The Federation is an Act of War
Aug. 2nd, 2016 07:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferretI just saw the new Star Trek movie. I liked it, I guess. I definitely liked it more than the other two reboot films. Those films were just action movies with fanservice. This one... it wasn't exactly a Star Trek movie, I would say, but it was a movie interested in asking the question "What is a Star Trek movie?" which is in some ways better. I like messy uncertain art.
I liked Kirk's anxiety about the 'episodic' nature of the Enterprise's journey, how his central quest in this film is for a mission he can sink his teeth into and commit to, an opportunity to put his stamp on the way the world works, rather than just aimlessly exploring. His conclusion to the quest looks both inward and outward, via a literal piece by piece reassembly of his understanding of his own crew.
I liked Scotty's storyline about being forced into an utterly foreign kind of heroism, of building relationships instead of just interacting with equipment. I liked Bones's struggle to make sense of his friendship with Spock. I wish Sulu and Uhura had been given character arcs, but they were given moments of badass instead, which is perhaps adequate recompense, especially since it was Uhura who was allowed the chance to articulate the movie's ultimate conclusion. And Jaylah was pretty great altogether.
But most of all I liked "The Federation is an Act of War". I felt like in a lot of ways Krall was what Khan should have been in STiD- the threat he poses to the Federation and the reasons why the Federation is flawed but worth trying to improve on.
I liked Kirk's anxiety about the 'episodic' nature of the Enterprise's journey, how his central quest in this film is for a mission he can sink his teeth into and commit to, an opportunity to put his stamp on the way the world works, rather than just aimlessly exploring. His conclusion to the quest looks both inward and outward, via a literal piece by piece reassembly of his understanding of his own crew.
I liked Scotty's storyline about being forced into an utterly foreign kind of heroism, of building relationships instead of just interacting with equipment. I liked Bones's struggle to make sense of his friendship with Spock. I wish Sulu and Uhura had been given character arcs, but they were given moments of badass instead, which is perhaps adequate recompense, especially since it was Uhura who was allowed the chance to articulate the movie's ultimate conclusion. And Jaylah was pretty great altogether.
But most of all I liked "The Federation is an Act of War". I felt like in a lot of ways Krall was what Khan should have been in STiD- the threat he poses to the Federation and the reasons why the Federation is flawed but worth trying to improve on.