Belated Star Trek review
May. 17th, 2009 02:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ishtar79I have two Dreamwidth invites, does anyone want them?
I’ve watched Star Trek for the second time, so I’m overdue a post on it.
I didn’t know what to expect from it (the first time). I was never a fan of the original series (DS9 is my Trek), so in that sense it made it easier going in with less fannish baggage, though I didn’t expect to be particularly blown away other.
Boy, was I ever wrong.
-Ok, this Kirk? Was awesomecakes. Part of the reason I could never get into the original was Shatner’s epic scenery chewing and the fact that I could never root for the character. With this Kirk…look, it wasn’t that there weren’t moments where I kind of wanted to bitchslap him for being a bit of (ok, a LOT of) an ass, but it seemed the text fully acknowledged his occasional doucheyness, and what’s more, *embraced* it. And for all his attitude and GIANT EGO, you could actually see why every single member of the crew was 100% behind him by the end (also, the whole allergic reaction scene had me in stiches both times, and unlike the lulz Shatner gave me, it was because it was supposed to be funny). He’s the guy who’ll randomly insult you and then jump of an impossibly high platform just to save your ass. How can you not follow him pretty much anywhere?
-I admit, I was highly skeptical when I heard who they cast for Spock and worried about Quinto and his prominent eyebrows would do the character, but seing this just confirms that the reason Sylar bored me to death in Heroes is the show’s general subpar writing, as opposed to Quinto’s acting skills. He utterly sold me, and thought he hit the perfect balance between emotion and restraint, and holy shit, when did Quinto become hot to me? This is new.
-Speaking of hot, Spock/Uhura: I ship it. I absolutely LOVED Uhura in this one (and hell yes, love for movie!Kirk aside, who the hell wouldn’t prefer Spock?). I know there have been some complaints about the lack of female characters in the movie, but given that it mostly focused on the core cast and Uhura got to do as much as the other crew members who weren’t Kirk or Spock, I don’t see how it could have happened any other way (and the skirt thing: a) it was positively nun-like compared to the skirt length in the original b)I thought the movie did a great job of updating the original series uniforms and c)as a woman who enjoys short skirts, I’m offended by the implication there’s something inherently bimboish about them).
Less pleasing is that fandom is showing its ass already. I wish I could say the misogyny (now with extra racism!) is surprising, but it’s really not. I’m surprised at the blatant ugliness in the comments though-it’s not the first time slashers have let their misogyny flag fly when bashing anything that gets girl cooties in their pairing, but the gendered insults and undercurrents of real anger are just…gah. Fandom, how I hate thee sometimes.
-Just how AWESOME was McCoy? Snarky impatient misanthropes FTW! I loved he had no restraint on who he unleashed his snark upon, loved how equally affectionate for and utterly exacerbated with Kirk he was, loved how he constantly felt surrounded by clueless kids (ha, his line about Chekov’s age? Would totally have been my reaction). He should have his own advice column: “Your problems come from being an idiot. I’m a doctor, not a sounding board for the emotionally stunted, go away!”.
-Every single casting choice was spot on, and I want to SQUISH the whole cast (once I got over tiny problems like Chekov’s ‘ironic’ bad accent-yes, I know it was a tribute, but damn, he sounded like an oldschool Bond villain. An ADORABLE Bond villain, but still!).
-Unexpected Nimoy was unexpected. I’d somehow managed to stay unspoiled for his cameo, so it almost made the Random Trek/Ice Age tribute/infodump worth it. I was highly amused that his primary role in this is as a stand-in for the slashers. God only knows what NC-17 fic Kirk glimpsed while inside Spock Prime’s brain.
-I was so certain that they would somehow ‘fix’ the timeline (years of Trek, Voyager especially, have conditioned to the inevitability of the reset button at the end). And then…they didn’t. Holy shit. Vulcan is actually gone. That took some balls of STEEL in their part. And I think it’s actually a good thing: for one thing, taking the coward’s way out would have lessened the emotional impact of the plot (and the radically different path Spock is set on as a result), for another, part of my distaste for prequels is knowing how it all ends. Now? We truly are entering new territory without fears of Jossing (and the alternate timeline still exists, so I couldn’t get too weepy about the future Trek shows).
