Happy 50th Anniversary to Star Trek!

The original Star Trek series was a constant in my life growing up.   There was almost no time when it wasn't playing in re-runs, so my family basically watched an episode a day for years and years and years.  Sure we'd skip the ones we didn't like, but more often than not, when time for it to start rolled around (I recall it aired at 5 pm weekdays, for years), we'd flip stations and settle in to watch.  I can't imagine life without Star Trek somewhere in it.

So Happy Anniversary and a huge thank you to all involved who made this show possible, and then kept it going through some great movies, and onto new television series.

My favorite Original Series eps:

1. Bread and Circuses
2. Mirror Mirror
3. Shore Leave
4. City on the Edge of Forever
7. Balance of Terror
8. Journey to Babel
5. Errand of Mercy
6. Enterprise Incident
9. Day of the Dove
10. The Trouble with Tribbles

Favorite movies with the original cast:

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

Favorite Star Trek Episodes

The good thing about all this Star Trek stuff, is that it put me in a mood to watch the original series.  Along with Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, it was THE formative television show of my early life.  Perhaps more so, because when my family moved away from Los Angeles, we no longer had a station that showed Voyage, but Star Trek was still on pretty much constantly.

My favorite episodes:

1.  Bread and Circuses

2.  Shore Leave

3.  Mirror, Mirror

4.  Errand of Mercy

5.  Journey to Babel

6.  Balance of Terror

7.  The City on the Edge of Forever

8.  The Trouble with Tribbles

9.  The Enterprise Incident

10.  The Day of the Dove

Bread and Circuses has been my all-time favorite ep for thirty plus years.  Not an ep normally mentioned, but it hits everything I love.  I love the 20th Century Roman planet, with its Jupiter 8 cars and gladiatorial games broadcast on television.  I love Flavius.  I love the despicable Proconsul and his genuine respect for Kirk.  I love Spock and McCoy being particularly snarky with each other.  I love that they got to sword fight.  I love their costumes.  I love Kirk and how he handles everything (and the fact that he gets a machine pistol to wield).  I love Scotty (who, as we all know, really runs the Enterprise).  But most of all, I love Merik.  Merik, played  by William Smithers, is very nearly my favorite guest character on ANY television show.  He has a lovely redemption arc.  But the excellent screenwriting and excellent acting really illuminate his character with remarkably little screen time, when you think about it.  It's all the little things Smithers does that make his character particularly real to me. I don't actually know why Merik appealed to me so strongly when I was a kid.  But appeal he did, and he and his episode have never stopped being my favorite.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)

Oh happy sigh.  I watched Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan late last night, and the world is right again.  I did not realize how badly I needed to rewatch that to ease the taint of the new movie from my mind.  You know, maybe I’m just too old for these reboots.  These reboot movies clearly aren’t made for someone like me, but I’m really starting to feel like I come from a different era.

I’ve never reviewed Wrath of Khan or any of the ST movies here.  Not because I don’t love them, but because they are big screen movies, and I have a strong aversion to watching them on a television screen.  So I haven’t seen them in years.  Particularly my two favorites of all the ST films:  Wrath of Khan and The Undiscovered Country.  Those just have to be watched big screen.  I saw both a fair number of times on the big screen during their initial theatrical runs, enough that I can still pull up what they should look like.

I love Wrath of Khan.  I can still remember the anticipation when that movie was about to be released.  We’d had the failure of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, but this new one was directed by Nicolas Meyer, who my family already loved for Time After Time.  We were all excited for the new film.  I remember all the news about Leonard Nimoy wanting out of Star Trek, and the suspicions that Spock was going to be killed off.  I remember the theater was sold out,, and my family couldn’t even sit together.  I was in the back on the left.  I remember loud the audience was, cheering and laughing and clapping.  I remember crying during Spock’s funeral.  I remember how awesome the genesis cave looked on the big screen.  Today, it would be all CGI, but it was a gorgeous matte painting that I still adore.  On repeat viewings I couldn’t wait for that moment.  That, and the very end shots tracking through the vegetation of genesis planet to the torpedo.  (Yes, I have this thing for landscapes.  LOL!)

