Friday, May 8, 2009

Star Trek: Everything You Know Is Wrong

So I saw Star Trek last night.

It was awesome.

Really.

I loved it. I'm totally planning on seeing it again.

Casting was spot on. Minor quibble that Simon Pegg's Scotty doesn't sound like James Doohan's, but I'm a nitpicking bastard so it's excusable. Besides, Simon is awesome.

Dialogue was great. Plenty of the one liners and refrences to the show for the long time fans, but still accessible to those who'd never seen Star Trek.

The Enterprise was awesome. You finally get an idea of how massive the ship could be. Of course, it looks nothing like it does on the series, but I'm a nitpicking bastard, remember? Besides, I suppose the differences can be explained by the story in the movie.

*cue spoilers warning*


















So you remember The Original Series? Next Generation? DS9? Voyager? All the movies?

None of that happened.

From the point that Nero shows up, the Star Trek we know and have loved since 1966 has ceased to exist for us. With the exception of "Enterprise", for all intents and purposes, none of those shows or movies will happen.

I know, I know. We're in an alternate universe. I know that, technically, they all happened in the timeline we used to watch. Now we're just watching this timeline. And I totally get why they're doing this. Now they can do whatever they want, and it won't affect what we know from the original time line, right?

So let's look at this. They destroyed Vulcan, and - unlike pretty much every other time they've screwed with time on Star Trek - they didn't undestroy it. So now it's gone. What does that mean?

What are the chances that Tpau and her daughter survived? Also, Spock has a thing with Uhura now. Come his Pon Farr, instead of going to New Vulcan, instead of the epic funky polearm battle with Kirk, he just has to get it on with Uhura. Problem solved.

Kirk grew up without a father in this timeline. Let's assume he still has his son, David, in this new timeline. Would Kirk be more or less likely to try and play a greater roll in his son's life. Would David still grow up to be a scientist, or would he enter Star Fleet to be like his dad? If David becomes a Star Fleet officer, would Genesis ever happen? More to the point, what if Khan is never found?

If there's a Khan and no Genesis, Spock doesn't get reborn. If there's a Genesis and no Khan, Spock doesn't die. Either way, there's no Search for Spock. So now the crew may not be together - or worse yet, on Earth - when the whale probe appears and starts jacking everybody up with it's "Whale Song o' Doom". They can't go back in time to get more whales, and there goes Earth. So now TNG, DS9, etc won't happen even in some bizarre, unrelated way.

Maybe.

Like I said, I loved the movie. I want to see it again. I just don't think they thought it through, is all.

On the bright side, maybe in this timeline Kirk won't die on some backwater planet saving half a million lives on a podunk preindustrial planet that aren't even aware that aliens exist. "Oh, my." WTF? That was just a lame, lame death. Yes, I'm still bitter about it.

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

They're remaking what?

So apparently Hollywood is remaking "Drop Dead Fred". My first question is, "Why?" My second question is, "Why does Hollywood hate us?"

I absolutely hated this movie. I thought it was stupid just based on the previews, and had had no intentions of seeing it when I was a kid. But it was a friend's favorite movie back in high school, and she insisted on watching it. It stars Phoebe Cates, so I figured getting to watch her in it would make up for the inanity of the rest of the movie.

I was wrong. Phoebe Cates failed me. That's how much I hate this movie.

And now Hollywood wants to attempt to inflict this movie on me again. Only this time, their draw isn't some gorgeous creature like Phoebe, but Russell Brand. Um... ok? Which brings up an unrelated subject - where the hell did this guy come from? I'd never heard of him before "Forgetting Sarah Marshal", and now I hear about him all the time? WTF?

Now, I realize that Hollywood remaking movies is a touchy subject. I mean, I'm not a fan of the movie, but even I recognize they couldn't really improve on a movie like "Gone With the Wind". On the other hand, in 20 or 30 years when we're all watching holographic movies, I could see them "remaking" the LotR movies. Or the Harry Potter movies, even. Actually, truth be told, I've already pondered remakes of those, but that's because they started making those movies before the books were finished, and they started writing out characters that became so important in later books. :|

At least they're going the intelligent route and making a sequel to "Tron", and not actually trying to remake the original. That way, when it sucks, it will soil my childhood a little less...

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Hmm

Just messing about a bit with Scribefire and copying over a few old posts from my old Myspace blog.