WARNING: MAJOR STAR TREK SPOILERS
Occasionally Dan and I get together on chat and have funny conversations. I’ve been bugging him to see the new Terminator movie because it is just SO RIPE FOR RIPPING (that’s the name of your emo band), and he said that we should discuss Star Trek instead, seeing as how we’d both watched and enjoyed the recent sci-fi reboot. But because of my strangely busy schedule lately, we agreed to correspond via a succession of emails rather than a formal chat session. I think the result was probably less hilarious than the machine gun rhythms of our chats, but still worth a read and a laugh.
Note: It should be noted that Dan and I both liked this movie very much, and our nitpicking is done more for comedic purposes than for actual criticism. Also, sorry for the strange text formatting.
Also, I wanted to post this before he did, because I have fewer good posting ideas than Dan. So here you go:
Dan: You want to do this thing? Star Trek?
Floyd: Sure. I thought it was an extremely entertaining, non-thought-provoking summer thrill ride. You?
Dan: I enjoyed it, too. But it was strange that a popcorn movie had a complex time-travel story. A sci-fi movie is usually really scientific (use your brain, pay attention), or not (turn your brain off and ignore the plot holes).
Floyd: I barely paid attention to the time travel elements. I tried to follow it for a bit, but when old Spock started talking to young Kirk about young Spock and middle-aged Nero, I stopped paying attention and just starting admiring the pretty colors. Basically, if I recall correctly, Nero watches Romulus get destroyed in the future, and it’s old Spock’s fault, so he goes back in time to kill Spock so that Romulus doesn’t get destroyed, and also to destroy Vulcan. But wouldn’t old Spock already know that Vulcan had been destroyed since it happened in his youth? Because it seemed like Old Spock didn’t see it coming. Also, in Old Spock’s world, Capt. Kirk’s dad had lived a long, fulfilling life?
See, this is why time travel is a terrible idea for movies. I would recommend the scene where Kirk meets Spock in the ice cave as a great time to go to the bathroom. It just needlessly complicates the movie.BTW, how dumb was Kirk to get out of his escape pod on Hoth? They were sending a rescue team – instead, he stubbornly gets out and starts walking for no good reason, and almost gets eaten by a monster as a result. I get that he’s impulsive, but impulsivity + poor-decision-making = Bad Idea Jeans.
Dan: Well, even ignoring all the “huh?”s that time travel creates, Old Spock is an enigma. First, Romulus is going to be sucked into a black hole, so the Federation decides to send OLD BALLS SPOCK to fix the problem? He’s so old! They couldn’t find a healthy body to fly the red matter over to save the Romulans? Old Spock fails, because he’s so old and useless, so Nero puts him on the ice planet so he’ll be forced to see his own planet of Vulcan destroyed, and dumb “I’m gonna go for a walk in subzero temperatures” Kirk meets him in an ice cave.
This is one thing I didn’t enjoy about the movie – too many Deus Ex Machina coincidences. And sure enough, another one came directly after Old Spock and Kirk met, as they meet Scotty for the first time in the Federation outpost on Hoth. Uhh, what? Sure, Scotty just happened to be stationed there. Fine. But Old Spock never stepped foot inside the Federation outpost? Even though he knew it existed? Even though he’d been stuck on a planet MADE OF ICE for months or years? I don’t know, I think I may have dropped by for a cup of coffee once or twice in that time period, while I waited for my home planet to be destroyed.
Floyd: Really, the whole existence of Old Spock throws everything out of whack. That’s true, there’s this federation outpost right nearby where Old Spock watches his planet collapse (AND HIS MOTHER DIE even though it’s his young mother and he was standing right there but he doesn’t remember any of this???) and Old Spock, should already have known what was going to happens since HE WAS THERE AS A YOUNG ADULT and could have used the fully functioning radio at the outpost to call for help. But when did the “trap” get set where the ENTIRE FLEET gets destroyed because they dropped out of warp too close to Nero’s supership?Did we really need a time-traveling villain in the first movie of the reboot? Two things that bother the hell out of me about this – one, it sets the standard that time-travel is really easy, which should necessitate an abundance of “Terminator”-type plotlines. (And how come NOBODY with access to time travel goes back in time and buy up Apple or Microsoft stock or whatever? It’s always for revenge or prevention, never just a good ol’ get-rich scheme.) Also, red matter? Really? A super-ambiguous substance that one syringeful can create a freaking black hole (which is really just a time warp?)? This kind of detracts from any fun “science” for the franchise, as we’ve already established that black hole creation and time travel are not only possible, but pretty easily accomplished. I refuse to engage in a world in which people have to stand still for teleportation (sometimes) but a block hole/time warp can be created with a syringe and a torpedo.
