Star Trek: a Brief Review (with spoilers)

Star Trek was very good, though not quite as overwhelming to me as some made it out to be.

There were a couple of ridiculous deus ex machinas: Spock kicks Kirk off the Enterprise, to some ice planet (Delta Vega? oddly close enough to Vulcan so that Old Spock can see it destroyed), where he is miraculously is rescued by old Spock, and they walk to a nearby Star Fleet installation, where they meet Scotty, who just happens to have figured out 'trans-warp beaming' so they can send themselves to the Enterprise while it is at warp, presumably very far away. They didn't even have trams-warp beaming in the Next-gen time...

And they throw promotions around like there's no tomorrow. Kirk goes from 'Just about to graduate but under suspension,' to 1st officer of the fleet flagship (named by Captain Pike) to acting captain, then officially named captain of the brand new flagship of star fleet. Pretty ridiculous. Harry Kim stayed an ensign under extreme circumstances for 7 years on Voyager.

That said, the casting was great. There are some funny lines, Sulu gets to do some acrobatic fighting (you see a little in the previews); and John Cho was cute playing him. Karl Urban probably came closest to channelling the original actor (DeForest Kelley) as Dr. McCoy, but I was fine with the others doing their own take on the characters. Chris Pine makes a great young Kirk (it was cute, right at the very end, when he's in the captain's chair and he crosses his legs just like Shatner often would at the end of an episode), and Quinto is pretty amazing as Spock. Oh and that weird kind of romance thing with supposedly emotionless Spock and Uhura that I didn't care for it or understand it, and found a little creepy. No rules about fraternizing with superior officers I guess!

Special effects were great of course.

Star Trek: The gay episode

Well, Rick Berman would be spinning in his grave, if only he were dead (can't happen soon enough but at least he can't control the new movie). The gay character he always refused to allow (even a minor one, despite Roddenberry's wishes) has finally come to (at least) a webisode. I have to give the New Voyages guys credit, especially Cawley (who supposedly made his money as an Elvis impersonator? I have no idea how he funds this) who endorsed this interestingly timely episode written by none other than David Gerrold, the author of the most popular original TOS ep ever: Trouble With Tribbles, who also happens to be gay.

This is a pretty bold step though, since it re-introduces Kirk's nephew Peter, who survived from a plague in an episode of TOS and is now a young (cute, though he could use a haircut) adult in Star Fleet. Here are some pics of him and his Med Tech BF on the Enterprise courtesy of
towleroad. Guys kissing! OMG!

And here you can download the the whole FIRST PART:
The New Voyages

God! We have to wait to see if Peter and his cute boyfriend live to get married by Kirk a la Balance of Terror. All I can say is, it better not end THAT way!!!

The CG graphics are so far ahead of the old series, they seem awesome; though compared to a high-budget movie of course they are just cool. And the sets are loving recreations of the kind of cheesy old series ones (again, in ways they look better than the old ones). The acting is, well, what you would expect. Peter Kirk and his boyfriend are sweet though. And one amazing thing about this series is the old music. Old TOS fans will know there are about a dozen musical themes (if that) they used over and over. And for some reason to hear the 'romance/love' theme (you old fans will recognize; it was usually reserved for Kirk and his love of the episode) when Peter and his BF are together is like old time vindication, Thank you Cawley and Gerrold!

New Star Trek Trailer!

Very cool, we see Kirk and Spock as Kids.
I think it's weird that they are building the Enterprise on the ground, even if they do have gravity control. But I guess Abrams thought we've seen the Enterprise fly out of drydock enough times.

It Lives!

Yuck what a crappy last few days. I went home early Thursday and went to bed. I woke up feeling crappy Friday so I stayed home and pretty much slept all day. Saturday and Sunday I did my Spin classes but very little else. I just mostly rested and slept and watched TV. During my convalescence I watched 4 Voyager Episodes (damn, that Harry was so cute, and his ass looked great in that uniform), The original Matrix (Keanu was smokin' hot), and Real Genius (remember that one from the 80's? With the hilarious 80's fashions and the Tears For Fears music (and Val Kilmer, of course).

I'm not totally back 100%, but definitely feel way better than I have in awhile. Everyone is talking about how bad the pollen is though.

Well, duh.

I knew that the actress who played Admiral Cain on Battlestar looked really familar (boy that uniform looks awful on her there), but I couldn't place her. Of course, she was Ensign Ro Larenfrom Star Trek. Must have been those nose ridges that threw me...

A little better Tuesday

Anyone else remember the old Boomtown Rats (Bob Geldof before he got all righteous) song called I Don't Like Mondays? A classic.

Anyway, I'm feeling better (or at least resigned); after all this is what I got a home equity line of credit for: big home expenses.

What did I do most of last evening? Watch Enterprise repeats. Why, I do not know. The show was not that great. I think it's mainly just the whole trip/T'Pol thing.

New Star Trek

I just read that John Cho ('Harold and Kumar') Got the part of Sulu! Woohoo! And there's rumored to finally be a gay character.

Procrastination

Yep, doing assorted stuff around the house (and blogging) instead of finishing up that darn adventure. Maybe it's because I find doing NPC stats soooo boring. And I don't even usually go through the whole character process; I just make 'em up (oops).

I'm almost (almost) looking forward to the Thursday-Friday 2-11 shift, giving me more free day-time. Unfortunately I stayed up too late the last 2 nights watching old episides of Enterprise. Why do I torture myself, you ask? I think Trip is hot and T'Pol is cool. But really, the whole premise of the 2nd season quest is so wrong in so many ways. First of all, how stupid of the Xindi to send their test destructo probe all the way to Earth to see if it works, and in the process warning Earth that someone wants them blown up? And second, even if they did destroy Earth (which they want to do because they believe in 400 years humans will destroy them), there are human colonies and ships all over the place. It would be almost impossible to wipe them all out. Feh.

Oh, and supposedly there are these annoying crackdowns coming at work. There seems to be some internet blocking software starting to show up on the PCs. We'll see if they bother to try it on the few Macs this company uses. And since I am 'the Mac guy' maybe I'll be in control of it anyway. We'll see. In any case discretion is going to be the better part of valor.

Oh and no more Casual Fridays. Why does management do crap like this? Don't they know it just crushes morale and creates resentment? Stupid managers.

Oh and most of you bloggers who I read regularly: you don't post often enough! ;-)

More Trek Auction

Of course I did my earlier post before watching the entire show (I never watch anything all the way through in one sitting) and later the Voyager model went for $110,000, The Enterprise 'A' went for $240,000, McCoy's ratty old space suit went for a bundle, and Picard's little flute went for $40,000. They showed Patrick Stewart after and he said "It doesn't play! It's not a real flute!" Oh, and the Enterprise 'D' went for half a million dollars.

Michael and Denise Okuda seem so sweet.

Here's more gory details about the auction.

Yes, I'm a Trekkie

I've been to a couple of Star Trek conventions, at one of which I fawned over a very young and friendly Garrett Wang (Voyager had just started so he was a bit starry-eyed himself; I still have his email address), and many years ago James Doohan came to U.Va. and packed University Hall. I've seen George Takei and Majel Barrett, but that's about it for my nerddom. I would like to go to the Star Trek Experience in Vegas though. Oh, and half the thrill of winning the WETA contest last summer was of course seeing Leonard Nimoy in person and hearing the Star Trek themes. (Yes, even when I hear the Voyager theme sometimes I get a little choked up).

So anyway, last night there was a special on History Channel: Star Trek: Beyond the Final Frontier, hosted by Leonard. He was mainly just reading the prompts, and it was a lot of the old stars saying the same things I'd heard before. It was mostly actually about the big auction that happened last fall. But there were a few glimpses of Garrett (hate the hair), and it was fun to see cute little Denise and Michael Okuda going through the warehouses and uncovering all these old treasures and very carefully cataloging everything. And there was some cute editing back and forth between the stars and fans talking and clips from the series; some of it was pretty funny.

Then there was the auction. Woah, I remember that some of the big items had gone for far more than they expected but... They prepriced the original (they call the biggest model the 'hero' model) Deep Space Nine station model at up to $12,000. It sold for $110,000. And there was a 6' Klingon Bird of prey hero that had been in TNG and the movies, and probably DS9 too, that was prepriced at $12,000, that went for $260,000!! Who has a quarter of a million dollars to spend on an old model? And those Christies Auction people didn't seem to blink an eye, but you could see them grinning from ear to ear, calculating their commission.

Now I want a copy of the Auction Catalogue