Review: Star Trek

[lavanya_six]

So I saw the new Star Trek movie last night, and it was good. There will be fanfic soon.

The rest of my thoughts below the cut.


Thing I Liked:

1. The art direction was awesome. Sure, in twenty years it'll look as dated as the ziggurats of Blade Runner and the 'Superpower Japan' of Back to the Future II, but for now I'll take my shiny Apple store aesthetic. After the sterile Next Gen-era, I love how a starship looks alive again. It's lived-in, they have crew members outside the 18-30 year old range, and there was not a shade of beige in sight.

2. No icy bondage queens in one-piece suits. Goodbye, T'Pol. Farewell, Seven of Nine.

3. Following up on No. 2, people got sweaty and dirty -- faces bloodied in fights, having sex, drinking beer, and just having fun.

4. The plot wasn't anything to write home about, but the plot really wasn't the point. This was a reboot movie, so reestablishing characters and settings was the name of the game. And it worked. I felt like Star Trek.

5. Never has "Live long and prosper" been delivered so effectively as a "Fuck you".


Things I Did Not Like:

1. The fact that, halfway through the movie, the loose screw in my eyeglasses popped out -- along with my left lens. See, I'm legally blind without my glasses. I then spent the last hour or so of the movie propping up the errant lens in front of my face. I then had to be led one-eyed out of the theater because I had no depth perception. Five minutes with my repair kit at home fixed the problem but RAGE.

2. Okay, so Nero apparently fights 40 Klingon ships at once. They drop that info three or four times. But... we don't see it? Was that scene cut? Because I distinctly remember seeing Nero fighting some Klingons (though hand-to-hand in an icy prison) in the trailer. 

3. Nero killed all their Starfleet Academy classmates -- and we don't get a reaction from any of the cadets? Yes, I know six billion vulcans were just murdered and craaaazy shit it going down, but couldn't they drop a line here or there? Maybe Uhura letting loose a tear for her dead roommate? I'm not asking for much, just an acknowledgement of the fact they just lost a lot of their friends.


Things I Questioned:

1. Where did Nero, his crew, and his ship go for the twenty-plus years between the attack on Kelvin and the attack on Vulcan?

2. Karl Urban looks very, very strange without his five o'clock shadow (but still made an awesome McCoy).

3. Spock/Uhura? Okay...