At long last and in all of its glory, and I mean more of the "all" than the "glory."
It's really good to get back with everyone. Say what you want about how the movies undermine the series, there's more character work in these films than in most of the series. I know I rail against continuity, but the universe progresses here in a way that was never really possible in the TV show.
Seriously though, what it Chekov had joined with V'ger here? Uhura? How different would this film have been if it had the balls to leverage its supporting cast?
The trailer we're watching can be found at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rM4ODtN64M
17 to 01 is available on iTunes. It updates Thursday mornings at 2:00 AM ET / 1:00 CT. We're also amazingly on Stitcher.
4 comments:
Visual Design:
-I was going to nitpick some of the color choices and visuals, but they're more than outweighed by all the really nice bits. So many things I want to screencap that'll be tricky due to parallax.
-Kind of funny that Kirk and Scotty dock at a cargo bay instead of the clearly open aft shuttle bay.
-TNG was made only 7 years later; it's conceivable parts of the TMP set survived to be reused.
-Hah, when they've arrived at Earth, a display behind spock shows a planet slowly exploding.
Kirk:
-I appreciate how meta it is to have Kirk trying to recapture his glory days by regaining the Enterprise and reassembling his command crew, and it not working particularly well because people and technology have moved on.
-I'm not 100% on how naval ranks work, but I'm assuming an Admiral (or rather, any Admiral who isn't Kirk) *could* have rode along and been in command of the overall mission *without* displacing Decker as captain of the ship.
Spock:
-I enjoy the hyperdrive booster on his shuttle.
-I super enjoy that he comes aboard dressed as a literal space elf.
-Like Derek, I didn't realize we were meant to suspect that Spock was being influenced by V'Ger. (Monday morning quarterbacking: have Spock arrive at V'Ger before the Enterprise does; Spock can witness the observation post being destroyed, and be engulfed trying to mind-meld with the intelligence; cut the wormhole sequence and shift Kirk's poor decisions into the flight through the cloud; when the Enterprise arrives at the orifice, and Unicron spits out Galvatron--sorry, I mean when V'Ger spits out Spock--we're much less certain of Spock's motives as he helps repair the Enterprise.)
Ilia:
-Just like blind Miranda from TOS, we once again have a navigator being possessed by a superior inhuman intelligence.
-Reading the design notes from Memory Alpha, the Deltans' passion and sense of humor could just as well have been written for the Romulans.
-It really does seem like any of the other characters could have filled Ilia's and Decker's roles in the story. Well, I'd veto a Kirk and Minuet pairing as too on the nose, but anyone else. Chekov and Uhura, Spock and Chapel... sure, you can't use that character in any sequels, but, I mean, does Rand even show up in those?
V'Ger:
-I wonder if V'Ger cannibalized its foster planet before setting off into the universe.
-You mentioned the fact that V'Ger is threatening Earth, instead of any other planet in the Federation; I'd bet that--plus the fact the planet Vulcan is the only other world seen in this movie--is why the first NuTrek movie destroyed Vulcan.
-V'Ger's orifice looks an awful lot like the mandala Starbuck keeps drawing in nuBSG. ...which, on reflection, doesn't tell us anything we didn't already know about the conflict between the humans and the cylons, but does have implications about the history of the angel-race who manifest as hallucinations in Baltar's and Caprica Six's heads.
-...man, so maybe V'Ger actually succeeded in scanning the Enterprise's computer records, and the Ilia-probe was a honeypot from the beginning?
My understanding is that yeah, he could just hang out as an admiral. But that's also where the similarities break down; the US Navy doesn't--usually--ferry diplomats or geologists to their destinations (airplanes are generally more efficient). If there's an admiral on board, they probably aren't a consultant or hitching a ride; I imagine they would be there to be in command of a carrier battle group for a very good reason. Maybe something like Jameson did in "Too Short a Season."
Rand shows up in a few sequels as a support character. I try to point her out when she does.
I never watched all of nBSG, so I know nothing of this. Sorry.
Admirals: cool, Rand: cool, and nuBSG: it's cool.
Also, I somehow completely failed to notice the super-obvious parallel between V'Ger and the Borg.
I read William Shatner's The Return, so I never had a chance to miss it. :(
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