The Geek Beat: Trek Tales

Elisabeth: You didn't want to see Star Trek, did you?

Julie: Nope. I have yet to see a Star Trek film I really liked, so I didn't hold out much hope for this one either, even though the concept was intriguing.

Elisabeth: And by concept, you mean doing an origin story with recasted actors?

Julie: The origin story, if you want to call it that. I was thinking "prequel".

Elisabeth: How long have you been a Trek fan?

Julie: Since the summer of 1976 -- geesh, how long ago is that? I was doing A LOT of baby sitting and I discovered the old Trek.

Elisabeth: And became a Trekker! What was it you liked about the original series? Everyone seems to have very intense stories about their experiences with Trek.

Julie: Kirk, of course. I was like, 16? The guy was hot. The show itself was kind of dorky by that time, but I always loved the relationship between Bones, Kirk and Spock. The chemistry onscreen with these guys was really great, it wasn't just the writing. I have to admit that Star Trek was my first foray into sci-fi. When I couldn't get any more show, I started reading the books. There were elements of the show, really creative stuff that went far beyond the dated special effects, mini skirts, or obvious male sexism of the show or the storylines.

Elisabeth: Did your attachment to the original show make you even more reluctant to see it then?

Julie: No, it wasn't my attachment to the original show. I had left it behind for Next Generation. Frankly, it has been all the other films. I stood in line for hours to see Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and again for Wrath of Khan, and they just never got any better. It became kind of a joke, to just keep seeing these main characters dragged back again and again, and getting older and older. The stories had to get more far fetched to make it work. I think they needed to be laid to rest with dignity long ago. So ... a new film. And a story line around yet again those same characters, beloved as they are, was just really hard to swallow. Now I had to try and accept them in a prequel status with new young actors playing the parts. I was picturing yet another 3 hours of Bones, Spock and Scotty jokes, a bad William Shatner impersonation, and no story.

Elisabeth: I think that's what the entire world was expecting and worried about -- I know I thought it would be overly slick and hip. As a kid, seeing the OS movies with you -- I remember going to the theater for the whale one, and it definitely felt awkward. Like, these guys are just too old to be my heroes, I don't feel I'm the audience for this.

Julie: I know there are other Trekkers out there like me who feel we really have gotten shafted over and over again. It has been really hard to get excited again, figuring you'll just be disappointed once more. I was really cringing at the thought that William Shatner might actually get worked into the plot. I was already worried about Spock / Leonard Nimoy showing up again.

Elisabeth: There is STILL controversy going on about that, fans really really wanted him in. I think it would have been awkward. Nimoy's cameo worked within the plot and I liked it, but to shoehorn Shatner in would have felt like Generations all over again.

Julie: Exactly! I was actually very pleased with the Spock plotline and how well it worked out. Except for the part about two Spocks living in the same time. I thought that was against the laws of the space time continuum? Duh, and you disappear from photos, didn't anyone in Star Trek see Back To The Future?

Elisabeth: Yeah, the universe should collapse in on itself at that point ... But it's Star Trek. Science is gentler in Trek! Well, let's get into what you thought of the movie. I will say right away that this movie makes me remember just how badly I wanted to join Starfleet. It all came rushing back.

Julie: Yes! I never had any inclinations towards joining the military in any form, but I would have signed up for Starfleet in a heartbeat.

Elisabeth: Ok, so what did you like best about the movie? What was the biggest surprise?

Julie: The movie was good fun, great entertainment. Biggest surprise? That in truth this was not an origin story since everything in it turned out to be an "alternate" reality from the very moment of Kirk's birth. I was sitting there wanting to scream at the screen, this is not how it was! What are you doing? I was bummed that in the end, somehow it didn't all right itself. The origin was gone and a new origin written.



