Author Topic: Star Trek  (Read 25094 times)

smirnoff

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Re: Star Trek
« Reply #60 on: April 12, 2018, 08:09:38 PM »
Be ready for a more lighthearted film, with a lot of comic moments.

That will be a welcome change of pace. A lot of death and ships detonating lately by Star Trek standards. Losing the Enterprise and whatever that other Starfleet vessel was earlier in the film... quite a blow to the Federation!

oldkid

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Re: Star Trek
« Reply #61 on: April 12, 2018, 09:39:52 PM »
When Wrath of Khan came out, the rumors of Spock's impending doom were already out, so we were prepared for that.  But nothing prepared us fans for the most startling revelation in The Search for Spock: the destruction of the Enterprise.  The characters were great, but the ship was always there.  Frankly, we couldn't imagine a Star Trek without the Enterprise.  It was easily solved in a universe with instant replication, but we were reeling after that loss.

The lava fight at the end of III was just horrible.  It was horrible then and laughable when I watched it again a couple years ago.  I was also disappointed that Lloyd didn't have more a humorous turn in his Klingon captain, because he's so much better at comedy than what he did here.  The plot was predictable.  The effects were good, and there was some fun here.  But the real fun is in the next film.
"It's not art unless it has the potential to be a disaster." Bansky

Corndog

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Re: Star Trek
« Reply #62 on: April 13, 2018, 07:40:34 AM »
Having already watched ahead to The Voyage Home, but holding my review until Monday, I can't wait to hear smirnoff's thoughts!
"Time is the speed at which the past decays."

1SO

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Re: Star Trek
« Reply #63 on: April 13, 2018, 08:51:34 AM »
You can hear our thoughts?

Corndog

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Re: Star Trek
« Reply #64 on: April 13, 2018, 08:57:50 AM »
"Time is the speed at which the past decays."

smirnoff

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Re: Star Trek
« Reply #65 on: April 13, 2018, 04:43:40 PM »
Quote
I was also disappointed that Lloyd didn't have more a humorous turn in his Klingon captain, because he's so much better at comedy than what he did here.

I don't know if humour exists on the Klingon personality spectrum. :) I'm trying to imagine it. I can picture sarcasm.

smirnoff

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Re: Star Trek
« Reply #66 on: April 16, 2018, 01:23:58 PM »
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (Leonard Nemoy,1986)        3/10

Bones: "You’re proposing that we go backwards in time to find humpback whales, then bring them forward in time, drop them off, and hope to hell they tell this probe what to go do with itself."
Kirk: "That’s the general idea."
Bones: "Well that’s crazy!"

That actually is crazy. I don’t agree with Bones very often in these movies, but this time I think he’s right. Literally the only reason they go forward with this plan is because they can't think of a better one (they don't think about it very long!). They have no idea what this probe is or where it comes from. For starters it’s insanely powerful. Ships and space stations within its range are disabled instantly. And for some reason it arrives at Earth and starts boiling off it’s oceans. And this is just a probe doing all this! What are their starships like? The federation better hope to god they never encounter the owners of this probe, because whoever made it is on a much higher level technology wise. Hostile too, even vengeful.

As it turns out bringing humpback whales into the future actually does work. Who knows why. The probe goes away and Earth is saved. But so many questions remain. Who sent it and why? Was it holding a dialogue with the whales or just monitoring them? And why would an alien life form hundreds if not millions of light years away care specifically about humpbacks? And how did knowledge of the humpbacks reach them at that distance? This premise is so “out there”, and has so little information to go on, there's no way to build a base upon which to understand the conflict that took place or what the conclusion means. Like, at all. The film, by it's choices, insists on a particular interpretation of the events... the moral of which is, humans need to be careful how they treat the creatures around them because they never know who may be watching. That's a fine message but its one of many many possible conclusions a person could come to. I think the mistake of the script is in trying to act like that's the only possible interpretation, and that it is proven right by how the film ends.

So my feeling is that the plot was an excuse for shenanigans more than a meaningful and well thought out encounter with a foreign entity. That said the mystery of the probe DID have me intrigued and engaged right up to the point when our crew goes back in time by 300 years. But once the hijinks started it lost me. We watch them try to do stuff like: ask for directions, or cross a street, or ride a bus. It was cute but no thank you. The whole film ground to a halt. It became like a “holodeck” episode of TNG, which I almost always dislike.

I didn’t know Federation’s starships could even pull off this time travel trick. They don’t spend any time at all explaining how that works, or why they don’t use it ALL THE FRICKING TIME. They just fly around the sun at warp something, and bingo. What if bringing whales into the future triggered the probe to blow up Earth instantly, instead of doing whatever it was doing? That possibility seems just a likely as what actually happens, given how little information is available. And so their mission seems as reckless as it is desperate.

This is a possible extinction level event they are facing after all. They have communications from Earth advising anyone not yet caught up in the probes attacks to basically turn around and run for it. Earth's entire atmosphere has been ionized. Now I don't know what any of that means, but it sounds bad. :) There may be dozens of Federation ships elsewhere in the galaxy at a safe distance. Enough to repopulate a planet potentially. Shouldn't that possibility be weighed? To risk it all on a vague theory with many possible outcomes, not all of which are good... I wish they spent more time, or any time, weighing that choice.

Nice final moments though, the crew seeing the newly build Enterprise.

I'm liking that new bridge design...

Even if it is mostly just someone turning on more lights. :)
« Last Edit: April 16, 2018, 03:16:38 PM by smirnoff »

Sandy

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Re: Star Trek
« Reply #67 on: April 16, 2018, 03:31:42 PM »
 :))

Love your scathing reviews. I haven't seen this in ever so long, but I'm guessing it feels pretty dated. I remember Scotty trying to use a computer, but it must now look like a relic! Doubly funny.

