Star Trek
Finally got out to see Star Trek, and all I have to say is that the movie exceeded all of my expectations. I'm no crazed fan (that would be my wife), as I never watched the series until it was long into reruns, but I know all the old episodes and new movies ... and this movie was really good.
Freakishly good, as I said to my wife on the drive home.
It must have been an even number in the sequence of movies.
As for the science [spoiler alert], others have done a better job than I would take the time to do. But I will add my comment that I thought they did a much better job with inertia in general. Sure, the old standby, the "inertial dampers" that got rid of the annoyance of Newton's First Law, was disabled by the time the Kelvin had its collision (or was it ... there was still gravity and gravity was allegedly produced by the same system), but it was good to see Capt. George Kirk go flying when the ship stopped. Ditto when Kirk and Sulu were beamed out of free fall and landed on the transporter pad.
[bigger spoiler alert]
And, best of all, they have freed up the time line so they can make an entire new set of movies that don't have to be consistent with ANY of the others. Brilliant.
Easy way to explain away the glitzier bridge, Spock's higher voice, the appearance of people in the original crew that were not in the crew during the first season ... and a significantly less crippled Captain Pike in a conventional wheel chair.
Next stop: Rebuilding Vulcan? Will Spock and Uhura have a son who will go on to play golf with both style and cool analysis? Or become the next President? They have managed to re-energize the series in a way that moves it from the 60s to the 21st century, opening up new story lines to make it relevant again.
Note added:
I can't wait for the Director's commentary to find out what chemical plant or brewery or distillery was used to film some of those scenes inside the ship. Who knew that steel "I" beams were used inside a starship!
4 comments:
Oh, yeah, I forgot how dumb it was that the force of gravity got bigger when the black hole started to form at the center of the ship at the end of the film. But I didn't care about that or the way we looked across the event horizon.
It's a movie, one based on a TV series that always took liberties with science for the sake of the plot or the budget. All that ever mattered with Star Trek was the "tale of the wild west", and this was one wild tale.
What's this never watched the series until it was long into reruns bit?
ST:TOS opened in September 1966.
You were in 9th grade.
I know there was serious negotiation with the parents so that we could watch it.
What I missed from the new movie was Kirk having his shirt ripped off during a fight. The blood and battering was about right though.
Pictures from Project Excelsior: Highest Parachute Jump from Space
Watch it, yes. But WATCH it? Not really. Unlike my wife, I never could identify an episode within 10 seconds after it started, nor do I own an autographed picture of Leonard Nimoy from the first season.
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