A Star Wars Fan Reviews Star Trek 09
May 10I’m savagely unapologetic of my Star Wars fandom, and have been since a young age. A friend of mine has a four year old son who needs to know everything about Yoda, down to what kind of nuts and roots and berries he puts in his stewpot on Dagobah, and I self-identify with that kid pretty heavily.
I’ve never had the same passion about Star Trek. Yeah, I watched it. It was okay. I just never got passionate about it. Never understood the Big Deal. I liked space wizards with laser swords. I liked the bizarre, nonhuman-looking aliens that were just hanging around everywhere – not the staples of action set pieces or important characters, just guys hanging out. I liked the fast pace and the action and the melodrama much better than what I perceived to be the rather mundane proceedings aboard the Enterprise.
For me, Trek has always been the Elvis to Star Wars’s Beatles. Even before 1994, when Tarantino first introduced that forced dichotomy into my brain.
I loved the new Star Trek movie with complete abandon.
Friday morning, I was talking to Matt about the movie, and I realized something very important. Well, two very important things. First, all of the things I said I loved about Star Wars were on full display in this movie, and they did them all better than any of Lucas’s prequels did. Second, a lot of those things were already staples of the series – I just never noticed it because I was too busy being blase’ about the lack of midichlorians or whatever.
It’s easily the best summer tentpole film I’ve seen in about a year. In fact, the last time a movie made me go “I need to go see this again immediately,” it was probably the first Pirates of the Caribbean flick. It’s the best Star Trek movie I’ve ever watched, running neck and neck with Wrath of Khan – the only one of the movies that I’ve actively rewatched several times (as opposed to leaving it on because there’s nothing better on TV).
Just like J.J. Abrams, I went into this movie basically knowing only that Kirk and Spock are the overwhelming OTP among slashfic writers. I knew that people loved Kirk, but I never got it.  I think I get it now.
Star Trek 2009
May 09The new Star Trek flick is not only a great movie. It’s not only a damn fun night at the theater. It’s not only THE summer movie to beat for balls-out action and laughs.
It’s also damn good Star Trek.
That’s what we’ve all been holding our breath about, isn’t it? The geeks, the nerds, the dweebs, the weirdos; the Trekkies and the Trekkers and the Klingon cosplayers; the desperate fanman in his two-sizes-too-small Deep Space Nine tee and the button-down corporate lawyer who slapped silly putty on his ears when he was eight to play Spock for Halloween.
All the previews looked good; all the rumors and spoilers sounded right. It always looked like a well-crafted product of the Hollywood blockbuster machine. But would it be good Trek? Not in a slavish devotion to obscure details, but in spirit, in mindset, in tone?
They did it. They absolutely fucking did it. Star Trek is easily the best time I have had in a movie theater in years; I grinned from start to end and clapped like a fool when it was over. And the afterglow is because on top of everything they got exactly right, they managed to do what seemed impossible for so very long: They reminded us that Star Trek can be great, not by kissing up to an ever-dwindling diehard fanbase or dismissing all that has come before in favor of some “hip,” “edgy” reinterpretation, but by just MAKING GREAT STAR TREK. It’s that simple. They made great Star Trek. It’s great.
(POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHOY)
Stuff We Like This Week: May 8 Edition
May 08
In an effort to combat our occasional…okay, okay, near-constant negativity, we give you a regular feature full of nothing but love — Stuff We Like This Week. Appearing every Friday, SWLTW will recap the things that have set our little nerdly hearts aflame within the past seven days.
Free Comic Book Day 2009 – This Year, Theft-Free!
May 05There are several things that we’re less-than-proud of here in the lushly-decorated Alert Nerd Central Office – my multivolume Raker Qarrigat/Arkillo fanfiction, Sarah’s homemade Gambit doll, and the thing that Chris keeps on his mantle and calls Slimer, but Oh God, what is it really?
However, none of those hold a candle to the way we celebrated FCBD last year – the year when Matt broke into his local comic shop, shot five guys and stole all of the free comics. That’s the way it happened, right?
This year, we were much better behaved, and here’s an infotaining after-action report to prove it…
Stuff We Like This Week: May 1 Edition
May 01In an effort to combat our occasional…okay, okay, near-constant negativity, we give you a regular feature full of nothing but love — Stuff We Like This Week. Appearing every Friday, SWLTW will recap the things that have set our little nerdly hearts aflame within the past seven days.
