Just saw Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief (The Movie). Read the Book about a month back. Was the book perfect? By no means. It had its problems, inconsistancies, and supported that upstart Dionysus as a legitimate member of the Olympian 12. Still, it was the story that its author, Rick Riordin, intended to tell. Which begs the question, "What story was Chris Columbus, director of the movie, trying to tell?"
Whatever the answer, it certainly wasn't the same as the Author. So often, book adaptations take liberties with the source material, sometimes for pacing, sometimes because what works for the written word doesn't work on the screen, sometimes to make a more exciting product. Still, I've never seen so many divergences from the source material in a movie based on a major piece of fiction. And most of them seem arbitrary, pointless, or even counter to the the themes of the novel.
I'm all for making exciting movies, and I'm all for adaptations, and I do acknowledge that sometimes directors and adaptors can improve the source material. Certainly, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix the Movie is a better story than the Novel and Oh Brother is more fun than the Odyssey. And my favorite Novel and favorite Movie are both Dune, even though the movie is wildly divergent from the book. But still.
It ranges from little things such as Annabeth (the female lead) who in the book is a honey blond and in the movie is a brunette (something Hollywood could easily have attended to), to not so little things such as the moving of the Hydra Battle from book 2 to book 1. Subplots and background elements (such as Annabeth's history with Luke and Ares hatred for Percy) are lost, probably for pacing, but their removal leaves most of the characters shallower than they need to be. Annabeth is reduced from an interesting character to little more than the love interest. Half a dozen characters are removed: Kronus, Dionysus, Clarisa (Daughter of Ares), Ares, Aphrodite, the Oracle, and Echidna. Three Monsters are eliminated: The Chimera, Procrustes, and Cerberus. Percy and Annabeth are aged from 12 to 16 or so. The magical shield which in book three is a gift from Percy's brother is coopted as a gift from a fellow camper. Greek swords are depicted as having crossbars. The three magical pearls which were a gift to Percy from his Father (The sea god) are assigned to Persephone. Even the plot recieves major hacking, with Hades made the bad guy (as opposed to another victim of the Lightning Thief as he was in the book.) and the roadtrip changed to more of a treasurehunt.
But most of all, the biggest change was the replacement of greek and roman themes with christian ones. Hades is depicted as a beast of fire, served by hellhounds, living in a realm of fire and suffering called Hell. This differs wildly from the book, which depicts the Underworld as a place of darkness, with suffering only taking place in "Punishment" and the rightous rewarded with joy in "Elysium"... as matches the greek vision. Hell, a name taken from Norse Mythology, and the vision of burning fire, taken from Revelation, do not fit with the Chithonic Underworld.
So, although PJ&TLT is an enjoyable enough movie, I have to give it a 1 out of 5 for being a bastardized, christianized, sissified, lousy ass adaptation of a relatively good book.
Showing posts with label Movies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Movies. Show all posts
Monday, February 15, 2010
Friday, January 22, 2010
Apocalypses in Theatres Now
Warning, incoming spoilers.
As odd as it seems, with studios usually trying not to step all over each other with similar releases, there are two armaggedonesque movies in theatres at this moment; Book of Eli and Legion. Thematically, both deal with issues religious (at least on the face of them) and themes of Hope, Faith, and Redemption. However, while Book of Eli succeeds on practically every level, Legion (which holds such germs of promise) falls flat.
Book of Eli reaches for the stars in its tale of one man's Gunslinger-style 30 year oddyssy to deliever the world's last surviving King James Bible to those who will preserve it for future generations. Set in a world struggling to pull itself out of a post nuclear holocaust, Eli deals with issues ranging from Cannibalism and the tyranny of Resource Monopolization to the nature of goodness. It plays with fairly deep metaphors, such as the fact that Eli's 30 year oddyssy has given him time to memorize, word perfectly, the entire KJB (imprinting it on his soul) to the fact that Alcatraz has become the repository of human knowledge (Ignorance is a Prison from which Knowledge frees us) to the fact that, at the end, Eli's KJB is placed on a shelf with all the other holy books, just one more part of humanity's past, no more or less imporant than any other. Denzel is wonderful, as is his supporting cast Even the George and Martha joke comes off splendedly.
