It's Star Trek!!!!

That was awesome.

I now run the risk of overselling this movie, and then I will lead a legion of unimpressed followers in my wake and it will make me sad. So, how can I sum up this film without having a nerdgasm all over the keyboard?

Great Action.
Awesome special effects.
Believable plot.
Great casting and characters.
And plenty of one-liners and subtle nods to Trekkies everywhere. Including Tribbles.

I'll admit, I'm biased to this movie. But in both ways. I love science fiction, especially Star Trek. I now own the complete TNG, DS9, and Voyager, as well as 6 of the movies. But I also hated the original series, specifically Kirk (to be honest, when I went and watched the Original Series, I actually enjoyed all the storylines that weren't completely centered on William Shatner. Which by season 3 was none of them.). But Chris Pine did an outstanding job as Captain Kirk. He has all the bravado and bravery, without any of the overacting and smugness. I actually like all of the new casting, so I don't need to go character by character. All in all each character got face time (although not as much as Kirk and Spock). I really enjoy how they make room for this story in the overall Trek canon (it's sneaky, but believable for me), and I also enjoy how it's left open-ended (i.e. they don't all die and the Enterprise flies again. Prolly not a huge shock).

There are probably issues with the movie that a second viewing will reveal, but I don't want to get into them right now. Suffice to say go see this movie. Even if you're not a Trekkie, go see it. It's a fantastic summer blockbuster and I hope it makes a ton of money.

And as a side-note, there was no "secret scene" after the credits. I always hate when movies sneak those in and no one tells me, so I wait until the end of the credits and 9 times out of 10 I'm disappointed because I just wasted 5 minutes of my life waiting for the MPAA symbol. So I am sharing now that there is no secret scene.

Top Trek

As we already stated, I am awesome and going to see Star Trek tonight. In honor of that I figured I'd post some top ten/five lists. I say top ten, but it may very well be top 5 for some things. So here goes!

I should specify that I have not seen Star Trek: Enterprise, so I can't make any judgments about anything from that series.



Top 10 favorite Starships
1) Refit Enterprise D from All Good Things...
2) Enterprise E (Sovereign class)
3) Akira Class
4) Defiant class (it's boring, but it zooms!)
5) Romulan D'deridex class warbird (Cause they're flipping huge)
6) Galaxy Class
7) Prometheus Class
8) Nebula Class (it's not flashy, but it certainly looks sturdy)
9) Klingon Negh'Var class (You just feel like these things would fuck you up)
10) Excelsior Class (the Classic, in my opinion)


Top 5 favorite characters
1) Jean-Luc Picard
2) Guinan
3) Kathryn Janeway
4) Seven of Nine
5) Jadzia Dax and the holographic Doctor tie, I think


Top 5 LEAST favorite characters
1) James T. Kirk. To be blunt I hate him with the fire of a thousand suns.
**Edit: After seeing the new movie, I should specify that I hate Kirk-as-played-by-Shatner**
2) James T. Kirk. No, kidding. Harry Kim
3) Chakotay
4) Neelix
5) Jake Sisko


Top 5 Favorite Episodes
1) Yesterday's Enterprise
2) All Good Things...
3) Cause And Effect
4) Year of Hell
5) Sacrifice of Angels


Top 5 uniforms I would cosplay in (oh, yes, I'm serious)
1) Nemesis/First Contact Uniform (As seen in Picard's pic)
2) Post-season 3 TNG Uniform
3) First Contact Dress Uniform
4) Voyager Uniform
5) Future Federation Uniforms from TNG/Voyager finales


Top 5 favorite Alien races
1) Romulans
2) Changelings
3) Borg, before we had to go and humanize them
4) Klingons, as long as there isn't a stupid Kahless type episode. I like Martok.
5) Vidiians, cause they were so freaking scary


So that's that. There are other things I could probably count down, but I don't know what they are at the moment. I'm so excited to see this movie tonight, you have no idea. And the excitement is just growing!

I am a Trekkie

Somehow my sister managed to win two tickets to a sneak preview of Star Trek tomorrow night, and I have to say I'm so excited I could pee. The last Star Trek movie came out in 2002, and even though I loved it, it really wasn't so good. I didn't watch Star Trek: Enterprise because it infuriated me that they changed the canon, but even that hasn't been on since 2005. So four years without Trek and suddenly it's back! (The irony is that there were a whole bunch of years after the Original Series ended.)

It's not really a huge surprise to anyone that's had a real conversation with me that I like Star Trek. All sci-fi, in fact, but The Next Generation was what started it all. Back when the only things I was watching were He-Man and Transformers (and occasionally American Gladiators), I would catch random episodes of Picard and the Enterprise D flying through the galaxy doing all sorts of things that I wished I could be doing. Because I didn't understand the rules of syndication, or apparently how to read a TV Guide, back in the day, I didn't watch it religiously. But everything I caught I loved, and when I moved to my new house I started watching it a lot more. I remember when DS9 came on and I was so disappointed becasue I hated Sisko. I remember when All Good Things... was on and it was one of the best episodes I'd ever seen. I remember going to see Generations with my Dad and getting so excited. I remember tuning back into DS9 because Worf was joining, and there were giant epic space battles. I remember when Voyager launched at the same time as UPN. I remember the media attention when Jeri Ryan was cast as Seven of Nine in that skin-tight uniform. And that's enough "I remembers" to last any reader for years.

Needless to say I'm a giant geek when it comes to Trek, especially TNG. You can give me a random episode title and I'd bet 90% of the time I could give you an episode description. I've read the Enterprise-D Technical manual. Once in middle school I even went as a Starfleet captain for Halloween. Then of course I reached that age where I had to be cool, and put the fandom on a backburner (at least in public) but it never really left me. It morphed into a fandom of Babylon 5 and Farscape and Stargate and Battlestar Galactica and Firefly, although none of those could ever compare. It's really only a matter of time before I get some fancy costume maker to make me a uniform that I can wear to conventions. I used to be embarrassed, but as I get older I'm rapidly reaching the "Fuck 'em if they don't get it" age.

I don't need to be one of those geeks that gets all philosophical about his love of Trek. Suffice to say I am. It speaks to me in a way Star Wars never has. And while I wish they'd go and at least acknowledge homosexuality in the 24th century, the Federation is a place I'd very much like to be. This probably won't be my only Star Trek inspired post in the next few days, especially since I recently watched the original series all the way through, I've got all of the movies on hold at the library so I can watch them all through, and I've recently bought the complete series of TNG, DS9 and Voyager.

Told you I was a geek.