Star Trekking, across the Universe...
May. 9th, 2009 09:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sharplittleteethSaw Star Trek last night.
It's a good, solid sci-fi action-adventure film. There's fistfights, explosions, giant space battles, and enough character development to give it some emotional heft.
It's easily the best Star Trek-related thing I've seen. But I've seen very little Trek, and what I have seen was uniformly bad. So my opinion may not count for much. The film doesn't measure up to, say, the new Battlestar Galactica, but that may be an apples-to-oranges comparison.
The plot is about an evil Romulan blowing up planets, but really that's just background colour for the story about how Kirk and Spock start off hating each other but then end up best friends.
The star of the film is definitely Zachary Quinto as Spock. This is a younger, sexier Spock, and the conflict between his seething human emotions and his coldly logical Vulcan side is the main character arc in the movie.
Chris Pine as James T. Kirk was probably meant to be the star, but all he really does is be smug.
Eric Bana plays Captain Nero, the aforementioned evil, planet-destroying Romulan. He's fine as an actor, but he never really gets enough screen time to be anything except a fairly generic bad guy. Which is a pity - the quality of a sci-fi film is generally directly proportional to how cool the bad guy is.
There's some cheesy moments, some in-jokes for the fans, lots of action, a clever explanation of how this franchise reboot fits in to the original series, and at least one frustrating plot hole (see Spoilers section). The flim runs for just over two hours, but it keeps up a breathless pace through it all. I'd actually have preferred it if there were a few less punch-ups and a bit more characterisation. But even taken as it is, it's a good bit of sci-fi action fun.
SPOILER BIT
Frustrating plot hole: Captain Nero dumps Spock on the snow moon to watch the destruction of planet Vulcan. There is a Starfleet base nearby. Spock knows this - he mentions it himself. And yet instead of trying to reach the base and warn his homeworld of thier impending doom, he sulks around in a cave waiting to play Obi-Wan to Kirk's Luke Skywalker.
It's an easy fix, too: have Nero tie Spock up before he dumps him.
It's a good, solid sci-fi action-adventure film. There's fistfights, explosions, giant space battles, and enough character development to give it some emotional heft.
It's easily the best Star Trek-related thing I've seen. But I've seen very little Trek, and what I have seen was uniformly bad. So my opinion may not count for much. The film doesn't measure up to, say, the new Battlestar Galactica, but that may be an apples-to-oranges comparison.
The plot is about an evil Romulan blowing up planets, but really that's just background colour for the story about how Kirk and Spock start off hating each other but then end up best friends.
The star of the film is definitely Zachary Quinto as Spock. This is a younger, sexier Spock, and the conflict between his seething human emotions and his coldly logical Vulcan side is the main character arc in the movie.
Chris Pine as James T. Kirk was probably meant to be the star, but all he really does is be smug.
Eric Bana plays Captain Nero, the aforementioned evil, planet-destroying Romulan. He's fine as an actor, but he never really gets enough screen time to be anything except a fairly generic bad guy. Which is a pity - the quality of a sci-fi film is generally directly proportional to how cool the bad guy is.
There's some cheesy moments, some in-jokes for the fans, lots of action, a clever explanation of how this franchise reboot fits in to the original series, and at least one frustrating plot hole (see Spoilers section). The flim runs for just over two hours, but it keeps up a breathless pace through it all. I'd actually have preferred it if there were a few less punch-ups and a bit more characterisation. But even taken as it is, it's a good bit of sci-fi action fun.
SPOILER BIT
Frustrating plot hole: Captain Nero dumps Spock on the snow moon to watch the destruction of planet Vulcan. There is a Starfleet base nearby. Spock knows this - he mentions it himself. And yet instead of trying to reach the base and warn his homeworld of thier impending doom, he sulks around in a cave waiting to play Obi-Wan to Kirk's Luke Skywalker.
It's an easy fix, too: have Nero tie Spock up before he dumps him.
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Date: 2009-05-09 12:35 am (UTC)This is a younger, sexier Spock
Spock was always damn sexy.
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Date: 2009-05-09 06:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-10 05:04 am (UTC)I can't wait to see it again! Just watched an original series episode, Zachary Quinto really did nail the young spock. But Spock always WAS sexy, ireckon that while Kirk had all the machismo, Spock got all the ladies anyways. You should see the original series smirks Spock dishes out on the bridge!