Star Trek (2009) Review

Rebooting a franchise with a rabid fandom is always a dangerous thing, but running afoul of Trekkies, err, Trekkers is suicidal. So when J.J. Abrams of Lost fame was chosen to restart Star Trek from the beginning, a lot of fear and consternation filled the Web. A new take on Kirk, Spock, McCoy, the other original characters hit the big screen in 2009 to boldly go where we’ve gone before. High octane action and modern pacing made for a very different experience along with bigger box office. Updated with rewritten text, Blu-ray review, and HD screen captures.

It was disappointing to hear that Paramount was rebooting the Star Trek film series with a remake of the original series. I’d hoped for something more original like following the first captain of the Enterprise, Christopher Pike, or the murky early war with the Romulans. Instead, there would be a fresh young cast taking the roles of Kirk and company.  Out the window went any interest I had in the project.

Then a funny thing happened, the clips released to the Internet actually looked… good. Snippets of scenes showed decent acting and writing.  Disturbingly, I began to be interested.  Then came the trailers and I was in trouble. The movie looked like it was worth spending money on seeing in a theater, something uncommon for me.

So I ponied up the money, saw it and liked it. A lot.  But would it hold up after a second viewing?  An incredibly cheap preorder deal for the DVD at Target gave me that chance and so the answer is in the form of this review. Since first writing it, I’ve gotten my hands on the Blu-ray and will comment on the differences later.

Star Trek begins with moody music from its rather excellent soundtrack (composed by Michael Giacchino) while a starship comes into view, the U.S.S. Kelvin.  The ship is investigating an anomaly near the Klingon border when a gigantic squid-like ship emerges from it and promptly attacks. Right away the frenetic energy of the fight conveys the seriousness of the situation as the Federation ship is utterly overwhelmed by the mysterious attacker. 

The stakes are made to feel high as one short sequence demonstrates when a female crew member is sucked out of a hull breach and her corpse bounces off of a phaser turret in the silent vacuum of space.  This film is playing for keeps and doesn’t shy away from a high body count.

Summer Has Arrived

Hot and humid weather has at last arrived in southeast Minnesota. Hopefully it will help the late planted crops, but a lot of farmers in area valleys accepted crop insurance payouts rather than plant. At least the corn is visible and we'll see if it can get to "knee high by the 4th of July."

It's been a long week due to my health. Allergies, wet weather aggravating my back, and problems sleeping combined to keep me at low ebb. I probably had a cold or other bug on top of all that to make things annoying. Yesterday was the first day I was up to doing anything real and grocery shopping took that out of me. I swear it wasn't sticker shock -- there were actually some bargains.

Capsule In-Theaters Movie Reviews

Due to a lack of time and motivation, I’m going to give a brief review for each of the last three movies I’ve seen in the local movie theater: Iron Man 3, Star Trek: Into Darkness, and Man of Steel. One eclipsed the others completely and you’ll have to read on to find out the clear winner.

Another Kamikaze Bambi Strikes

It would be nice if car problems would stop happening, but here we are in 2013 and another deer collision happened last evening.

My father was coming home and hit a doe following her fawn across the road. She darted up from an embankment in front of the car as he slowed to avoid the fawn. It appears her muzzle impacted the windshield from all the chewed grass combined with saliva.

The impact could have been a lot worse but the slow down and angle left a dented fender and the badly cracked windshield as the only damage. It could have been far worse as my posts on earlier deer damage show.

Still, this is going to be incredibly expensive to repair if my suspicions are correct. I can feel the center of the spider web fractures on the inside of the glass. A Walmart parking lot temporary repair is probably in order involving reinforced packing tape.

Given the out of control deer population in the area the DNR really should do a massive cull, but that’s not going to happen. Instead the pests will continue to damage vehicles, crops, and gardens. I’m sick of the varmints being cared about more than humans.

Being Prepared to Serve

Any time there is a disaster such as the tornadoes that struck Oklahoma recently or hurricanes like Sandy there follows an outpouring of sympathy and volunteers to help with the clean ups. Churches and volunteer organizations send groups to assist in myriads of ways, which is unquestionably a good thing. But I find myself wishing more people would do the same closer to home at all times, rather than just during a highly publicized catastrophe.

This is a thought that I’ve been pondering for some time. However, recent events big and small have brought it to the fore in a nagging way. I believe we are here on Earth to learn to love one another and that the only real way we can do this is to serve each other. Being a devout member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, lessons on serving others are repeatedly taught in sermons and Sunday school. Service is emphasized for every member through our callings (volunteer jobs) in the church or helping out in the community.

Still, we all have our agency that applies to members and nonmembers alike. In Paul’s letter to the Galatians he wrote, “For brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.” Gal 5:13. That scripture implies that we are expected to choose whether or not to serve one another and that we should do so out of love. Sounds pretty simple, doesn’t it?

Real versus CGI Special Effects

Over at BoingBoing I ran into this great post and discussion on old school special effects and what's been lost in changing over to CGI. The starting off point is Ray Harryhausen's wonderful work and things go from there. Rarely are comment threads worth reading on big sites, but this one has a lot of valid points being made.

Personally, I think CGI can be fantastic when used properly and devastating to the suspension of disbelief when poor. Part of that comes from accepting the unreal aspects of older stop motion or miniatures effects for what they are when we visually process them. So when something that is photorealistic doesn't move or behave correctly, the mind freaks out disproportionately. That's the Achilles heel of CGI and I just had that experience watching the trailer to The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug:

It looked pretty good until the scene with the elves in the trees chasing the dwarves in the barrels. Right there the fluidity did not match the rest of the image and jarred me out of full immersion. Quick cuts of real stuntmen would have worked much better, but the temptation of CGI leads to directors using it too much. And this is the work of one of the better CGI directors out there, Peter Jackson.

Motion capture is one way to ameliorate the effect, but so far nothing has completely fooled my eye in a movie. So I'm back to learning to forgive the limitations and hope my eyes eventually do too.

Time of EVE Kickstarter Makes Stretch Goal

Having already recommended the anime Time of EVE and how it blew through its initial $18,000 Kickstarter goal in less than 24 hours, I am pleased to report that it has exceeded $126,000 by a good amount. This shows there is a model for import/export that may be emerging even as the world economy is in decline. Transitional time bring opportunity and I've decided to put my money where my mouth is by upping my backing to the $80 tier.

Yes the book is nice goody to have, but my intention has less to do with greed than with wanting to see this economic model flourish. For niche industries such as anime this could encourage more independent projects such has happened with video games. Crowd sourcing is also an interesting way to weed out ideas since demand has to occur up front rather than just being speculated on.

It might be that Time of EVE is an exception and this model won't work for other animes. After all, it is a brilliant work that is not your average animated fair of any kind. Time will tell, but at least this gem succeeded beyond anyone's wildest expectations.