A Nothing Trail of Silences

I finally saw this new-fangled Star Trek movie everyone else already appears to have watched.



I am not really a Trekie. This is somewhat unusual, as my parents, siblings, and aunts/uncles all are. I have a basic knowledge of the new series because video tapes were passed around through my extended family. Also, when I burned the first two seasons of TNG for my sister, I tried to watch a few episodes, but it didn't really take.

Now that's out of the way: I quite enjoyed this movie. I didn't have the buckets of love that most of my flist seemed to, but this might be for the aforementioned reasons. (Note -- even though this got longer and more rambling than I intended, I will reiterate that though I did enjoy the movie, I did feel it, like anything, had flaws.)

Love:
- Uhura! She is the most competent of them all.
- Spock! I'm afraid that my Sylar-hate resulted in a contact transfer of vague dislike for ZQ, but he was excellent. Hurrah!
- Spock and Uhura! While I am somewhat sketched out that an instructor appears to have been dating his student, I felt what was on-screen was handled well, and with grace. I'm intrigued by the implications of what it means to Spock, to have made the same choice his father did.
- Pretty much everyone, really. Sulu's relevant fencing FTW, Chekov was amusing, if a little one-note, and Simon Pegg was, well, Simon Pegg.
- The ships. Looked real, rough, mechanical, and futuristic.
- Cinematography. Loved the blocking, loved the colour schemes. The movie was gorgeously shot and styled.


Meh:
- Maybe it's just that I don't have any background in TOS, but Kirk... Kirk is kind of an ass. ("So, kids, sit back and let your father tell you about how he got his first command. You see, I verbally attacked someone who just watched his mother die and his planet explode. I knew he was in pain, so I thought I'd accuse him of not feeling anything..." / "Wait, we're supposed to be on Kirk's side in this one?" I asked one of my friends, when Kirk was being called out for cheating.)
- You know what, this may actually be due more to the fact that the "Rebel wonderkid comes in and saves the day with his rebel ways, teaching everyone to let loose their inner rebel" setup is really not one of my favourites.

Possibly Sketch:
- That's a large percentage of women who are pregnant and/or dead to provide motivation for men.
- They must have blown their budget on SFX, because it looks like they ran out of money for fabric for pants. And sleeves. Seriously, you can blow up Vulcan, but you can't put the women in clothes? It looks they just woke up in the morning and forgot to put their pants on.
- Does it count as passing the Bechdel test if there's simultaneously someone under the bed, perving on you as you strip?

Giant Plot Hole:
- So, there was time for Spock to go to Romulus, talk to the council, do science and build a ship, but not enough time to start evacuating the planet? They got, what, 10,000 people off of Vulcan with five minutes and one extra ship? What were the Romulans doing in the interim? "In today's news: Yes, the sun is getting bigger -- but don't worry, Spock is coming! Next: What scientists don't want you to know about the dangers of sun screen."

Miscellaneous:
- Pet peeve: Half-human hybrids. I understand that it's established in-universe, but really. We share upward of 96% of our DNA with chimpanzees. We have a (geologically) recent common ancestor. We both have iron-based blood. Despite this, you do not see people running around with half-chimpanzee babies.
- Actually, this is beyond a pet peeve. It's one of the things in media that makes me most want to smack my head against a wall. Biological species concept, people.


That appears to have grown somewhat longer and more rambling than I intended. At the end of the day, I thought it was fairly compelling, visually stunning movie with a fair number of characters I cared about, but like all things, had its flaws.