A brief review of Star Trek

I never did post a followup saying what I thought of the new Star Trek film I was all keyed up to see, and I thought, with the DVD release imminent, now was a good time.

In short: it was awesome. It was everything I expected, and more. I'm not a Trekkie (or Trekker if you prefer) by any stretch of the imagination, but I quite enjoyed ST:TNG in its day, and do own them all on DVD. I also watched a fair bit of the original series Saturday mornings on CBC when I was growing up.

On to the film itself...

The opening scene was the perfect birth scene for Kirk, born in the chaotic, adrenaline-filled rush of a space battle. It perfectly encapsulates everything the world has come to know and love about James T. Kirk. It also explains the adrenaline-junkie aspects of Chris Pine's portrayal, which I thought was a nice touch.

From that opening scene, the film never lets up, going from strength to strength. Seeing everyone as young cadets was great--we get the sense of them attending Starfleet without having to sit through any clumsy exposition. We get a nice sense of Kirk as a ladies man as well, and Kirk romancing a green lady was just icing on the cake (for fans of both the original series and fans of green ladies).

I will definitely be in line for the sequel if it goes ahead. There was talk about that before this first film was released, but I haven't heard much more.

A couple of minor quibbles. I know Anton Yelchin while born in Russia, doesn't speak with a Russian accent, but I think he should have gone for a more natural-sounding Russian-person-speaking-English accent than trying so hard for comedy. Chekov's accent was only rarely played for laughs in the original series. I also thought that while John Cho was good, he lacked the feeling of calm capability that George Takei projected as Sulu. That being said, all the characters were fresh-faced cadets in this film, so perhaps the gravitas is something we'll have the pleasure of seeing develop if more films are made.

Oh, and I only thought once about Sylar while watching Zachary Quinto do his stuff as Spock, which is a testament to how good of an actor Quinto is, and how much he made the role his, while still keeping faith with Leonard Nimoy's portrayal.

Welcome to Rivendell, Mr Anderson

I'm all keyed up to see the new Star Trek film, but I've been pondering the issues of casting actors who play an iconic role for which they're well known.

The subject of this post reflects what runs through my mind whenever I watch The Fellowship of the Ring and see Frodo waking up in Rivendell after the Flight to the Ford. I know that Elrond says "Welcome to Rivendell, Frodo Baggins", but because of Hugo Weaving's iconic role as Agent Smith in The Matrix (and its two sequels, but let's not mention those), the subject line above is what I hear instead. Oddly, I don't get that effect with V for Vendetta, possibly because Weaving's face is obscured and he has less of a measured and deliberate delivery than he does as both Agent Smith and Elrond.

Anyway, because I've only seen Zachary Quinto as Sylar in Heroes, whenever I see the trailer for the new Star Trek movie, I keep expecting Spock to slice open someone's head with his finger. As cool as that might be, hardly in keeping with flavour of the Star Trek universe. Equally, while I don't believe that Karl Urban as Bones is going to jump on a steed of Rohan and go galloping down the corridors looking for Gríma Wormtongue, that doesn't stop me from half-expecting it to happen.

Where I'm going with all this is that sad as I was to see Christopher Eccleston leave Doctor Who and gutted as I am to see David Tennant do the same, I'm sure they're right. Sigh.

No more Scotty...

Just read at WWdN that James Doohan, aka Scotty from Star Trek passed away today at age 85.

He had a good innings, but it's sad to see him go. He was everybody's favourite fictional engineer (fictioneer?), and I can't remember how many times I've wished my engineering job could be more like Scotty's. *Sigh*.