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Things I Did Today: saw the new Star Trek movie at the mall.
Initial Response: SQUEEEE! There are things I am undoubtedly going to be nitpicky about by tomorrow, or maybe even by the end of this post (writing helps clarify thoughts, you know), but my basic reaction while watching was "OMG yay!" and I walked out of the theater with a giant smile on my face that, two hours later, has yet to fade.
Secondary Response: You know, for all that I grew up in the 80s and 90s, TOS was always my Trek. This is because I did not watch commercial television at all until I was ten, and only sporadically thereafter. (Mostly, I watched what my sister watched, and Vicky is not much of a sci-fi fan.) So my first real* exposure to Star Trek was when I saw "The Trouble With Tribbles" at my friend Charity's house; I was probably ten or eleven at the time. A year or so after that, somebody gave me videos of "Where No Man Has Gone Before" and "Space Seed" for Christmas. I enjoyed the episodes, but I didn't feel any need to seek out more of the show at that time.
Then, in junior high, I rented all six of the TOS movies. I can't remember exactly why -- possibly it was just out of random curiosity, possibly it was because Generations came out in 1994 and I wanted to get context after seeing it -- but over a couple weeks, I watched every one of them. The first was boring and kind of dumb. (I had the misfortune to rent an edition with twelve extra minutes of footage that had been cut from the theatrical release; all twelve minutes were nothing but extended boring sfx shots. *headdesk*) The Wrath of Khan kicked serious ass (and I am still amused that, of only three episodes I've seen of TOS, I'd watched the one to which that film is a direct sequel). The Search for Spock was necessary filler, but it was vastly more entertaining than the first movie. The Voyage Home is sublimely ridiculous and I love it madly. The fifth movie does not exist... well, okay, the camping in Yosemite is canon, but everything else is a bizarre hallucination Kirk suffered due to, I don't know, mosquito bites having a strange reaction with alien STDs he picked up over the years, or something like that. The Undiscovered Country is a little cramped, but nicely executed and worlds better than the fifth movie.
After that, I was a little obsessed with Star Trek for a year or two. And since I am me, my reaction was not to rent any of the old episodes, or to watch the Trek shows then on television, but to find every damn tie-in novel my local library had, and read them three times each. (I process fiction best as words on a page. I don't know why; I just do.) So my great love was always for Spock, Kirk, and McCoy. Secondarily I wanted Uhura and Sulu to get actual things to do, because I knew they could be just as cool as the three leads if anyone would let them, and I have a great fondness for Scotty and Chekov as well, and for Sarek and Amanda.
So this movie was pretty much exactly what I wanted from a Star Trek movie, and in addition to that, ( spoiler ) and I love that, because I have never seen anyone do that in canon before, and it's a beautiful way of sidestepping all kinds of issues... including, say, this Federation ending up as stultifying as the Federation of TNG, because from the bits and pieces I saw of TNG, and from Generations and First Contact, that Federation is pretty damn ossified; I would not want to live there. (The books do a better job of making it feel liveable, and I am told that DS9 also sands off the cludgiest bits, but still. The base premise -- a moneyless utopia with no interpersonal conflict -- is utterly implausible, and stupid besides.)
Tertiary Response: ( shipping-related spoilers )
Quaternary Response: Oh, bother. See, I said I might get nitpicky by the end of this post. And here we go: It's true that George Kirk and Amanda get about the same amount of screen time ( spoilers )
(I am also mildly annoyed that Winona Kirk vanishes from the film after the opening scene -- seriously, would it have been all that difficult to have Kirk mention her once while he's at the academy, or for her to have been watching his award ceremony? Or if she's dead, could we have been told about that? Because to the best of my knowledge, Jim Kirk is not currently an orphan in this world, and it's hard for me not to think worse of him if he totally neglects his mother.)
Quint... Fifth Response: But still, squee!
*My technical first exposure to Star Trek was via Reading Rainbow, in an episode where LeVar Burton took viewers backstage on the TNG sets, and even got into costume as Geordi La Forge. Somehow, I missed that he was a regular cast-member, and just thought it was very nice of these people to let him mess around with their show. *headdesk* I was very pop-culture deprived as a child. (I also thought the transporter effect was pretty, but that's neither here nor there.)
