... Star Trek. I went out and saw Star Trek last night, and I wanted to write about the film while everything was still fresh in my mind. Don't worry, no spoilers. I would most like to analyze the reaction of the fans to the film. I have seen many fans be outraged at the film, and I have also seen fans (including myself) that see no problem with it.
Let me tell you something, THERE WAS NOTHING WRONG WITH THE FILM! People out there saying things about how it is not true to the canon of Star Trek are WRONG! Everything that happens in the film is totally legitimate. Now, here is a little bit of a spoiler, but not really since you can just Google and see people talk about it. Besides, nobody reads these anyhow so what do I care? There is some time travel in the movie that rewrites part of the Star Trek canon, and this is what people are mad about. The nerd fans are angry that a Star Trek movie takes into account the rifts in the space-time continuum that time travel would create. Now, dear reader, I will point out something here. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (which most fans I have talked to say is their favorite) involves time travel, but there is no consideration about what would happen if a woman from the 21st century was TAKEN FROM EARTH along with two whales. One would think that the nerds would be more mad about how that would ruin everything, but because it is "classic" it is ok.
Let me get to the root of the nerd anger here. Star Trek is an origin story that is different from the regular canon. What this does is it makes Star Trek readily available to anyone to see and enjoy. Furthermore, the movie was INCREDIBLY enjoyable because it was quite entertaining and action-packed. The nerds are angry because these two things make Star Trek something that anyone can enjoy. They are losing all of their nerd culture elitism, and that makes them mad. They can't stand the fact that something they thought was theirs exclusively can now be enjoyed by everyone.
To refute this, I will quote Spock and Kirk from my second favorite of the classic movies, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn. "The needs of the many... outweigh..." "The needs of the few." "Or the one." -Spock to Kirk
You see dear reader and angry nerd, I strongly feel that we have not had a great Star Trek anything for quite some time, and the new generations NEED these heroes and these stories. The needs of the many people who are not familiar with Star Trek outweigh the needs of the few, who "need" to be exclusively the only people who can speak Klingon. The new Star Trek film does not need to apologize to anyone for being a good movie, entertaining, accurate (at least legitimate, had good explanation for why they changed what got changed), and relevant to today's culture and movie franchises. Honestly, the movie was made to make money (just like EVERY OTHER STAR TREK FILM), and it does not need to apologize for that either.
Besides... the story for Star Trek IV is that upon returning to earth, Kirk and friends find an alien probe destroying earth through really loud whale calls. They fly around the sun which magically puts them back in time EXACTLY when they needed to be, which is earth in 1986... So they go and find some whales, Kirk meets a girl, they beam the whales on their ship, beam the girl on their ship, fly BACK around the sun to make it right back to where they started, beam the whales into the ocean, and the whales whale call back to the probe to let it know that everything is ok. I'm confused as to why the fans think the new one is "ridiculous."
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The alternate reality thing IS annoying. Not incorrect, just annoying.
ReplyDeleteHere's my abridged version:
ReplyDeleteThe whole alternate universe thing annoys me because it's a cheap way of saying "We can now do whatever we want, because we don't like the story that all the fans know and love."
My main beef, though, was that it didn't follow the Star Trek formula. Star Trek has always been about ethical dilemmas and examining the human condition. Sure, there were sometimes pretty pretty lights and fistfights, but that was [almost] never the point. Especially in the Original Series. The deepest ethical dilemma in Abrams movie was for Spock: "Should I be human or Vulcan? Well, Vulcan just got sucked into a black hole and I get some action with the human chick. Hard choice."
Abrams said that he wanted to make this movie more like Star Wars, because all his smart friends growing up liked Trek and he felt left out. Basically dumb it down so more people can enjoy it. Well, judging by the reviews and the box office, he was successful.
Other less important beefs: the romance (keeping this spoiler free-ish), Scotty's pet, Alias references, Leonard Nimoy trying way too hard to appease the fans, the Enterprise redesign, not being able to decide whether or not sound can travel in a vacuum, etc. I could go on.
But just to balance this out, some things I enjoyed:
-Karl Urban as Bones, amazing perfomance.
-Pike.
-"Wictor, Wictor". Not quite "Nuclear wessels", but fun.
-The reference to Porthos.
-The Kobiyashi Maru.
-The battle between the Kelvin and the Narada.
Counter-rant over.