Star Trek: The Bad

Note: TOS means Star Trek The Original Series. 

On Tuesday, we talked about what I thought was good about J.J. Abrams' Star Trek. Today we talk about some of the bad (we don't have enough time to get into everything). So without further ado, and in no particular order, the bad: 

1. Chekov Wonder Boy 

McCoy: "How old are you?" 

Chekov: "Seventeen, sir." 

Me: "WHAAAA????" 

It's true, Chekov was young in the original Star Trek, but he was young because he was a freakin' ensign. It's possible you don't know much about Navy/Starfleet ranks, so let me explain. Ensign is the lowest officer rank in the Navy. So basically a kid straight out of college is an ensign, and he'll be an ensign for two or so years. (Unless you're Harry Kim, and then you never get promoted. Poor Harry.) So Chekov would have been 22 or so. He could possibly have been a little bit younger, but not much. Chekov was a helmsman on the Enterprise. He wasn't a super genius. He wasn't stupid, but he wasn't a wonder boy. It seems Abrams has gotten Chekov confused with another helmsman, Wesley Crusher. 

The writers undoubtedly felt the need to make Chekov a wonder boy because they wanted him to be in the movie, and they needed some excuse as to why he would be at the academy at the same time as Uhurra and Sulu. Let's ignore the fact that Uhurra and Sulu were both lieutenants in TOS which means not only were they older than Chekov, but they had been in Starfleet longer. The writers seemed to forget that last part. According to this new system, Uhurra, Sulu, and Chekov should be lieutenants at the same time. That doesn't even make sense! 

It would have been better if Chekov had been left out of the first movie, and then they could have added him in the second. Which would have been true to TOS since Chekov didn't come in until season two.

2. Uhurra the Hottie 

Question: What does Uhurra do in this movie? 

Answer: She gets hit on by Kirk, she's sassy in the face of his come-on, she rolls her eyes a lot, she overhears a Klingon message, she listens for Romulan because she can differentiate it from Vulcan, and she makes out with Spock. Twice. 

Only two of those things are what I expect from Uhurra, and both of those two involve alien languages and telecommunications. 

But let's ignore the fact that they've reduced a woman who is a pivotal figure in the history of feminism and African American rights to a mere love interest. Let's instead focus on this love situation they want me to buy into. So another question: 

When did Spock and Uhurra become an item? There are two options here. 

(1) They've been dating since the academy which means Uhurra was dating one of her teachers--something that is considered morally wrong by today's standards. (I had one friend who was engaged to a prof and she was forbidden from taking any classes from him. This is how things work, people). This could indeed be the case, since Spock was afraid that assigning her to the Enterprise would be showing favoritism for his girlfriend, so he overcompensated by assigning her somewhere else. But then he let her use that relationship against him to get what she wanted. (So many things wrong here). 

(2) They were not an item before but became one when Uhurra tried to randomly make out with Spock in the turbolift after Vulcan exploded. Look, I'll fully accept that Uhurra is a more confident lady than most of the ladies of today, fully secure in her sexuality and all that. But there is a difference between being secure with your sexuality and randomly kissing a teacher/superior officer without knowing in advance if he returns your feelings. It's not appropriate. Also, she would be directly under Spock's command so Spock's response should have been "I'm sorry. You're awesome, but I am unwilling to enter into an inappropriate relationship." 

Also, isn't Spock married? Did I miss something? Are we now making Uhurra a home wrecker? 

I think Uhurra could have been given a relationship, even with Spock, but this was not the way to do it. The writers reduced a character who established that having a woman or an African American on your crew was unremarkable, because of course women and African Americans are equal to white men, to a mere love interest and point of competition between the main male leads. Kill me now. 

3. Scotty as Comic Relief 

This may offend a lot of people, but Simon Pegg should never have been cast as Scotty. He played Scotty as comic relief, and yes, Scotty liked to joke but he himself was not a joke. Simon Pegg doesn't look like Scotty, he doesn't act like Scotty, he is not Scotty. This was abysmal. The only thing I can really applaud the writers for was not giving into the temptation to make Scotty a contemporary of Uhurra and Sulu. And of course the reference to Admiral Archer and his prize beagle. (Poor Porthos). 

