Despite ranking a toxically high 9.7 on the
geek-o-meter, I've never gotten into the original Star Trek from the
60's. From what I've heard though, the biggest difference between the main
series and the new films is the level of action on display. Apparently the show
was less about kicking people in the throat and more about philosophising and
exploring humanity’s big ideas. Having said that however, there is a clip on YouTube
of Shatner's Kirk on all fours pretending to be a horse whilst a dwarf rides on
his back. I'm not sure what idea they were exploring here as I'm not sure of
the context. Perhaps this is a deep metaphorical investigation into the works
of Bertrand Russell or Rene Descartes, however when I see Kirk galloping about
all I can think is what a stupid Kant. Having said that there's a part of me that would now like to watch the original
show if only for the sake of irony. As though he's a cosmic Roger Moore, the
idea of watching Kirk explore a 60's vision of the future and fucking anything
with a pair of tits sounds like fun to me.
Released in 2009, the film Star Trek took
the series out of the nerds’ bedrooms and made it cool enough for the rest of
the world to enjoy. For some reason though, a lot of them seemed to hate it
because, “it changed too much from the originals”. But the way I see it, they
should be happy because the franchise was successfully rebooted in a way that
didn't erase everything that they'd loved from the current cannon. Also by
being set in an alternate timeline, these new films also avoided the
main prequel problem of there being no real threat because it's obvious the
characters will survive into the original films. Maybe I'm not a
Trekkie/Trekker but I am a fan of Star Wars and until your franchise is
rebooted with a massive fucking racist Jamaican Gungan thing, I've really got
no sympathy.
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| "I knew I shouldn't have studied rocket science..." |
So before we go any further, I guess I
should say that I really loved this film. From the moment it begins to the
moment it ends it is just non-stop action. It's as though it was conceived in
the racing mind of Oscar Pistorius whilst he enjoys a domestic shoot-out with
the missus. However this relentless spectacle, as enjoyable as it is, is possibly
one of the movies bigger problems. After watching Iron Man 3 last week I
was reminded of just how big a fan of Shane Black I was and so began revisiting
his older films. I also slightly lowered my mandatory four hours a day criteria
of porn browsing in exchange for finding old interviews with him in which he
talks about screenwriting. When asked about the state of the modern action
movie he claimed that they were all a bit crap because there's no downtime.
Instead, blockbusters these days try to simply deafen the audience by shouting
at them for two hours. This is definitely the case with Star Trek Into
Darkness which really cuts out the character moments and emotion of its
predecessor in exchange for making things go bang a lot of the time. Having
said that, there is a slightly hammy but enjoyable little speech by Cumberbatch
in which he seems to accidentally morph into Alan Rickman.
In fact, the comparisons to Rickman don't
end there with this film also suffering from the same minor problem as Die
Hard. Like Hans Gruber, John Harrison is so charismatic and cool that
despite the general dickishness, you can't help but find yourself occasionally
rooting for them. I know I just criticised the movie for having too much action
but the scene in which Harrison shits all over a gang of Klingons is still
pretty cool. I also thought that one of the final fights between Harrison and
Spock was pretty funny considering the size of their body frame. Back in the
80's action movies were dominated by giant hulk-men whose brains where the size
of their steroids-shrunk cocks. Cut to only a few decades later and the
beeftards have been replaced by two lanky nerds kicking the shit out of each
other. Not only that but the film also features Peter Weller and Karl Urban
meaning that director J.J Abrams decided to have his scrawny man-slap instead
of a much more epic fight between Robocop and Judge Dredd.
Anyway so we're heading into spoilery
territory now so it's about time those who are yet to see the film went for a
wander. For the rest of us I'm sure it was a huge surprise to discover that
Harrison was actually the series’ main villain of Khan all along. Of course
though, by ‘huge surprise’ I mean completely fucking obvious thanks to IMDb
thoughtlessly listing the name on their bloody cast list. I'm putting it out
there that, that may be the most annoying thing since I asked my Dad if Se7en
was any good and his response was, (spoiler alert), “Is that the one that ends
with Gwyneth Paltrow's decapitated head in a box”. It took me years to get my
revenge on him for that but eventually I seized my moment and locked him in our
attic without food and only an angry wasp for company. True story.
For those who don't know, Khan is one of
the big baddies of the original Star Trek world and was unsurprisingly
the villain in the supposedly brilliant Star Trek 2: Wrath of Khan. Personally
I've not seen that film but I hear good things about it. From what I do know
though, things are the reverse to Into Darkness with the original killing
off of Spock instead of Kirk. This of course results in Shatner calling on all
of his acting powers to famously scream, “Khaaaaaaaaaaan” with all the anger of
man who’s being forced to hold in a particularly rebellious ands jagged
shit. From what I do understand though,
the original at least had the balls to kill off Spock and keep him dead until
the crappy sequel. In this film sadly, I don't think that anybody is under any
illusion that Kirk’s death will be any more permanent than his earlier
demotion. Near the start of the film, Kirk is fired, demoted and then promoted
back to Captain with so much speed that that if you popped out for a piss you'd
have missed it. On the brightside though it's good to know that thanks to Kirks
pogo up and down the career ladder that by the year 2259 we'll have finally
solved this recession. With all the warring alien races, that's at least
something to look forward to.
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| I heard the supermarket is hiring... |
I guess that's pretty much everything I've
got to say on Star Trek Into Darkness. I've been writing for too long
now and I'm kind of feeling ill after eating an out of date tube of Pringles.
Obviously this film gives me even more faith that Star Wars Episode 7 will
be great, with Abram’s main skill being to dish out nostalgia for things you're
seeing for the first time. Actually if you want a tip, you should go to the
bookies and bet money on Benicio Del Toro being the next Star Wars
villain. Considering he almost played Khan here and Darth Maul in Episode 1,
I reckon he's a dead cert. You heard it here first! Anyway I think I'm going to go and be sick now. Although in case you didn't believe me earlier about Shatner being ridden by a
midget then here it is for your viewing pleasure...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avTfiRccYIA
Follow this blog or I'll fucking cut you.
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