On the other hand, Legion misses possibly ever mark it could have missed and still remain entertaining. Its human characters are largely one-dimensional (A married couple and their rebellious teen daughter, a one-armed black veteran cum short order chef, a black gangbanger, a divorced cafe owner and his simple, well-meaning son, and the mother of the unborn child around which the plot revolves). In fact, the most well rounded and sympathetic characters in the film are Michael and Gabriel (and why are they the only two arkangels who ever appear in american movies... what about Raphael, Raguiel, Remiel, Uriel, or Azrial?)
Michael, played by the always spectacular Paul Bettany, is portrayed as the loving son of a god who has lost faith in mankind and decided to destroy us all. Never mind the covenant of the rainbow following the Flood (the flood at least gets a mention, the rainbow covenant? not so much.) Deciding that God doesn't really mean it, that he's just frustrated, Michael decends to the mortal realm and cuts off his wings so that he can defend a child who, although it is unstated in the movie, is clearly the anti-christ (considering that his birth spawns the end of days). Still, Charlie, the mother, explains that when she went to a clinic to get the unwanted child aborted, she felt as if to go through with this act would be to decend into a darkness from which she could never escape. The father is mentioned only in as far as that he is not in the picture. A better bet would have been to make the father a rapist, thus making her ambivalence about the child and sometimes hatred for it, that much more powerful and her decision not to terminate the pregnancy that much more significant.
Still, almost transparently see through characters are not the film's greatest failing. That lies in its execution of the brilliant idea to make Angels the enemy. Our culture is rife with angels, creatures of great and often terrible beauty. Angels are seen as wonderful, wonderous creatures, and to depict them as villains is a wonderful twist... but the movie does so in all the wrong ways. Angels are not demons or devils, a fact that Michael makes clear when asked if the Possessed (the zombiesque first and second wave badguys) are possessed by one of the D's (I forget which). Michael says, "No, by Angels." Since they aren't boogymen, they shouldn't look horrific, shouldn't be sadistic, twisted, pustulent, fly-attracting, shark-toothed nasties. They should be beautiful... and cold, merciless, and pitiless. By making Angels disgusting and twisted, it looses its power to shock and sadden us.
Gabriel, the film's uber-villain, is relentless, awe-inspiring, and truely a pathos inducing figure. He does not want to kill Michael, his brother. He is just following orders and will do whatever it takes to fullfill god's command. He also appears too late, at the beginning of the third act (although a flashback in the second act shows him trying to disuade Michael). A skillfull director would have shown a battle between Michael and Gabriel as the opening of the movie, shown Gabriel struck down by a winged and flaming-sword armed Michael... only to show up again at the head of a legion of Angels. Then his relentlessness would have been beyond Terminator relentlessness, an unstoppable force whose threat does not end when he is defeated since he will return, again and again and againg if needed. As it is, Michael is the only angel who is shown to reform after being slain, a wow moment that feels too deus ex machina as it is, but would have been stunning if Gabriel had been slain and reformed several times "By the Grace of God" something that the fallen Michael should have been lacking.
And then there is the Terminator style Driving Off into the Sunset with a trunk full of weapons ending... please.
There are interesting moments, such as the hinting towards Michael actually being Lucifer (the rebellious angel) at least once before or use of Angel wings as armor capable of shrugging off even high power bullets) or a zippo lighter with the word Hope on it. But, like the Zippo which appears early in the film, they are largely wasted. The Hope Zippo, which is used near the end to great effect, would have been more powerful had the word Hope been seen early on in the film, when it's meaning isn't so significant. This would have been forshadowing instead of just clever prop usage.
Legion is a movie that could have been so much better, if only. Eli is not. It is hard to say how Eli could have been improved in any significant way. The lessons we can take from a comparison of these two films, both of which take place in a desert and deal with faith and hope and fighting for what is right in the face of overwhelming odds are two fold. The first is that it is better to overreach than to underreach. To shoot for the stars and fail is better than to play it safe and still come up short. The second is that if you really want to make a good movie, you need to commit, commit everything you have. Don't half ass it. Don't wimp out because you are afraid of religious zealots who aren't going to like your film regardless. Don't make angels into zombies. Be original, and when being original be very original. Beauty can be even more terrifying than ugliness, coldness more-so than cruelty, and compassion more so than hate.
Good watching and Goodnight.
As odd as it seems, with studios usually trying not to step all over each other with similar releases, there are two armaggedonesque movies in theatres at this moment; Book of Eli and Legion. Thematically, both deal with issues religious (at least on the face of them) and themes of Hope, Faith, and Redemption. However, while Book of Eli succeeds on practically every level, Legion (which holds such germs of promise) falls flat.
