Star Trek: not a review

[AArdvark]

I'm watching it right now through the miracle that is pirate DVD. I have opinions but will post them here later as I haven't the time right now.

OK back.

A person has to ask: Does another Star Trek movie NEED to be made? In the movie 'Jurassic Park' Ian Malcolm promps
the question: Just because you can do something does not mean you should.
Something like that. You get the gist.
(note: please excuse me, new keyboard, and the delete key is where the old home key was and I keep messing up my sentences bigtime)

So yeah, it's based on the TV series of 1966-1968. It has startling likenesses to all the actors (except Kirk) and it uses most of the original sound effects. I read somewhere that they wanted to make a movie like the television show COULD have been, only they didn't have the budget or technology to 'do it right' back then. Well 'back then', television as a mainstream medium was only in the second decade and everyone was still pretty much in the radio mindset. So of course they thought it was good. AND IN COLOR TOO!
Well, since we all know that it was kind of a crap shoot to have a weekly sci-fi show with continuing characters back in '66, and that the ratings were never spectacular, It was lucky to have two seasons. It was the RERUNS that paid off. Everyone remembers the reruns. That didn't happen with Buck Rogers or Space:1999 so those shows died into obscurity.
So this movie is bank to start off; not because it has the original actors but good look-a-likes.
Think of it as a modern day artist repainting the Mona Lisa because there are better brushes and better paints by DuPont now. See, it's better because it's also on a bigger canvas (or wood, if you prefer to be accurate) and, well, just look at those colors!
Now, by no means am I comparing Star Trek TOS to something as great as the Mona Lisa, the show just wasn't THAT good. I have the DVD set and some of those episodes are plain turkeys (season 3, natch) Waste of time without Crow T. Robot and Tom Servo in the front row.
What I am saying is that they should leave well enough alone. Yes, OK, it's a good movie. But couldn't they have had some kind of ORIGINAL sci-fi idea and make the movie around that? What if they made a full length movie of Deep Space Nine? Wouldn't sell half of what this movie is going to gross. When's the last time Hollywood came up with something totally original? Highlander? I don't really know as I shy away from movies in general. Too many commercials.
You know how Disney works? They take something real or one-of-a-kind and re-create it in a friendly plastic environment designed to separate you from your money in the shortest possible time. That way you think you've seen something real but you really haven't. That's the vibe I get from this remake.

THE
KEEP IT REAL
AARDVARK

[pinback]

It was important for someone to make a good Star Trek movie, so we can at least begin to forgive the last 27 years of bad ones.

I for one found the new film a) tremendous fun, b) really well done, c) brilliant in a certain way, in how Abrams approaches the idea of "rebooting" the franchise, and d) slightly flawed, in that I felt there were way too many wink/nod references to the old show. Some of that is fun, too much of that is tiring.

Add it all together and you get the second best Star Trek movie there's ever been.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

RANK THE STAR TREK FLICKS!

ALL OF YOU!

Here's my ranking. I have removed the third one. Pinback says the first 10 minutes are the best thing in Trek history. I only saw it once, when it first hit HBO. I shall see it again soon.

1. Wrath of Khan (#2)
2. Undiscovered Country (#6)
3. The Voyage Home (#4)
4. Probably Star Trek 3?
5. First Contact
6. Generations
7. Probably the Motion Picture?
8. Probably Insurrection?
9. Final Frontier (#5)
10. Nemesis (#10)

[pinback]

No, the 10 minutes where they steal the Enterprise are the best in history. That's not the first 10 minutes.

Anyhow, I'm going to try to rank these but many of them I only saw once, and a while ago, so I'm just guessing they sucked as much as I figure they did:

1. Khan.
2. The new one.
-- big, GIGANTIC space here --
3. First Contact.
4. 6
5. 4
6. 1
7. 3
8. Generations
9. Nemesis
10. Insurrection
11. 5

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

So, in the movie, there is a scene where a young Kirk is ... OK, I can't remember if he's in a car or a cycle, but the song "Sabotage" by the Beastie Boys is playing.

Sort of an odd choice, but OK.

Thanks to the magic of the Internet, I learned today that it was not such an odd choice ... after all!!!

http://www.toplessrobot.com/2009/05/why ... e_boys.php

[CO]

I couldn't make it more than a half hour into Nemisis, I'm deleting it as I write this. It's bad enough they packed in all of the stupid TNG cliche banter I always hated but also Brent Spiner singing?