Hurricane Cronesmoon ([info]cronesmoon) wrote,
@ 2009-05-11 09:04:00
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OTOH
Now I've read [info]kateelliott's review, and her points are valid. I'm very shallow in my tastes and love the ST movie anyway, but the rest of you might want to take her comments into account while deciding whether to bother seeing it in the theatre.

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[info]kateelliott
2009-05-11 05:58 pm UTC (link)
Oh dear. I think everyone should see it in the theater and judge for themselves! If it does well, there will continue to be more big budget sf flicks in theaters, which I heartily approve of.

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[info]cronesmoon
2009-05-11 06:11 pm UTC (link)
LOL, that's why I told them to read your entry and judge for themselves whether to see it. Some of us really just don't bother to see films anymore; if anyone's discouraged from seeing it by your review, they probably wouldn't have bothered anyway, really. It sure wouldn't have stopped me; I'd seen enough of these young actors to think it was worth a try. And for me it was.

I've read that they're already started on the sequel. I guess there's some expectation that the "reboot" will take. I know it worked for me. I was dead sick of ST crap, but I'll go for a sequel to this one. Now that you've pointed it out, I'll notice the lack of women, but it won't stop my enjoyment. (I hated when they changed Starbuck to a woman; I prefer looking at men. But then, I hated the whole new Galactica series: too tiresomely dirty, ambiguous, and grim. I like my escape-futures rosy.)

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[info]kateelliott
2009-05-11 06:20 pm UTC (link)
See, that's interesting. I loved Starbucks as a woman (liked the actor and the portrayal), but I guess I felt there were enough other males to look at that I didn't miss the eye candy aspect.

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[info]cronesmoon
2009-05-11 07:12 pm UTC (link)
I spose I may be just tired of hotshot women. I'm not sure whether that would be in spite of or because of the Skyrider series, but there are very popular (and good!) mystery series (that alphabet one, frinstance) that I can't read for the same reason. Though I agree, the actor who played Starbuck is very good.

It may be that part of my disaffection with the new Galactica was the lack of eye candy; there weren't any men in it that it gave me pleasure to watch except the Adama-role (was he named Adama in the new series?); and he wasn't enough.

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[info]melacha
2009-05-11 07:35 pm UTC (link)
I am not tired of Hot Shot women and I did NOT like Starbuck as a woman. It just wasn't right. However, I was okay with Boomer as being woman...I know not the same thing. Also I have to say that I did have a major crush on Dirk as Starbuck so that may make me a little biased.

I did continue to watch the new Battlestar Galactica in hopes that it would improve, but over all I was rather disappointed with it. It was never what I hoped it to be. Oh well!

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[info]cronesmoon
2009-05-11 08:29 pm UTC (link)
Having a crush on Dirk as Starbuck would make a difference there. LOL.

I couldn't watch Galactica after the first few episodes. I did like Boomer as a woman, and wasn't it BG that had that woman as President? I liked her. But I didn't like the series. Too predictable and uniformly grim. Euw. Not my cup of teeth. Of course I don't think I could watch the old one these days, either. Too, too twee.

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[info]melacha
2009-05-11 08:36 pm UTC (link)
Yes I suppose it would...he really was a cutie.

It was BG that had the woman President...in fact it was the actor from Dances with Wolves and Independence Day (I can never think of her name)that I like so much.

Yes it was uniformly grim, and I was tempted to stop so many times, but then something would happen that would make me foolishly believe it would get better.

I don't know if I could watch the old one any more. I did really like it. Again though that had a lot to do with Dirk LOL. I didn't much care for the BG that took place after Starbuck was gone. What was it called Galactica 1980 or some such thing.

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[info]cronesmoon
2009-05-11 08:56 pm UTC (link)
I didn't remember that she had been in Dances with Wolves, but I did recognize her from Independence Day; and like you, although I like her very much, I don't know her name.

And yeah, Dirk was a cutie, or he seemed so then. The 1980 (or whatever) one had almost none of the same actors, maybe none at all, and really wasn't watchable. I don't think anybody watched that one. What I'd hoped for when they started the new series was the kind of treatment these new people have given Star Trek. So I was as disappointed with it as [info]kateelliott was with the new Star Trek. But most people who watch sf/f at all seemed delighted with it.

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[info]melacha
2009-05-11 09:04 pm UTC (link)
I think the only one it still had was Lorne Green as Adama. It might also have had Ty, but he wasn't as big a part in the original series so I don't recall.

I hadn't heard much from anyone else about likes or dislikes. I guess I am not to surprised that they liked it. Quite often the majority of people who watch sf/f like stuff that I wouldn't watch. Oh well such is life.

