I took my folks and girlfriend to see the new Star Trek movie, Into Darkness, on Saturday evening. It's certainly an enjoyable movie - virtually non-stop action the whole way through - but with some decent twists to keep the audience engaged on a more than visceral level. It was just as full of eye-scorching lens flare as the first, but it felt as though they'd toned down somewhat on the humour.
This new, young Kirk is puzzling. At times, he's as whiny as one of the crew from the TV series Star Trek: Enterprise, and some of his bickering exchanges with Spock made me wonder how he's ever going to become the bold, heroic Kirk of the original Star Trek... but that's kinda the point, I guess: he isn't.
A couple of things struck me in the negative column. First and foremost is the scale of the USS Enterprise. Considering the size of its shuttle bay, and the shuttles within, there's just no way it could accommodate an 'engine room' of the size it seems to have - it would take up the rest of the ship and more. Then, it appears to be positioned between the shuttle bay at the rear and the dish-thing at the front, meaning that people - such as John Harrison in this movie - are paraded through the engine room to get them, for example, to the brig. I'm also a little dubious about a ship like the Enterprise being capable to flying in-atmosphere. Weird enough that Star Fleet's shipyard was on Earth in the first movie, this one has the Enterprise 'hiding' in the ocean right at the start... so, not only does it fly in an alien planet's atmosphere, but it parks itself underwater, then flies itself out again before leaving the atmosphere. Given the construction of the ship, I'd agree with Scottie, that hiding underwater was ridiculous. There's also a massive deus ex machina that cheapens the protagonists' success, and connects this movie to Abrams' original in a way that was unnecessary (given a decent story which, for the most part, this had) and made things far too convenient.
In the plus column (kinda) it's continuing the traditions of Kirk getting the crap kicked out of him at every opportunity, Spock being pretty handy in a fist-fight, and Uhura doing a bit more than connecting phone calls.
Then, in the 'I'm not quite sure' column, it didn't so much reference one of the original Star Trek movies as lift scenes and dialogue, almost verbatim, just switching a few characters around.
On balance, though, I really liked it... It'll be interesting to see if Abrams continues with Trek while also working on Star Wars (wouldn't it be cool to have the series releasing one movie every alternate year? Though that would probably leave Abrams exhausted after a couple of each).
Yesterday, I spent the first half of the day at the MCM London Comic Con (nee The London Expo) at ExCel. It gets bigger each time I go... and yet it's never quite big enough. Attendance was far higher than I'd expected for a Sunday, so the place was almost unbearably crowded at times (despite another hall being opened up as an additional lunch area, people still flooded the main drag), even though there were still more people (Cosplayer, in the main) larking about in front of the ExCeL centre. Supposedly, for future events, they're basically going to occupy the entire centre, with the front and back entrances to the building being the entrances to the show (where you buy tickets or present your pre-booked tickets), and all the halls open from the start. This would put it on a par with Memorabilia, at which I've never had to queue - or wait - for entrance, even when buying tickets on the day.
On the retail front, it was very good... and yet also disappointing. I managed to nab a videogame-related statuette that I've been coveting for years, and one third-party transforming robot toy. Beast Hunters was certainly in evidence (on one stand, anyway), but the prices weren't great (£16 for a deluxe!), and the range was much reduced. Since I expect the toy range to turn up in the shops any day now, I wasn't tempted to get anything that was available there... though my decision may have been different if they'd had the one particular character I was keen to get my hands on.
I also got a bunch of t-shirts and a mug from Genki Gear, and the old friend who'd accompanied me got me an Optimus Prime t-shirt - basically a red t-shirt with a depiction of the Autobot leader's chest - for my birthday.
One thing that's getting rather weird is the cross-pollination between Collectormania, Memorabilia and the MCM Comic Cons, specifically in the 'star guests'. The former was always rather random, including stars from TV, movies, sports... and glamour modelling. This now seems to be bleeding into the MCM Comic Cons. Consider that title - Comic Con - and decide for yourself how appropriate or fitting that is.
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