Book of Eli reaches for the stars in its tale of one man's Gunslinger-style 30 year oddyssy to deliever the world's last surviving King James Bible to those who will preserve it for future generations. Set in a world struggling to pull itself out of a post nuclear holocaust, Eli deals with issues ranging from Cannibalism and the tyranny of Resource Monopolization to the nature of goodness. It plays with fairly deep metaphors, such as the fact that Eli's 30 year oddyssy has given him time to memorize, word perfectly, the entire KJB (imprinting it on his soul) to the fact that Alcatraz has become the repository of human knowledge (Ignorance is a Prison from which Knowledge frees us) to the fact that, at the end, Eli's KJB is placed on a shelf with all the other holy books, just one more part of humanity's past, no more or less imporant than any other. Denzel is wonderful, as is his supporting cast Even the George and Martha joke comes off splendedly.
On the other hand, Legion misses possibly ever mark it could have missed and still remain entertaining. Its human characters are largely one-dimensional (A married couple and their rebellious teen daughter, a one-armed black veteran cum short order chef, a black gangbanger, a divorced cafe owner and his simple, well-meaning son, and the mother of the unborn child around which the plot revolves). In fact, the most well rounded and sympathetic characters in the film are Michael and Gabriel (and why are they the only two arkangels who ever appear in american movies... what about Raphael, Raguiel, Remiel, Uriel, or Azrial?)
Michael, played by the always spectacular Paul Bettany, is portrayed as the loving son of a god who has lost faith in mankind and decided to destroy us all. Never mind the covenant of the rainbow following the Flood (the flood at least gets a mention, the rainbow covenant? not so much.) Deciding that God doesn't really mean it, that he's just frustrated, Michael decends to the mortal realm and cuts off his wings so that he can defend a child who, although it is unstated in the movie, is clearly the anti-christ (considering that his birth spawns the end of days). Still, Charlie, the mother, explains that when she went to a clinic to get the unwanted child aborted, she felt as if to go through with this act would be to decend into a darkness from which she could never escape. The father is mentioned only in as far as that he is not in the picture. A better bet would have been to make the father a rapist, thus making her ambivalence about the child and sometimes hatred for it, that much more powerful and her decision not to terminate the pregnancy that much more significant.
Still, almost transparently see through characters are not the film's greatest failing. That lies in its execution of the brilliant idea to make Angels the enemy. Our culture is rife with angels, creatures of great and often terrible beauty. Angels are seen as wonderful, wonderous creatures, and to depict them as villains is a wonderful twist... but the movie does so in all the wrong ways. Angels are not demons or devils, a fact that Michael makes clear when asked if the Possessed (the zombiesque first and second wave badguys) are possessed by one of the D's (I forget which). Michael says, "No, by Angels." Since they aren't boogymen, they shouldn't look horrific, shouldn't be sadistic, twisted, pustulent, fly-attracting, shark-toothed nasties. They should be beautiful... and cold, merciless, and pitiless. By making Angels disgusting and twisted, it looses its power to shock and sadden us.
Gabriel, the film's uber-villain, is relentless, awe-inspiring, and truely a pathos inducing figure. He does not want to kill Michael, his brother. He is just following orders and will do whatever it takes to fullfill god's command. He also appears too late, at the beginning of the third act (although a flashback in the second act shows him trying to disuade Michael). A skillfull director would have shown a battle between Michael and Gabriel as the opening of the movie, shown Gabriel struck down by a winged and flaming-sword armed Michael... only to show up again at the head of a legion of Angels. Then his relentlessness would have been beyond Terminator relentlessness, an unstoppable force whose threat does not end when he is defeated since he will return, again and again and againg if needed. As it is, Michael is the only angel who is shown to reform after being slain, a wow moment that feels too deus ex machina as it is, but would have been stunning if Gabriel had been slain and reformed several times "By the Grace of God" something that the fallen Michael should have been lacking.
And then there is the Terminator style Driving Off into the Sunset with a trunk full of weapons ending... please.
There are interesting moments, such as the hinting towards Michael actually being Lucifer (the rebellious angel) at least once before or use of Angel wings as armor capable of shrugging off even high power bullets) or a zippo lighter with the word Hope on it. But, like the Zippo which appears early in the film, they are largely wasted. The Hope Zippo, which is used near the end to great effect, would have been more powerful had the word Hope been seen early on in the film, when it's meaning isn't so significant. This would have been forshadowing instead of just clever prop usage.
