of substance to it.. But some fun action scenes.. and special effects.
2 comments:
The principle reason that the original Star Trek was so great was the characters. Kirk, Spock, and Bones are the triumvirate of SciFi. Captain Kirk is the ultimate cheese ball/cool space adventurer (bested only by Han Solo because he was cool without the cheese (well, mostly)). (for a great scene dealing with the Kirk vs. Solo conflict, check out "Free Enterprise". The scene includes one of the best placed eff words I've ever seen. Even better than Tom Arnold in True Lies.) Spock, whose character should have been boring was very, very compelling, and Bones was able to balance crotchety with funny, which made him very endearing. Newer incarnations featured better stories and longer epics, but the character. were no where near as interesting. I would argue that Piccard was the only interesting character (okay, maybe Data was good, but the whole robot trying to understand humanity thing is one tired scifi trope). Riker, Troi, Crusher (both of 'em), Geordi, and Worf are all extraordinarily soporific. Most people would agree with me on everyone but Worf. Here's my problem with him: He's supposed to represent the Klingon empire but he acts more human than anything. I think it would have been much more interesting to see him clashing with all of the "civilized" races he's been saddled with. Anyway, most of those series just seem sterile.
So, in theory, the idea of rebooting Star Trek is great, because we get to see the early days of the GOOD characters. That's an idea I can get behind. The problem is that without the original actors, it's a tall order to capture the essence of those characters. I think that Pine has the most challenging task, followed closely by Urban. Quinto has the advantage of having been genetically engineered to play young Spock. Now, you said that "Pine embodies everything that is Kirk". That statement gets me very excited even though I find it extremely difficult to believe. I'll believe it when I see it.
FINALLY saw this last weekend. super good and worth the price of the ticket. i was actually surprised at how good it was. i'm not a trekkie and thoroughly enjoyed this.
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