Oh Star Trek, I will forgive you these things, because you move so damn fast and your characters are so damn good.
This is a Star Trek remix, and it’s wonderful. That said, here’s what actively annnoyed me (noet these aren’t plot points. I could give a crap about handwavey Star Trek plots. This is a soap opera in space):
1) Uhura should have totally decked one of the guys in the bar. With how awesomely they re-did her, I was actually surprised this didn’t happen. Uhura is pretty awesome. It made me teary eyed to see how far she’s come. That said:
2) She is one of three female characters. One of them dies, and it is kind of boring. The other is Kirk’s mom, who has this ridiculous giving-birth-in-an-evacuation-shuttle scene. At least she didn’t die. It reminded me of Padme. I grit my teeth and bore through the thing, cause I knew the rest of the movie would be awesome. As J. pointed out, in Star Trek the families come with the crew, so it was not ridiculous for her to be there, just a ridiculously laid out scene. Would have much preferred her in uniform being rushed to a shuttle where she *then* goes into labor. Also, cut the fucking com with her dying husband. That was overmuch for me, even in a Start Trek movie. I wanted her to firm up her jaw and accept the sacrifice, teary eyed but tough. It was a little smarmy for me.
3) Gods, why do they go on with the overlong creature chase and Scotty-in-the-pipes hijinks? These scenes are both about 2-3 minutes too long. Not 7 minutes too long thank god, but they’re still running long for “wacky hijinks.”
I am so happy these characters didn’t suck. This was well written and very well executed. A perfect reboot. If they did this to every series they reboot, I’d be a lot happier with them. They didn’t sacrifice the heart of the show for special effects, and they had a great team of actors. It is, effectively, a soap opera, and without those character quirks, tensions, relationships, unique skills, weaknesses, foibles, and snark, you’ve just got elves in space.
This is why Firefly was so loved: it’s about building great characters and letting them run wild.
I didn’t even pay attention to the absurdities of the plot until later, because I just didn’t care. I loved the people.
At the end of the movie I thought, “Wow, Gene Roddenberry would have crapped his pants to see this.”
Because it felt a lot more like what he was trying to do. It actually *felt* like a diverse cast. It felt more like the future. Hell, it felt more like *now* than most tv shows and their lily white cornbread casting. And yes, everyone is young and beautiful, and our two primary protagonists are still white and male, and we only have three female characters, one of whom dies, but:
It’s come a long way.
Thank you for building a cast for Star Trek that doesn’t suck. Now don’t screw it up.
