Seriously though, she was in Darmok, one of the greatest pieces of science fiction ever.
She also recently wrote a brilliant takedown of the way the media objectifies and demeans women. I love it when someone writes a well-articulated, thought-out and thought-provoking fuck you. Ms. Judd, we find you awesome. Happy birthday!
Bianca Beauchamp, on the other hand, is the most beautiful fetish model ever.
Happy birthday!
All in all, what we're getting this summer is Star Trek in the (younger, handsomer, CGI-enhanced) flesh, but not in spirit: to live up to the aspirations of the series, the movie would have to boldly go a lot further than its source ever did.
Global Comment: In praise of Joanne Rowling’s Hermione Granger series
It’s the end of an era. The entertainment which has stretched across books, movies, and countless marketing tie-ins, which has captivated children and adults for well over a decade and which has, for better or worse, managed to become the defining myth for an entire generation, is winding to its close. I speak, of course, of the Hermione Granger series, by Joanne Rowling.
And finally, the best one of them all:
Tiger Beatdown: Enter Ye Myne Mystic World of Gayng-Raype: What the “R” Stands for in “George R.R. Martin”
Because here’s how it goes, when you criticize beloved nerd entertainments: You can try to be nuanced. You can try to be thoughtful. You can lay out your arguments in careful, extravagant, obsessive detail. And at the end of the day, here is what the people in the “fandom” are going to take away: You don’t like my toys? I hate you!
Yeah. To be scrupulously fair, I think that at times she slightly exaggerates in that last one. But having read the series, except for the latest book that I didn't even think would ever come out, I agree with 99% of what she's saying. When I briefly reviewed A Song of Ice and Fire earlier this year, it was to answer someone who asked me if they should read it, so I concentrated on its literary merits. When it comes to the politics of it, though, I'm with Sady. Her post is simply brilliant.
**
On the topic of feminism and popular culture, I'd be remiss if I didn't link to this excellent post:
Comics Alliance: The Big Sexy Problem with Superheroines and Their 'Liberated Sexuality'
Since pointing out my issues with Starfire yesterday, I have received numerous e-mails -- from men -- accusing me of slut-shaming. Since there are a lot of people who don't understand the sexual dynamics that are in play here both creatively and culturally, I'd like to dissect this a little bit and explain why these scenes don't support sexually liberated women; they undermine them, and why after nearly 20 years of reading superhero books, these may finally have been the comics that broke me.
Yeah. For me, what I can't get over is how many of the poses the female characters are drawn in are straight out of porn. I just read Avengers Prime, and it felt like the comic was being occasionally interrupted for something that, frankly, looks like a latex porn shoot more than a superhero comic. Every time we meet the Enchantress, we specifically meet her ass; when she's not contorting herself into positively liefeldian porn star poses, she's on all fours, with her behind facing the reader. In fact, she's in that exact same position in every scene she's in bar the first (and brief last), making me think that her superpowers are magic and doggystyle. As for the main villain, Hela, she's wearing a rubber porn outfit throughout:
"Now you see". I do indeed.
To echo the point made in the blog I linked to above, what makes this intolerable is the double standard. For the majority of the book, the male characters are decently dressed and engaged in an epic comic book adventure; the two principal female characters, on the other hand, look like they're in a porno. That's pretty bleak.
He [Kirk] is played here by Chris Pine, who struggles with a screenplay, written by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, that could have been downloaded from a software program entitled “Make Your Own Annoying Rebel.”
As near as I can tell, the movie had no theme. The annoying rebels were pointlessly annoying rebels who had no meaningful conflict, and barely even a sensible character arc. The plot is not only a pastiche at best, but any aspect of it falls completely apart under any kind of logical scrutiny. Basically this is a mindless action movie.
On top of that, I truly loathe Abrams's "breathless" directing. The movie is constantly in such a terrible hurry that it rushes from scene to scene like a sprinter on meth. So as a movie, the whole thing is a madcap rush through a nonsensical plot that fails to engage me on any level. The quality of the acting varies tremendously, but most of it is frankly piss-poor.
Overall I'm not impressed.
**
As a Star Trek movie, well, it isn't. I need to give some background here. I saw my first episode of Star Trek: the Original Series when I was something like six years old. In a way, I grew up with Star Trek. My interest in movies, literature and everything has lead me to read up on Star Trek and its antecendents, specifically some of the ones that inspired Gene Roddenberry. In other words, I've done the kind of thing you might expect someone who's going to create a Star Trek re-make to do.