Initial Response: SQUEEEE! There are things I am undoubtedly going to be nitpicky about by tomorrow, or maybe even by the end of this post (writing helps clarify thoughts, you know), but my basic reaction while watching was "OMG yay!" and I walked out of the theater with a giant smile on my face that, two hours later, has yet to fade.
Secondary Response: You know, for all that I grew up in the 80s and 90s, TOS was always my Trek. This is because I did not watch commercial television at all until I was ten, and only sporadically thereafter. (Mostly, I watched what my sister watched, and Vicky is not much of a sci-fi fan.) So my first real* exposure to Star Trek was when I saw "The Trouble With Tribbles" at my friend Charity's house; I was probably ten or eleven at the time. A year or so after that, somebody gave me videos of "Where No Man Has Gone Before" and "Space Seed" for Christmas. I enjoyed the episodes, but I didn't feel any need to seek out more of the show at that time.
Then, in junior high, I rented all six of the TOS movies. I can't remember exactly why -- possibly it was just out of random curiosity, possibly it was because Generations came out in 1994 and I wanted to get context after seeing it -- but over a couple weeks, I watched every one of them. The first was boring and kind of dumb. (I had the misfortune to rent an edition with twelve extra minutes of footage that had been cut from the theatrical release; all twelve minutes were nothing but extended boring sfx shots. *headdesk*) The Wrath of Khan kicked serious ass (and I am still amused that, of only three episodes I've seen of TOS, I'd watched the one to which that film is a direct sequel). The Search for Spock was necessary filler, but it was vastly more entertaining than the first movie. The Voyage Home is sublimely ridiculous and I love it madly. The fifth movie does not exist... well, okay, the camping in Yosemite is canon, but everything else is a bizarre hallucination Kirk suffered due to, I don't know, mosquito bites having a strange reaction with alien STDs he picked up over the years, or something like that. The Undiscovered Country is a little cramped, but nicely executed and worlds better than the fifth movie.
After that, I was a little obsessed with Star Trek for a year or two. And since I am me, my reaction was not to rent any of the old episodes, or to watch the Trek shows then on television, but to find every damn tie-in novel my local library had, and read them three times each. (I process fiction best as words on a page. I don't know why; I just do.) So my great love was always for Spock, Kirk, and McCoy. Secondarily I wanted Uhura and Sulu to get actual things to do, because I knew they could be just as cool as the three leads if anyone would let them, and I have a great fondness for Scotty and Chekov as well, and for Sarek and Amanda.
So this movie was pretty much exactly what I wanted from a Star Trek movie, and in addition to that, ( spoiler ) and I love that, because I have never seen anyone do that in canon before, and it's a beautiful way of sidestepping all kinds of issues... including, say, this Federation ending up as stultifying as the Federation of TNG, because from the bits and pieces I saw of TNG, and from Generations and First Contact, that Federation is pretty damn ossified; I would not want to live there. (The books do a better job of making it feel liveable, and I am told that DS9 also sands off the cludgiest bits, but still. The base premise -- a moneyless utopia with no interpersonal conflict -- is utterly implausible, and stupid besides.)
Tertiary Response: ( shipping-related spoilers )
Quaternary Response: Oh, bother. See, I said I might get nitpicky by the end of this post. And here we go: It's true that George Kirk and Amanda get about the same amount of screen time ( spoilers )
(I am also mildly annoyed that Winona Kirk vanishes from the film after the opening scene -- seriously, would it have been all that difficult to have Kirk mention her once while he's at the academy, or for her to have been watching his award ceremony? Or if she's dead, could we have been told about that? Because to the best of my knowledge, Jim Kirk is not currently an orphan in this world, and it's hard for me not to think worse of him if he totally neglects his mother.)
Quint... Fifth Response: But still, squee!
*My technical first exposure to Star Trek was via Reading Rainbow, in an episode where LeVar Burton took viewers backstage on the TNG sets, and even got into costume as Geordi La Forge. Somehow, I missed that he was a regular cast-member, and just thought it was very nice of these people to let him mess around with their show. *headdesk* I was very pop-culture deprived as a child. (I also thought the transporter effect was pretty, but that's neither here nor there.)