I am really looking forward to seeing Star Trek. Just need to figure out a good weekend. Lierin's Birthday party is this weekend so I doubt we will do it then. Maybe we could work out a week night.

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[info]cronesmoon
2009-05-11 09:17 pm UTC (link)
Oh yeah, Lorne Green. No wonder I forgot.

And how old is my tall granddaughter this year? (asked the bad grammy)

Oh, and while we're on the subject, I don't think you ever even told me what sex my great grandthing is. Or whether its father married its mother?

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[info]melacha
2009-05-12 01:42 am UTC (link)
Yeah he is kind of forgettable.

It goes along with the bad daughter ;)

Your Grandaughter who is 4' 7"...just a mere 5" shorter than I...turned 9 last month. Your Grandson who is 3' 3 1/2" tall (finally in the 40th percentile...yeah!), turned 3 in August and for the moment...well I was going to say they were getting along, but of course as usual that didn't last long. They both can be sweet as sweet at times and then it is like some one flips a switch and suddenly these little monster sit where my beautiful sweet children once were. I know...I know...I did it to myself.

Your Great Grandthing is a boy. He is still little enough to almost always be cute. His name is Brayden and he just had his first birthday. We are bad grandparents as well as we haven't yet sent him his Birthday or Easter presents.

Our oldest and Daddy of our first Grandson did marry the mother of his child. I was going to say married his wife, but that just sounded silly. Anyway they are married. He is an MP in the Army and we are super proud of him. He now sees that he can accomplish something if he puts his mind to it. He is so much happier and more confident than I have ever seen him. I am really happy for him.

The bummer is that he is stationed in Kentucky, so we don't get to see them like when they were living here. Life moves on and as I said I am proud of him and he is a good son and calls us on a regular basis. I could take lessons from him in that respect {grin}.

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[info]cronesmoon
2009-05-15 11:30 am UTC (link)
My goodness, how time flies. They're older than I realized. Even Brayden's daddy, it sounds like. Good for him, all grown up. I'm so glad he's doing well.

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[info]melacha
2009-05-15 06:04 pm UTC (link)
Yep Andrew is 21 now...I find that hard to believe sometimes.

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[info]cronesmoon
2009-05-16 03:10 pm UTC (link)
Wow.

I'm oooooooold.

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[info]melacha
2009-05-16 03:21 pm UTC (link)
Well I don't know about that. However, your Grandaughter told me the other day that I was a grown-up. I told her I couldn't be because her Grammy wasn't a grown-up and she told me that yes you were. I will continue to try and convince her of the truth, but thought you should know LOL

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[info]cronesmoon
2009-05-18 02:17 am UTC (link)
Lol. I expect the case is hopeless. From her POV we are indeed grownups. When she is older she may understand.

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[info]greyorm
2009-05-11 06:34 pm UTC (link)
Hrm...really? I didn't find all her points valid. Many of them seemed very "well, I wouldn't have done it that way!" or grounded in post-modernist criticism, of which I am no fan---and some of it was badly, badly off (for example, her criticism of the casting for the Romulans: unh, no they actually weren't all white, nor were they supposed to be the entirety of the surviving Romulan race...what?)--though there are some points she makes that are valid and I agree with.

Oh well.

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[info]greyorm
2009-05-11 06:44 pm UTC (link)
Whoops. Meant to also say:

I agree Uhura wasn't given enough central screen time this time around (then again, this was a story about Kirk and Spock -- leave the over-complicated "let's give absolutely everyone equal screen time" garbage to Jordan). I'm hoping they'll do more with her in the future.

And yeah, a captaincy THAT QUICK? What? Weren't these all cadets? Or mostly? That part didn't work for me (though the science bothered me more: old Spock could see Vulcan explode from planet apparently closer to Vulcan than Earth is to its moon? A star that was going to consume the universe, whose shockwave wiped out Romulus before they saw it coming? Whathuhmakesnosense?)

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[info]cronesmoon
2009-05-11 08:04 pm UTC (link)
Oh, I thought she was quite right on most if not all. I agree with you about the surviving Romulins, and I thought they covered that pretty well anyway by saying what the ship had been before the disaster: presumably those were the miners who were aboard at the time. No reason they might not all be roughly the same age and race, in a job like that.

I also felt the objection to changing Sulu's nationality but no one else's was based on a failure to realize how few non-Asians outside Hawaii can tell Korean from Japanese. To most haoles, no races were changed in the Enterprise crew. (Nor do I see any particular reason they should have been.)