Coming from this background, the first half hour or so of the movie felt like a calculated slap in the face. All of the fundamental ideas and themes of Star Trek have been abandoned. In the first 30 minutes alone, Starfleet has changed into a quasi-miltary organization where officers snap to attention in the corridors when the Captain walks past, during a catastrophic emergency, behavior never seen in Star Trek before. Despite being seemingly more militaristic, the movie has also totally abandoned the original Star Trek's navy background; an unimaginably awful moment comes at the start when Kirk sr. orders his crew to "evacuate ship". After this, we're transported back to Earth where a young Jim Kirk uses a Nokia telephone and listens to the Beastie Boys. This is a terrible scene, but moreover it finally destroys any impression that you might be watching a Star Trek movie.
Later on we begin to meet the cast. At best, they behave like caricatures of the Original Series crew. Karl Urban delivers a fair impression of Deforest Kelley's Dr. McCoy, but it's an impression, not an acting performance. Zachary Quinto's Spock is occasionally almost good; every time you start warming to him, however, he starts talking like Conan O'Brien's caricature nerd. Chekov is on board in defiance of original chronology, but apparently it was thought necessary to have someone with an accent they can make fun of.
By the way, Spock speaks bad English several times in the movie. His line about "performing admirably" is hideously clunky, but unforgivably, he at one point wonders if he can "ask a query". I do major in English, and if you give me a Vulcan who speaks bad English, I can't take you seriously. Of course, this is a minor gripe given that "alternate Spock" is a raging psychopath who physically assaults people who insult him and maroons subordinates on dangerous planets.
On the topic of characters, it's worth remembering that the original series was politically and socially extremely progressive, even revolutionary. The series that boasted the first interracial kiss on network television, even if the actors didn't actually quite kiss (because the show wouldn't have aired in Klan country if they did), also added a Russian character in the second season. This was a powerful message at the height of the Cold War, telling viewers that in the end, Russians and Americans are both people, and can work together as equals. Contrast this with the movie's Chekov, who is only present to be mocked for his funny accent.
Most insultingly, the movie fails to be a Star Trek movie in the one way that counts the most. Previous Star Trek movies had intelligent content. They had themes. They had something to say. One of the dictums of the original series was that you should be able to watch the show as a kid and enjoy the action, and you should be able to come back to it as an adult and realize that there's a real issue being discussed in a meaningful way. This is one of the essential characteristics of science fiction proper. Another is at least some kind of respect or even lip service to actual science, of which the Original Series is a shining example. Its list of technical consultants is probably the most impressive of any TV show in history.
Abrams's Star Trek, however, is totally brainless. The movie has no discernible theme, and has nothing to say about any issue bigger than itself. As I said, the plot makes absolutely no sense, so the first moment you stop to ask the movie a question, it falls apart. What's more, the physics and science of the movie are, even for latter-day "technobabble" Star Trek, downright insulting. There are thousands of grade school students in the world who understand more about our universe than the screenwriters. Anyone with the slightest idea of astronomy will be stunned to hear Spock recite probaly the most inept "astro-babble" in Trek history.
In other words, Abrams has made a Star Trek movie that can be fun as long as you don't think about it. That's not science fiction; that's definitely not Star Trek.
**
I could go on for ages. In fact, I may yet, as taking apart everything that's wrong with this movie would take a lot of writing. My overall impression is that I'm far more disappointed by this movie than I thought was possible. Not only have Abrams and co. made a remake that abandoned all the core ideas of Star Trek, they've made it ineptly. They didn't bother to write their own plot; instead they created a mishmash of "Starfleet Academy" and ST: Nemesis. Their script is totally brainless. Their characters are at best caricatures, at worst one-dimensional cutouts. The mindless action movie they're calling "Star Trek" isn't even good.
Overall this was the most disappointing movie I've seen in years. It was just awful. I'm unspeakably disgusted by the reviews that say Abrams's team has respected the show's legacy. Given that they've abandoned all the core ideas of Star Trek, from what I know of Gene Roddenberry, he would have hated this. His show, which had a theme and a message, and his characters have been reduced to a one-dimensional parody of themselves to flog a bad action movie. This movie is an insult to his legacy.
**
Seeing this movie was actually one of the most depressing single experiences I've had this year. I'm not exaggerating when I say that it leaves me feeling disappointed, depressed and alienated. I was planning to do this anyway, but J.J. Abrams made my decision for me: I'm retreating to the Finnish countryside to recuperate. Things will be pretty quiet on this blog for most of the summer, but I'll make the occasional post, and be back for good latest in August.
Have a nice summer, everyone!
For Abrams, "The costumes were a microcosm of the entire project, which was how to take something that's kind of silly and make it feel real.
You're doing a movie based on Star Trek: The Original Series, and you think the original is "kind of silly"?
I'm not giving you money. No way in hell. That reminds me vividly of what Peter Jackson said about writing the scripts for the Lord of the Rings, but I was unable to find the exact quote. He said it's tough to do a script based on one of your favorite books, because then you realize there's a lot wrong with it and you have to fix those "mistakes".
I'm sure Abrams and his lot also "fixed" all the "silly" things about Star Trek. That's why I'm not interested.
