Tag: star trek

I honestly thought I’d be the easiest fan to please. How wrong I was. I feel like my universe (ie. Gene Roddenberry’s universe) has been ripped apart, torn to shreds, and crapped upon. It’s been over 3 weeks since I’ve seen Star Trek, and I’m still mad.

[MAJOR SPOILERS and long rant ahead. You have been warned.]

I’m not one of those Trekkies that care about the technical details being off. I don’t care about the size of the Enterprise (although apparently, it’s huge compared to the original one). I don’t care about the size of the warp nacelles, how far apart they are, or what colour they are. I don’t care what colour Kirk’s eyes are.

I DO care about my Star Trek universe, the one I grew up on. It was an optimistic vision of the future that I could look forward to in every episode of every show (except maybe Enterprise, I missed that series). This movie basically says to me: “Your universe sucked. We’re throwing it out the window and making our own cooler, flashier one.  Oh, and by flashier, I mean lens flares. LOTS OF THEM.” Okay, I don’t actually care about all the lens flares, but there really was a ridiculous amount of them.

The whole concept of “your universe sucked” was reiterated in their whole “This isn’t your father’s Star Trek” campaign. Excuse me, mister, but “my father’s Star Trek” was nothing short of awesome. It was a show ahead of its time. It foresaw a future in which all humans (and even some aliens!), regardless of race and gender, were united and equal.

I didn’t think I’d care about the movie being non-canon, but it was EXPLICITLY non-canon. They exploited a loophole to create a non-canon universe and still claim it’s canon. NO, IT’S NOT. It’s another timeline/universe/reality/notstartrek. As a friend put it, “they cheated”. If they had made a movie about the Mirror Universe, it would not be the Star Trek universe (and the movie would be titled something like Mirror Star Trek, instead of claiming to be something it’s not). Yes, the Mirror Universe is part of Star Trek canon, but it’s still another universe.

There is really just one thing that bothers me with this new universe. Fine, kill Kirk’s father. Fine, kill Spock’s mother. Kill off all the parents! The Spock/Uhura thing was REALLY WEIRD, but whatever, not the end of the world.

You know what WAS the end of the world (literally)? Vulcan.

So much for “Live long and prosper”! I couldn’t believe they let that happen. And NO ONE CARED. To me, Vulcan is such an important part of the Star Trek universe. Who initiated first contact with humans when they reached warp capability? The Vulcans. Who founded the Federation with the humans (along with some other races, but they’re not as interesting)? The Vulcans. Where does the VULCAN nerve pinch come from? Where does the VULCAN hand salute come from? Live long and prosper?!!

“It’s a necessary evil for Star Trek to survive.” Don’t give me that crap. Is it really necessary to sacrifice Vulcan? Does it make the movie better? Was anything accomplished with its destruction? For all I know, Saavik and Tuvok died on that planet. They didn’t even show any real impact of the destruction. I didn’t agree with the argument for the ending of the movie Watchmen, but at least the destruction that occurred there led to something.

I just can’t believe they would wipe out this essential part of Star Trek. And no one in the movie cared or did anything about it! Oh yay, they got 5 old guys to preserve their culture. Who cares about the 6 billion lives lost, right? Oh, and they saved Earth from destruction, so who cares about Vulcan? Only humans are important, right?!!!

Star Trek is all about equality; it is not the Star Trek way to only care about humans. I’m reminded of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home or Star Trek: First Contact, where Kirk and Picard travelled back in time in order to save Earth. Was anything of the sort done for Vulcan? In Voyager, Janeway stranded her crew in the Delta Quadrant in order to save the Ocampans, an alien race she just met.

Well, I guess none of that matters, since this is a different universe. At the end of the movie, when Nero’s ship gets sucked into the singularity, I was really hoping that the Enterprise would also get sucked in and somehow save Vulcan. Or, if anything, young Spock should’ve sacrificed himself to save his people. You know, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few… or the one. But of course, this is a different universe, so this Spock is not as cool as Leonard Nimoy.

I have no beef with the actors. They did what the script asked of them. Chris Pine was admirable as Kirk. A friend asked me how he compared to William Shatner. My response: He was really good, but he’s no Shatner! Simon Pegg’s Scotty was fun to watch (maybe it was just me, but his accent sounded more British than Scottish). Karl Urban’s McCoy was just awesome. He WAS Bones. Nero wasn’t as interesting a villain as I would have liked. He was basically a (not that great) copy of Khan, if you ask me.

I did enjoy most of the movie, especially the Trekkie moments, but Vulcan really ruined it for me. I’m surprised that the movie is doing so well, among Trekkies and non-Trekkies alike. It’s been out for 3 weeks, and it’s still rated 95% on Rotten Tomatoes. If I were to rate it generally as a movie, I’d say it was okay, not quite  “sumthin’ special”. As a Star Trek movie? Well, you know how I feel.

