It was "Star Trek" (of course) and we made sure it was an actual, bona fide IMAX screen (which means we by-passed Aventura where they're no-good fakers and headed up to Fort Lauderdale). Neither of us had any clue about where to sit so we just followed the people who'd made sure they were in the front of the line and plowed into the theater on a clear mission. They sat middle seats/middle rows, so we sat middle/middle, too. In the future we'll probably go for middle/back, but on the whole it was good placement.
The difference was remarkable. So much sound, so much visual, so close to tipping into system overload. It was awesome! Unless you had two people on the screen talking to each other. It was a bit of a strain to watch both characters: like a really shiny tennis match. Close ups were much more IMAX-friendly. In conclusion: I'm glad I experienced it and I'll definitely go to an IMAX again for "thrilling ride!" type movies. But just one for one viewing. Regular old movie theaters are still my venue of choice and a favorite place to spend a hot summer afternoon. :)
And now to the movie itself! First I shall be lazy and recommend posts that say what I'd have said myself if I was that witty and wise. Two are by
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
sistermagpie: The first, Enterprise!, is spoiler free but still manages to capture why I've squished this movie so hard. The second, Return of the Doofus!, has spoilers galore and covers the coming of age aspects of the story. The third, also spoiler filled, is by taraljc, and I'm totally stealing this rec from astridv, and I haven't commented on either post so I'm probably breaking all kinds of lj etiquette laws (I plan on commenting! I've just been busy... and lazy...), but the post is really good! It's basically, "I ♥ Uhura" and it's in response to some Uhura complaints that have apparently been made.And now to my very own views! That are totally sporadic! And also deliciously spoiler filled!
I adore that Eric Bana was cast as the villain. He's a soft seeming man and a thoughtful looking one. Even with the tattoos and the crazy talk and the missing bit of ear I could believe that this was a guy who chose "honest labor" over joining with the Empire's battle-lust and had simple dreams and simple desires and went white-hot mad when those things were destroyed. For some reason he made me think of Captain Ahab from Melville's "Moby Dick". Probably his obsessive need to avenge himself against those what done him wrong. No matter the twisting logic needed.
I loved how clean-cut and fresh-faced and shiny all the Star Fleet people were. All crisp hair-cuts and crisp uniforms and fabulous makeup (seriously, I loved how the women were made up -- shallow, but true) and "best of the best of the best! Sir!" :D This is Earth's elite and it shows. (And that's how it should be. That's how Star Trek has always portrayed itself.) But I also loved that the implied professionalism actually carried through. When things went to hell (pretty much from start to finish), the regulations and chain of command and academy training worked.
After rewatching the movie I really think Spock's story was supposed to be more about him and his mother rather than him and his father. All of his big character beats (his finally cracking under the bullies taunts; his decision to go into Star Fleet; his dealing with the loss of his mother and his planet) centered around his relationship with his mother. I still wish there'd been a scene between young!Spock and Amanda. Something to clearly show the audience that she's guiding this child, that there's something about her specifically that helps shape Spock into the man he becomes. (I strongly suspect there was a scene cut; I think I saw a flash of it in a preview while we were lined up to go into the theater. Plus, why cast Winona Ryder just to stick her into old-age makeup?) I do love that it's Spock and his mother echoing Kirk and his father, but I wish we'd gotten as strong a "This is Amanda" beat as we got the "This is George" beat.
Speaking of... This is totally cavewoman squishy of me, but the primitive, man gives his life so his wife and child may live thing just works for me. Even knowing what was coming, I still cried. And fell in love with George just a little.
I hate bugs. A lot. Still, I loved the call back to "Wrath of Kahn" with the torture by bug scene with Captain Pike. Definitely squirmed and looked away, but still pleased.
Also? Bana totally stole his, "Spock! Spock! Sssspooooooock!" scream from Shatner. Which was awesome!! :D
What I love the most is how well cast this whole thing was. It's a fast paced film without much room for chat, and yet each character manages to shine through. Every look is loaded with information. There's a scene at the end when everything is done and the Earth (and galaxy!) has been saved where Uhura looks at Spock who looks at Kirk who looks at Sulu who looks at Chekov as they pass along a smile of "well done us". Generally, I hate those sort of scenes because they're inevitably trite. (Seriously, who has those sort of moments in real life? No way someone doesn't screw that "smile train" up.) But this one comes really close to working for me (it's still a minor peeve of mine, so uphill battle you understand) because I can almost buy that these people would share that sort of victory smile. These people are a team and yeah, they're tight. :)
And now? To bed! :D
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Comments
I don't know, for me the conversation Spock and Amanda have before he finds out he's been accepted at the Vulcan Science Academy works as *the* Spock and Mom convresation.(And I agree, it is about Spock and his mother more than Spock and his father). It clarified for me what she meant to him. Unconditional love. He is, after all, half-human, emotions do matter, and there she is, his only source of same.
