nixsight

Oh, by the way you guys… We totes watched the new “Star Trek” movie last week. I should have posted something about it before I proposed to Girl One a couple weekends ago and everything went quite, quite peculiar.

Oh, yeah, by the way you guys… I proposed to Girl One a couple of weekends away and she said “yes”! Since which everything has been quite hectic.

But anyway, right, “Star Trek”. Loads has probably been said about it already, much of which I’d just repeat if I went into too much detail – one of the problems with being the last to the party on such a blockbuster. If, by way of a review, I say that it was a pleasant surprise, and a fun and noisy cinematic confection of fairly universal appeal, you’ll get that we liked it, right?

There were just a few things I’d like to mention:

1 – I don’t know if the use of “Sabotage”, very loud and played almost in its entirety, was a comment on the timeless perfection of the Beastie Boys circa “Ill Communication“, or a reference to the apparently famous Shatner audio (included below). All I know is that it’s greatly appreciated.

2 – There are plenty of wonderful moments of light fan-service in the movie, that Abrams manages to thread unobtrusively into proceedings. Watching it as a light fan of Star Trek myself, I really enjoyed those bits.

3 – The film is totally accessible to mainstream audiences, regardless of whether or not the slightly shonky “science” pissed off hard-core science fiction fans. I know this because Girl One, who hasn’t seen a single episode of Trek – apparently all flavours, despite having a bit of a thing about Patrick Stewart – utterly loved it. To be honest, I’d wondered if the fan-service I mentioned wasn’t a bit excluding, but apparently not.

4 – The infamous lens flare, and the shaky cam, didn’t bother us at all, despite the relatively small screen and uncomfortable viewing angle that I tweeted about at the time – stupid Odeon – and in fact it wasn’t nearly as noticeable or disarming as the sheer amount of detail and activity going on in many scenes. In fact, the lens flare was ubiquitous, but in context it wasn’t often prominent – I only noticed it as much as I’d notice a particularly atypical or idiosyncratic film-stock or camera style, and its application actually took the edge off the CG that was obviously used, but blended in perfectly.

5 – I don’t know how badly offended original Trek fans have been by Abrams version, but I think the film was actually a clearer and more loving homage than was required, and if anything, the film’s successes – in my eyes I mean – show up the redundance of fans in most cases of cultural success.
By which I mean that though there are several narrative nods to previous Trek movies – some scenes, concepts, and I think one whole line of dialogue are clear lifts from “Star Trek 2 – The Wrath Of Khan“, and the first appearance of the key adversary craft in the new movie strongly evokes the vastness and wonder of V’Ger in “Star Trek – The Motion Picture” – the main thing that Abrams has taken from the franchise is the almost naive, cynicism free approach to the big concepts and character interactions that were a signature of the original series.
The tonal shifts from never deep but always consistent bickering main characters to near-Shakespearian levels of melodrama during battle are handled deftly to create what I suspect just happened naturally when making a science-fiction series in the sixties, but is pretty rare today – an angst-free, large-canvas exercise in imagination and the broadest of character conflicts, that doesn’t sweat the techno-babble.
That Abrams manages to maintain that mawk-light feel while still including the requisite Hollywood character back-stories – Kirk and Spock both, of course, have daddy issues that wouldn’t be alien in a character outline on “Lost” – might be a function of his inability as a director to fit too much pap in, rather than a deliberate strength on his part, but damn it works.
But this stuff, this straight-up likeability about the whole concept as originally presented and as delivered here, isn’t what makes the show popular with hardcore fans, who watch, rewatch, deconstruct and write fan-fiction about it – it’s what makes “Star Trek” popular for the wider audience, who are happy to sit and watch an episode of Shatner strong-arming a script, Koenig being all cute for the growing sixties teen-girl demographic, or Nimoy and Kelly bickering in a way almost entirely unbecoming of servicemen, if it happens to be on on cable. And to be honest, it’s those people in their masses who probably have more to do with why the show is still repeated on so many channels, in so many markets.

At least, that’s what I think.

Wow, I might as well have just written a review, huh?

Anyway, favourite other stuff:

Karl Urban totally rips up the screen as McCoy. This doesn’t actually make sense in any reality. Urban has previously been little more than slightly beefy and rough action fodder, and hasn’t distinguished himself as having all that much on-screen charisma, beyond the ability to make some women feel very wiggly. It’s peculiar but awesome that playing one of the few non-physical characters in this movie – and in fact playing the one danger-averse person in it – he finally becomes noteworthy. He reminded me a lot of the ever-charming-regardless-of-the-quality-of-a-movie Hugh Jackman.

John Cho motherfuckers!

Cameo!

In jokes!

Maguffins!

Applied phlebotinum!

And oh, much as I’m not a Trekker, or Trekkie, or whatever, the recreation of the signature theme and voiceover from the original series actually gave me chills. That were multiplying. I almost lost control.

(By the way, for a laugh or because you’re obsessive, once you’ve seen the film you should definitely check out the TV Tropes page for it: Star Trek – Television Tropes & Idioms. Observing a lot of these narrative tropes is old hat by now, but being reminded of the fact that Star Trek is one of the prime seams where a lot of these tropes were originally mined is always interesting…)