Showing my age there by reworking a R Crumb catch prase that we all used back in the 70’s. With the new Star Trek movie, like with Batman and James Bond, the franchise has been rebooted for a new generation, with enough of the familar aspects to appeal to older fans, while updating and expanding it to appeal to newcomers. The plot concerns a time traveling Romulan who is seeking revenge for something Spock does in the future. His arrival inadvertantly changes Kirk’s past, as his father is killed at his birth. The story that follows this event tracks Kirk and Spock as they both eventually join Starfleet for different reasons, and make their way from outright contempt for each other into a grudging repect and eventually friendship. The revenge plot is an action packed extravaganza that allows each of the crew, from Sulu to Scotty, to have a moment to shine in the spotlight, with fights and space battles, where they all get to utter their patented catch phrases. But the heart of the film is the relationship between the two leads, which is what made the original show and the best of the films work. All the eye popping special efects won’t mean anything if you don’t have a hman element to hang them on. Abrams does a good job of setting up the franchise for a new series of films and the time travel aspect will allow him to take the characters in a new direction without contradicting the Trek canon.
Archive for May, 2009
I want to make an impassioned plea to Seth Rogen. Before you make your version of The Green Hornet, go to YouTube and check out the small ten minute film made by French director Aurelion Poitrimoult. He shows in a short span of time just how The Green Hornet should be done, set at night with tons of action and a little bit of humor as Kato effectively handles a foe much bigger than himself and makes the wise choice of having The Hornet be just as adept at martial arts as his sidekick. Having the villains as gangsters instead of a Batman inspired costumed villain keeps the film from being campy and harkens back to the character’s radio origins in Chicago during the thirties. That should be the template for the new Green Hornet movie, not Iron Man or Wolverine. Just give it a look okay?