Anyway, I've seen this twice now and love it!!
Kirk refusing to be his dad (his contempt for Star Fleet) until Pike came and played him so well (I dare you to...), being the stereotypical teenager really. While I think Spock obviously felt intense love and loyalty to his mother while at the same time trying to be perfectly logical about the whole thing and not fully acknowledging that he was motivated by that love. I think his moment of self-realization came when his dad finally said he loved her. Spock looked so shocked and relieved. I think it gave him permission to embrace his own love for her.
Certainly, Spock's mother was a powerful influence. And I think by making clear Kirk's mother was rarely around, her power was shown in a sort of inverted way. She could have been powerful, but she refused to be.
The reviewer also felt this demonized Vulcan but again I disagree--if Spock had lived on Earth it would have been Earthlings who made him feel different.
Yes. Plus, while Spock and his father had a difficult relationship it wasn't a bad one (in the movie, anyway *g*). We do see that his father loves him, and it's his father that helps Spock have his moment of growth. If the movie had really wanted to demonize Vulcan (which would have severely undercut the big emotional moment where we see Vulcan destroyed, so it would have been a weird choice) they would have painted Serek as a bad guy, I'd think. Someone for Spock to reject. Which obviously didn't happen.
So I disagree with that review, too! :D
I loved the movie! It was so much fun. And thanks for that link to
I think you're right that it would have been nice to catch a glimpse of "This is Amanda". They could have cut out the Lil!Kirk rocks out to the Beastie Boys scene, which didn't do much for me, and put back the cut birth of Spock scene (hopefully it'll be on the DVD). I think Birth of Spock would have been a nice parallel to Birth of Kirk.
But, overall, I totally loved it. WAY more than I expected to.
1. Spock marooning Kirk. Doesn't that ship have a brig?
2. The very cruel spacing of the beagle.
3. The ridiculous, ridiculous science. Yes, I know this is "Trek'. I've been a Trek fan for nearly 35 years. As I said on my blog, I can deal with silly. I can deal with wildly speculative. I cannot deal with irrational and contradictory of known facts, and, to be honest, Trek doesn't usually do this.
4. The taunting of Nero before killing him (the false offer of aid, which Kirk could not give and in any case knew Nero would reject).
5. The utter lack of response to the destruction of Vulcan. Yes, Spock was upset, and maybe this explains some of his rather irrational decisions later (like marooning Kirk). But nobody else batted an eyelash, apparently.
I love TOS. This movie destroyed TOS. How could I possibly like it?
But to your points: I do think (1) and (5) combine to answer each other. I think Spock rationalized the marooning as being safe enough (if Kirk had stayed inside the pod as he was instructed to do), but it really was a rationalization. It's a tiny pod, how long would it be before help came, especially considering the circumstances (StarFleet's hands were pretty full at the time, Scotty obviously hadn't been notified of Kirk's arrival on planet). Jettisoning Kirk was ridiculously dramatic and over the top and I thought it fit in beautifully with Spock being "emotionally compromised" as Spock Prime puts it.
I will say the emotional beats are well wrapped in big action scenes, so I can see how they might appear either second hand or pasted on. For me, that they exist within the few quiet moments available (Spock Prime's reaction, Kirk's tears on sharing that reaction, McCoy's angry words to Spock, Uhura's giving Spock consolation, Spock accepting it for a moment, Spock's expressed rage) tells me that this is something the movie thought important. Vulcan's destruction was felt, I thought.
Point (2)... I didn't really process that bit, I'll admit. It doesn't do Scotty any favors, I agree. I suppose we're supposed to see the dog as still traveling rather than dead? (Didn't Scotty seem confident the beagle would turn up eventually?)
I do agree that the science (3) is not very scientific. This is an area where my own ignorance is a virtue, I guess. I recall thinking that stars don't tend to suddenly SuperNova! unpredictably, but I wasn't sure and decided it better to not question. I figured the "red matter" was a totally made up thing and just gave up on the plot itself being made of good science.
I agree that the final conversation before blowing up Nero and his ship (5) was a bit... confusing to me. I didn't get how taking Nero into custody and giving him a trial (which is what I think Kirk was offering?) would translate to a better relationship with the Romulans. (Why would they care? Would they even claim Nero as their own?)
I think maybe it was supposed to show Kirk's ability to be a captain. That he (unlike Nero, and even Spock at this moment) could put aside his emotional response to the man who caused so much harm and see a bigger picture. But it was fairly thrown-away (I think because there wasn't any actual discussion) and I think Kirk's rationality had been better illustrated previously. (I imagine they kept it because of the banter between Kirk and Spock, so we'd see a friendship starting to develop.)