Legion is a movie that could have been so much better, if only. Eli is not. It is hard to say how Eli could have been improved in any significant way. The lessons we can take from a comparison of these two films, both of which take place in a desert and deal with faith and hope and fighting for what is right in the face of overwhelming odds are two fold. The first is that it is better to overreach than to underreach. To shoot for the stars and fail is better than to play it safe and still come up short. The second is that if you really want to make a good movie, you need to commit, commit everything you have. Don't half ass it. Don't wimp out because you are afraid of religious zealots who aren't going to like your film regardless. Don't make angels into zombies. Be original, and when being original be very original. Beauty can be even more terrifying than ugliness, coldness more-so than cruelty, and compassion more so than hate.
Good watching and Goodnight.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Stupidity in Star Trek
Trek Lives. I've been a Trekkie for a quarter century; watched my first episode, "Spectre of the Gun", on my mother's tiny, 9 inch, black and white TV in the living room of our home in Houston, Texas. I remember asking my mother why the cowboys had ray guns.
I've seen every movie in the theatres, aside from TMP, although the Khan I saw was part of a Khan/Search for Spock double feature at the drive in my father took me to. I've loved them all, even the ones I hate (TMP, Undiscovered Country, Nemesis). I've watched every episode of every series... aside from Enterprise... at least three times. I cheered when Kai Wynn bought it, cheered when the dreadnaught Enterprise-D showed up, cheered when the Janeway offed the Borg Queen for good. I cried when Spock died, when Jadzia died, when D Forest and Jimmy died. I almost shed a tear for good ol Kirk.
Like all good Trekkies or Trekkers, I've made my lists; Rank the Captains (Picard, Kirk, Janeway, Kirk 2, Rikker, Animated Kirk, Cisco, Pike, Sulu, Data, Q, everyone else ever, Archer), Rank the XO (Spock, Spock 2, Animated Spock, Chikote, Worf, everyone else, Rikker, the vulcan lady on Archer's crew), Rank the Movies (4, 6, 2, 11, 3, 7, 8, 9, 10, 5, Trekkies, 1), Rank the hawties... and so on. Still, if there is one list that ranks above all others, it is rank the stupidity.
Look, Trek is great. It is inspirational and second only to Babylon 5 as the greatest Sci-Fi series ever, IMNSHO. Its influence is global, its legacy shall endure as long as human civilization thrives, but perfect it is not. I loved ST11. I did. Watched it in IMAX opening night at 12:01. Watched it again at noon that same day. Watched it a third time a week later. Loved it. Brilliant. And possibly the most flawed since The Undiscovered Country, which ranks as the second stupidest movie in the entire series... and certain in the 10 ten stupidest episodes of any Trek Series. Maybe even top 5, but I haven't seen all of Enterprise.
So, for this week's edition of pop culture, I'm going to list all the really stupid parts of Star Trek 11... or at least the top 11.
Number 11: First we see a shot of IOWA. It says so on the screen in big silver letters. Then we see a shot of VULCAN. Same letters. Does Vulcan not have any subdivisions, no cities, no states or provinces or neighborhoods? Why not label IOWA as EARTH? How does IOWA rank as equal to VULCAN? A small point, but eh.
Number 10: Why doesn't Vulcan have any ships? or defenses of any kind? Nero needs codes to invade Earth Space, why not Vulcan Space?
Number 9: Why does it take Nero's ship, which comes from an age where Warp 9 is pretty slow, so damn long to reach Earth? The Enterprise, which must have been travelling toward's the Laurentian system for at least half a day, was able to catch up to Nero's ship just as it entered LEO. Okay, maybe it took that long to torture Pike, so I'll give them that. Maybe... Still seems stupid
Number 8: as the trio spacedrops down the umbilical towards the surface of vulcan, three stupid things happen in quick succession, so I'll link them together. The Redshirt... sorry, Redsuit, dies because he waits so damned long to pull his chute. Why does he wait so long? Apparently he's really amped up. Seriously gung-ho for an engineer, no? A little stupid. But the big stupid is yet to come. Kirk lands, and then, at an altitude that is probably at least as high as Everest, whips off his helmet. Apparently, Vulcan's atmosphere is really, really thick, even above the cloud layer where on Earth a human would be suffocating in seconds. Chalk it up to "Artistic License". Then Sulu lands, and the self proclaimed fencer pulls out a rapier? An Epee? A saber? A foil? No. its a katana! Katana's are used with Kendo, which is about as far from fencing as a formalized sword style can actually get. About the only similarity is the face guard... which isn't saying much. It's as if JJ said "Hey, Sulu's Japanese... lets give him a Katana." Please.