Elisabeth: I was surprised too -- I tried to go in pretty cold, and I knew it dealt with time travel, but the whole alternate reality was a big surprise. I'm still not sure what to make of that. Is it a Boethian circle of time -- is the Shatner / Kirk timeline running alongside it? Or is that timeline done? That frustrated me, that's so J.J. Abrams.

Julie: Yeah, I was pretty unsatisfied and confused at the end. You got that right ... where am I at now?

Elisabeth: I can totally see where they can make sequels -- it's definitely fresh and open, but I feel like it's a scarred Trek. No Vulcan! It's immediately a very perilous world, much more so than any Trek before.

Julie: It is very much a stand alone film. It is no way shape or form fits in with anything done before, not by film or written in Trek myth / history. It definitely sets things up for a whole new line of sequels in this new alternate line. Scarred Trek is a very good term for it.

Elisabeth: You were rattling off all kinds of continuity errors at the end! During the film, even. I love it when you geek out, Mom.

Julie: The damn Kobayashi Maru for one! Since one did Spock have anything to do with writing the program? I know, I sat there muttering that's not how it happened! I was surprised how much I remembered.

Elisabeth: You were horrified at the death of Spock's mom.

Julie: Yes I was! I knew she lived to be a very old woman. I don't remember her quite as tragic a figure either. She was strong. She had to be to live with his father on Vulcan, and to willingly raise her child the way she did. I remember his father as a real ass. I never saw the softness of Ben Cross in him anywhere that I recall.



Elisabeth: Which characters did you like best in this? I loved McCoy, Chekhov, and Scotty the best. I just really liked their young incarnations.

Julie: Bones was fantastic. The guy was really channeling the character. I think he was my favorite. Scotty was great, Chekhov was just to darn adorable for his own good. At first I thought it was sad that Scotty got so little screen time, but I think now that it was better this way. My least favorite was Kirk. He didn't look like him, inflect like him (probably a good thing after all the years of Shatner acting jokes) but mostly I thought he came off as dumb and too much of a hot head instead of this bright kid running from his father's death.

Elisabeth: I thought Kirk was a weak link -- Chris Pine definitely made the character his own, but I guess I didn't like what his version was. I think Kirk was an interesting character because he was a SMART badass, not a cocky captain. It was too traditional, a Han Solo rip off.

Julie: Yes. Kirk was very smart. Daring yes, but not stupid or impetuous. Kirk would never have left his pod in sub zero planet with no weapon, and nowhere to go. The guy was like MacGuyver, Han Solo, Indiana Jones all rolled into one. He knew his Starfleet code inside out, and how to work between the lines.

Elisabeth: While making sweet love to Orion slave girls. He multi-tasked!

Julie: He had a woman on every planet he visited and I always figured many fatherless children. He was calculating how he would escape some situation while making love. Definitely a multi-tasker. It was right of the actors to make the characters there own, I just really didn't like the choice for Kirk.

Elisabeth: What about Spock?

Julie: I thought Spock was great. In the original series, he came off as very cold. Always denying his human side. I think we were really just starting to see the many sides of Spock when the show ended. He really came into his own in the films. This new Spock is much more how I would have imagined a half human, half Vulcan to be. He truly seemed a blend. Not so much fighting his other side into submission as much as having learned to live with it and find the best of both -- exactly what we see in the elderly Spock. Makes that cold austere Spock of old almost non-existent.

Elisabeth: You were horrified at the love story between him and Uhura?

Julie: No no, not at all. I think they were a great pairing. Uhura was highly intelligent, very cool and with a grace inner peace that I think would appeal to Spock -- although in this movie she was a lot more flippant. I never bought the whole celibate Spock, especially with him as half human. In the show Spock's love life only came up once that I recall. He had to head home to Vulcan to be married to his betrothed. Apparently, they had been chosen for each other as children. He gets there, she is love with someone else, and he is forced to a fight to the death for someone he doesn't even want to be with. I also recall that Vulcans only mate every 7 years. Yeah, right. Kirk helps him out with that whole death marriage duel with that ever present fight theme song.