4. So That's How You Gain Command of a Starfleet Ship 

Apparently the way to gain command of a ship is (a) get randomly named first officer even though you are only a cadet and this ship actually has ranking, official Starfleet officers on it and (2) goad your captain into a fight. Now I'm going to let the first one slide, because the whole cadet thing was entirely bogus and I can't even begin to wrap my head around why Starfleet has dozens of ships that can only be manned by cadets. Let's focus on the goading your superior officer into a fight. 

Now, it's true, Spock was probably emotionally compromised. (On the other hand, he was making completely logical decisions, not revenge driven "let's kill Nero decisions", so...not sure he was actually emotionally compromised). However, what sane person would accept Kirk as their commanding officer after he had been (a) accused of mutiny and therefore should be awaiting trial and (b) was a complete and utter jerk to his captain, purposefully goading him into a fight with the sole intent of robbing him of his captainship. Everything about this scene is wrong on so many levels. What person on that crew would accept Kirk? If anything, Kirk's actions were the actions of a mutineer, someone who only seems to care about being captain and in power. The crew should never have accepted him as leader after that. Kirk was just as much to blame for his fight with Spock as Spock was. Neither of them was fit to command. Someone should've put the second officer in charge. Not sure who that is on the Enterprise, but it should not under any circumstances have been Kirk. 

Why the heck would real officers accept a cadet as their captain? There is just so much wrong with this. 

5. Why Must Kirk Be Captain? 

And in that train of thought, why the heck did Kirk need to be Captain at all? We've established a separate timeline where our characters are not exactly as they were in the original timeline. Kirk was not raised by his father in a (presumably) loving family environment where he learned respect for Starfleet and a desire to explore. Instead he seemed to be a hellion. How the heck can old Spock even begin to think new Kirk is the same person as old Kirk? Why does new Kirk deserve to lead? Does he even deserve to lead? I say no. 

I think Spock should have stayed Captain and Kirk should have been first officer (though Lord knows how he would have earned that and Spock's trust...which by the way, how the heck did Kirk earn Spock's trust? By telling him he was unfit to lead? That's a real trust earner). Spock as Captain and Kirk as first officer would essentially have been the Picard/Riker dynamic (which makes sense because Picard/Riker was subverting the expectations viewers had from the original series), and would make a lot more sense. 

But really the fact that this is a different timeline, where things are different, should lead old Spock to question whether new Kirk is the same man as old Kirk. Is new Spock even capable of being friends with new Kirk? I guess it's a nature versus nurture argument. Are Kirk and Spock always destined to be Captain and First Officer, respectively, and friends because their nature destined them to be that way? Or does the environment of a separate timeline and their diverging paths mean nurture them to be different men than they should have been? 

6. What Did We Learn? 

This point I'm about to make is not just a problem of this movie. It's a problem of many of the Star Trek movies. The point of Star Trek is not to be an action spectacle. The point of Star Trek is to make you think about your world, to question what you think you know and how you see the world. Star Trek strives to use science fiction to make political statements, and statements on our world, whether it's Uhurra being a bridge officer or Nazi planets. When Star Trek does it's job right, you learn something, you re-evaluate something. So what did we learn or learn to question through this movie? 

Time travel theory? Nah, there are better movies for that. Nature versus nurture? Maybe, and the result is "nature" and "some people are just destined to be captains", which doesn't actually seem to line up with the ideology of Star Trek as a whole. (Once again, I think this would be a much stronger thinking point if Spock was Captain at the end and Kirk first officer, then we would have a true statement on nature versus nurture). The problem with revenge? If that's the lesson we should be learning, just watch the Wrath of Khan. It does it much better. 

Ultimately, we learned nothing from this movie. It was nothing more than a spectacle. And usually I'm the last person to complain about a movie being a spectacle. Sometimes I just want things to blow up. But is not what Star Trek is about. 