Dan: Floyd, you rage has blinded you to the time travel movie that features a get rich quick scheme: Back to the Future Part II. Also, I think Star Trek was angling for a parallel universe angle in addition to time traveling, which is super confusing for a popcorn flick, but would allow for an ignorant Old Spock.
I’m glad you brought up the teleportation, because now we get to talk about Sulu and Chekov. Sulu volunteers for an away mission because he has advanced weapons training in “fencing”. What Stardate is it again? Fencing? We’ve got photon torpedoes and phasers and the Federation is still giving trainees lessons in fencing? JUST SHOOT THE GUNS, FUTURE FOLKS. Anyway, things go badly, and soon Kirk and Sulu are freefalling toward death. They need to be teleported back to the ship, but the teleportation expert can’t get a lock on their signals, because they’re falling targets. Chekov says, “I can do that!” and runs down to the teleportation room to save the day. So, this 17 year old Russian is the only dude on a ship of thousands of Starfleet cadets that knows how to adjust for the rate of acceleration while teleporting. Didn’t we all learn that equation in high school? Are we sure this movie wasn’t just a revised draft of “Space Camp”?
Floyd: To be fair to both Sulu and fencing, there are still many fencing enthusiasts today, even though swordplay is no longer a viable military skill. So I can understand that perhaps Mr. Sulu, at some posh academy for rich kids, took up fencing as a way to meet and poke other boys in masks. (Get it? Because George Takei is gay.)
What I do have a problem with is that what Mr. Sulu displayed on the giant floating drill was definitely not fencing. For one, and I’m no fencing expert, but I believe the use of katanas is generally frowned upon. And I’m almost positive that the jump-spin-slash is rarely, if ever, utilized in fencing competitions.
I was also a bit disturbed by the idea that the only cadet capable of teleporting a moving target is the 17-year-old Russian kid. I realize they had to have something for Chekhov to do to develop his character just a bit beyond “funny accent” guy, but it felt a little forced. Also, in our modern era of computer multi-tasking, in 500 years or whatever a Starfleet officer has to run between stations? He can’t access the teleportation controls from his computer? What OS are they running, Windows 95???
Dan: Watching these movies, you can’t help but think the future is overrated. You’ve got to run down hallways to get to the teleportation room just like you do in the present, and when your wife – that chick from House that I actually find more attractive than the super attractive chick on House, because you know how it is sometimes with the unattainably pretty chicks, they’re just too far out of your league, and sometimes they look mean, like Angelina Jolie for example, and like this hot chick from House, they’re just too super model hot and it’s like, “why bother, you may as well be an alien”, right? – is pregnant with your unborn James Tiberius Kirk, you don’t know the sex of the baby. It’s the future, but, like, we still don’t necessarily know the sex of the fetus, because future parents still enjoy future surprises. Nevermind that any douchebag could probably walk up to you and wave their scanner at your uterus and immediately learn your child will be a boy, weighing 3320 grams, with ADHD and a fatal space peanut allergy.
And future parents like to wait until the last second to name their future babies. The Star Trek future is part standard sci-fi future, and part Idiocracy future.
Did you know Winona Ryder was the actress portraying Spock’s mother? If all of her clothes are going to stay on, why are we aging young actresses to make them look old?
Floyd: I haven’t watched a minute of House in years, and thus can’t relate to your examples of hotness. But yeah, it’s a bit disappointing that people still want to be surprised by the gender of their kid. (I think a funny Star Trek joke would have been if the baby came out half-Romulan – Take that, Kirk! Your wife is a whore!)Even more disappointing is the idea that women are still birthing babies. Seriously, we haven’t gotten over this trite tradition and moved to the ridiculously safer, cleaner and more efficient artificial wombs? Babies in the future are born in labs, period. No more gross pregnant women and their disgusting birthing rituals.
I was fully aware that Winona Ryder was in this movie, and it’s probably the most pointless cameo since George Lucas cast a pleading Samuel L. Jackson as a Jedi. Never mind that this character plays to none of your strengths or attributes as an actor, you’re famous! Kind of. And in the case of Winona, she needs the work. Her agent must be Ari Gold to get her in this movie. I figured she was only a year or so away from the Marisa Tomei (“Fine, but I’m only doing the gratuitous nudity because I really like the script (I really need the work)”) plan of acting career rehabilitation.
