Ok, deep breaths… I’ve had a long session with the ship’s counselor and I think I’ve overcome my rage.\u00a0 By exercising Vulcan levels of self-discipline I think I have come to the point where I can accept what they have done with this reboot of the Star Trek license.\u00a0 Because it really is a reboot.\u00a0 Recently I read an article (sorry I went to look for it but can’t find it) that\u00a0asks why is Trek sacred as a franchise?\u00a0 Why is it ok to reboot all superheroes, BSG, and whatever other sci-fi franchise but Star Trek cannot be touched; anything that is not canon is spit upon?\u00a0 Well the answer is: BECAUSE DAMMIT!\u00a0 The franchise has been around for so long that writing stories that don’t contradiction cannon is very difficult but it is also because of the age of the franchise that it musn’t be toyed with.\u00a0 This is a franchise we as fans have grown up with, it has shaped us and to mess it up is an insult to\u00a0not only what we believe in but to who we are.<\/p>\n
So yeah, watching the movie I was pissed that *spoiler alert* they have completely and utterly changed everything.\u00a0 Basically this is an alternate timeline.\u00a0 The story in this film takes place in an entirely different reality than the one we are familiar with.\u00a0 And that annoys me.\u00a0 As I ranted yesterday, it annoys me that TPTB insist on playing with the TOS characters instead of moving forward with the franchise and setting it in say, the 25th century.\u00a0 It annoys me that they want to go backwards.\u00a0 But I get it.\u00a0 I get that it is an economic decision.\u00a0 There is no guarantee that people will go see a movie about brand new characters having adventures in space.\u00a0 But there is a built in audience for Kirk and Spock declaring their endless love for one another.<\/p>\n
But with my Vulcan meditations I’ve overcome my irritation and come to accept the situation.\u00a0 I’m not sure I’ll ever get to the point where I embrace it but I do\u00a0accept it.\u00a0 In fact, alternate realities are well established in Trek so in that sense\u00a0this story\u00a0IS internally consistent.\u00a0 Plus its a damn good ride.\u00a0 Its \u00a0fun, funny, and entertaining.\u00a0 Its basically an action movie, as all Trek movies are, with a good story thrown in and some excellent character interractions.\u00a0 The\u00a0 story focuses on Kirk of course, and as I predicted he’s a douche but it turns out that much of my hate for Kirk is centered around Shatner.\u00a0 I always thought I hated Shatner because of Kirk but\u00a0it’s just the opposite.\u00a0 Kirk is still a skeevy, cocky, rash and reckless\u00a0toolshed of a dick in this film yet I didn’t hate him.\u00a0 I actually didn’t hate him!\u00a0 I wouldn’t go so far as to say I liked him but I understand why some of the other characters in the film\u00a0do.\u00a0 And I appreciate that some characters have to grow to like him.\u00a0 I really liked the way Uhura in particular responds to him.\u00a0 And even though *spoiler alert* I thought it was all caps LAME that old Spock manipulates the friendship between young Kirk and young Spock I also appreciate the way young Spock comes to care for Kirk.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There are also many other things in this movie to enjoy.\u00a0 While it is entirely accessible to mainstream audiences, there are also lots of little in-jokes for fans.\u00a0 (There were two in particular that I really liked but I won’t spoil them for you, though I was compelled to lean in towards my viewing companion and point them out ’cause I knew he might not catch them, not being a hardcore fan like me.)\u00a0 Once you accept the alternate timeline you can sit back and enjoy the ride even though some plot points play very dangerously with established lore.\u00a0\u00a0Though it is understandably controversial, I quite liked the *spoiler alert* relationship between Spock and Uhura.\u00a0 It makes sense for Spock’s character arc\u00a0within the context of this story\u00a0and since Spock is my fave character from TOS I enjoyed that they gave him so much to work with.\u00a0 In fact, I\u00a0floved all the Vulcan stuff.\u00a0 It was just top to bottom awesome and incredibly consistent with what we already know of Vulcans.\u00a0 Zack Quinto as Spock, is as predicted, AWESOME.\u00a0 God he’s good.\u00a0 I just want to lick his eyebrows he\u00a0is so rocking.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The other actors playing old characters are a mixed bag.\u00a0 Bones is pretty good and Scotty\u00a0is appropriately amusing but Chekov can shut up now and go get the proper hairstyle. \u00a0Sulu I liked even though I don’t think John Cho looks or sounds a thing like George Takei.\u00a0 Uhura was also good even though once again I don’t think she was really channeling Nichelle Nichols.\u00a0 As mentioned I much preferred Chris Pine’s interpretation of Kirk over Shatner’s so that’s good but I’m not sure he really embodied the true Kirkiness of Kirk.\u00a0 Maybe what I’m saying is that he wasn’t douchy enough to really be believable as Kirk!<\/p>\n
In any case, all in all\u00a0this movie\u00a0is good fun.\u00a0 If they make a sequal continuing in this timeline I’ll go see it.\u00a0 Trek owns me, what can I say?<\/p>\n
[rating:35]<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hey woah, I just realized that I forgot to discuss the villain.\u00a0 I guess that’s because he was totally meh.\u00a0 I love the Romulans, they are my fave villain in all of Trek, to the point that I don’t even consider them to be bad guys, I’m totally on their side.\u00a0 But the main baddie in this flic was lame.\u00a0 He didn’t even look like a Romulan.\u00a0 I don’t know why they felt the need to mess with the look of the Romulans but it was stupid.\u00a0 Oh well, ZQ Spock makes up for it in spades.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ok, deep breaths… I’ve had a long session with the ship’s counselor and I think I’ve overcome my rage.\u00a0 By exercising Vulcan levels of self-discipline I think I have come to the point where I can accept what they have done with this reboot of the Star Trek license.\u00a0 Because it really is a reboot.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10,39,17],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.niqueworks.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1209"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.niqueworks.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.niqueworks.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.niqueworks.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.niqueworks.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1209"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.niqueworks.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1277,"href":"http:\/\/www.niqueworks.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1209\/revisions\/1277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.niqueworks.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.niqueworks.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.niqueworks.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}