-So…Scotty was in the shithouse for disappearing Admiral Archer’s pet beagle. Timeline-wise, it can only be descendants of Captain Archer and Porthos, but still: what a random Enterprise shoutout.
Can the sequels be out NOW please?
I’ve watched Star Trek for the second time, so I’m overdue a post on it.
I didn’t know what to expect from it (the first time). I was never a fan of the original series (DS9 is my Trek), so in that sense it made it easier going in with less fannish baggage, though I didn’t expect to be particularly blown away other.
Boy, was I ever wrong.
-Ok, this Kirk? Was awesomecakes. Part of the reason I could never get into the original was Shatner’s epic scenery chewing and the fact that I could never root for the character. With this Kirk…look, it wasn’t that there weren’t moments where I kind of wanted to bitchslap him for being a bit of (ok, a LOT of) an ass, but it seemed the text fully acknowledged his occasional doucheyness, and what’s more, *embraced* it. And for all his attitude and GIANT EGO, you could actually see why every single member of the crew was 100% behind him by the end (also, the whole allergic reaction scene had me in stiches both times, and unlike the lulz Shatner gave me, it was because it was supposed to be funny). He’s the guy who’ll randomly insult you and then jump of an impossibly high platform just to save your ass. How can you not follow him pretty much anywhere?
-I admit, I was highly skeptical when I heard who they cast for Spock and worried about Quinto and his prominent eyebrows would do the character, but seing this just confirms that the reason Sylar bored me to death in Heroes is the show’s general subpar writing, as opposed to Quinto’s acting skills. He utterly sold me, and thought he hit the perfect balance between emotion and restraint, and holy shit, when did Quinto become hot to me? This is new.
-Speaking of hot, Spock/Uhura: I ship it. I absolutely LOVED Uhura in this one (and hell yes, love for movie!Kirk aside, who the hell wouldn’t prefer Spock?). I know there have been some complaints about the lack of female characters in the movie, but given that it mostly focused on the core cast and Uhura got to do as much as the other crew members who weren’t Kirk or Spock, I don’t see how it could have happened any other way (and the skirt thing: a) it was positively nun-like compared to the skirt length in the original b)I thought the movie did a great job of updating the original series uniforms and c)as a woman who enjoys short skirts, I’m offended by the implication there’s something inherently bimboish about them).
Less pleasing is that fandom is showing its ass already. I wish I could say the misogyny (now with extra racism!) is surprising, but it’s really not. I’m surprised at the blatant ugliness in the comments though-it’s not the first time slashers have let their misogyny flag fly when bashing anything that gets girl cooties in their pairing, but the gendered insults and undercurrents of real anger are just…gah. Fandom, how I hate thee sometimes.
-Just how AWESOME was McCoy? Snarky impatient misanthropes FTW! I loved he had no restraint on who he unleashed his snark upon, loved how equally affectionate for and utterly exacerbated with Kirk he was, loved how he constantly felt surrounded by clueless kids (ha, his line about Chekov’s age? Would totally have been my reaction). He should have his own advice column: “Your problems come from being an idiot. I’m a doctor, not a sounding board for the emotionally stunted, go away!”.
-Every single casting choice was spot on, and I want to SQUISH the whole cast (once I got over tiny problems like Chekov’s ‘ironic’ bad accent-yes, I know it was a tribute, but damn, he sounded like an oldschool Bond villain. An ADORABLE Bond villain, but still!).
-Unexpected Nimoy was unexpected. I’d somehow managed to stay unspoiled for his cameo, so it almost made the Random Trek/Ice Age tribute/infodump worth it. I was highly amused that his primary role in this is as a stand-in for the slashers. God only knows what NC-17 fic Kirk glimpsed while inside Spock Prime’s brain.
-I was so certain that they would somehow ‘fix’ the timeline (years of Trek, Voyager especially, have conditioned to the inevitability of the reset button at the end). And then…they didn’t. Holy shit. Vulcan is actually gone. That took some balls of STEEL in their part. And I think it’s actually a good thing: for one thing, taking the coward’s way out would have lessened the emotional impact of the plot (and the radically different path Spock is set on as a result), for another, part of my distaste for prequels is knowing how it all ends. Now? We truly are entering new territory without fears of Jossing (and the alternate timeline still exists, so I couldn’t get too weepy about the future Trek shows).