This was the ST movie my family had been waiting for.  It was a return to everything we loved about Star Trek in the first place, but with natural growth and aging, and with a great character arc for Kirk. And Ricardo Montalban was back as Khan, and even better than he was in the series.  I absolutely love how in the confrontation within the nebula, there are no final words spoken between Khan and Kirk.  Khan activates the device, Enterprise figures it out and turns to flee, and Khan just watches them go, grinning, knowing they won't make it.  No dialogue could ever make that better than how it plays out.  This film was also my introduction to composer James Horner, and this score remains my favorite Horner score to this day, despite how many other awesome scores he has written.  This one just hit it out of the park.  And for me, how much I love a movie is often tied to how good the music is.

The only things I didn't like about this film were Carol and David Marcus.  And I like the characters, I simply didn't like the actors portraying them.  They didn't work for me then, and they still don't today.  The actors don't seem to fit in that world. 

And then, after I finished watching Wrath of Khan, I just happened to check Ain't it Cool News (a favorite site), and found this review of Into Darkness that I just love.  This neatly sums up so much of my feelings and what bothered me so much about the new film and why it doesn't work for me.

And after watching Wrath of Khan again, having my love of Star Trek renewed, I can only echo Kirk's last lines... I feel young.

Favorite parts of Wrath of Khan:

“Where’s the override?”

“We will!”

The genesis cave

Kirk taunting Khan to get him to follow the Enterprise into the Mutara Nebula.

“Yours is the superior...”

Whole Mutara Nebula and Genesis Countdown finale.

Star Trek: Into Darkness (2013)

So, I’m still pondering exactly why I wanted to go see the second installment of the Star Trek reboot, considering how much I disliked the first film.  Curiosity, of course, and eternal optimism that they’d actually give me something worthy this time.  I really shouldn’t be surprised, then, that I don't get this one either. It actually makes me think I liked the first movie better.  I also appear to be in the distinct minority on that, as the rest of my family and friends quite liked all or most of the movie.  I'm okay with that.  And I'm okay with being one of the sole people who seems to be missing the appeal of the reboots.

Huge Spoilers follow!!!  You have been warned.

As I’ve figured out, my personal deal with the movies I love is that I have to want to be one of the lead characters.  Now, I grew up on the original Star Trek series.  I love it.  I’ve wanted to be Captain Kirk since I was in single-digits.  I like the rest of the original crew and could relate to them.  I would happily have served on the original Enterprise.

But I don’t want to be this Kirk.  At. All.  I actually like Chris Pine as an actor, but I can’t see anything of what I loved about the character of Kirk in this Kirk.  I don’t want to be any of the other characters either, nor do I relate to any of them, but at least I can recognize them as ST characters.  But I can't find a glimmer of Kirk in there.  They really are in an alternate universe, I guess.  Or I am.

When the characters fail to grab me, all I’m hoping for is an entertaining story.  But, as with the first movie, this one’s plot hinges on plot holes and coincidences and, dude, I can forgive an awful lot of crap in a movie when I like the characters.  But when I don’t like the characters, and there's nothing but story left...

I see this alternate universe is still messing with the physics of the universe.  At least they are consistent in their BS.  The Enterprise can now submerge beneath the ocean.  Never mind the fact that the indigenous race on this planet has barely invented the wheel, so clearly has no telescopes.  Never mind that the Enterprise is there to survey the planet.  They can’t do that from orbit?  Particularly when later in the film they can use their sensors from earth (!) to detect that Khan is alone in a deserted portion of the Klingon home world who knows how many solar systems away?  Nothing makes any sense in this universe. 

