Monday, August 30, 2010

Do You Remember?

I was watching Search for Spock with a friend, and I realized that the TWOK tie-ins are all well and good, but when YoungKirk finds OldSpock in the cave in Star Trek 2009, and OldSpock says "I have been, and always shall be, your friend," he's not talking about the day he sacrificed himself to save a boatload of proverbial babies, but the day Kirk made the same choice he was being forced to make - the day Kirk brought him back from the dead.

Let's face it, the battle was lost the minute David Marcus died. Kirk was literally in a puddle on the floor and no one not no one would have blamed him if he refused to lose anything else at that point. Saavik was very clear, in an unclear way, that Spock wasn't alive, mentally, and there was no way to know what it was, exactly, that McCoy had. His son had just died and his ship was disabled, and no one would have blamed him if they had just found a nice safe place to hide and tried to take the ship back while making repairs, then turned tail and run. They would have survived too, because they always did. Kruge was going to kill Saavik and he was going to kill Spock, not that Spock would have really understood what was happening, that's if the ground didn't collapse under them before he got around to it.

Kirk was called to make a choice: when the whole world falls apart, and you can choose to take only one thing with you, what do you choose?

He chose to go to Spock and trust the rest to sort it out.

Flash forward to 2009, in the ice cave.

Spock has lost everything. His life's work died with Romulus. His family, as far as he knows, died on Vulcan. And then one man wanders through his life, and he has a choice. He can use this one man as an opportunity to go back and try fight Nero himself. Or...

Or he can choose to finally repay the man who chose him in the same situation.

"I have been, and always will be, your friend."

Kirk was right. Spock did the same for him.

Saturday, August 28, 2010

Found while stumbling

This is very weird/cool if you've seen Cloverfield more than once. For the rest of you - why do they use the word "ill" so much?

Friday, August 27, 2010

Gold Key Comics

Wow, is all I have to say. Spock doesn't go on landing parties, the words "up periscope" are used, and why is it that they seem to think that the words "asteroid" and "planet" should be interchangeable?

But seriously, folks. I think I figured this out. It was 1967, they hadn't even invented the Star Trek canon, and they probably just didn't realize it was that important. So, while I can understand, in theory, that they didn't mean any harm...

If Spock uses one more Robin-like exclamation, I will end his pointy existence.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Relevance

It's always amazing to me that TNG is so relevant today. Many of the more politically inclined episodes showcase issues that we are still with us. My fiance and I were watching "The Outcast" this morning, and he was like, "Wow. This is just every gay rights issue in a nutshell."

And I was like, "I know."

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Planet of Death

Just read what I think was the first ever Star Trek comic, published by Gold Key for 12 cents God only Knows When.

We've come a way since then.

Spoilers.












Just for instance, now we don't like to kill whole ecosystems like Kirk does at the end of this charming little number, and Kirk certainly didn't run around shouting, "Galloping Galaxies!"

On the flip side, some of it was startlingly familiar - Spock saying how they needed to be exactly precise on some measurement against all odds or so-and-so would die horribly and actually managing to pull it off, Kirk's nonsensical, sentence-free logs, and pretty much all of McCoy's character are pretty much straight out of early Season 1.

But possibly the biggest blast from the past (and most annoying) was when they were exploring another galaxy (presumably after Gary Mitchell was done with them) and finding no signs of life.

Ah, the days when canon was nothing and we were carefree and innocent.

Dark Knight Comparisons

It has been noted many a time this summer that Star Trek would like to do with it's sequel something like The Dark Knight (hopefully without death-inducing nightmares) and go deeper this time. They are looking to the bar set by Christopher Nolan.

Well, duh! I mean, who doesn't want to hit that bar these days. Dark Knight changed everything for a lot of people, and it did it in such a way that no serious geek franchise will ever be the same. I'm not quite sure that was for the best, but it was an amazing movie. The question is not "Can Star Trek do that?" - it's "Should Star Trek do that?" Batman is about the inner conflict and guilt of a man with serious control issues in an environment where laws don't really apply. Star Trek is about making good science fiction and mainstreaming the idea of a hopeful utopian universe. You can like both, but they don't play in the same schoolyard.

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

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