Corndog

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Re: Star Trek
« Reply #68 on: April 16, 2018, 05:35:24 PM »
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (Leonard Nimoy, 1986)

Admittedly, I had very little concept of what to expect when it came to the Star Trek movies, particularly the original series (go back, check the tape). But now 4 films into the series, I can honestly say that I still have very little concept of what the Star Trek movies are, but instead of making that statement with trepidation, I make it with joy thank by and large to what exactly The Voyage Home manages to be, which is something completely different from the rest of the films, something so oddball that I was worried I was going to hate it, something so goofy that it ends up being a brilliantly fun hell of a ride. And I really did think I was going to hate it. I have this weird attraction to movies like that where it has be going one way until it’s brilliance seems to shine through so strongly that I give over to its greatness. A Ghost Story was like that for me. The Voyage Home was also like that, but for oh so different reasons.

As has been the case with all the films to this point, The Voyage Home is the direct sequel to the previous film, picking up exactly where the last left off, on Vulcan, without the Enterprise (which I forgot to mention in my last review was a bold-ass move, just as killing off Spock the film prior was). As a result, the crew are forced to begin their travel home in a Klingon ship, but along the way they encounter a strange probe headed for earth, which appears to be sending out whale calls. They must time wrap back to the late 20th century to kidnap a pair of humpback whales (who are extinct in the 23rd century) in able to communicate with the probe and save the world. But spending time back in 1986 San Francisco proves more “fish out of water” for most of the crew than even they could have expected.

I mean this film starts off so rough in many ways. As the crew journeys back toward Earth we get this odd film score, which is so strange and upsetting. Then it’s revealed to be whale songs out of water (think the egg in Harry Potter before the bathtub). I was fully prepared for this horrible, grating score throughout until I realized what it was. Okay, so I’ll forgive it that, but then seriously, they’re gonna time travel? Time travel is often tough ground to cover. And they end up on the streets of San Francisco in the 1980s? This one could get rough and uncomfortable quick. At least with The Motion Picture there were some redeeming factors, but I was not sure about this one in the early going. And then, it switched! I don’t know, but I think as soon as I saw on the streets of San Francisco that they weren’t going to take this premise seriously at all, that it was basically just going to be a straight comedy, I embraced that take and sunk into the movie and all the joys it has to provide.

C’mon, the whole premise is to travel back to 1986 to steal some humpback whales? How zany is that!? I really can’t get over how this plot got approved, let alone how it ends up working as well as it does. THEY’RE GOING BACK IN TIME TO GET SOME FISH OUT OF WATER AND AS A RESULT ARE THEMSELVES FISH OUT OF WATER. Who approved this!? Bless you! In all seriousness, the comedy here manages to be brilliant, and the on-the-nose ecological parable seems somehow perfectly suited for the Star Trek universe, which I praised last review for being a “wholesome” outlook on the universe, technological progress and galactic relations.

And once again one of the greatest strengths of the film is in its ability to get the whole crew involved. We get to see Sulu (Takei) learn how to use a Huey. We get to see Scotty (Doohan) teach an engineer how to develop 23rd century technology. We get to see Bones (Kelley) easily solve vexing 20th century maladies. We get to see Chekov (Koenig) say “nuclear wessels”. A Russian, in the 1980s, asking where the nuclear wessels are. Brilliant. And yet, as out of place all these characters are, they don’t seem too odd in the landscape of San Francisco (re: the punk rocker on the bus is just as weird). And then of course there are the two main characters, Kirk and Spock, who turn this movie into a buddy comedy at least in the sequence where they go to the cetacean institute. Kirk is suave and manages to be the most normal in 1986, where as Spock is eccentric enough to be somehow believable as a former Berkeley drug addict who likes to swim with whales (and know their pregnant). Catherine Hicks is also fun in her role as the keeper of the whales, although between her and Stephen Collins being in this series, I have to assume Jessica Biel will show up at some point too. In the Next Generation films perhaps? #7thHeaven

Honestly though, this whole film succeeds in 1986. If I am being honest with myself, any action that takes place either before or after the time travel just falls a bit flat for me. It’s a comedy which is restrained by the construct of the series to have a connected beginning and end, a plot in the middle to push the characters and story forward, and I mean more than just within this film, but within the entire series as well. If you just take out that middle section of the film you have unabashed brilliance. Instead, it sits inside a Star Trek movie that has to cater to the franchise and set things up a little bit for the next film (as well as wrap the last one up).

But for the third film in a row, the producers have elected to make a brash choice at the end of the film. The one here, Kirk being demoted to captain and a new Enterprise being made available to the crew, is far less shocking that Spock’s death or the Enterprise’s destruction, but I like that they are pushing the boundaries of what expectations should be for the series. They aren’t content with just giving the fans what they want , even though they manage to do that as well. I have been very impressed with the series thus far and its ability to be original, different, and to keep things very fresh. We’re not treated to just another adventure with each sequel. I hope that trend continues, but I already have low expectation for The Final Frontier, knowing that William Shatner helmed the project.

★★★★ - Loved It
"Time is the speed at which the past decays."

smirnoff

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Re: Star Trek
« Reply #69 on: April 16, 2018, 06:28:42 PM »
I like how the exact moments when the film is bad for you it is good for me, and when it's bad for me it's good for you. How we characterize the film is quite similar, but how we reacted to it was totally opposite. :)) Except for the ending which we both seem to have enjoyed.

I remember Scotty trying to use a computer, but it must now look like a relic!

It really does. :)