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stillaneHow awesome was that?!
Okay, I lied. I have more. Please do not assume anything in here will be new or different, though, because I am possibly the last human on Earth to join this party, and I have no doubt all the cool stuff has already been discussed.
I do have one caveat, though, and it's not about the movie itself.
*deep breath*
Okay. I feel better. Rant concluded, and we now return you to your regularly scheduled dose of squee.
Seriously, how terrific was that movie?
Okay, I lied. I have more. Please do not assume anything in here will be new or different, though, because I am possibly the last human on Earth to join this party, and I have no doubt all the cool stuff has already been discussed.
It goes without saying that I badly, tragically need to see it again, but: This movie is tailor-made to fit my narrative kinks. There is time travel! Opposites attracting! Found family! Epic, huge-scale, asskicking coolness! Inside jokes! Explosions everywhere! *glees self into coma*
As with just about anything, the characters are what get me hooked, and oh man, these characters. Kirk is totally what Kirk should be, and fascinatingly uncreepy. If you've been around this journal for more than five minutes, you will have guessed that he is like character catnip for me: A guy with serious heroic tendencies, prone to getting himself into really shitty situations by virtue of being both too damn smart and too damn smartassed, and to having more issues than the New York Times.
And then there's Spock. I... don't have that much to say. He's Spock, only really angry. Quinto is awesome, not least of which because he got more across with just his eyes than most actors manage with a chunk of exposition. And subtitles. And possibly flares. Yes, I did actually giggle in the theater at the end of the Vulcan Big Giant Heads scene. I still can't believe he pulled that off. So. Awesome.
And then there's Uhura. And McKoy. And Scotty, and Chekov, and Sulu the Badass. I'm a little bit in love with all of them individually, and a lot in love with them together. Seriously, competence kink for the win! \o/
I have to admit, I am not JJ Abrams' biggest fan. In general, I like where he starts out with projects, but I don't trust anything with his name attached to have any sort of coherent plan or endgame. At all. Yes, okay, I totally still feel burned by Alias. Despite repeated attempts by people I trust and the undeniable pretty factor, I stubbornly refuse to watch Lost until it's over and the general consensus comes back something other than, "Bwuh?"
Which would be why I am still reeling from the surprise of not only adoring this movie, but adoring it for it's thought. For all the criticism about how it's just an excuse to blow crap up in space (and honestly, I have nothing against blowing crap up in space; it's space, it's not like there's not room for a little exothermic rearrangement), this thing is damned smart. Not necessarily overtly, but what's flashing by in your periphery all the while is really kind of fantastic.
Take the time travel aspect. On the surface, neat gimic; you get to tie the old to the new without stepping on anybody's toes, you get to reset the universe and shake everything up, and you get to introduce an element of uncertainty into the familiar. Beyond that, though... In the whole of space, or even just in the little corner of it close to Vulcan, what are the odds of this Kirk getting tossed out within running distance of Spock Prime? How about the odds that Scotty just happens to be hanging out on the same rock, twiddling his thumbs and trying to resurrect a beagle? Hell, what are the chances that the entire command crew of the Enterprise becomes the entire command crew of the Enterprise?
It's not an accident. It's fate, and in a movie where there is science at the heart of every action, that's amazing. The butterfly that kicks off this hurricane is really more like an earthquake birthing a tsunami, and the timeline still fixes itself. What's even more cool is that nobody talks about it; the characters don't make a big deal about it, most of them likely totally unaware, but the audience is very clearly supposed to see it. It's fantastically meta, and yet weirdly reverent. Which, really, is what you could say about the movie in general.
I've seen a few reviews about how it doesn't get Trek, how it's not scifi enough. I don't see it. Seriously? That's like standing on a beach in Hawaii, sand between your toes and sunset right in front of you, and bitching about how it's not Hawaiian enough because nobody's throwing a luau for you every five minutes. The scifi here isn't on display, it's everywhere. The whole damn universe is scifi, but organically so; it's a world, not a setting.
Seriously, this is destiny as a scientific principle. How much more scifi can you get?
I love that there should, by all traditional rights, be a concern riding through this of what might be changed by giving too much information too early in the timeline, and that it completely gets chucked by the wayside. I love that Spock Prime doesn't even question it, because he is old and peacefully tragic and just too damn practical to waste time on the bullshit of worrying about timelines. There's such a perfect, amused bite me, you cosmic bitch edge to him laying Scotty's own equations in his lap way before he's devised them, and to the Great Vulcan Yenta act he pulls on Kirk and his own baby self. The universe has fucked with him enough, and he's earned the right to fuck with the universe right back.