People often posit that the reason why the prequels suck is that George Lucas, ironically, doesn't understand Star Wars. Well I posit the same thing about Star Trek. J.J. Abrams, who has admitted to not liking Star Trek, doesn't get Star Trek. And this movie is nothing more than Star Trek without a soul. 

It was fun the first time or two. It was pretty. There were explosions and jokes, but ultimately, it wasn't Star Trek. 

And this is why Star Trek needs to go back to TV, where it's not expected to be a spectacle, where it can explore the tough questions without worrying about reaching a "broad" audience, an audience of people who don't like it's soul. I miss the Star Trek that made me question the Prime Directive, or what makes a sentient being, or any of the other dozens of questions Star Trek challenged us to look at. 

As I stated before, I'm glad this Star Trek got butts in seats, and hopefully that gives producers confidence to go back to TV with Star Trek right now. Because right now, Abrams' Star Trek is just a shadow of what Star Trek should be. 

Maybe the new movie will pleasantly surprise me. I'm definitely keeping my mind open and I'm hoping that it will fix all the problems that the first movie got wrong. 

But please, producers, give Star Trek back it's soul. Put it back on TV. Because soulless wraiths do not stand the test of time.

Star Trek: The Good

I've mentioned before on this blog that I'm not a Trekker or even a Trekkie. However, I was raised on Star Trek. My mom is a huge Trek fan and Star Trek has played a major role in my life. Needless to say, I've seen every episode of Star Trek ever, multiple times. And when J.J. Abrams' Star Trek came out, I took my mother for mother's day. Because that's the sort of family we are.

I enjoyed the new Star Trek movie when I saw it. They avoided a direct canon violation with the time travel plot. Several of the actors embodied the essence of the people they were supposed to portray (looking at you, Karl Urban. Part of me thinks this actor was possessed by the spirit of DeForest Kelley). And it mostly filled the Star Trek void that had been in my life since Enterprise went off the air. (Say what you will about the terrible middle seasons of Enterprise, season four was great and the show finally started doing what it should have been doing all along. Enterprise deserved the benefit of a season five). Also Chris Pine.

Anyway, when I went to see Star Trek in theaters, I greatly enjoyed it. Much in the same way that despite it's flaws, I really enjoyed The Phantom Menace in theaters. The problem is when there is such a complete void in your life and they suddenly give you anything, you're willing to love it more than you should even in the face of major flaws. But like the Phantom Menace, as time went on, the more I thought about Star Trek, and the more it's flaws became apparent. And the more and more they bothered me.

And since this week is when Star Trek Into Darkness comes out (trying my best not to rant about titles without colons that don't make sense), I thought it was time to talk about those flaws. As well as a few of the good things. 

Today let's highlight some of the things done well in the first Star Trek film.

1. Karl Urban as Dr. McCoy

I said this earlier in the post and I'll say it again. Karl Urban channeled DeForest Kelley. Watching the movie I believed that Urban was a younger version of the crusty old McCoy we knew and loved. Also his lines about his wife and the divorce? PERFECT. That was a perfect little addition of back story that didn't detract from the McCoy we know and love from the original series and if anything added a little more history and depth. Also the fact that McCoy had been to med school, married and divorced before we even saw him on the screen gave him that extra bit of age McCoy needs to have on the rest of the characters. McCoy has been and always should be significantly older than Kirk and I was glad to see they kept that.

2. Spock's Backstory

I'm basically "meh" on Kirk's back story, since even though I don't like it, I can deal with it because we're in an altered timeline. However, Spock's back story was note perfect. I greatly enjoy all the scenes of him growing up in Vulcan, depicting that even highly logical "more evolved" Vulcan kids are mean and have trouble accepting differences. I love the depth that this gives Spock, especially since it answers the question of "Why did Spock join Starfleet?" Though Vulcans and the Federation have a long history, the Vulcans had until this point always held themselves aloof of us mere humans.So it's great to see a rationale for Spock joining a group where he is very much a minority.

