Well, Lana is feeling a bit better, although she still has plenty of pain. She’s doing some passive exercises on her arm to keep the range of motion up. Unfortunately, I just got a call from my brother this morning to tell me that my step-father is in intensive care after a heart attack. We’ve been so worried about mom, and Ray has been a rock. But rocks crack, too, I guess. Two other family members are facing serious health issues as well. It’s been a hard couple of months for the family. Our world will change dramatically in the next few months.
But I didn’t start this blog to talk primarily about personal issues. I started it to talk about writing and reading, etc., and right now I need the distraction. Last night, before I got the latest bad news, Lana and I finally got around to watching the new Star Trek movie. I really enjoyed it. Watched it twice, in fact. I thought the characterizations were pretty spot on. The new Kirk, Christopher Pine, was the most different from the original character, but I really liked the character as he was envisioned. He’s a little harder edged maybe.
The writing was crisp and the overall story was excellent, even though I’ve not always been a fan of time travel stories. You can see that the writers and director paid close attention to the things that made Wrath of Khan such a great movie, and they riffed off of that pretty hard. I didn’t mind in the least.
I had wondered how I’d feel about the alternate universe storyline, but in retrospect I think it was an excellent as well as necessary choice. Should we call this series, Star Trek AU (for alternate universe)? It sets up dramatic future opportunities for a completely altered Federation, and I like the characters enough to want to see more. In fact, I thought the choices for the characters were truly inspired and they played off each other very well. And, the nice touches, like having the “red-shirt” get it on the space drop, were appreciated.
Of course, I could mention a few quibbles. I wasn’t enamored of the relationship between Uhuru and Spock. I can see that they are setting things up for Spock to be a much more emotional character in this series, and that may weaken future storylines. I’m also not sure about Scotty’s “sidekick.” Not sure what they’re going to do with that. The ship itself is also much “busier” on the inside, and that detracts a bit for me from the visuals, although it is probably realistic. These don’t really detract from my overall enjoyment of the story, though. The new Star Trek was a rousing good adventure and I highly recommend it.
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