And then there’s this whole bizarre thing with the volcano.  It’s going to blow and wipe out the locals, so the Enterprise decides to stop that by killing the volcano.  Spock seems to have no problem with this, even though that would be messing with the prime directive too.  Besides, volcanoes usually provide fertile soil and geothermal pools and various other things that the natives were probably using in their daily life.  Turning off the volcano seems like it would be pretty traumatic for the natives.  I mean, it’s spewing lava one moment, it’s dead the next?  That’s not something that would change the course of their civilization?  (Also, no invention of the wheel, but the natives have a complicated written language?)

But that whole ridiculous opener is just to 1) show off the starship Enterprise rising from the (very deep) coastal waters, 2) get Kirk and Spock arguing so that there is a moral of the story, and 3) get Kirk demoted so we can promptly promote him again, and 4) let me know that if the first ten minutes of the movie make no sense, it wasn't going uphill from there.

Once again, Starfleet appears to have no qualified personnel and no other ships or crews.  And the Enterprise appears to have no other qualified engineers besides Scotty.  And speaking of Scotty, not only is he a genius who invented transwarp transporter technology (which no one but Khan can use), he can just take a shuttle (maybe they have rent-a-shuttle agencies?).. and pilot it all the way to Jupiter to a super-secret space station... that has no radar or detection gear whatsoever and no security protocols... and Scotty can just... fly right in without being challenged, and just waltz onboard this secret ship and stowaway because somehow he knows he'll be needed to sabotage said ship half an hour later?

You know, I hope the Klingons come and wipe earth out in the next movie, cuz Starfleet in this alternate universe remains the biggest bunch of idiots.  Not that the Klingons are much better.  In this alternate universe, the Klingon home world is well less than a day away from earth.  (The Enterprise gets there and back complete with damaged ship and an adventure planetside in under 24 hours.)  I guess they're not patrolling the Neutral Zone yet, but at least, the Klingons are monitoring what lands on their own planet.  That’s something.  Better than Admiral Marcus’s secret unguarded space station.

And then there’s Khan.  He’s at least somewhat interesting, but I found him unbelievably bland.  We’re told to fear him, but other than the fact that he has immortal blood which allows him (and any other being who gets a transfusion, including tribbles, cuz you know tribbles and humans have compatible blood) to heal and not take much physical damage in a fight, and the fact that he moves very fast... what’s to fear?  He was deliciously cold, but hardly intimidating.  Maybe that’s just because this movie gallops along at breakneck speed and never gives us a chance to know him a little better?  I think I liked him best when he was temporarily working with Kirk, just because the way they set him up, he made a far more interesting ambiguous ally than an enemy, and those were some of the better scenes in the movie.  I could almost like some of those parts.

I still like Pike.  And I did like Admiral Marcus.  I sort of liked Carol Marcus, but again with Starfleet being a bunch of morons.  She can change her name and just walk on the Enterprise?  No orders?  No security?  And then turn out to be the only weapons specialist they have?  She wasn’t supposed to be there, so who would Kirk have turned to if she wasn’t there?  (I feel like being Happy in IM3 – “Where’s your badge??”)

And then, there’s the whole “let’s take the climax of Wrath of Khan and reverse characters!” portion.  My sister and I lost it during that scene, we were laughing so hard.  We can’t tell if the filmmakers meant it to be funny, or if that was a completely unintentional side effect. Was it actually supposed to be some kind of loving tribute to the original movie and not a parody?  Because it sure felt like we had slipped into a bad Saturday Night Live skit.

I do find it very amusing that Kirk handles Spock’s death in Wrath of Khan far better than Spock handles Kirk’s death in this one.  This Spock falls apart like a cheap suit. 

Also, the entire end is a WTF moment.  When Khan kills 42 people in the beginning, it’s enough to get a no-holds-barred “go get ‘em” order (granted there’s more to that order, but Admiral Marcus is not the only Admiral in Starfleet still left alive).  When Khan kills possibly thousands at the end of the movie as he deliberately plows his huge ship into San Francisco, demolishing several high rises at least, no one says a blooming thing.  No death toll.  No injuries.  Zero consequences for Khan.  He’s not put on trial, not even for his previous terrorist act, he’s merely put back to sleep.  I simply do not understand how this alternate universe works. 