3. Butts in Seats
This might seem a little weird, but I think my favorite thing about J.J. Abrams' Star Trek is that it got people into movie theaters and excited about Star Trek. It brought in people who may never have watched a Star Trek movie or show in their lives, or if they did they didn't enjoy it, and made them enjoy Star Trek. And I appreciate that. Because when people give money to things I love, it means I'm going to get more of the things I love! Which I'm all for! And hopefully this movie will help Star Trek regain popularity and get us what Star Trek really needs: a TV show. Because Star Trek is not the sort of franchise that's well served by being a movie. It needs a TV show to really explore the ideas that are the heart of Star Trek. But that's more related to Thursday's post so I won't rant about it here.

4. Chris Pine
Hollywood really hasn't tested me on this, but I'm pretty sure I'd see any movie Chris Pine was in. I fell in love with him in Princess Diaries 2, and even suffered through Just My Luck for him. So casting him as Captain Kirk was a good move. Even if I didn't agree with all the things they did with Kirk.

Unfortunately, my little sister has called dibs on Chris Pine. So I'll have to stick with Tom Hiddleston and Christian Bale. But who needs Kirk when they have Batman, amirite?

So that's what I liked about the new Star Trek. How about you? What were your favorite pieces of it?

New Schedule

Okay, so clearly I can't maintain the Monday, Wednesday, Friday Schedule. So we're going to go down to a Tuesday/Thursday schedule and see if I can handle that. Ok?

This week is Star Trek week in honor of Star Trek Into Darkness. So come back tomorrow for a discussion of what I like about J.J. Abrams' Star Trek and then come back on Thursday for a discussion of what I didn't like.

And of course, go out on Friday and see the new movie.

My Library!!!

(I know I promised it on Friday, when this post went up early, but here  it is finally.)

So my post of my favorite series is coming. I promise it's coming. But I haven't gotten around to writing it up yet. In the meantime, I worked on something that you might enjoy.

This is a little different. It's sort of a video blog post. Basically one of my friends (shout-out, Alisha!) mentioned she would like to see what my library looks like in my house. And since she doesn't live local to me, that's sort of difficult. So I recorded a video of me talking about my library.

It's a little on the long side because when I talk about books, I could talk forever. It's 35 minutes all together, though I've had to break it up into multiple parts because of Blogger's finicky ways. I don't actually appear in the video, just my books. So yeah, if you have time check it out, if not no worries. I totally understand.

I also apologize for any mispronunciations of anything. When you learn most of the words you know from books, it means you don't know how to say half of them.

So I tried to break the videos at logical points. They range from four minutes long to ten minutes long. Enjoy!

Part 1: Intro and my Non-Fiction Section

Part 2: Brandon Sanderson, The Wheel of Time, and Signed Books

Part 3: Adult Books
Note: Let me apologize right now in advance for pronouncing Miss Marple as Miss Maple. Just goes to show how much I dislike Miss Marple. 

Part 4: Foreign Language Books, Movies, the Star Wars Expanded Universe, and Comics/Graphic Novels

Part 5: Unread Books

Part 6: YA and MG Books

That's it! You survived to the end!!! Hope you enjoyed this tour of my library!

Oops

Sorry guys! The Library that you may or may not have seen posted earlier today (since I just took it down) is not ready for viewing!

I can't get the video to upload, alas, so I'm working on figuring that out.

In the meantime, today has been one of those days when I've seen a million amazing things pop up in geek news, so links to them all here for your benefit:

ENDER'S GAME TEASER TRAILER! 

The actress who plays Uhurra in Star Trek has been cast as Gamorra in the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy movie!

May the Fourth be with you!

And also, a PSA from Wolverine:



That's it! I will post my library post eventually.

Favorite "Classic" Books

My list of favorite classic books confirms one fact about me: I'm a sucker for a tragic ending. Even the one story that ends "happily ever after" contains a death that hits the main character pretty hard (and it barely makes the list). I'm not sure why exactly I like tragic endings, except I always have. There is something poignant and beautiful about tragedy. Maybe it's because life is, in many ways, a tragedy.

A quick note on this list. Plays were allowed to be considered as "classics" and because plays are meant to be viewed, I allowed viewings to be considered as a read.

