Out of Pod Experience

Damnit, why did you have to bring up Eragon? They murdered that poor book. Not just did a poor rendition of it, they drug it out in the woods, went full Deliverance on it, then shot it in the head...and went deliverance on the headwound as well. After watchiing the movie, I went drinking in order to erase the memory so that I could enjoy the rest of the series as it was published. Unfortunately I still have traumatic flashbacks of the movie coupled with the voice of a redneck telling it to squeal like a pig.

What's wrong with it? Just saying the movie sucks is useless info for anyone who doesn't have intimate knowledge on your taste in movies.

SPOILERS ahead.. you have been warned!







The fact that Jar Jar Abrams has to dig up Khan for a villain is pathetic. That Kirk and Spock are switched and separated by what I assume is transparent aluminum and Kirk briefly dies, only to be revived by Khan's blood is even more pathetic.

It's like they took the worst fan fiction script and got a $100 million check to do something with it in the vain hope the turd would stick to the wall.

Sadly it will.

RIP Star Trek

For real. I was more intrigued by speculation that the villain was really Gary Mitchell.

You're only encouraging them to make more crappy films.

We need a hiatus - about twenty years - before the next 'Trek flic.

But the new trek is good.

I remember going to a Star Trek Pub Quiz event and they actually had trouble getting rid of first prize: tickets to Star Trek: Nemesis. Nobody was enthused, really.

Seriously, last year I really got into "Rawhide" like what, 50 years after the fact ? On the other hand,, watching "Lost in Space" is actually a fairly painful experience now.

Must be the only person who loved this film i guess.
I watched every episode of trek in my younger days.

Any way Spoilers ahead.

So i will say a few things: If this movie was not star trek and did not have the names attached to it then people would be looking at this entirely differently. If you can use your imagination for 10min and pretend this film was set in the universe of a unkown sci-fi.
The characters are in general fantastic. considering how many key characters the film has to manage it gives them all with the exception of 2 or 3 meaning full screen time. There are really 4/5 characters who get high levels of screen time instead of following 1 guy all the time.

The early terrorism plot works fantastically and plays directly into the mid section reveal, It establishes the villain but without giving him or his motives away. The sub plot between the captain and the admiral works fantastically as a moral grounding for the captain. Giving him a emotional core that had been missing. The use of a father figure in the admiral provides excellent motivation for the film to move forward.

In general there is a fantastic coming of age feel to the film. Where the first gave the captain his ship it never really said he knew what to do with it. He never earned it. And this is where this film is strong.

Moving into the mid film the reveal kind of works on an assumption of prior knowledge and that's my only real issue with the film.
That being said the character of the villain from the reveal on steals the show. As soon as he is revealed know the history of the character or not the film does a fantastic job. Surpassing the original characters in every aspect.
As the captain is clearly starting to understand what his crew means to him the villain exploits this to great effect from a plot point but the film exploits it to. At the same time the captain buys into him you do to. You have established from the start the captains growing relationship to his crew. And to suddenly have the same relationship as the villains motives really works.

from this point on the film grows fantastically as you start to like the villain. Strong scenes and dialogue keep you interested until the plot moves forward again. The ominous warning from the past reminds you and kind of braces you in time to the shift in dynamic for the villain. A scene that has spine shivering stuff to it. You are hit very hard and fast from kind of liking the villain to remembering/realizing who he is at his core. A few choice references help. But nothing really says he's the bad guy like having him crush a mans head with his bare hands as that mans daughter watches shortly after he has curb stomped her leg into about 3 pieces.
This sold the character for me. he had gone from manipulator, to victim, to friend and finally takes his place as the main adversary.

This was the high point of the film for me.

The final was a little underwhelming but this is due to the number of characters that had to be wrapped up as well as plot lines. It felt a little like all the good guy cast/crew of the ship are kind of one character with different sub sections And the wrong person had been put in each place. The Villains final action to crash a starship into a city of people and make about 40 skyscrapers into dust seemed a little trivial. Hundreds of thousands probably died and there is little emotional impact or follow up.

Now for the star trek sides of things:
Yes its set it trek. Yes it revisits Khan. Yes it has it's flaws.
But here are a few things to remember. Star trek was DEAD!!!! doomed to reruns on increasingly poor channels. And with good reason.
Secondly the fan service in these new ones is nothing short of legendary. subtle plot line, giant cracked moons around Klingon home worlds (did you notice that even?) ect ect.
Now for the people who are moaning about the villain. Firstly Yes In space seed Khan had black hair and was a lot younger.
(Clearly you forget that wrath of khan was not his first appearance).
Secondly cumberbatch's Khan is by far the most coherent and well rounded of all 3 versions of him.
Thirdly. This is technically a direct sequel to wrath of khan if anything. It is not a remake. It is not asking you to forget the first two times you met him. At most it asks you to forgive the fact he's now not Indian.
There IS references to why he appears when he does in the new trek. IT is clearly established that star-fleet has expanded faster and differently than in the original time line in response to nero's actions in the previous film.
Granted a scene that actually said "we speed up our expansion and exploration in response to the loss of vulcan. And that's when we found Khans ship" may have helped a little.


So yea in short. From a non-trek point of view. Best film I've seen this year. Far better characters than iron man. far less huge plot holes than iron man. Best villain acting since Django. Best visuals and sound for ages. In general a great film. I only wish it had not been star trek in some ways just because the Trekkie don't deserve it. If star wars is half as good it will be better than the last 3.

Traditional sci-fi is Isaac Asimov. Generic modern sci-fi is Babylon 5. Star Trek is an idealized utopian adventure, and Star Wars is a deep spiritual-political fantasy set in a lush and extremely expansive adventure.