I have had it up to my Vulcan
Ears with the targeted attacks on this new Trek- Which are mostly attacks
against the guy who directed it. We can postulate that when negative reviews
seem to pile up and all repeat themselves verbatim, they were not written by
several different people, but in fact ONE person. This is something that
happens quite a lot on IMDb - I've commented on this behavior in other film
reviews I have made, this is not the first and will not be the last. Targeted
Attacks to try to bring down the Rating of a film, this film is just the latest
victim. As you can see, the overall Rating does not agree with the pompous spouting
of a few loud individuals, in fact, most of the people who have seen this film
have enjoyed it as much as I did – Even giving it a standing ovation at the end
credits. This is what happened tonight, and it wasn't just a few people, it was
the WHOLE room, all standing up and cheering at the end. It is things like this
which tells a different story than the story told by the 1-star commenter who
uses several identities to say the same thing over and over.
Stardate -308983.9
I walked into the theatre never
having seen a film made for iMax, *in* iMax - I had heard that JJ resisted
making this in 3-D: WRONG. The addition of 3-D gave this film the DIMENSION it
required. This is the best 3-D I have never seen.
From the start, we see Kirk doing
what Kirk is best at doing: Completely Disregarding the Prime Directive and the
Chain of Command. This Enterprise as we see it at the beginning of this latest Voyage
is a ship of Squabbling Crewmembers. Kirk is squabbling with Spock who is Squabbling
with Uhura who is squabbling with Sulu and Scotty is absolutely refusing to
Obey Kirks Orders.
Bookends. The first thing we see
is the Enterprise rising from the Ocean on a Planet of Jungle People who would
have all died. SPOCK would have died. If not for Kirk's Disobedience.
For all of Kirk's
Insubordination, he is rewarded with a big fat kick in the buttocks by
Starfleet Command. Reduced in Rank, The Enterprise Given back to its Former
Commander, it appears for a bit that we are back to the way things were before
Kirk joined Starfleet: If not for one Christopher Pike.
Meanwhile a Starfleet Officer
with a dying daughter is seen being confronted by a strange, eerie man. KHAN.
Who heals the Officer's ailing daughter - For a Price. A High Price. But it was
all a ruse, every event that occurs which brings Kirk back into Command of his
ship has been designed by this one man. This new KHAN who has been given depth
and dimension never afforded the same character we met in "Space Seed".
In fact, some of the things which occurred in the Prime Universe appear to
never have happened at all in this Alternate Universe. This does not need to be
explained, this needs to be enjoyed. and we, as a theatre, as a whole, enjoyed
it.
The Ripple in Time caused by Nero
in his huge Romulan Mining ship has moved beyond the time where he first
appeared and attacked The Kelvin. So the Enterprise goes to Qo'nos,
armed with some "new torpedoes"- T o Qo'nos, because Khan has used
Scotty's Transwarp Transporter to escape there. So for the first time in this
Universe, we get to see Klingons and their ships. A Good Representation.
But we have been tricked, as Kirk
has been tricked. We've been looking at the wrong Bad Guy. But have we? It
requires a Phone Call to Spock Prime on New Vulcan to get some needed facts
about this Khan.
The squabbling at the beginning
of the film between the primary characters is due to the fact that Spock indeed
has emotions, just as he always has had emotions, he is just being Logical in
not wanting them to govern his actions. But even this is tested down to the
bone in this characterization of Spock.
This is an Enterprise Crew which
is handed events that would have ripped the Original Series Crew into thousands
of bits. It just seems that in these new stories, there is NO TIME- Because
something else is always happening or being set up to happen.
So we in the theatre embraced
this rapid-fire Trek which shot off several episodes worth of raw story in
Phaser-Rifle succession. I've seen one particular type of complaint saying
"This is a remake of The Wrath of Khan" or "Cannon was ruined
and ignored" - And this one person who is posting these complaints as many
other people is missing the point that this is not the Original Universe, and
is not giving his or herself permission to just ENJOY the premise that if this
*is* an alternate Reality, then some of the things which happened in the original
reality will be mirrored in this one. But even worse – They are not giving US
the permission to accept it- So, just because they hated it, everyone else
should hate it as well. This is not realistic, especially in the face of the
fact that not ONE person in the theatre with me today felt that way.
When I saw Star Trek: The Motion
Picture in Denver in 1979, despite the shortcomings of that film it also
received a standing ovation. This is just to say, that there is a TIME to keep
things the same and a time to Move on to new challenges. For
the new Production Team, the same Team that bought us Fringe - To take on this
new endeavor, is difficult, because it would be easy to get stuck in the same
rut that caused Enterprise to close its Shuttle Bay Doors prematurely- Because,
as the producer of that show had said, "It was time for it to die".
And because of that - Gene
Roddenberry's hand-picked successor was given the boot by Paramount and the
four or five huge storehouses of Trek Props which had been saved since The
Original Series, was sold to the highest bidder. This was the true kick in the
buttocks to Gene.
And so A Worthy Successor had to
be chosen, and I believe the right guy was given the Job. To me, this is the
same as the Klingon Right of Succession for the leader of the High Council.
So it is not that Trek references
were crammed into a 2-hour film, it was he proper use of them. And then Spock
contacts Spock Prime, and Spock Prime is STILL Spock from The Original Series.
This is ESTABLISHED. There was even homage to The Borg - Look for it. And also
The Next Generation, with the final shot of the Enterprise warping away, using
that Stretch-Effect from Next Generation.
If you think that Trek has been
ruined - Then stick your DVD of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan into your DVD
player and you can watch that repeatedly for the rest of your life - While the
rest of us move on and explore the galaxy with this new Crew. Because Bajor is
out there, Cardassia is out there. As is the Gamma Quadrant and The Founders –
Odo is probably sitting on a shelf on Bajor as we speak, or, is orbiting the
Celestial Temple waiting to be found. The Prophets are still there, now we can
meet them all again in a whole new way - And I can't wait for the nest installment
of this great franchise.
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