But, of course, I’m going to be foolishly optimistic about the next film.  They at least appeared to be setting up a war with the Klingons.  I like that.  I can go with that.  Until I find out in a couple years how badly they plot that out too.

"It's only a movie!"

I'm going to revisit the new Star Trek film one more time, because I'm catching a lot of flak for criticizing it. I don't mind that, except that the flak consists primarily of the following platitudes:

"It's only a movie!"
"It's only Star Trek, what do you expect?"

And various similar comments aimed at getting me to "lighten up." Those kind of comments really push my buttons, for so many reasons, but primarily: 1) the speaker is making excuses for the filmmakers' bad storytelling (and encouraging more of it), 2) they're implying I shouldn't expect a good story in a movie, and 3) they're trying to make me excuse/accept bad storytelling.

No, I will do nothing of the sort. "It's only a movie." "It's only a book." "It's only fiction." "It's just science fiction" or "It's just fantasy." What, fiction in any media form isn't expected to be good? Why not? Entertainment isn't supposed to be good? Why not? If it's to be consumed by the masses, the standards automatically lower? WHY??? That's ridiculous! Of course it can be good. Blockbuster movies can be smart, entertaining, funny, and still rake in the big bucks for the studio. And smart, entertaining, funny blockbusters shouldn't be the exception, they should be the rule every summer. Because there's really no excuse for bad storytelling. There really isn't. Telling a good exciting story is not that hard. Except, for some reason beyond my comprehension, it seems to be too much to ask of Hollywood.

The new Star Trek film fails badly for two reasons: poor plot and poor world building. I skimmed the surface of the myriad plot problems in the last post. There's a lot more (all of it fixable too, which is what bugs me the most). But there's world building problems too. There's the big stuff (ie: the emasculation of Star Fleet, a mining ship boasting better offensive armament than warships) on which the plot hinges but that blows suspension of disbelief (again, all fixable). And there's little stuff that's almost more annoying. Take that scene where Chekov is telling the computer to do something and it can't understand his Russian accent. My, isn't that cute and funny? Let's all laugh now and watch him try to get it right! What I see during that scene: the Enterprise (or other Star Fleet vessel) being blown out of existence in some future battle when Chekov (or one of any number of other alien Federation races who might be serving onboard) gets flustered and can't pronounce their Vees or whatever letters/numbers/commands in proper English fashion and the computer fails to understand the order in time. No culture with that many aliens/languages would rely on something that arcane. That's poor world building and lazy writing.

But it's a ten-second throwaway scene, so what? So what is that they could have accomplished the same "look at Chekov's cute widdle accent" in any number of other scenarios that wouldn't compromise the believability of their world. The audience still laughs (so they've achieved their apparent goal), but without some of us thinking, gee, what happens when that command is a little more urgent? That's what writer's do. They use their skills to weave plot and character and world together as seamlessly as possible, in ways that do not dump their viewers out of the story every five minutes. And that's what these writers failed to do.

The thing is, you produce an intelligent script? The average viewer who doesn't give a damn about anything other than the cool action factor? They're still wildly entertained. They're still going to love the movie, probably love it even more because an intelligent script usually increases the cool factor. And the rest of us with brains, who aren't sheep, who refuse to love something simply because we're supposed to, or because, awww, it's Star Trek and isn't it fun to revisit that universe? We love it too. Win, win.

So, to clarify. What I hate about this film is that when handed one of the coolest universes to play in, when given great characters, a big budget, and time to do it right... those involved squandered the opportunity. That is what I truly deplore, not the film itself. That they could have given the world two hours of fabulous entertainment, and we're stuck with two hours of crap instead. It may be fun, it may still be entertaining if you check your brain at the door. But it's still bad storytelling exemplified.

