Now then...

10-06-09

Nearly two months later, here I am again.  I'm sure I've previously used the excuse that "I don't rant unless I've got something to say," but I really can't think of something more creative to say at the moment, so I figure I'll just recycle that one again.  Dance with them what brung ya.

Note to Whitechapel: Real death metal bands don't do the trout dance on stage.  C'mon now...

In other metal news, I somehow managed to get banned from Blabbermouth, though I know not how.  I'm eventually gonna sign up under a different username, but I just found it kind of odd that I got banned.  I was never mean, I didn't slam any bands that didn't deserve it, and I didn't curse nearly as much as most of those dudes.  But alas, Entragian shall never be heard from again.  Sad...

Saw the new Star Trek today and.............eh.  It's not that I didn't know what I was getting into, nor that I knew it wasn't "canon," nor that I wasn't sufficiently entertained.  I just think it was a few things short of being pretty awesome.

Number one, the cinematography, specifically the hideous amount of lens flare that showed up.  It overwhelmed a bunch of shots, and kind of gave the whole movie that "looking-through-a-new-set-of-glasses" feel that made things really irritating.  Hell, if the lighting was that severe, TURN THE WATTAGE DOWN.  Was it just me, or was that the *brightest* Enterprise ever shown?  It seemed like every surface had some manner of fluorescent light shining from it, which made no sense to me.  I really dug the panels and screens and whatnot, but how many trillion candlepower were they shooting for?  Not everything needs to glare off the camera.

Number two, the characters.  I thought that Zachary Quinto did a good job with, um, looking like Spock, but I thought that he over-emoted WAY too much of the time.  Coming from doing Sylar for the past few years, I'm not too surprised at the emotions coming out, but that ain't Spock.  Bones was too big; that dude could wrestle a bear.  Uhura was too much of an "independent woman" and not nearly enough of a mother hen.  Scotty was a joke, and they played him like that (and even added a mascot, which annoyed this shit out of me).  Chekov was typecast as the stereotypical boy-genius.  Sulu seemed a lot more bad-ass than he needed to be (fencing doesn't teach you how to do jumping roundhouse back kicks).  Kirk was great, except for his somewhat "Dawson's Creek" appearance.  My mom said they're still young and fleshing themselves out, so we'll probably know more later.  I'll reserve judgment.

Number three, too many Hollywood plot devices.  The potential love triangle with Kirk, Spock and Uhura WILL come up and some point in the future, and you're an idiot to think otherwise.  The fact that Spock and Uhura were involved at all added a "romantic" element to the movie that served no purpose whatsoever.  Scotty was the comic relief.  That little stone-faced thing with Scotty will serve as the mascot/Jar Jar Binks character.  Uhura as the liberated, motivated, yet still totally sexy female.  Nero as the revenge-driven villain.  They're tropes that Hollywood uses over and over again to market to certain demographics.  I know that they're in this biz to make some cash, but for fsck's sake, can you PLEASE try to create some new characters?  Some of us are okay with new things and occasionally like movies that aren't sequels!  Please?

Number four, the "testosterone-ization" of the Trek franchise.  BITD ("back in the day" for you lame-os), Star Trek was about finding new things, boning crazy alien ch1x0rz, the occasional space battle and office life-as-space ship.  This version was about blowing shit up, showing off sweet alien (and human) booty, lens flares, blowing more shit up, yelling, irrational-yet-formulaic decisions by leaders, more yelling and blowing yet more shit up.  I remember Trek as kind of a forward-thinking franchise that employed forward-thinking writers to do their scripts.  It might be that the main focal point of the episode was for Kirk to bone some alien chick, but there'd be a neat little nugget in there that showed the audience something they'd never seen before.  That was pretty awesome, but the new movie just showed off special effects, lens flares (I've mentioned that, right?), yelling and blowing shit up.  Fantastic for some action movie, but kinda weird for Star Trek.

As a matter of fact, why the hell not just do away with the Trek franchise and just start some kind of new space opera/"sci-fi" series?  I'm sure the characters get you "brand recognition" (which is so important these days), but you would be free of the constraints of the 40-some-odd years' worth of history of the Star Trek franchise and could create new characters with new personalities (and new marketing tie-ins) while writing new scenarios for them to live it.  Pretty much an 0-fer here.  Just really dropped the ball.

So the bottom line?  Entertaining flick that could have/should have been a lot better.  Ooops.