More on J. J. Abram's Start Trek Remake
This is, IMHO, a very good review of the thing.
'Good' as in accurate...not 'good' as in favorable...
The thing that probably astonishes me about this is that the reviews of this movie are so overwhelmingly favorable. (96% on the tomatometer thus far...) Let me repeat: I enjoyed the movie...but it just simply isn't that good. It's not close to being that good.
[More spoilers coming]
Tim Brayton, the reviewer I link to above, nails one of the points I skipped over in my first post about the movie: the really awful Kobayashi Maru scene. I mean, you see them in the simulator, and you are like oh sweet this is going to rock... But it does not. New Kirk way hams it up and the scene ends up sucking largely because he comes off as, well, kind of an asshole. According to Brayton, this is the director's fault. (I'm completely ignorant about movies, but that makes sense.) See, here's how you do this scene: you emphasize Kirk's competitive nature, his unwillingness to lose...his moral outrage that the game is rigged. You show him working super-extra hard in his Advanced Turbo-LISP 3 Gajillion class. His programming instructor is all like "Well, Mr. Kirk, I'm glad to see that you're finally taking this class more seriously." Kirk grins devilishly... You show the drive and the brains required to reprogram the Federation's most notorious training simulation... You don't just show Kirk snearing and munching on an apple while the Klingon ships blow up. Seriously, isn't this supposed to be why you folks make the big bucks? Aren't you supposed to be good at this?
One more gripe--and one of my standard gripes about such movies: scenes that seem obviously to have been included in order to sell the inevitable video game. In the case of this movie, the most obvious such scene is Scotty's gratuitous trip through what seem to be the cooling system for the engines. (Why the engines of a starship are cooled with water, and why Scotty isn't cooked remain mysteries...) In a movie already way, way, way super-over-packed-to-the-gills, there's just no reason other than the video game to include this scene. Spock's flight out of the Romulan ship seems to be game-oriented as well.
And finally: the writing in the movie is passable--or that's my first take, anyway. I'm so used to the writing sucking so very much that I'm willing to put up with o.k. But some day somebody needs to learn that awesome visuals + shitty plot and/or shitty character-devolopment and/or shitty dialog = shitty movie. I like special effects as much as the next guy, but I simply do not understand why people make movies with a billion dollars worth of effects and $2 script. Though, again, the writing in this movie isn't notably bad.
O.k., that is all.
This is, IMHO, a very good review of the thing.
'Good' as in accurate...not 'good' as in favorable...
The thing that probably astonishes me about this is that the reviews of this movie are so overwhelmingly favorable. (96% on the tomatometer thus far...) Let me repeat: I enjoyed the movie...but it just simply isn't that good. It's not close to being that good.
[More spoilers coming]
Tim Brayton, the reviewer I link to above, nails one of the points I skipped over in my first post about the movie: the really awful Kobayashi Maru scene. I mean, you see them in the simulator, and you are like oh sweet this is going to rock... But it does not. New Kirk way hams it up and the scene ends up sucking largely because he comes off as, well, kind of an asshole. According to Brayton, this is the director's fault. (I'm completely ignorant about movies, but that makes sense.) See, here's how you do this scene: you emphasize Kirk's competitive nature, his unwillingness to lose...his moral outrage that the game is rigged. You show him working super-extra hard in his Advanced Turbo-LISP 3 Gajillion class. His programming instructor is all like "Well, Mr. Kirk, I'm glad to see that you're finally taking this class more seriously." Kirk grins devilishly... You show the drive and the brains required to reprogram the Federation's most notorious training simulation... You don't just show Kirk snearing and munching on an apple while the Klingon ships blow up. Seriously, isn't this supposed to be why you folks make the big bucks? Aren't you supposed to be good at this?
One more gripe--and one of my standard gripes about such movies: scenes that seem obviously to have been included in order to sell the inevitable video game. In the case of this movie, the most obvious such scene is Scotty's gratuitous trip through what seem to be the cooling system for the engines. (Why the engines of a starship are cooled with water, and why Scotty isn't cooked remain mysteries...) In a movie already way, way, way super-over-packed-to-the-gills, there's just no reason other than the video game to include this scene. Spock's flight out of the Romulan ship seems to be game-oriented as well.
And finally: the writing in the movie is passable--or that's my first take, anyway. I'm so used to the writing sucking so very much that I'm willing to put up with o.k. But some day somebody needs to learn that awesome visuals + shitty plot and/or shitty character-devolopment and/or shitty dialog = shitty movie. I like special effects as much as the next guy, but I simply do not understand why people make movies with a billion dollars worth of effects and $2 script. Though, again, the writing in this movie isn't notably bad.
O.k., that is all.
posted by Winston Smith at
7:25 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home