And the alternate history thing? It disappoints me because they could have "rebooted" the series, still stayed within the original history, and still grabbed new viewers. Would it be harder to write? Sure. Could it be done? Of course. Look at Back to the Future II. They fit a completely different storyline nearly flawlessly inside an extremely tight existing history, and it's brilliant and glorious and it makes watching the first movie even more exciting. But the other thing is, if you're going to go with an alternate history, goddamn it all, use it! Holy smokes, do you know how exciting I find exploring an alternate history? It's why Mirror Mirror is such a good episode in the original series. The things you can do, the places you could go, the expected events/outcomes you could rewrite in eye-popping new ways. I aim this more towards the next movie, less towards this one. Because there will be a next one, and it could be the best movie of all. They got the setup out of the way in this movie. Now, go to town in the next one. But hire an intelligent writer first, please.

[ETA: I should mention that I have also now seen this movie twice. I went a second time because just about everybody I know loves this film, and I wanted to see if the problems I have with it wouldn't jump out at me on the second viewing. I wanted to see if I could join the mindless masses, stop thinking, and just enjoy it for what it is. I succeeded to a certain extent. However, I also noticed more problems I'd overlooked the first time. So, I liked it better and worse than I had the first time. Will I go see it again in the theater? No. Will I buy it on DVD? Hell no. But will I object to watching it down the line with family or friends who want to see it on DVD? No. ]

Always listen to your gut

I went and saw the new Star Trek movie. I really should have sat until the urge and the recommendations passed, because that was one sorry excuse for a movie, and I am very sorry I helped give money to make it a blockbuster this opening weekend (as I'm sure it'll be).

Heavy duty spoilers follow... stop reading now if you wish to remain untarnished.

Oh, there's nitpicky stuff galore to complain about. I hate the look of every single one of their ships (hallways that look like they belong on Senator Organa's ship and innards that are nothing but pipes... what, we run on steam now? and a Romulan mining ship that... er... I don't know what the hell that ship's all about inside). A villain so lame I rolled my eyes every time he opened his mouth (and I actually like Eric Bana too). I had a hard time with the cast, with the notable exception of McCoy, who was just about the sole saving grace of the film. Karl Urban as McCoy was awesome. Nobody else came close (maybe Spock), and it may just be me, but I couldn't feel any part of old Kirk in this new Kirk. But you know, I expected that, and I would have forgiven that. If the movie was good. If the plot was good.

Why is it people have so much trouble with plot? Particularly in Hollywood. It's not like it's one novelist sitting in a corner working alone for ten years with no feedback. You've got so many people involved in a movie production before it gets greenlighted... does no one ever raise their hand and say, um, you're hinging your story on a series of ridiculously conceived coincidences? Like Kirk meeting up with Spock on the planet? First off, no version of Spock would ever jettison anyone, least of all a Star Fleet cadet (it isn't logical). In the movie's circumstances, it's tantamount to murder (what with the planet being hostile), and it's only luck Kirk makes it out alive. What happened to the brig? Nice safe place to put people who have broken regulations. That right there boggled my mind. Then, to land on a planet and make your way (again by accident) to the one cave on the entire planet harboring another jettisoned person? Sheesh, all for what? So you can show off some computer-generated creature that doesn't even serve the plot? There's so many other natural ways Kirk and Spock could have met up.

And that's only one of the ridiciulous plot coincidence/contrivances. The entire Star Fleet is away and can't respond? Seriously? When the ships full of cadets can reach Vulcan from earth in a few minutes practically? And Kirk can figure out it's a trap just from an overheard comment of Uhura's and a description of his father's death? Seriously? You're telling me the Federation and Star Fleet have no one else following galactic events? It goes on and on. As Ripley once said, "Did IQs just drop sharply while I was away?" WTF were these movie makers thinking???? And the end of the movie... you can be a cadet for three years and then be promoted first to first officer, then to captain a few days later??? Excuse me?? He's Kirk, I expect him to rise in rank fast, but holy smokes, that's utterly ridiculous, and Star Fleet isn't that dumb.

Oh, but wait... it's all okay, because this movie has a trump card... it used a get-out-of-jail-free-because-we're-now-in-an-alternate-reality card. So anything goes. Great. I feel so much better now.