Star Trek: The College Years

Watched it yesterday. Go see it, you'll probably like it.

(spoiler laden review below the fold)
(if you're viewing this on the Facebook feed, try checking in at my actual blog: http://tomhand.blogspot.com , where there are no formatting SNAFU's to overcome- like the lack of an actual fold)




Some Thoughts:
Jar Jar Binks cum Scotty (the cute little rock guy) is for merchandising purposes- look at JJ Abrams, he does/understands marketing very well.

The time travel alternate universes is old old hat. It goes something like: At every decision there are, at least, two choices. You pick one and that becomes your universe. A different version of you picks a different option and that becomes a different universe. Now, to add some Micheal Chricton from Timeline, you can't actually TIME TRAVEL, but you can move to other, slower, universes that are very similar to your own (most of the choices have been the same, or all have been the same, so far). But that may be nit picky. They may posit actual time travel, but that the act creates the new universe, or any act done outside your natural timeline creates a new Alternate Reality.

Star Trek has already shown the alternate Realities, where they meet their EvilTwins(tm)- they did this a couple times in DS9 and once or more in TNG, but I could be wrong about the latter.

What pissed me off was:
The Blatant use of Time Travel as easy to use plot point. Others have already commented on this, so I'm just agreeing. "Why make it good, when we can make it EASY?"

The Internal Inconsistency: Red Matter makes a black hole- everyone travels safely back in time, no problems. Lots of Red Matter makes a big black hole (maybe)- with a visible accretion disk that's about the same size as the original hole (and by "about" I mean, I didn't notice any difference), yet this one destroys your dumb ass. Stupid.

Scene first, someone gets sucked out into space and there's no sound. Not five minutes later a shuttle craft buzzes the camera and we hear it whistle-puttering past. Stupid. Then there was the blatant stealing of cinematography- on the free fall to the drill platform- from Firefly: silent, off kilter, shakily acquired, zoomed in on.

Summation: I succeeded a little too well at psyching myself down about this movie. But worse, I was right: they did it the easy, commercial way, rather than spending their massive budget on something other than pretty-ness. The reboot of Star Trek will be profitable; but it won't be satisfying. What make me think so? THEY MISSED THE DAMN POINT! Spock is talking about "faith" and they're all talking about "destiny". To start with, this is just weasel words to absolve the individual from responsibility for their own actions. To finish, the episode they seem to be referencing is from TOS. SPock is told by Kirk to fly the shuttle craft in a way that is not logical, because MAYBE- if their faith in their crewmates is justified- the Enterprise will be able to save them (if not, they die for sure). So Spock does it, and they get saved and everyone dies from the cute sugary plot-like thing they've just swallowed, right? WRONG. The point was Spock was an absolutist: logic was ALWAYS the answer. The point was that absolutism eventually fails, and is just as short-sighted as anything else, when done fanatically. But Mr's Abrams, Orci, and Kurtzman don't want deeper meanings, or science, to get in the way of selling their fucking movie. So, expect horoscopes in the next one, or Feng Shoe-y , or goddamn chiropractors and homeopaths....