Number 7: On the subject of AL... unless Delta-Vega is a moon of Vulcan, there is no way in hell Spock could have seen the planet fold in on it's self like that. None what so ever. Even Luna isn't that big in Earth's sky. Never mind the fact that Delta-Vega appears to be an Ice Ball that somehow, even though it lacks any visible plants or small wildlife can still support not one but two massive apex predator species. Earth can't even support one predatory land species that size.
Number 6: The Nerada is, in my oppinion, the worst worst designed ship ever. It has a lot, a lot, a lot of useless spines. So many that the exact shape is lost. It has water everywhere for no reason, even in areas with electrical lines and control panels. Since when are Romulans aquatic? It has walkways that have inconvienient ledges, steps, no rails, and smooth, slightly convex surfaces. Even Scotty agrees, since he says that he's beaming them into what should, in a logical ship, be a cargo bay. And there is absolutely no good lighting. Do Romulans like everything gloomy and lit by green light? And why do none of these Romulans have hair? Must be more AL.
Number 5: Are Nero's crew really that stupid? These are a bunch of Miners. They actually willingly waited around for 25 years.... 25 years.... to get revenge for Nero's Wife? Seriously. They must have been seriously bored. Why not just go back to Romulus, hand over the Nerada and it's mega tek, use the red matter to eliminate the star before it can go Super Nova, and have a big party while the future weapons on the Nerada allow the Romulan Empire to crush every other star faring power like bugs. Sure, Nero is a nutball, and the stupidest villain (not worst, just stupid) ever, but the entire rest of the crew are that dedicated to his insane revenge scheme? At least James Bond's villain's henchmen are well paid or actually believe that a colony in space is a good thing.
Number 4: Timefleet? Come on! It's canon that they exist, so where are they? Or the Q's, who seem to value the continum so much. Or the Enterprise-E, which went back and stopped the Borg in 8? Or the Star Fleet Observers at the Guardian of Forever? Where did all these beings go?
Number 3: Okay, a speck of Red Matter can destroy a planet. A similar dot can dispell the Super Nova that, somehow, is threatening the entire Galaxy (Never mind how stupid that idea is, Larry Niven couldn't even sell that idea convincingly in Ring World and that was a chain reaction of Super Novas at the galactic core). So why does Spock's ship have a mega ball of Rimbaldian proportions on board? What possible need could anyone have for producing soooo damn much Red Matter... and what the hell is Red Matter any way. It might as well be "Black Box" technology.... except that JJ likes giant floating incomprehensible red spheres.
Number 2: Okay, Vulcans are the most logical race in the Star Trek Universe, right? They've had spaceflight for a thousand years or more, right? Well, humans realized about a century ago that if Earth got hit by an ELE before we had colonies on other worlds that the human race was pretty much screwed. So why don't the Vulcans have even 1 colony world? Seriously. 6 Billion superlogical genii and no one thought up the expression "Don't put all your eggs in one basket"? IDTS.
Number 1: And I quote "Then the Unthinkable Happened!" Okay, a super nova explodes, big boom. The explosion travels outward very fast. Let us even say it travels out at the speed of light. How does it suddenly accelerate and unnexpectedly destroy a star system. It's like looking both ways before crossing a street, seeing that the only car coming is 2 miles away, stepping into the street... and being hit by that same car because it suddenly teleported up on you. Super Nova Shockwaves don't travel faster than light. In a universe with Warp 9 and Transwarp technology, anything moving at light speed is pretty much crawlling. And those idiotic Romulans were like... Hmmm, I hope this works, let's not bother to evacuate our planet... just in case. Seriously, The super nova snuck up on Romulus? I love this movie, but my god, that is the dumbest thing I've ever seen in this series... including the fact that in Undiscovered Country, using the Enterprise-A, top speed far lower than Voyagers, it takes them a few days to reach the Galactic Core... which we know is a Super Massive Black Hole known as Sagittarius A, despite the fact that Earth is 33000 Light Years from the center of the Galaxy... a trip which would have taken Voyager about a quarter of a century. This wasn't just dumb, it was mega dumb. It was dumber than God needing a spaceship people!