Hey – what’s with the terribly unsafe Romulan catwalks in that ship? How many Romulan drill workers needlessly plummeted to their deaths because of that? I realize they’re kind of the Orcs of the Star Trek universe, but geez, if you’re societally advanced enough to build a super-spaceship capable of destroying planets, sure you’ve thought up of a few safety regs. Those Romulans need a union!
Dan: Ship design is another puzzler. Most tribes still favor an aerodynamic design, but the future Romulans make their ships look like serrated octopi. When we learned that it was a ship for mining, its drill-like design made sense. When we learned that the actual mining was not done by the ship itself, but by a laser beam thing that was lowered from the ship, the design did not make sense.
At the end of the film, we see the Enterprise escape from the pull of a black hole, but not before the integrity of the ship is compromised. The bridge’s viewscreen is cracked, and other parts of the ship crack. I’ve been led to believe that an intact ship keeps the pressurized air in and the deadly space atmosphere out. But maybe not? Maybe the ship’s shields help with that? It does not make a lot of sense. But this movie was fun! We like fun movies!
Floyd: I think the Romulans go more for utility than they do beauty. So for a gigantic mining ship, maybe all those arms and stuff served some mining purpose. Still, I think I could have come up with a more efficient, less scary design. I’m still puzzled why they have an actual windshield. It just seems like that’s asking for trouble, like with the crack in it. I figured that in the future, windshields will be replaced by hi-def viewscreens fueled by an array of cameras that give you the best possible angle. Then, you know, maybe there’s an actual glass viewing area with some kind of bay doors that open. Like the sun room in “Sunshine” where people would go to commit suicide. That kind of thing.
Here’s a question – Kirk usurps control of the Enterprise by taunting Spock until he loses control of his emotions and tries to kill him. Then Kirk just immediately sits down in the chair, and everybodys all like, roll eyes, sigh, ok, let’s do this. But wasn’t Kirk yelling at Spock to set him off, thus displaying his own inherent lack of emotional control, not to mention the evidence of his incredible impulsiveness from his earlier adventures? Also, wasn’t it a pretty blatant maneuver to unnecessarily and cruelly taunt Spock into a mistake, then immediately taking his place? I’m pretty sure that crap wouldn’t fly in an episode of The Apprentice, much less on the bridge of the freaking Enterprise. I just thought that was kind of a ham-handed method to show Kirk’s ascent to captain.
But hey! Fun! Lasers! Aliens!
There’s always been a disturbing lack of robots in Star Trek. The Borg was pretty cool, but where are all the droids? Maybe back home building the ships?
Dan: I always thought Starfleet was a pretty regimented organization, but this movie proved otherwise. Kirk was snuck on the ship without rank, then the captain promptly made him 3rd in command, except the only witnesses to this were Spock and Sulu. So when Kirk assumed control, there should have been a few more, “Uhh, what? The now kidnapped captain secretly made you next in line after Spock? Are you sure you’re not making this up to take control of the Enterprise? Because you seem like the kind of person that cheats on tests and lies a lot. Because you do.”
I think the next movie will deal with Klingons, and the movie after that will focus on The Borg. Then the movie after that will focus on whales, because Star Trek, while very fun, can also be very retarded.
Floyd: Retarded. Word.
3 Comments
June 5, 2009 at 11:36 pm
The two of you are hilarious. I read to the very end, and even though I loved the movie, I agree with every one of your questions (stupid design of Romulan ship, big holes in time travel scenario having to do with Old Spock foreknowledge), and I laughed the hardest at the Winona Ryder/Marisa Tomei parallel, and now whenever I think of all the big fat *holes* in the plot that you pointed out, ummm, maybe you should get your post over to J. J. Abrams before he or his cohorts start writing the next script.
June 6, 2009 at 7:42 am
I do believe you’ve summed up the reason why we love movies that have plot holes everywhere in three words: Fun! Lasers! Aliens! And Spock.
To be honest I didn’t know, or care, who Winona Ryder was before I read this. But now I’ve gone to search for some images, it really does seem strange how they cast her to play Amanda Grayson.
June 11, 2009 at 8:34 pm
OK, so what other movies have you reviewed because I need a good laugh today
For some reason, when I press on the “Terminator Salvation” link, I get a blank screen.
I don’t know who “Amanda Grayson” is. Never mind. It sounds like a character from an English novel, or something adapted for the screen from an English novel …