Ahira's Hangar

Saw the new Star Trek movie today. In a word: AWESOME.

I haven't come out of a Trek movie feeling this energized (heh) since The Voyage Home. But as a kickass action spectacle, this Star Trek leaves every other Trek film far behind (although I did not see Nemesis). I was skeptical about this movie, but I'm glad I went.

I felt the Enterprise cast was impeccable. I thought all the actors did honor to their famous roles while at the same time reinventing them. Kirk, McCoy and Spock naturally hog the limelight, but I especially liked the new Uhura. She is allowed to be an interesting person first, officer second.

The only negative I have to say about the film is the relatively bland villain. But the movie was focused on "remaking" the Enterprise crew, anyway.

Although my favorite Enterprise remains the model from the first six Trek movies, the "new" Enterprise looks pretty darn good. (I never warmed to the Enterprise in ST: TNG.)

Spoilers below!


The Uhura/Spock romance didn't bother me - in fact, I though it was wonderful. It worked within the context of this story.

The time-travel aspect didn't trouble me either, because the story and acting and everything else was compelling enough that my mind started drifting into thinking about thorny physics issues.

I thought Leonard Nimoy's appearance was brilliant, as was his makeup. His haunted look conveyed his pain - everyone's pain - at Vulcan's destruction very well.

You can still use the white ones if you wish. Just change your font color to white, and warn people that there are spoilers and to run their cursor over that area.

Spoiler alert - run yoru cursor over this area:

See, here you go - spoilers!!


end of spoilers.

I am really glad to hear that you enjoyed the movie. There seems to be a high divide on love it/hate it for this one. Science ficiton writer John Scalzi loved it (though he said the science is laughable) while science fiction writer George RR Martin hated it, for an example of the divide. We almost went to see it last weekend, but I was too tired. We might try again this coming weekend.

Thanks, duchess! Forgot about the font.

Oh yeah, the movie plays fast and loose with the laws of physics - maybe more so than any previous Trek film.

But the physics-defying sequences are so well-executed and thrilling that I really didn't mind that they were utterly implausible.

Went to Star Trek again. This time caught the noon matinee, so the audience was relatively sparse. I had been wondering if the enthusiastic vibe of the packed theatre last week had led me to an inflated opinion of the film. However, after today's viewing, I liked the film even more. So then, this movie works on its own merits. J.J. Abrams has won me over: I think this film is exactly the kind of "refresh" needed to attract new fans to the Star Trek universe. I'm excited - and I consider myself an "old" fan.

I'm not saying the scientific errors in this film aren't worth discussing: Star Trek is held as a paragon of sci fi, and sometimes the Trek writers make it sound like they're know-it-alls, so it's proper that Trek be scrutinized - and it can be fun to debate the finer points of science in Trek. But maybe it's too easy sometimes to forget the "fiction" part of science fiction. The way I understood Star Trek was that it had always been more concerned with exploring intangibles like the human condition than about obsessive scientific accuracy. One of this Trek film's best accomplishments, in my view, is in creating an Enterprise crew with a very human spirit that I care about.

We saw Star Trek here in San Francisco this weekend. I thought it was well done -- the casting was superb, tho I'm not sure how they're going to explain Chekhov's curly do . I figure that now, having gone off into the alternate reality thing, they've got themselves set up for at least two sequels to this movie, in order to bring everything back to canon.

You may be right, MW. I guess we'll have to wait to find out.

The three of us went to see Terminator: Salvation yesterday.
Now, please keep in mind while I've seen the first three, I'm not really a fan of a series, and I'm not an "action" flick fan either. I have yet to see any of the rebooted Batman or Bonds for example. I haven't even watched any of the Pirates of the Carribean films, although we own all three of them...

That said, between what has been said about the movie on the Watch, and the two guys really wanting me to tag along, I went. And what can I say? Wow, an action chick flick.

I totally got in to the concept of Marcus. The complacency with which the rebellion accepted his decision, in my feeling because of who/what he was, at the end causes me to wonder just how "human" humanity still was from fighting this war...

I can't really comment on the negative reviews I've heard about. I'm not really enough in to the series to care.
But I, for one, enjoyed this.

That's good to hear, Menolly.

The only reason that I'm even contemplating seeing the movie is because Christian Bale stars in it.

Yeah, it takes Batman to generate any new interest from me for this franchise - and then only just. You see, I felt that James Cameron ended the story nicely with T2 way back in '91. Then T3 came along - with NO involvement from Cameron - and basically undid everything that was resolved in T2. That and T3 was at best a mediocre film, in my opinion. So I didn't care about T4 at all until I learned that Bale was in it.

Has anyone seen Harry Potter 6? Worth seeing at the theater, or can you wait for the dvd?

I have not yet, though I hope to do so tomorrow.
The Watchers who have seen it seem to give it mixed reviews in the JK Rowling forum, although Usivius posted a really well written review and gave it an 8 out of 10.
But this series is one I'll always see in the theater first. I so rarely go to the theater; I'll make exceptions for this series.

I'll wait for it on DVD or TV.

--A

I have pretty mixed reactions to Potters 1-5. I thought some stayed too close to the book and never came to life as works of art on their own (1 and 2), others perhaps cut a bit too much (5), I liked 4 and especially 3 the best and I am sure that a lot of purists hated the ones I liked the best, as they did stray a bit...

The thing is that some things that work perfectly well on the page do not necessarily work well in a film and vice versa.

I thought that the third film was a really well made balancing act with trying to stay true to the spirit of the book while standing on its own as a work of art inspired by the book.

I am worried that as the books get longer and longer the films will have to cut more and more, until perhaps they do not make sense anymore to people (like my husband) who have not read the stories.

I will also admit that I am still very pissed off at the half year delay in getting the finished film to the theaters in pursuit of more money on the part of the studio. That really turned me off...

The first Potter film felt very hollow to me, so I haven't been interested in the subsequent films. But I have heard that the newest one takes some chances and strays from the source novel.