Elisabeth: I remember that! Shirtlessness!

Julie: Of course! And sweaty. Spock couldn't go shirtless. Too skinny, and a kind of green tinted pallor.

Elisabeth: That was my one geeky moment -- noticing little Spock had a cut lip with green blood.

Julie: Wasn't that a nice touch? His fresh bruises were bright green instead of red as well.

Elisabeth: What did you think of the villain, Nero?

Julie: Kind of lame. Not really fully developed. Not all that scary. His ship was scary. I didn't really like the whole Romulan thing in general. But how do you top the Borg? And while were talking pointed ears I just want to throw in that I really hated the ears on the Vulcans and Romulans. They were far too big rubber looking. They needed to take a lesson on gelatin ears from LOTR. Gel tips, people! But I digress ...

Elisabeth: I wanted to like him -- he had a cool set, he had a cool look to him, but I wanted a bit more. I know there's an origin comic that tells his story, but I needed more menace in this film. And the way he talked to Pike? Way too modern -- and not in a Star Trek style of modern!

Julie: I would have liked a more sophisticated evil killer. He just sits in his chair and blows them to bits. No real thought process there. The "red matter" wasn't even fully explained. Destroying planets, now that is scary, but he didn't really have the persona to back it up.

Elisabeth: Yeah, "Red Matter" felt like a cop out. I did like the way they kept the Pike story -- oddly for a movie that upped the stakes in so many ways, they left Pike sane!

Julie: The whole red matter thing was a plot hole. As for Pike, it was great he was in there. I need to check my Trek history, but I thought Kirk served under Pike for a while, he was the first Captain of the Enterprise and it was for more than one mission. Then after his injury that left him unable to walk or speak and horribly scarred, Kirk risks everything to return Pike to a place he can be whole again, and be reunited with his love. This did occur after Kirk became Captain. Hope I have that right more or less. But, great nod to Pike and that he knew Kirk's father. That was a nice tie in.

Elisabeth: I thought the beginning of the film with Kirk's birth was pretty awesome. It could have been corny but it was really powerful.

Julie: Great beginning! Really intense. Even though I was sitting there in the back of my mind going Huh? What? I don't think this is Kirk's beginning ... I was seriously grasping for straws about his parents. All I could remember was Iowa farm boy, Iowa farm boy. I couldn't really remember if his father was in Stafleet or not. My bad?

Elisabeth: No. I think that's was a good thing about the film -- I remembered he was from Iowa but I didn't feel like it went over my head with trivia and background. It just led me down an origin story.

Julie: It was Star Trek for a new generation, definitely. This is not Star Trek for the old Trekkers. Maybe that is a good thing. I'm not sure about my feelings on that yet. I thought it was by far the best Trek film done to date though, and I'm really glad I went and saw it. I'm glad it wasn't stuffed full of trivia or Scotty-isms. We got just the right amount of the old. It could so easily have come off corny. It did lead you smoothly down a path for these characters, and one that made sense. As for origin story or prequel, they did some fudging but they did it for a good story. It had some weak spots but easily forgivable for the most part. I'm glad I was proven wrong. This is the second time this has happened to me. Adamantly refusing to see something, sure it would be total crap, and then having it play out completely the opposite. That's always nice. I'm sorry it didn't rip my heart out and rip it to bits like Hugh Jackman did to you with Wolverine. ;o)

Elisabeth: Me too! I went in not knowing what to expect, and was really surprised -- in a good way. It was just what a summer movie SHOULD be.

Julie: We'll just pretend this was the opening of summer movies instead of Wolverine ... If J.J. Abrams had disappointed the Trek fans like that he'd never draw another breath without pain. We've had years to practice with all those other films. This was leaps and bounds over the the others, even with its flaws.

Elisabeth: And that is a great place to end.

Julie: What's next? I'm getting excited for Trek now!