Some musings on Star Trek, then and now.
May. 19th, 2009 03:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
persimmonfrostBefore I start I need to warn you that though DW says it supports the legacy lj cut tags, apparently it does not. I don't know how the formatting is going to turn out either here or over at LJ so if you're spoiler-phobic, just stop reading now.
The Sunday before last, Dawn, Jim and I had some garden work to do (what else is new?) and didn't really feel like doing it. Someone suggested going to see Trek again -- they'd seen it on Saturday, I hadn't -- and I was very excited by the idea so I checked showtimes and since we had about five hours to the cheapest show, it gave us impetus to go out and finish our tasks quickly. We rolled into the theater about twenty minutes before the show began with popcorn and sodas, and I found myself thinking about the other Trek films I'd gone to see.
I had vivid memories of being bitterly disappointed in the first film, and thrilled with the second (Wrath of Khan) I'd actually stopped going after #4 (Voyage Home) not because I didn't like it but because I was just getting weary of the whole franchise. I'd tried watching the spin-off series, but never cared much for them, and the original in syndication, but found it cheesy and silly. I wish I could say otherwise, but I felt that after years of fannishness for ST:TOS, it was time just to call it a day. I'd seen every episode, written and read tons of fanfic (None of mine still exists that I know of.) and seen four films of varying quality and interest. Basically I figured the affair was over.
But I have to tell you, from the moment the film began, I was hooked. Yes, there were problems, but I didn't care. I still don't. Because there's life in the old dog yet.
I'm not going to go into great detail about the film. I thought the way they explained the alternate timeline was just fine. I was willing to buy it. I liked seeing the Romulans again, liked the look of them (that faux Roman thing from TOS was just too much, thank you) and the fact that they were clearly bug-fuck-crazy. It showed with crystal clarity why the Vulcans, who share a genetic past with them, chose the path they did. As someone said or implied (I've only seen the film once so far, so bear with me) far from having no emotions, Vulcans feel far more deeply than we can imagine. So deeply, in fact that their closest genetic relatives are willing to go to insane lengths to redress a wrong done by accident. They are the dark mirror of Vulcans and help to explain a great deal about the battle Spock is fighting every day of his life.
I thought it was a shame to lose Vulcan like that, and good luck with Pon Farr to anyone who managed to escape the destruction. (Spock, I'm lookin' at you, babe, and I'll tell you, it was like a million fangirl fingers hit their computer keys and would not be silenced.) However it did, again, give depth to the Vulcan character because Sarek (wasn't Ben Cross great??) finally told his son that he married Amanda because he loved her.
I loved the cast. Zack Quinto's Spock was almost eerily like Nimoy's Spock, and Chris Pine had the body language and even some of the inflections down cold. That moment when he strides onto the bridge and barks "Bones!" made me jump because I could hear Shatner saying it at the same moment. But by far my favorite member of the new cast was Karl Urban as McCoy who not only managed to do justice to De Kelly's characterization, but to make the role his own at the same time. He was wonderful. I found myself wishing that Kelly could have seen the film just to know that McCoy was in good hands. (And just because I haven't mentioned the others doesn't mean I didn't love them.)
I keep thinking that this is clearly intended to revitalize the franchise, to jump start it over again, and that's a good thing. They could very easily go back to the series and re-examine some of the classic stories with new eyes and the new timeline. In fact, I went right out and bought a DVD of the best of classic Trek, and the trilogy of the best of the original cast films -- Wrath of Khan, Search for Spock, and Voyage Home -- in order to get a better idea of how these stories might be reworked.
I finished the DVD with the best of the series this morning when I watched "City on the Edge of Forever" one of the scripts I would very much like to see them tackle. On the same disk were "Amok Time" (How on earth would they handle it? I'd love to see it.) "The Trouble with Tribbles" which I thought at first would have to be just a secondary plotline within another film. Now I realize that with some tweaking it would make a wonderful film in its own right. And finally "Balance of Terror" which was extremely heavy-handed (as was much of TOS) but still compelling. I wish they'd included "Space Seed" which I'd love to see again as a lead-in to Wrath of Khan. I can't help but think that those two storylines could be pulled together to make a spectacular film.
So I'm thinking that you may have guessed that I am newly enthused about the whole ST:TOS thing. I'm actually, seriously thinking about buying the whole series eventually, even though it really is cheesy, heavy-handed and kind of unsophisticated. But I know I'll be watching it through a new glass, one with a what-if curve to it. And that is quite wonderful in my opinion. It makes me feel as if I've rediscovered an old friend, and we still have a lot in common.