It sucks that no one else seems to care about Vulcan (in the movie and in real life). I feel like I’m alone in my state of mourning.

After seeing the newest Star Trek trailer, the doubts I had in my post about the previous Star Trek trailer have been pretty much erased. This new trailer conveys more of Star Trek and how the story will centre around Kirk’s journey to the captain’s chair. The scene where he takes his seat is epic!

I think seeing JJ Abrams talk at WonderCon has also reassured me that the new movie stays true to the essence of Star Trek. As a Trekkie, it took me a while to come to grips with it, but here’s the deal… This is a new movie, with different actors, and it’s not being made in the 1960s. Things WILL be different, and –*gasp!*– not adhere to canon. And I’m fine with that. It’s either that, or let Star Trek disappear into obscurity. I prefer the former. Star Trek is gaining a lot of hype now, even among non-fans.

At this point, I’m just so excited to see a new Star Trek ANYTHING. It really doesn’t matter what happens in the movie. I’m going to love every second of it.

On Saturday, James and I went to WonderCon in San Francisco. It was sort of a last-minute decision I made because I wanted to check out the Star Trek movie panel that day. The WonderCon website‘s description for panel didn’t name anyone, simply saying there was a “special guest”. I thought to myself, it’s probably just one of JJ Abrams’ people… or maybe even JJ Abrams himself, if I’m lucky!

James and I got there, and we were sitting in the audience, wondering who was going to show up and what was going to happen. It WAS JJ Abrams!! He came out, excited about the movie, and showed us the new trailer which will be showing with The Watchmen this Friday. It was pretty cool that we were the first people to see it.

He then brought out his other writer/producers, Robert Orci and Bryan Burk. AND… Zoe Saldana (Uhura), Zachary Quinto (Spock), and Chris Pine (Kirk). Wow! I was in the same, albeit huge, room as Zachary Quinto. They talked about the movie and answered some questions. Zachary Quinto mentioned how he’d seen the movie for the first time the night before, and he was speechless for about 20 minutes after because it was so good. I loved hearing Quinto talk about the movie and his experience working with Leonard Nimoy (or maybe I just love hearing Quinto talk?).

It was interesting how JJ Abrams described his formula for creating a story: take some normal, relatable people and put them in a crazy scenario. He also said something I found funny: his fans won’t complain about any of the crazy sci-fi stuff that happens on his shows. For example, in the Fringe pilot, there was a guy dying and turning invisible, and his girlfriend enters his mind, and no one complained about that stuff. However, they said, “Hey, they get a FREE lab at Harvard? How does THAT happen?”

We attended part of the Disney/Pixar UP panel, in which they showed us so many clips from the movie that I may as well have already seen it. Seriously, I know what the movie’s about now.

We also went to the Terminator: Salvation panel (no, Christian Bale was not there). I’ve never seen director McG before, and I don’t know if it was an act, but with all his swearing and talking about whether to display actress Moon Bloodgood’s boobs in the movie, he came off as rather a-hole-ish. Anton Yelchin, who plays Kyle Reese, was part of the panel. Why wasn’t he at the Star Trek panel as well (since he also plays Chekov in the new movie)?

Unfortunately, I don’t have any cool me-with-a-celebrity pictures like I usually do after going to conventions, but it was really awesome to see JJ Abrams and his crew (get it? crew? lol).

The new Star Trek trailer started showing last week in theatres showing Quantum of Solace. I skipped out on seeing Quantum of Solace during opening weekend, so I didn’t see it until last night. As my luck would have it, they didn’t show the Star Trek trailer. I even got to the theatre early and everything.

I finally watched the trailer online last night. My reaction was… well, it was ok. Obviously, it will be hard to satisfy some hardcore fans like myself. If I wasn’t the huge Trekkie that I am, I would’ve just dismissed the trailer as “another action flick”. And that’s the thing about Star Trek, it’s NOT just an action series. It’s so much more. Of course, lots of Trekkies out there enjoy the action and special effects, so they might have really liked this trailer. I, on the other hand, appreciate the stories and the moral philosophy behind Star Trek.

Moral philosophy is what makes Star Trek so special to me. I wonder if this movie has any of that. Granted, the trailer didn’t show much, so the story is likely a lot deeper than the action-packed trailer. Either way, I’m keeping an open mind for this movie. It’s a much-needed revitalization of the Star Trek franchise. I was somewhat dismayed when I heard that JJ Abrams wasn’t a “huge fan” of Star Trek before making this movie, but his work on Lost and Fringe is commendable, so it’ll be interesting to see what he does with Star Trek.

Plus, Zachary Quinto (Sylar) as Spock is enough to make me drool. ;)