Number One: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard

Number of Reads: 7

Rationale: I love existential plays, and I love how this play is a really a discussion on fiction. It's such a deep little play and it so insanely quotable. My favorite quote of all time comes from the play. "Words, words. They're all we have to go on." On surface level, it's just a comment on the fact that they're trying to decipher what's up with Hamlet from his words. Deeper, it's a comment on how all they have are the words of the play they're trapped in. Even deeper it's a comment on life. We live most of our lives trying to decipher words, the words of others, the words of books. And for me personally, it just makes me think of reading and writing and how nothing ever seems real to me without words put to it. And that's just one line. The entire play is like that. What's not to love?

Number Two: The Great Gatbsy by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Number of Reads: 5

Rationale: I read The Great Gatsby for the first time in the sixth grade. I was not forced to read it. Rather my older sister was, and she left the book laying around the house. I was bored, so I picked it up and read it in one sitting. Nick's voice just jumped off the page for me, and I was as taken with Gatsby and his struggles as Nick was. I re-read the book again in the eighth grade, and then was finally required to read it in eleventh. I enjoyed it each time. When I re-read it in college and then earlier this year, I was still taken with it. It pains me every time, how Gatsby struggles and fails to attain his dream. It's a statement on life, on the American Dream, on everything, and I think it's beautiful.

Number Three: Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Number of Reads: 3
Rationale: I like Wuthering Heights, because I enjoy seeing how decisions made while young domino effect into the rest of the characters' lives. It's not often that a novel covers the entire life of the main characters and several generations of the family. I get enthralled by how one failed relationship essentially destroys two different families. That's not something we often see in modern novels, and I really like it.

Number Four: Othello by William Shakespeare

Number of Reads: 3

Rationale: This is my favorite Shakespeare play. My love of the tragic means my favorite play would be a tragedy, but why this play over Hamlet? Hamlet might seem more logical because of what my favorite classic is, but Othello wins because of Iago. Iago is simply the most amazing villain ever written, but even though Iago is the catalyst, Iago doesn't make anyone do anything they didn't already have the capability of doing. He just unearths the darkness within all of them. It's amazing and terrible. On both the page and stage, it's riveting.

Number Five: Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Number of Reads: 2

Rationale: What's not to love about Little Women? I come from a family of mostly girls, so I can see all of us in the March sisters. As a writer, I identify with Jo. It's truly amazing how much I can identify with these girls in a novel written over one hundred years ago. They read like real modern characters. They read like girls I would be friends with. And it's a beautiful tale of sisterhood and family. 

So there it is. My favorite classic books! What are yours?

Favorite "Genre" Books

Though the word "genre" pretty much means anything that's not "literary" or strictly "contemporary", when it comes to my list of favorite books, it's pretty much exclusively Science Fiction and Fantasy. In fact, it's almost exclusively Science Fiction, with only one fantasy book narrowly making it as number five. I think the main reason for this split is that I have a tendency to really truly love Fantasy series (as you will see on Friday) while there are several standalone SF novels that I adore without any extra series. Apparently I like my fantasy epic, but like my science fiction standalone. 

So below are my list of favorite "genre" books in order from most favorite to least favorite. (Also so there is no confusion "number of reads" means the number of times I've read it, which is the metric I used to determine which book was my favorite.)

Number One: Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

Number of Reads: 12

Rationale: I was actually given Ender's Game in the seventh grade but didn't read it. It just didn't seem very appealing, though I can't particularly remember why. I joke it's because my dad recommended it to me, but considering my dad pointed me to Star Wars and Wheel of Time, which were both things I loved at that time, that reason doesn't really hold up. Then I finally did read in in the eighth grade and it blew my mind. I've re-read it every year since then. Every year.

I can still vividly remember reading the book the first time, how riveting it was, how I had to stop right before Chapter 14 because it was time for bed, but I literally couldn't sleep that night because I couldn't think about anything else. The next morning as soon as my alarm went off, I started reading the book again. I had to know how it finished. And it was perfect.