So yeah. I liked it, just a little bit. *g*
As with just about anything, the characters are what get me hooked, and oh man, these characters. Kirk is totally what Kirk should be, and fascinatingly uncreepy. If you've been around this journal for more than five minutes, you will have guessed that he is like character catnip for me: A guy with serious heroic tendencies, prone to getting himself into really shitty situations by virtue of being both too damn smart and too damn smartassed, and to having more issues than the New York Times.
And then there's Spock. I... don't have that much to say. He's Spock, only really angry. Quinto is awesome, not least of which because he got more across with just his eyes than most actors manage with a chunk of exposition. And subtitles. And possibly flares. Yes, I did actually giggle in the theater at the end of the Vulcan Big Giant Heads scene. I still can't believe he pulled that off. So. Awesome.
And then there's Uhura. And McKoy. And Scotty, and Chekov, and Sulu the Badass. I'm a little bit in love with all of them individually, and a lot in love with them together. Seriously, competence kink for the win! \o/
I have to admit, I am not JJ Abrams' biggest fan. In general, I like where he starts out with projects, but I don't trust anything with his name attached to have any sort of coherent plan or endgame. At all. Yes, okay, I totally still feel burned by Alias. Despite repeated attempts by people I trust and the undeniable pretty factor, I stubbornly refuse to watch Lost until it's over and the general consensus comes back something other than, "Bwuh?"
Which would be why I am still reeling from the surprise of not only adoring this movie, but adoring it for it's thought. For all the criticism about how it's just an excuse to blow crap up in space (and honestly, I have nothing against blowing crap up in space; it's space, it's not like there's not room for a little exothermic rearrangement), this thing is damned smart. Not necessarily overtly, but what's flashing by in your periphery all the while is really kind of fantastic.
Take the time travel aspect. On the surface, neat gimic; you get to tie the old to the new without stepping on anybody's toes, you get to reset the universe and shake everything up, and you get to introduce an element of uncertainty into the familiar. Beyond that, though... In the whole of space, or even just in the little corner of it close to Vulcan, what are the odds of this Kirk getting tossed out within running distance of Spock Prime? How about the odds that Scotty just happens to be hanging out on the same rock, twiddling his thumbs and trying to resurrect a beagle? Hell, what are the chances that the entire command crew of the Enterprise becomes the entire command crew of the Enterprise?
It's not an accident. It's fate, and in a movie where there is science at the heart of every action, that's amazing. The butterfly that kicks off this hurricane is really more like an earthquake birthing a tsunami, and the timeline still fixes itself. What's even more cool is that nobody talks about it; the characters don't make a big deal about it, most of them likely totally unaware, but the audience is very clearly supposed to see it. It's fantastically meta, and yet weirdly reverent. Which, really, is what you could say about the movie in general.
I've seen a few reviews about how it doesn't get Trek, how it's not scifi enough. I don't see it. Seriously? That's like standing on a beach in Hawaii, sand between your toes and sunset right in front of you, and bitching about how it's not Hawaiian enough because nobody's throwing a luau for you every five minutes. The scifi here isn't on display, it's everywhere. The whole damn universe is scifi, but organically so; it's a world, not a setting.
Seriously, this is destiny as a scientific principle. How much more scifi can you get?
I love that there should, by all traditional rights, be a concern riding through this of what might be changed by giving too much information too early in the timeline, and that it completely gets chucked by the wayside. I love that Spock Prime doesn't even question it, because he is old and peacefully tragic and just too damn practical to waste time on the bullshit of worrying about timelines. There's such a perfect, amused bite me, you cosmic bitch edge to him laying Scotty's own equations in his lap way before he's devised them, and to the Great Vulcan Yenta act he pulls on Kirk and his own baby self. The universe has fucked with him enough, and he's earned the right to fuck with the universe right back.
So yeah. I liked it, just a little bit. *g*
I do have one caveat, though, and it's not about the movie itself.
The fic... On the one hand, there is a growing level of awesome that makes me wriggle with glee. Dude, just like the movie, it's all the fun of Trek, but shiny and new. Badasses! In space! There is no downside here. *g*
On the other hand... I'm hitting the back button a lot, and not for the reasons you'd maybe expect. The punctuation will be fine, the plot will be promising, the characters will all be present and accounted for, things will be exploding with great frequency, but the voices... Dear god, the voices. Is there anybody else who can hear it every time the author is writing Shatner!Kirk, rather than Pine!Kirk? Like, really, really obviously. It's harder for me to hear it with Spock, just because he's Spock, but it's all over Kirk.
