Sunday, May 24, 2009

Star Trek

Oh. My. God. 

We finally got out to see the "revisioning" of Star Trek tonight, and it was worth the wait. Literally, as we sat down and the movie started about 40 minutes later after innumerable trailers for every pre-teen boy's franchise under the sun. And it was great. 

And you got to see an annoying person die. I haven't been that happy to see that happen in a movie since DeNiro plugged Brigit Fonda in Jackie Brown. That in itself should be enough to tell you that Abrams figured out a really smart way to buck 40+ years of the Continuity Monkey and we can all just enjoy the movies now without having to listen to someone talk about how that never would have happened because in Episode 13, 5 minutes and 42 seconds into the second act, that Spock mentions that the Golubulans tripped on a subspace string 500 years ago, and now ion engine trails have a different energy signature. 

F*ck that. We've *had* movies that were supposed to bow and scrape before continuity, a good 24 years of them, and since Wrath of Khan they've just gotten worse and worse and worse. I didn't even like the one with the whales. I kept seeing them (well, right up until Nemesis, when I decided that *I* had jumped the shark), but was pretty happy to be living in a world where there were no more bad Trek spin-offs or movies. 

And now there's a good one. Better than Khan? Perhaps, as that wasn't a terribly tight movie, but it was a fun movie and it had pretty much the whole original crew running around (of course, so did V, but work with me here...) plus of course Montelbahn doing his best "Kiiiiiiiirk!!!!" noises. 

I feel sorry for all of the movies that have to come after this one. I really do. It's not a perfect movie, it's really not even a great movie (because it can't really stand on it's own in much the same way Empire Strikes Back is glossed over as the best of the Star Wars movies), but it's the best Star Trek movie *imaginable* for today, and thus satisfies the ST itch like it hasn't been satisfied in a very very long time. 

I'm sure all of you have seen it by now (we waited because we wanted to see it with my daughter, and WBC-W plus their trip to Vegas made this our first opportunity), but if you haven't, and you have *any* fondness for *any* of the ST franchise, this will be a movie you'll love. Highly recommended.

No comments: