Star Trek 2.

[vintage68]

I thought Karl Urban stole the show. Bones was always my favorite.

Yes, I thought Karl Urban was great also.

 

[Vornholt]

Once or twice I heard Urban's voice sounding spookily like Kelley's. A really weird feeling.

But can someone please explain how Kirk can go from Academy near failure to commanding the fleet's flagship in the course of one movie? The worst, I think, of the many gaping plot holes in that picture.

Even in an alternate universe, a story has to stand up on its own. That one did not.

 

[scottyrocks]

I guess when you save the known universe, anything is possible.

 

[Mr. Hallack]

This looks very interesting, I think they did a great job with the first film, and I had very LOW expectations for that one.

 

[Dixie_Amazon]

Yes, I thought Karl Urban was great also.

I am interested to see his take on Judge Dredd.

 

[Edward]

I am interested to see his take on Judge Dredd.

Definitely. The Stallone film was badly flawed. It did some things well - the Mega City looked great. The uniform, though far from ideal, was apparently much better than the first costume effort (reportedly Stallone, a fan of the book, refused point blank to wear it). The biggest crime was having Joe Dredd remove his helmet. In the comic, he only ever appeared without it as I recall twice - as the Dead Man when he returned from taking the Long Walk into the Cursed Earth (1990s), and a short, comedy story in the mid Eighties in which two bungling criminals break into his apartment, only to be arrested by him as he sits in the bath. In the latter he has no helmet on (it's on a chair somewhere), but he is not seen above the level at which it would obscure his face anyhow. Here's hoping a new film gets those basics correct.

It's a pity Rufus isn't about the Lounge any more - he's a professional comic book artist and recently drew a high-profile Dredd story...

I do wish they'd done a truer Dredd film in the 90s when Clint Eastwood was still an option (a Dredd in his Fifties would have been spot on for Joe in the years many of us grew up reading him). After all, Dirty Harry was a direct inspiration for Joe.

 

[kyboots]

OMG I can't wait! The first was great! Old Trekie from long, long, ago!.---John

 

[Tango Yankee]

You're dealing with a Trekker...

Not many people seem to know the distinction between a Trekker and a Trekkie. I've always considered myself a Trekker as well.

...a total rejection of Starfeelt as a meritocracy in favor of dumb force-of-personality moments and a series of absurdly contrived coincidences.

As both a Trekker and a retired military member I had a very difficult time with this as well. I did my best to set aside the previous iterations of Star Trek to enjoy this movie, but I could not get past this particular bit of idiocy. Indeed, having just minted graduates from the Academy running the bridge in no time made it look like a teen movie where the kids easily outsmart the adults, like Iron Eagle or other such fare. What, on a starship that size they had no other experienced officers on board? It was disappointing, to put it mildly. I'm all for suspension of disbelief but that was too childish for me to swallow.

Cheers,
Tom

 

[sheeplady]

While I enjoyed the last film, I have to admit I'm a bit disturbed by the darkness of it. Star Trek (to me, personally) was about a society that realized it's mistakes or at least was trying to. People were trying to be better. They accepted their dark side, but tried to move beyond it. TOS was a series of morality plays, and although the crew wasn't always ethically right, they tried their darnest. It's something you see throughout all the series and movies. It's a rare thing to find such a positive outlook in sci fi. Throughout TOS series and the original movies we see Spock fight with his tortured childhood and be a better person.

The last film was like "Oooh... I need to draw on this darkness because it gives me strength. I'll accept my anger and let it rule me." We had angry Spock and angry Kirk. While I don't doubt that those challenges the new characters faced shaped them (and I like the message that even people with dark beginnings can make good) I don't like how they "embraced" their anger rather than accepting it. Yes, you hate your enemy. But ending up bloodthirsty and motivated by that anger and having that portrayed as a good thing... is not traditional Star Trek to me. I half expect the new characters to go out and start a war just for vengeance they are so angry (and with no apparent motivation to work through their anger).

 

[Edward]

Not many people seem to know the distinction between a Trekker and a Trekkie. I've always considered myself a Trekker as well.

I've always been, quite defiantly, a Trekkie. At least in circles where Trekker is used to denote a certain fan mindset that consider itself "above" the stereotypes associated with "Trekkies". These are the sort of people who refuse to wear a costume to a convention - in Belfast in 1994, they got laughed at. Literally: those very few who didn't dress for the occasion were pointed and laughed at. Not just anyone - the specific type of people who sneer at costumes. I thought that was pretty funny, actually - a sort of role reversal of the norm. I've also often heard it used to denote a distinction between those who like all Star Trek, in particular who embrace the original series, and those "Trekkers" who specifically disliked Kirk and Spock and their chums, but enjoyed the Next Generation (I remember this usage in popular use in sci-fi circles in Belfast at least before DS9 arrived).

 

[Tango Yankee]

I've always been, quite defiantly, a Trekkie. At least in circles where Trekker is used to denote a certain fan mindset that consider itself "above" the stereotypes associated with "Trekkies". ... I've also often heard it used to denote a distinction between those who like all Star Trek, in particular who embrace the original series, and those "Trekkers" who specifically disliked Kirk and Spock and their chums, but enjoyed the Next Generation (I remember this usage in popular use in sci-fi circles in Belfast at least before DS9 arrived).

Sounds like there are regional distinctions, then, or the use of the term has changed. In the mid-70s in the fans I knew at conventions in the Southern California area those who referred to themselves as "Trekkers" did so to distinguish themselves from those fans who acted more like groupies of the individual actors but didn't seem to get into the specifics of the show. In that respect yes, I suppose there was a superior attitude but that was about it--some I knew just didn't like how "Trekkie" was used by the press as "Star Trek Groupie" when they saw themselves as a bit more serious about it then that. The Trekkers I knew did wear costumes (and were dedicated to getting them "right"). They were fascinated with the "science" and the storylines with their morality plays. Mind you, this is before the later series so it was all about the original one.

I didn't watch much television for most of my adult life, but when I spent a number of months at Walter Reed in '93 I watched a lot of reruns of NG. NG grew on me; DS9 I thought was OK, but for some reason I never quite got into it. I'm not sure why as there were individual episodes I quite enjoyed. I never saw Enterprise until I used my Netflix subscription to watch it from beginning to end and never understood why so many people disliked it. They were careful to give nods and foreshadowing to the original series, they tried to take a realistic approach, and I thought it quite good.

I haven't been to a convention since the early '80s.

Regards,
Tom

PS Dang, I forgot about Voyager. I've seen some episodes and enjoyed them; I particularly liked "The Doctor." There is just something amusing about a testy hologram.

 

[Dixie_Amazon]

I am not sure where I would fall, I don't dress up, prefer TOS but watched the others too. The first time I danced with the man I would marry it was at a comic convention to theme from TOS.

 

[Dixie_Amazon]

[video=youtube_share;7ZS2-4-iUJ4]http://youtu.be/7ZS2-4-iUJ4[/video]

 

[Benzadmiral]

. . . I'm not sure why people liked it so much. Just a lot of yelling, running about and explosions: Michael Bay meets Luc Besson in space. While I am a fan of most of the Star Trek series and films, I'm not a trekkie and I still didn't care for that last film that much.

Sign me up for that camp too. I've been a "Trek" fan since my teens, and while the casting for this film was good, it sent me out of the theatre shaking my head. Kirk as a 23rd-Century James Dean? Spock having an affair? Lens flares in nearly every bridge scene? The notion that it's apparently okay to leave your post if you have a really, really good reason? And the hardest thing to swallow, as someone mentioned here: Since when do new Academy graduates get posted to the bridge crew on multitrillion-credit starships, let alone get to command one? Do new ensigns in our world get to command nuclear carriers as their first or second postings?

"Trek" at its best at least tried to be plausible in its created world. Roddenberry and his TV successors would have caught a plot development like this and sent the writer back to his typewriter/word processor. "Try again, boyo."

I liked the heroic flavor of the opening scene, with Jim Kirk's father and mother. But after that? Not really.

 

[Chasseur]

Sign me up for that camp too. I've been a "Trek" fan since my teens, and while the casting for this film was good, it sent me out of the theatre shaking my head. Kirk as a 23rd-Century James Dean? Spock having an affair? Lens flares in nearly every bridge scene? The notion that it's apparently okay to leave your post if you have a really, really good reason? And the hardest thing to swallow, as someone mentioned here: Since when do new Academy graduates get posted to the bridge crew on multitrillion-credit starships, let alone get to command one? Do new ensigns in our world get to command nuclear carriers as their first or second postings?

"Trek" at its best at least tried to be plausible in its created world. Roddenberry and his TV successors would have caught a plot development like this and sent the writer back to his typewriter/word processor. "Try again, boyo."

I liked the heroic flavor of the opening scene, with Jim Kirk's father and mother. But after that? Not really.

Yes totally agree with that one the little wild kiddie cadets who don't play by the rules taking over and "kicking a**" with lots of space explosions made me keep thinking of Power Rangers meets a music video.