Because, see, Pine!Kirk is a bright guy. He may, in fact, be a freakin' brilliant guy, all things considered, but he is never going to be caught dead in a sweatervest discussing his MENSA qualifications, okay? He's the type that you're going to assume has never read a book in his life until he casually gives you a detailed breakdown of why Ulysses is a bunch of pretentious bullshit while simultaneously kicking your ass at the Trek equivalent of MarioCart. He is a stealth genius.
A good bit of what I'm reading is too... proper. I'm not saying Kirk's every other word should be dude or fuck, but you really shouldn't be able to insert a whither or thou anywhere in it, either. This Kirk should not sound like a Victorian in space, is what I'm saying. Above and beyond whatever singular speech quirks Shatner brought to the role, Original Kirk has a much more refined way of saying things, and it fits in with his world. It does not fit into a universe where Kirk starts out by getting into bar fights because shit, what else is there to do on a Saturday night in Iowa?
Also: Lover. *shudders* If this word could be stricken from the English language, I would so be first in line to vote on it. Maybe it's just me, but I don't know a single guy in real life who I could picture using this one with a straight face. Gay, straight, trans, bi... none of them. Jokingly, sure, maybe even campily, but with intent? Hell, I don't know any women who'd refer to their partner this way, either. Possibly the extremely elderly, in the context of scarring the young for life? I don't know, but just... no. A story has to be incredibly fantastic to compensate for even one earnestly-employed lover for me, and I do not think I am alone. Please, for the love of all that is good and ficcy, stop using this word. I beg you. While it may mean what you think it means, it also sounds at best silly and at worst about as purple as Barney the damn dinosaur.
On the other hand... I'm hitting the back button a lot, and not for the reasons you'd maybe expect. The punctuation will be fine, the plot will be promising, the characters will all be present and accounted for, things will be exploding with great frequency, but the voices... Dear god, the voices. Is there anybody else who can hear it every time the author is writing Shatner!Kirk, rather than Pine!Kirk? Like, really, really obviously. It's harder for me to hear it with Spock, just because he's Spock, but it's all over Kirk.
Because, see, Pine!Kirk is a bright guy. He may, in fact, be a freakin' brilliant guy, all things considered, but he is never going to be caught dead in a sweatervest discussing his MENSA qualifications, okay? He's the type that you're going to assume has never read a book in his life until he casually gives you a detailed breakdown of why Ulysses is a bunch of pretentious bullshit while simultaneously kicking your ass at the Trek equivalent of MarioCart. He is a stealth genius.
A good bit of what I'm reading is too... proper. I'm not saying Kirk's every other word should be dude or fuck, but you really shouldn't be able to insert a whither or thou anywhere in it, either. This Kirk should not sound like a Victorian in space, is what I'm saying. Above and beyond whatever singular speech quirks Shatner brought to the role, Original Kirk has a much more refined way of saying things, and it fits in with his world. It does not fit into a universe where Kirk starts out by getting into bar fights because shit, what else is there to do on a Saturday night in Iowa?
Also: Lover. *shudders* If this word could be stricken from the English language, I would so be first in line to vote on it. Maybe it's just me, but I don't know a single guy in real life who I could picture using this one with a straight face. Gay, straight, trans, bi... none of them. Jokingly, sure, maybe even campily, but with intent? Hell, I don't know any women who'd refer to their partner this way, either. Possibly the extremely elderly, in the context of scarring the young for life? I don't know, but just... no. A story has to be incredibly fantastic to compensate for even one earnestly-employed lover for me, and I do not think I am alone. Please, for the love of all that is good and ficcy, stop using this word. I beg you. While it may mean what you think it means, it also sounds at best silly and at worst about as purple as Barney the damn dinosaur.
*deep breath*
Okay. I feel better. Rant concluded, and we now return you to your regularly scheduled dose of squee.
Seriously, how terrific was that movie?
no subject
Date: 2009-06-23 06:05 pm (UTC)Yes, I did actually giggle in the theater at the end of the Vulcan Big Giant Heads scene. I still can't believe he pulled that off. So. Awesome.
Quinto's bitchface/acting skillz are admirable.
Also: Lover. *shudders* If this word could be stricken from the English language, I would so be first in line to vote on it.
I support this motion for the full 115%.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-24 01:18 am (UTC)I'm still trying to find some way to weasel myself to the theater here again before too long, but so far no luck. It turns out, I do need sleep occasionally. Damn.
Quinto's bitchface/acting skillz are admirable.
They really are. Like, I have never seen someone more clearly state, "Fuck you" without those being their actual words. It is a thing of beauty.
I support this motion for the full 115%.
If I ever run for anything in life (yeah, riiiiiight *snort*), this will totally be my platform. *nods solemnly*