And hey - maybe I don't understand the time travel story. Because I just don't understand how any fan of classic trek could like this movie. It's clear to me that, if you accept this movie, it completely negates all of TOS. None of the episodes we know and love will ever happen. There will be no "Amok Time", no "Journey to Babel", no Romulans and no episodes that depend on them - and also, the configuration of the bridge crew has changed, and on it goes.
But I think my fifth point is even more important. I did not see Kirk as being rational or seeing a bigger picture. What I saw was (1) him mocking Nero by offering a rescue he couldn't follow through with - Nero was trapped inside the event horizon of a black hole at the time, wasn't he? They couldn't rescue him.(2)Getting a justification for his own vengeance - and Spock's. It really is just like DH; he gets to kill his father's killer, after having been seen to offer him mercy, but the apparent mercy is just a mockery. (3) Kirk and Spock know it's a mockery. They know Nero will refuse, and then they will be justified in blowing him up - as if the ship wasn't going to be torn to pieces by the gravity of the singularity, anyway. The only reason I could see for their firing on it was their own emotional satisfaction.
That's the way I saw that scene, and I'm not alone. BTW - when you said, I didn't get how taking Nero into custody and giving him a trial (which is what I think Kirk was offering?) would translate to a better relationship with the Romulans. (Why would they care? Would they even claim Nero as their own?) All I could think was: what Romulans? There are no Romulans; Romulus has been destroyed. Since Romulans and Vulcans are the same people, both originating from Vulcan, this is a near complete genocide. And - about the Romulans, anyway - nobody cares. No one except Nero and his crew.
But - oh dear. I'm ranting again. Sorry. Thanks again for the links.
Mary )
And hey - maybe I don't understand the time travel story. Because I just don't understand how any fan of classic trek could like this movie. It's clear to me that, if you accept this movie, it completely negates all of TOS.
Oh! I do have a completely different understanding of time travel. (I think this was the view used in the reboot, but I'm not sure if it's the general Trek usage. But it's the form of time travel that most makes scientific sense to me as it negates a bunch of paradoxes.) Anyway, by ripping a hole in time, another universe was full on created. So rather than destroying TOS, this version exists in parallel to it.
Which means Romulus won't necessarily be destroyed in the reboot 'verse, and it means that Vulcan was not destroyed in the original 'verse. Each universe is distinct from each other with only Nero and his crew and Spock Prime as a link between the two. A link that was severed as soon as they arrived in the reboot 'verse.
Which means the TOS stuff still exists, is still valid canon. I think all this does is give a secondary form of canon that viewers can take or leave at will.
1. Time travel is dangerous, and generally forbidden, because it is very likely to create temporal paradoxes and change the future. That is, ifyou succeed in changing anything in the past. However
2. It's almost impossible to change anything meaningful in the past, because it has already happened. Which, in itself, is a paradox, and which is why time travel stories create headaches. The main problem with this one, as others have said, is even more basic than this. Nero knows that his planet is going to be destroyed? He goes backward in time to - kill Spock, the man who is going to try (and fail) to save his planet? As others have said, what manner of sense does that make? Why not try to save Romulus himself, or at least save the people? Assuming he can actually change anything in the past (a debatable point), why not try to change that?!
No, I think the filmmakers were just looking for an excuse to blow up Vulcan and destroy the Federation as we know it. And I resent that. I enjoyed the movie while I was watching it, but wasn't especially moved or engaged by any of the characters after the first 8 minutes. And I spent the last 15 or so muttering, "This is stupid. This is stupid. This is really stupid." But I've said that before.
As I said, you're a nice person, and I'm glad you managed to take some pleasure from the movie. My sisters liked it, too. The more I think about it, the less I like it. I really do think it has some of the same meanness and thoughtlessness about it that DH does, but, of course, it was a lot more energetic and better made than that book. So you could enjoy it if you were not particularly a fan of the original show, or if you weren't thinking about the implications too much. Neither of which is bad, of course. I can see just watching this as a big-budget popcorn movie, because that's basically what it is.
I'll stop now.
The interesting thing about this theory is that you can go back in time and change things, but it will only create a different time line, not change yours. So there's the angst of kind of fixing things, but not for you. Your solace is that in at least one universe, things are (hopefully!) better.
Because I agree, the idea of the original Trek being destroyed, completely unmade by this reboot, is a horrible one. I'm very comfortable with two universes existing side by side, but not having the new one overwrite the old one. So at this point (unless I see it again and it becomes clear to me that the movie does mean to overwrite) I'm going to cling to my parallel universe theory.