And it still holds up. Every time I read it, it's still riveting. Ender is this amazingly sympathetic character, that I just completely feel for. I know what it is to be Third. I know what it is to be a smart kid in a class of not so smart kids (though I would never claim to be the genius that Ender is). And everytime I re-read it, I identify with Ender in a different way. In fact the last time I read it, the twelfth time I read it, a passage that I never really noticed before, struck a deep chord in me. I had to stop and write it down and I was like "yes, this passage, this paragraph that Ender is experiencing here, is exactly what I'm experiencing now in my life." It was amazing. 

This is my favorite book of all time. Hands down.

Number Two: A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

Number of Reads: 9

Rationale: The first time I was exposed to A Wrinkle in Time was when my mom read it aloud to me when I was in kindergarten. I then later read it for myself in the fourth grade. I love this book because of the characters. Meg is a character I deeply identify with, and the other characters are all ones that I love. This also another book that has aged well, that I get something new from every time I read it. It's also the book I'm probably most likely to quote in a serious discussion about life. Usually in reference to the description of life being a sonnet. In fact, I've used that in a number of wedding speeches. Thank you, Madeliene L'Engle.

Number Three:  Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card

Number of Reads: 7

Rationale: Though this is the sequel to Ender's Game, it's a classic SF novel in it's own right. I actually have a couple of friends who like this book better than Ender's Game. And then there are people who hate it, because it's a completely different book from Ender's Game. Where Ender's Game is more of a military SF, this is definitely more of an anthropological SF. Which is one of the reasons I love it. I love Ender's intense study of humantiy, what makes a human, and the whole piggies dilemna. I love Nova's family and how Ender comes in and starts to heal them. And I adore the little hints of who Ender was in his past life, whether it's playing a video game or figuring out his password. And I, of course, still adore the character of Ender Wiggin. The reason why I didn't wrap up this book with Ender's Game and put it in my favorite series categories is that I'm really iffy on the last two books in the series, they're not my favorite. But also because, in the past, I've occasionally read Speaker for the Dead as a standalone, without re-reading Ender's Game. Which means it's a good book in it's own right, and not just when tied to Ender's Game.

Number Four: Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov

Number of Reads: 6 

Rationale: When contemplating favorite books, this is one of the ones that I don't have a particularly good reason for. It is a classic in the sense that it was written by Isaac Asimov, but it's not a classic in the sense that I, Robot or the Foundation novels are. This book is basically a fairly straightforward murder mystery set in the future. But I love this book. I re-read it all the time. This is also a book I often recommend to people who just want to try out a SF novel, since it relies so heavily on the mystery genre. It's a comfortable gateway to SF. 

So why do I love this book? Well I adore R. Daneel Olivaw. He's one of my favorite characters of all time. I love how believable future Earth is, and how though it's clearly what we would label a "dystopia", this is not a dystopian novel. It's just the way the world is. And I love how the mystery is resolved, who the murderer is, and why Elijah had a hard time figuring it out. And somehow it manages to surprise me every time. It's like I always forget how the book ends until I re-read it. This is definitely one of my "I'm not feeling good, I just want to read something fun" books. And it's definitely fun. 

Number Five: Sabriel by Garth Nix

Number of Reads: 5 

Rationale: This book actually took me by surprise. I was sitting in my library, trying to figure out which books I had read the most often and I was like "wow, actually I've read Sabriel a lot." And while Sabriel is a part of  the Abhorsen trilogy, I haven't read the rest of the trilogy very often, which is why this book gets a standalone list instead of a series list. (Part of the reason for that is Sabriel came out years in advance of the other two books.)

So why have I read this book several times? I'm gonna be honest; there is a very soft place in my heart for necromancers. Necromancers are probably one of my favorite paranormal/supernatural beings, even more than wizards. There is just something sinister about them, but Garth Nix managed to find a way to make a necromancer good and in fact necessary to her society. And I love that.

Sabriel is also the first YA book I ever read, and I think that was one of the reasons it stuck with me. It's the only YA book I actually read as a teenager, and I loved it.

So those are my top five "genre" books. Any you are surprised by? What are you favorite genre books?