Mrs. Ombud enjoyed the new Star Trek movie, and I’m glad I saw it.
It’s quite a series of cliffhangers, with all the suspense any fan of action movies could hope for, and the special effects are state of the art. I’m not a fan of the franchise, since watching the reruns of the original series as a kid, but the plot progresses at warp speed and it’s mostly good fun (especially as my dad wasn’t complaining that every time he entered the room with that program on it was just a bunch of people screaming and yelling at each other).
We went to see it in the theater, which isn’t something I do much, any more. I’ve become a complete Netflix fan, but every so often it’s nice to go see things on the big screen (in spite of how loud they crank the sound system, the kids yakking behind us, and the cost of everything from driving and parking to popcorn).
It’s cool to see how they “prequel” all the familiar characters from the 1960s, especially the old TV shows’ supporting characters such as Uhura, Chekov, and Sulu. They even show you some of the inventive progress of familiar Trekkie technology such as the transporter; I really liked that. And I hadn’t seen the old Vulcan mind meld for years—it made me wish I could employ the device myself, but never mind stubborn types back in the early 21st century.
I don’t want to wreck anything for those who prefer not to know what’s coming, yet several of the reviews I’ve seen straightforwardly announce that there are two Spocks, so I figure it’s fair to mention that (I will not discuss the ending).
It employs time travel, of course, and has one of them come back in time to alter events to prevent the destruction of worlds in the future. I know this is a time-tested cinematic plot device. Still—it’s kind of sloppy, I think. Here’s my problem.
If you have characters going back in time to alter certain events, how do you know that so much gets altered the situation that sends one of them back in time would never happen?
I mean, let’s pretend there’s a guy with access to a time travel machine who was born in Canada and knows that his Tory family got kicked out of the colonial family mansion back during the American Revolution. It’s in the Hudson Valley, he likes New York, never cared much for Saskatoon where his family lives now, so he decides to go back to 1780 and slip key information to the redcoat officers and stop General Howe from getting bottled up at Yorktown and losing the war for the Brits.
But then, as the family keeps the mansion on the Hudson, his ancestors go on to live happy lives frittering away their fortunes in Manhattan on cheap women, cheating cads and parasitic jerks so that his parents never meet in Canada, let alone perform the human pelvic meld that sparks the zygote to bring him into existence.
So I have a hard time with the whole plot device. Mrs. Ombud thinks it makes more internal sense than that, and feels that he could go back in time to change the course of history and still everything else would happen exactly as it had before, nothing else would be changed, but it seems dang iffy to me.
And probably it dodges through another black hole into my more global problem. Which is that I like movies that are believable. I think it’s really cool that movies like The Lives of Others come along, or I’ve Loved You so Long, that don’t have to take shortcuts with reality to immerse you in the story. I love Michael Clayton because I don’t have to pretend or ignore something that’s patently absurd to be drawn into the story.
Really, isn’t it better that way? What do you think?
Wait, maybe it’s best not to go there. Maybe if we go there the whole business gets time-warped through a black hole and we won’t be able to have this conversa-
Awww… I loved this movie ! Heck, if Mr. Spock says it can happen, it can happen. That’s good enough for me. LOL !
You’re right, Daniel, it is a fun movie.
But I’ll bet that, had they employed a real Vulcan in the scriptwriting, he’d have pointed this out, too …
Don’t read this if you haven’t seen the movie as there are spoilers within…
I think that if you are careful to watch the movie through the eyes of an eight to 12 year old you’ll be okay. But a sci fi buff will have issues enjoying this all the way through. Even a “Trekkie” who knows and likes the franchise will have issues.
First of all, the premise is build on Spock carrying a large amount of potentially galaxy destroying stuff alone in a one of a kind ship that is large enough for many more people. He is on his own to save an entire WORLD.
But what first strikes a sci fi person is how in the world is a black hole going to be better than a supernova?!?
As the plot progresses we see a bad guy drilling into a planet in order to drop a drip of this stuff in it’s core. This is so silly. If a black hole of any size was anywhere near a star system let alone in the middle of the planet, the planet would be destroyed.
So you can imagine a sci fi fan struggling to enjoy this movie. The action was cool, the effects awesome, the acting pretty good and the character interaction was great. But being based on silly and global mistakes the entire way through none of it mattered much in making it a movie a fan could say “THAT WAS GREAT!” to.
Spock was set on a planet or moon to watch his home planet turn into a black hole. Well, if Spock could see that with the naked eye he would be dead but just wouldn’t know it yet. He would already be in the gravity/time shell of the black hole.
And then Scotty. Obviously Spock is revealing to the audience that “old Scotty” from the 24th century future discovered how to beam people across large distances. Because if Scotty did this while younger the whole Federation civilization would be dramatically effected. You wouldn’t have to wait to get around a planet to transport. Perhaps they are saying that ships almost aren’t needed at all. A routing system of transporters would quickly be placed throughout the Federation.
That being the case how did “future Scotty” discover something that Fed scientist have been working on for almost 200 years? This is too big a revelation for this movie…it is so striking and powerful that I couldn’t think of anything else for the whole movie.
And how did young Scotty track a ship in warp and be able to make use of this new transporter equation with old and limited 23rd century equipment on such a small backwater outpost?
Anyhow, it was fun to watch if you were careful to be 8-12 in your mind.
Thanks for the interesting reviews. Great stuff. Good luck!
“it was fun to watch if you were careful to be 8-12 in your mind.”
Well put, Dan; and thanks for the kudos, Pish.