But otherwise, yeah. I think she's spot on for many viewers. They see a "reboot" as a much more drastic change, more like from the old Galactica to the new. Discard everything but the bleached backbone and rebuild from there. The new Galactica is better, faster, stronger, not to mention smarter, classier, deeper, better acted, better directed, better written, and better filmed with a bigger budget. You can't say all that of the new Star Trek at all. So if people wanted that complete a reboot (what I'd call more like a reformat), it's not there.

"No new questions were asked. No chances were taken at all, in fact." Very true. "A more diverse cast? Not really. Better gender representation?" No.

She goes on to say that these are the things that, to her, would constitute a reboot. She mentions that having Chekhov in the original cast was "risky"*, so why not make his new character risky too? Well, if what you want is complete change, that makes very good sense.

As do her objections to Kirk's sudden captaincy, as you agree. And yes, although she doesn't mention it, the "science" was enough to drive a person crazy.

She had some complaints too about the action sequences and the fight scenes, and I see her point. I don't agree (they amused me in the way I think they were meant to), but I imagine a large percentage of the potential audience for this film would agree. Certainly I think it's fair to point to this review as an alternative POV they might want to consider when deciding how to spend their movie dollars.


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* Actually it wasn't; it was an effort to grab an age group, and the Russian aspect was pretty much incidental. We'd long since adjusted to personable Russian characters with The Man From U.N.C.L.E.'s Ilya Kuryakin, so making Chekhov Russian was hardly even a nod at "risky." He was a caricature, always telling us that one thing and another had been "inwented" in Russia or by Russians, so we could laugh at him. You don't laugh at the truly risky.

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[info]greyorm
2009-05-16 05:12 am UTC (link)
I think the difference is what is expected of and what typifies a "reboot" and what doesn't. I'm OK with seeing what they did as a reboot: it just isn't a drastic reboot (like when I "reboot" my computer, there's a state change, sure, but all the pieces are still the same--I don't suddenly have a different processor...unless it's a "rebuild").

We are talking about a beloved series that wasn't really about space exploration: it was about the characters. It's a retelling-sort-of-reboot, so remaking the characters completely? Replacing the icons altogether? The ones who drove the show, that the show was about? That would have been a huge mistake.

You're right on about the "can't tell Korean from Japanese". Honestly, I have trouble telling any nationality/race from any other, without serious, marked differences. So I honestly don't care.

Will Shetterly had some comments about how he would have redone it, which I mostly agree with, with the addition that:

- the entirety of Starfleet is destroyed by the Romulan ship in defense of Earth, and thus the surviving brass MUST have Kirk take over Pike's Captaincy. The five year mission then becomes one of identifying threats, and finding technology and allies to defend Earth in a hostile universe while Starfleet rebuilds itself over the course of those five years.

- Spock gets the idea for the Kobiyashu Miru from an actual event, an actual impossible situation that Kirk manages to cheat his way through, involving a freighter of cadets and the Romulans (though you would lose the whole "fearless" lesson/showcase deal at the trial, which I rather liked).

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[info]cronesmoon
2009-05-16 07:30 pm UTC (link)
Shetterly's take is interesting, though I disagree with him on most points; and Franklin's comments are wonderful.

And you make a good point about why Kirk had to take over Pike's captaincy. I'd missed that (or, rather, overlooked it).

Which Spock would get an idea in this film for the KM test? Haven't they both already had (and implemented) the idea for it? The test can't be created from something Kirk does as captain if he is to cheat on it before he's captain. (Obviously I'm confused.)

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[info]greyorm
2009-05-16 07:40 pm UTC (link)
Right, sorry. I'm saying ditch the OLD "Kirk cheated on the KM in class" thing, and rewrite it to make the KM something that actually happened to Kirk that Spock later implemented as an impossible test.

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[info]cronesmoon
2009-05-18 02:21 am UTC (link)
Oh, I see. Hm, yeah, that could work, and even be pretty cool in a way; but you'd have to find some other meet-cute for Kirk and Spock (and Bones and Spock), and I did like this one.

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[info]cronesmoon
2009-05-18 02:27 am UTC (link)
On second thought -- No, the Romulins only destroyed all the Starfleet cadets (though they were pretty miraculously respawned by the time of the relieving ceremony), not all of Starfleet. The rest of the fleet was waging some other war somewhere (we were told, but I forget), where Young Spock wanted to rendezvous with them and Kirk thought not.

But it's probably not a really important point anyway; in a real military, while Kirk would probably have kept his captaincy, he wouldn't have been given the Enterprise; but in Roddenberry's rosy world it's more likely that he would have been given it, so the movie was right to do it.

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