Sunday, July 19, 2009

Some thoughts

OK, so it looks like writing a calc guide, even a quick 'net one, requires more determination than I thought. But I don't want to abandon this just yet, so here's my thoughts on the new Star Trek movie, in order (thanks, wikipedia plot synopsis!).

Some spoilers follow, obviously.

- Credits... but where's the TOS song? It would have been a nice touch.
- This.
- The Vulcan bullies are great.
- How is Kirk getting beaten up? Why isn't he - oh. His shirt hasn't been ripped. My bad.
- The Kobayashi Maru is pretty great. ("I don't suppose we want to fire phasers?" "No, we're good.")
- An Orion female not followed by the words "slave girl"? This is blasphemy, Abrams. This is madness!
- I know the Enterprise has a long and glorious history of being "the only ship in the quadrant", but don't tell me you didn't expect sending the entire fleet to Laurentia or wherever was going to come back and bite you in the ass.
- Oooh, shiny. I like this new design aesthetic.
- It's the galaxy's angriest space elevator!
- They just called them an away team. It's official. The redshirt is dead.
- They just made Chekov the Wesley! Nooooo!
- Oh, now Chekov can't lock onto someone while falling. Right.
- Wait - Spock/Uhura? What?
- Wow, the Romulans sure load their mining ships to bear.
- It's a brain slug! Go Wrath of Khan!
- Dude, marooning went out in the 18th C.
- The pod told you to stay inside, but would you listen? Nooo...
- That's one big supernova.
- And since when were the Romulans so incompetent they had to rely on Starfleet to save their bacon?
- Scotty! I was wondering when they'd get to you!
- "Admiral Archer" - nice hat tip. Pity the chronology means that's the only series they can reference. (Ugh, Enterprise.)
- Right, like they'd actually put Kirk in command after that little outburst. Just give it to Sulu, please.
- You know, even if they have the defense grid codes, you'd figure after they start munching on San Francisco somebody would say "Hey! Maybe - despite the codes - we should turn the defense grid back on!"
- Spock/Uhura, still! What is going on here?
- Why are there no railings!?!?
- "We are at warp." Ok, that's a pretty good one. (Has the Federation ever dumped probes inside a black hole just for kicks?)
- I'm sure dumping the warp core won't, eg, turn off your warp drives, Scotty.
- Chekov recovered from the brain slugs faster... but it gives them an excuse to put Pike in a wheelchair, which I heartily approve.
- There's the theme!

Well, that's a pretty huge list of snark, but really, it was a good movie. I heartily recommend it. (After #10 being crap and now #11 being good... looks like the even-odd rule is pretty sunk.)

4/5 stars.