Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Precisely what J.J. Abrams missed

This one scene best illustrates what makes Star Trek great. It isn't big action sequences or non-stop eye candy. It's people. Compare the acting, the writing, the subtext, and the overall meaning of this one scene with J.J. Abram's movie. If you can't see how superior this once scene is then, I hate to say it, you don't understand Star Trek.

4 comments:

Tuuli said...

You have a point there.

I've only seen First Contact once (I'm mostly a TOS fan) and I remember that scene well. It was impressive enough to stay with me.

That was Trek.

Anonymous said...

I absolutely get what you're saying in this regard - there was no scene in Star Trek that provided such a wonderful moment as this. And you can even find stuff like this in Generations for that matter (although I'm less certain about Insurrection and Nemesis). But these small moments often make up for the shortcomings in the films.

For me, I was able to cut the new one some slack on this point because I felt they got the positive spirit of adventure right, and the characters (mostly) to my great surprise. On the issues regarding divine influence that you raise, I see how you would reach that conclusion. However as another alternative, I would suggest certain things only seem like destiny (e.g. running into Scotty) because we know how things turn out . . . maybe some variation of this scenario played out in the alternate timeline.

Either way, I don't think a reference to the divine is particularly overt (as in something like Space:1999 for example), and I'm with you in being fond of Roddenberry's take on things in the series. What I'll be interested to see is how future installments play out. If they're able to insert good dramatic moments like the one here from FC, I'll be very pleased. I'm cutting this one some slack because it's an origin story, and therefore sort of a "utility" entry . . . which I would count parts 3 & 4 with being a bit as well. At the end I was amazed at how much I enjoyed it, despite going in with every expectation of the opposite.

John W Leys said...

It would have meant more if you'd picked a scene from a movie that didn't suck. First Contact was every bit as much of a mindless adventure movie as people are complaining the new one is.

Edward Crawford said...

You have hit it on the head! I still haven't seen it yet. My first Star Trek film was 25 years ago (yes I feel old now) when Star Trek III came out. Enjoyable movie and great first into into Trek. I am sorry to hear they are dumbing it down. I still may see it out of curiousity. Liked your review of the new film. The thing with Uhura and Spock doesn't seem to make sense. I mean I suppose they are illustrating the IDIC concept (and yeah I think the new Uhura is hot, so sue me!) but the whole point of the old series is that in TOS there may have been a hint of affection between the two but no acting on it. It made the relation between them more interesting in it's own way.

Kirk as a frat boy? Dunno about that one. I may see it just to see if the new McCoy is as dead on as you say. Which I believe it is.