I nominate the "And then the Unthinkable" happened moment the single stupidest moment in all of Star Trek history... including all non-canon novels, comics, cartoons, and even that fanfiction where the 12 year old girl becomes a star fleet captain... with the possible exception of those idiotic aliens who fell for the Corbomite Maneuver (or their counterparts in TNG).
Still, mad props to JJ and Crew and I look forward to mocking you again when Star Trek 12: The Search for Eggs, comes out.
No Colonies. Sheesh. Stupid, Stupid Vulcan Creatures.
I've seen every movie in the theatres, aside from TMP, although the Khan I saw was part of a Khan/Search for Spock double feature at the drive in my father took me to. I've loved them all, even the ones I hate (TMP, Undiscovered Country, Nemesis). I've watched every episode of every series... aside from Enterprise... at least three times. I cheered when Kai Wynn bought it, cheered when the dreadnaught Enterprise-D showed up, cheered when the Janeway offed the Borg Queen for good. I cried when Spock died, when Jadzia died, when D Forest and Jimmy died. I almost shed a tear for good ol Kirk.
Like all good Trekkies or Trekkers, I've made my lists; Rank the Captains (Picard, Kirk, Janeway, Kirk 2, Rikker, Animated Kirk, Cisco, Pike, Sulu, Data, Q, everyone else ever, Archer), Rank the XO (Spock, Spock 2, Animated Spock, Chikote, Worf, everyone else, Rikker, the vulcan lady on Archer's crew), Rank the Movies (4, 6, 2, 11, 3, 7, 8, 9, 10, 5, Trekkies, 1), Rank the hawties... and so on. Still, if there is one list that ranks above all others, it is rank the stupidity.
Look, Trek is great. It is inspirational and second only to Babylon 5 as the greatest Sci-Fi series ever, IMNSHO. Its influence is global, its legacy shall endure as long as human civilization thrives, but perfect it is not. I loved ST11. I did. Watched it in IMAX opening night at 12:01. Watched it again at noon that same day. Watched it a third time a week later. Loved it. Brilliant. And possibly the most flawed since The Undiscovered Country, which ranks as the second stupidest movie in the entire series... and certain in the 10 ten stupidest episodes of any Trek Series. Maybe even top 5, but I haven't seen all of Enterprise.
So, for this week's edition of pop culture, I'm going to list all the really stupid parts of Star Trek 11... or at least the top 11.
Number 11: First we see a shot of IOWA. It says so on the screen in big silver letters. Then we see a shot of VULCAN. Same letters. Does Vulcan not have any subdivisions, no cities, no states or provinces or neighborhoods? Why not label IOWA as EARTH? How does IOWA rank as equal to VULCAN? A small point, but eh.
Number 10: Why doesn't Vulcan have any ships? or defenses of any kind? Nero needs codes to invade Earth Space, why not Vulcan Space?
Number 9: Why does it take Nero's ship, which comes from an age where Warp 9 is pretty slow, so damn long to reach Earth? The Enterprise, which must have been travelling toward's the Laurentian system for at least half a day, was able to catch up to Nero's ship just as it entered LEO. Okay, maybe it took that long to torture Pike, so I'll give them that. Maybe... Still seems stupid
Number 8: as the trio spacedrops down the umbilical towards the surface of vulcan, three stupid things happen in quick succession, so I'll link them together. The Redshirt... sorry, Redsuit, dies because he waits so damned long to pull his chute. Why does he wait so long? Apparently he's really amped up. Seriously gung-ho for an engineer, no? A little stupid. But the big stupid is yet to come. Kirk lands, and then, at an altitude that is probably at least as high as Everest, whips off his helmet. Apparently, Vulcan's atmosphere is really, really thick, even above the cloud layer where on Earth a human would be suffocating in seconds. Chalk it up to "Artistic License". Then Sulu lands, and the self proclaimed fencer pulls out a rapier? An Epee? A saber? A foil? No. its a katana! Katana's are used with Kendo, which is about as far from fencing as a formalized sword style can actually get. About the only similarity is the face guard... which isn't saying much. It's as if JJ said "Hey, Sulu's Japanese... lets give him a Katana." Please.
Number 7: On the subject of AL... unless Delta-Vega is a moon of Vulcan, there is no way in hell Spock could have seen the planet fold in on it's self like that. None what so ever. Even Luna isn't that big in Earth's sky. Never mind the fact that Delta-Vega appears to be an Ice Ball that somehow, even though it lacks any visible plants or small wildlife can still support not one but two massive apex predator species. Earth can't even support one predatory land species that size.
