Star Trek
Hola, amigos. What up? I know it’s been a long time since I rapped at ya, but I got real busy re-reading all the Jim Anchower columns over at the Onion. Then I smoked a huge bowl and two weeks later, here we are with a much delayed review of Star Trek. I might catch a lot of flack for never having seen any other Star Trek movie (including Wrath of Khan) but I did spend quite a few of my precious childhood hours watching Next Generation reruns with my dad. I had a huge crush on Data. I guess not that much has changed since I’m still mainly attracted to guys who are completely emotionally unavailable.
But regardless of my lack of Trek-exposure, I really enjoyed JJ Abrams’ reworking of the original characters. Firstly I’d like to go on record saying that “Star Trek is a sexy Sci Fi romp through space and time!” you know, in case anyone wants to quote me on that. Because damn, there was a lot of hotness in this cast. I know that Chris Pine’s Kirk was probably meant to take the sexy cake (mm, sexy cake) but I’ll be damned if I didn’t think Spock (Zachary Quinto, who is apparently on some TV show about heros or something, whatever, who watches TV anyway?) was way hotter. Sure, Kirk’s bad boy, devil-may-care attitude is certainly attractive, but something about the vaguely adrongynous, definitively logical and very well groomed Spock was just HOT.
The plot of the movie doesn’t reinvent any SciFi standards: there are black holes and some time travel and some evil alien race is out to destroy earth. Kirk & co are brand new recruits and have to band together and overcome their differences (which are many!) and tangled romances (Vulcans make out? That’s weird) and language barriers (Ok, Charlie Bartlett, we get it, you practiced really hard with a dialect coach) and bumblingness (aw, there you are Shaun of the Dead!) in order to defeat The Hulk. Yeah, I think I summed it up OK.
I liked all the parts where Kirk was being charming and Spock was being logical and Harold was being kind of chivalrous and cute. I didn’t like Bones…he seemed like he was trying too hard to be deadpan and it left me uncomfortable (though he was also extremely attractive, so, um, wasn’t so bad). I also wasn’t a huge fan of Uhura (Zoe Saldana) but I think that probably had more to do with her character who was kind of that stock goody two-shoes chick who refuses to be seduced which is something I don’t really identify with than it did with the actress.
There was also a part where Kirk ends up on a snow planet where I kind of fell asleep for a few minutes. All that white, I don’t know. But in general I thought that Star Trek was a really swell summer movie that was fast paced, funny at times and just all around fun, you know? I like that in a movie.
I am actually, generally speaking, a huge Star Trek dork. Even though I don’t dress up or go to conventions.
Also, I had a huge crush on Data and I never connected this with an attraction to emotionally unavailable men and now I feel like I should pay you for the therapy session. Thanks.
Having said that, I thought all the characters were super-great (no really!). And if you’ve never seen the original Star Trek you wouldn’t understand that Bones was playing Bones beautifully. I found Uhura really annoying, but totally hot, so I let it pass.
But.
I do not like time-traveling alternate-reality crap. I just don’t. So I was annoyed with the story. And I thought it was interesting that they chose to change pretty much everything (character names excluded) about the original story, but didn’t think that maybe some of the women could wear pants. Since, ya know, technically we’re in the future. Oh shit, maybe in the future they run out of pants for women?!?
It was totally worth seeing and I will probably see it again. And Spock was hot, but not as hot as he is on Heroes when he runs around slicing people’s heads off (I stopped watching after season two, so I have no idea if he still does this). What does that say about my taste in men? Crap.
I’ve seen all the movies, but never really watched the original series or the Scott Bakula “Enterprise.” That being said, I have watched all of the TNG, DS9, and Voyager episodes. Now that you have been schooled on my experience, know this: I want to have sex with this movie.