-So…Scotty was in the shithouse for disappearing Admiral Archer’s pet beagle. Timeline-wise, it can only be descendants of Captain Archer and Porthos, but still: what a random Enterprise shoutout.
Can the sequels be out NOW please?
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Re: Short Skirts
Date: 2009-05-17 06:17 pm (UTC)This reboot does keep to the original's view of women and women's role in the Trek verse, which was changed in STNG, DS9, and the films. Women are treated as support, girlfriends, wives, mothers - they aren't part of the assault team, and they wear sexy clothes. It was a legitimate critique of the original Trek but also a critique of that time period. It is also why a lot of my female friends didn't like the original Trek - and much preferred the latter series.
Oh, I agree. It's why I've tried to watch original!Trek a few times only to give up repeatedly. Not that latter Treks are perfect, but even if you take someone like Seven Of Nine from Voyager, she might have fitted every fanboy's wet dream (and worn the most ridiculous catsuit), but she also got to do DO stuff (sometimes to the extent she made the rest of the crew look kind of like Props in the Seven of Nine Show, but that's another discussion), and was terribly smart, competent and could break your spine with her little finger. So while there were issues with the character, I loved Seven.
That said: I am not sure we critique the writers for choosing to go this route, since they were sticking more or less with the canonical view of the original. It would look odd if they did away with how these people were dressed completely or some of the sexism - since the story is told pretty much from Kirk and Spock's pov, and Kirk was chauvinistic and a bit of a sexist jerk - hence Uruha's constant rejection of him. Spock -older and more enlightened, although even on Vulcan - the majority of the elders and students were male. So Spock also that view - she is his student, his support. Note it is Kirk that gets through to him. So the story is told from a decidedly white male perspective but then it always was, so that is in keeping with the original.
I think Vulcan (and human) society in the original series was sexist though. And on the matter of Uhura, I didn't see her in a support role any more than the rest of the cast (minus Kirk and Spock). She didn't kick ass physically, but the only other minor character who did was Sulu. So in a sense yeah, maybe the series mirrors some of the original's failings, but I really bought into Uhura as a character rather than the girlfriend.
Re: Short Skirts
Date: 2009-05-17 06:46 pm (UTC)On the other hand they do give her things to do, she actually does more here than she did in the original. So you're correct she's not just a girl-friend.
I couldn't remember if the other woman wore trousers or not in the film. If they did, then the short skirt may just be keeping with Uhrua and well, it would be odd not to see her in them.
You are correct both societies were sexist in the original and here.
Which is to a degree a reflection of our society which continues to be sexist, although far less so than it used to be. In the 1960s - women had to wear skirts in most occupations. Trousers weren't permitted. And the shorter the better in some of them, specifically the airline industry.
Re: Short Skirts
Date: 2009-05-17 06:47 pm (UTC)Re: Short Skirts
Date: 2009-05-18 07:50 pm (UTC)You keep mentioning a brief romance between Uhura and Kirk and there has never been such a thing in TOS. The interracial kiss was not voluntary, aliens forced Kirk to kiss Uhura (and Spock to kiss Chapel) in "Plato's Stepchildren" by using telekinesis. Uhura had been friendly with Kirk in TOS but always very respectful and I doubt they would have ever kissed if the aliens hadn't made them.
Re: Short Skirts
Date: 2009-05-18 11:29 pm (UTC)At any rate - what you've done is underline what was going at the time. When Star Trek first aired - an interracial kiss on tv was perceived the exact same way as a kiss between a woman and a woman on network tv was in the 1990s. People flirted with the idea, but they never did it. The fact that the network made a huge stink about Kirk kissing Uhura (again according to Nichelle Nichols) when it wasn't even a romantic kiss...explains why they would never have kissed if the aliens hadn't made them. The reason wasn't because those characters wouldn't have done it - the reason was that back then a white man did not have a romance with a black woman on network tv - it just wasn't done. We have come a long way since then - thank god.
Today, the idea of Kirk and Uhrua sleeping together isn't a big deal.
But back then it was. With any luck in ten years time, it won't be a big deal if Kirk kissed Spock, but we aren't quite there yet.
Re: Short Skirts
Date: 2009-05-19 12:04 am (UTC)