Thursday, October 16, 2008

So what's changed on the Enterprise?

I woke up this morning to shots all over the web from the new Star Trek movie.

I love classic Trek. I find it hilarious and has so much character and it's pure entertainment. Everything that the later iterations didn't have, I love. So I have been, and still am, very skeptical of this new film. Recasting Shatner? Im-fucking-possible. It just can't happen. It's that simple. There is no god greater than Shatner and anyone who tries to fill his shoes will stumble in his footsteps (thanks to Depeche Mode).

Nimoy too. Anyone trying to play Nimoy can go and shite.

So I have expected nothing but cack from this new film. I, unlike the rest of the world, have never been wowed by this Abrahms guy except to say that Lost had a great pilot (but what the hell happened to the rest of the show?). But I see these images and, well, I'm surprised. I'm surprised mainly by how close the uniforms look to classic trek, even down to the positioning of the seams. I honestly did not expect that at all. If you haven't seen the images, go track them down on any movie site.

But check this one out in particular as it contains the main cast - Pic at UGO.

There's Simon Pegg in the background as Scottie. We all love Pegg, don't we? And Karl Urban as Bones (Doom rocked and if you don't think it did, you're wrong). Some sexy Uhuru girl and a curly haired guy (no idea who he is) and Sulu and presumably that guy in the black is Kirk (stumbling already). I think the uniforms look pretty great and a couple of those guys actually look good in the part (not Kirk, he looks like he's supposed to be the main perpetrator in a frat-boy rape case drama).

But something seemed wrong to me in the image. It took me a while to figure out what was wrong. And then I realised - none of them look like they actually eat food. Like they actually might enjoy tucking into a burger or a great big pepperoni pizza. Or a fat steak. No, they look like they should all be on America's Next Top Model purging with the best of them. The uniforms just sort of hang there, like clothes are supposed to do on a runway show, not on actual human beings.

It's not like I expect a big fat old Scottie there but there's not even a hint of variation in the body types.

Do people who eat food not get cast in movies any more?


sephim said...

One question...


The material for those uniforms sucks.

And who's playing Defender on that view screen behind them? That doesn't seem like a proper use of Starfleet resources.

Andy J. Latham said...

I've never been a Trek fan really but some of these new shots look like they are High School Musical!

The magazine cover showing Kirk and Spok. They look like they are about 12!

Andy J. Latham said...

Actually, here's a better version:

Mr. Trombley said...

Dear Sir,

I went and found a picture of the original cast for easy comparison.

The original Star Trek was the end of an era. The end of "classic" science fiction. Since then up to now SF has been evolving further and further away from that.

Take Star Trek: The Next Generation. Continuity? The whole point of them going into space was so they could have wild adventures. By encountering the same groups over and over again it encouraged the feeling of being in another world at the expense of exploration.

What I'm afraid of-and that's probably too strong-is that this movie will be so concerned with looking and flying like classic Trek, that it will forget "to boldly go where no man has gone before." In other words "to explore".

I want to see new clothes, new aliens, new charachters, and new music. Because that is what Star Trek is about!