Thursday, May 23, 2013

Thoughts about the movie Star Trek: Into Darkness

I think this is easily the best Star Trek movie ever made. Some may think that is not saying much, but no, I loved the movie. I enjoyed the non-stop action. Everybody said what you wanted them to say. There were some really nice mirroring and inversions of previous episodes and movies. Lots of pretty people to look at. And, oh! Wasn't that cool when Scottie got to be a hero? He doesn't have that same sly look the old Scottie had, but he does have that beautiful Scot bur. Doesn't everybody love a Scottish accent? And the running fight on floating platforms: Yeehaw!
Another thing I loved: the theater provided tech glasses with dangling battery and mechanics box that let me put the captioning anywhere I wanted it. Yay! Since I understand, on average, three words per movie, most movies are confusing until we can rent the DVD and caption it. Captions are desperately needed for IronMan 3. Why did Tony Stark blow up all his Ironman suits, why oh why would he do that? But at home I miss the big screen and subsonics. Some young men laughed at me when I walked across the lobby of the theater wearing those glasses. I did not care. I was too delighted to understand the movie while watching it in a theater.
Did I have quibbles? Oh yeah. Why were they chasing down to keep alive a blood-donor for Kirk when they had 72 other donors that only needed to thawed?
I would have deleted the three seconds of Kirk in bed with lion-tailed, lovely ladies. I guess the director needed to remind those of us who don't know the ST universe that Kirk is a womanizer, the trait of his I like the least. I never did like Kirk. People like him who bluster and swagger and assume the universe will mold itself around their wills are dangerous and not good leaders. IRL they end up killing people.
So if I don't like Kirk and think most Star Trek plots are absurd, why do I like the franchise? Because I love the Star Trek universe. I love Spock. I love Worf. I love Uhuru and everybody with an interesting accent. I love that humans in this universe are wealthy and not killing each other for the most part. (Do I think Earth could ever be such a peaceful place? Uh, no. Not gonna happen.) I like that you can be a Spock or a Barkley or anybody and still have a place in society (unless you are a homicidal maniac.
Quibble:I will never understand how people are able to run off with ships or infiltrate ships with false identities in such a universe.
Big Quibble: the renegade has a sweet southern accent. Because, of course!, Hollywood knows all southern US military are war mongers. I think of the TV show, 24, and others, where over and over again the bad guy is someone in the US military and/or corporation. Sigh.
But despite quibbles that I thought of after the movie, the experience of watching the movie was delight. OK, not when people were flushed into space. Or when buildings were being crushed. Nooooooo!  But overall, the movie was a fun ride.

5 comments:

  1. thank you lelia, I am auntlabby on wrong planet, and I was directed to your post by another WP member. anyways, i'm happy you got to enjoy this movie, I myself didn't much care for the last trek movie, in large part because of that digitally recreated "lens flare" which I found distracting. anyways, enough about me.

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  2. Oh, hi! It is so nice to meet you in another context. I don't know why the lens flare did not bother me. I believe it was included to increase excitement and obscure any details that would make us question what we are seeing.

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  3. We have very different views on this movie. I'm an avid trek fan as well, but this one violated an icon. Your review mentioned an incredible point. There were seventy two bodies they could have thawed, yet they choose to use an established character that became an icon of trek lore. While the story was intense and action packed, it was lacking in many ways. I think they did a good job of drawing in people who just enjoy a good action movie that has some form of story.

    That is just my humble opinion though.

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  4. One more note - I am enjoying your blog a lot.

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