The Sunday before last, Dawn, Jim and I had some garden work to do (what else is new?) and didn't really feel like doing it. Someone suggested going to see Trek again -- they'd seen it on Saturday, I hadn't -- and I was very excited by the idea so I checked showtimes and since we had about five hours to the cheapest show, it gave us impetus to go out and finish our tasks quickly. We rolled into the theater about twenty minutes before the show began with popcorn and sodas, and I found myself thinking about the other Trek films I'd gone to see.
I had vivid memories of being bitterly disappointed in the first film, and thrilled with the second (Wrath of Khan) I'd actually stopped going after #4 (Voyage Home) not because I didn't like it but because I was just getting weary of the whole franchise. I'd tried watching the spin-off series, but never cared much for them, and the original in syndication, but found it cheesy and silly. I wish I could say otherwise, but I felt that after years of fannishness for ST:TOS, it was time just to call it a day. I'd seen every episode, written and read tons of fanfic (None of mine still exists that I know of.) and seen four films of varying quality and interest. Basically I figured the affair was over.
But I have to tell you, from the moment the film began, I was hooked. Yes, there were problems, but I didn't care. I still don't. Because there's life in the old dog yet.
I'm not going to go into great detail about the film. I thought the way they explained the alternate timeline was just fine. I was willing to buy it. I liked seeing the Romulans again, liked the look of them (that faux Roman thing from TOS was just too much, thank you) and the fact that they were clearly bug-fuck-crazy. It showed with crystal clarity why the Vulcans, who share a genetic past with them, chose the path they did. As someone said or implied (I've only seen the film once so far, so bear with me) far from having no emotions, Vulcans feel far more deeply than we can imagine. So deeply, in fact that their closest genetic relatives are willing to go to insane lengths to redress a wrong done by accident. They are the dark mirror of Vulcans and help to explain a great deal about the battle Spock is fighting every day of his life.
I thought it was a shame to lose Vulcan like that, and good luck with Pon Farr to anyone who managed to escape the destruction. (Spock, I'm lookin' at you, babe, and I'll tell you, it was like a million fangirl fingers hit their computer keys and would not be silenced.) However it did, again, give depth to the Vulcan character because Sarek (wasn't Ben Cross great??) finally told his son that he married Amanda because he loved her.
I loved the cast. Zack Quinto's Spock was almost eerily like Nimoy's Spock, and Chris Pine had the body language and even some of the inflections down cold. That moment when he strides onto the bridge and barks "Bones!" made me jump because I could hear Shatner saying it at the same moment. But by far my favorite member of the new cast was Karl Urban as McCoy who not only managed to do justice to De Kelly's characterization, but to make the role his own at the same time. He was wonderful. I found myself wishing that Kelly could have seen the film just to know that McCoy was in good hands. (And just because I haven't mentioned the others doesn't mean I didn't love them.)
I keep thinking that this is clearly intended to revitalize the franchise, to jump start it over again, and that's a good thing. They could very easily go back to the series and re-examine some of the classic stories with new eyes and the new timeline. In fact, I went right out and bought a DVD of the best of classic Trek, and the trilogy of the best of the original cast films -- Wrath of Khan, Search for Spock, and Voyage Home -- in order to get a better idea of how these stories might be reworked.
I finished the DVD with the best of the series this morning when I watched "City on the Edge of Forever" one of the scripts I would very much like to see them tackle. On the same disk were "Amok Time" (How on earth would they handle it? I'd love to see it.) "The Trouble with Tribbles" which I thought at first would have to be just a secondary plotline within another film. Now I realize that with some tweaking it would make a wonderful film in its own right. And finally "Balance of Terror" which was extremely heavy-handed (as was much of TOS) but still compelling. I wish they'd included "Space Seed" which I'd love to see again as a lead-in to Wrath of Khan. I can't help but think that those two storylines could be pulled together to make a spectacular film.
So I'm thinking that you may have guessed that I am newly enthused about the whole ST:TOS thing. I'm actually, seriously thinking about buying the whole series eventually, even though it really is cheesy, heavy-handed and kind of unsophisticated. But I know I'll be watching it through a new glass, one with a what-if curve to it. And that is quite wonderful in my opinion. It makes me feel as if I've rediscovered an old friend, and we still have a lot in common.