Number 6: The Nerada is, in my oppinion, the worst worst designed ship ever. It has a lot, a lot, a lot of useless spines. So many that the exact shape is lost. It has water everywhere for no reason, even in areas with electrical lines and control panels. Since when are Romulans aquatic? It has walkways that have inconvienient ledges, steps, no rails, and smooth, slightly convex surfaces. Even Scotty agrees, since he says that he's beaming them into what should, in a logical ship, be a cargo bay. And there is absolutely no good lighting. Do Romulans like everything gloomy and lit by green light? And why do none of these Romulans have hair? Must be more AL.
Number 5: Are Nero's crew really that stupid? These are a bunch of Miners. They actually willingly waited around for 25 years.... 25 years.... to get revenge for Nero's Wife? Seriously. They must have been seriously bored. Why not just go back to Romulus, hand over the Nerada and it's mega tek, use the red matter to eliminate the star before it can go Super Nova, and have a big party while the future weapons on the Nerada allow the Romulan Empire to crush every other star faring power like bugs. Sure, Nero is a nutball, and the stupidest villain (not worst, just stupid) ever, but the entire rest of the crew are that dedicated to his insane revenge scheme? At least James Bond's villain's henchmen are well paid or actually believe that a colony in space is a good thing.
Number 4: Timefleet? Come on! It's canon that they exist, so where are they? Or the Q's, who seem to value the continum so much. Or the Enterprise-E, which went back and stopped the Borg in 8? Or the Star Fleet Observers at the Guardian of Forever? Where did all these beings go?
Number 3: Okay, a speck of Red Matter can destroy a planet. A similar dot can dispell the Super Nova that, somehow, is threatening the entire Galaxy (Never mind how stupid that idea is, Larry Niven couldn't even sell that idea convincingly in Ring World and that was a chain reaction of Super Novas at the galactic core). So why does Spock's ship have a mega ball of Rimbaldian proportions on board? What possible need could anyone have for producing soooo damn much Red Matter... and what the hell is Red Matter any way. It might as well be "Black Box" technology.... except that JJ likes giant floating incomprehensible red spheres.
Number 2: Okay, Vulcans are the most logical race in the Star Trek Universe, right? They've had spaceflight for a thousand years or more, right? Well, humans realized about a century ago that if Earth got hit by an ELE before we had colonies on other worlds that the human race was pretty much screwed. So why don't the Vulcans have even 1 colony world? Seriously. 6 Billion superlogical genii and no one thought up the expression "Don't put all your eggs in one basket"? IDTS.
Number 1: And I quote "Then the Unthinkable Happened!" Okay, a super nova explodes, big boom. The explosion travels outward very fast. Let us even say it travels out at the speed of light. How does it suddenly accelerate and unnexpectedly destroy a star system. It's like looking both ways before crossing a street, seeing that the only car coming is 2 miles away, stepping into the street... and being hit by that same car because it suddenly teleported up on you. Super Nova Shockwaves don't travel faster than light. In a universe with Warp 9 and Transwarp technology, anything moving at light speed is pretty much crawlling. And those idiotic Romulans were like... Hmmm, I hope this works, let's not bother to evacuate our planet... just in case. Seriously, The super nova snuck up on Romulus? I love this movie, but my god, that is the dumbest thing I've ever seen in this series... including the fact that in Undiscovered Country, using the Enterprise-A, top speed far lower than Voyagers, it takes them a few days to reach the Galactic Core... which we know is a Super Massive Black Hole known as Sagittarius A, despite the fact that Earth is 33000 Light Years from the center of the Galaxy... a trip which would have taken Voyager about a quarter of a century. This wasn't just dumb, it was mega dumb. It was dumber than God needing a spaceship people!
I nominate the "And then the Unthinkable" happened moment the single stupidest moment in all of Star Trek history... including all non-canon novels, comics, cartoons, and even that fanfiction where the 12 year old girl becomes a star fleet captain... with the possible exception of those idiotic aliens who fell for the Corbomite Maneuver (or their counterparts in TNG).
Still, mad props to JJ and Crew and I look forward to mocking you again when Star Trek 12: The Search for Eggs, comes out.
No Colonies. Sheesh. Stupid, Stupid Vulcan Creatures.
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