New Testingstan

What I liked: the set up at the start where Kirk violates the Prime Directive to save Spock's life and how this pays off at the end. I liked Kirk a lot more in this movie than in the last. I couldn't help but groan at his womanising but he grew beyond that as the movie went on. I liked some of the little touches, like showing Praxis already blown up in orbit of Qo'noS

And it's fucking spelt Qo'noS you fuckheads. This shit ain't hard.

I liked the Section 31 reference. NO, REALLY. I thought it was a neat bit of continuity and it ties into the whole metaplot I guess might be the word for it, of how in the background to all that's going on there's this undercurrent of fear of the klingons. I liked how the Stupid Chief stereotype was subverted into the Evil Chief stereotype. Admiral Robocop was a bastard but his motives seemed genuine. I liked how Kirk really did face a no-win situation for real, and that was a neat twist on the TWOK revist. I liked how Spock fooled Khan when he beamed over the torpedoes with a delayed fuse on them.

I loved how the roles were reversed. And I love the character dynamic between nuKirk and nuSpock this time around. I loved Pike's death and Spock mind melding with him.

I loved primeSpock's cameo. It was tasteful and I think a decent way to give the characters and the audience a bit of insight into the villain of the story without going into a whole boring exposition scene.

What I didn't like: I didn't like the klingons. I don't know how you can fuck up the klingon makeup after this long. They looked fucking terrible.

I didn't like the militarised uniforms Kirk and Spock wear during the briefing on earth.

I hated the set design for the Enterprise and Vengeance interiors. I am really, really not a fan of the whole 'lol everything is SO BIG' set design philosophy they've got here. They again seemed to go with the 'engine room looks like the inside of a brewery' shit.

I'm not a fan of Simon Pegg's Scotty. I don't know what it is really. Maybe it's the whole 'played for laughs' thing they've got going with this character. Similarly, I'm not all that impressed with Chekov, for much the same reason. I'm also less of a fan of Uhura - she's still incredibly pushy but doesn't demonstrate any kind of professionalism. She keeps interacting with Kirk and Spock like she's not under their command. All her moments in the film were nothing special, her rusty klingon didn't prove useful, she rarely has anything interesting to say when she's not chucking a hissy fit at Spock, and her big moment in the film was a big pile of nothing. Which leads me to...

KHAAAAN!

Khan was a decent villain. But one of the things that really bothered me is how they turned the whole 'superhuman' thing up to 11. Yeah he's a beast at hand-to-hand and a genius intellect. How the fuck does that translate into wasting an entire squad of klingons and taking out their shitty little birds-of-prey single-handed, surviving a vulcan nerve pinch or taking shot after shot of a phaser set to stun? Ok the nerve pinch is fine, we saw in the original series and TNG it was not always fool proof. And Khan at least reacts like he's in a great deal of pain. But Uhura blasts him a dozen times and he doesn't drop. Come the fuck on. That was her moment in the film, and it would have been a neat way to end the fight by having him stunned and dropped by somebody holding a raygun. That final battle with them on those aircraft things was also pretty terrible.

I also didn't like the space dive scene. For that matter, it still bothers me that they don't seem to use their technology properly, and the writers keep putting them into positions where they can't use things like transporters to solve the problem in 5 mins.

Like at the start, why the fuck is the Enterprise submerged on the alien planet? Why isn't it in fucking orbit? Because if it was they could have beamed up Spock from inside the volcano. It comes across as contrived. You telling me they couldn't have thought up a better way to do the same dilemma Kirk had of choosing between his friend or his duty?

They couldn't beam up either Spock or Khan or both from the moving platform, despite the fact that in the previous film they beamed Kirk and Scotty onto the ship when it was at warp? What the fuck?

As for the ending, I don't know what to think. It was set up from the start that Khan's superblood had miraculous effects, but they never bothered explaining how or why, and while the original had Spock resurrected more or less by magic anyway they still took time out to explain how. Ok Spock transferred his soul into McCoy, made McCoy crazy in the process. Meanwhile the genesis effect took care of his body. Yeah it's magic more or less but at least there's a reason for it, it follows somewhat organically from the plot. Here we're just told Khan is a superbeing and a blood transfusion from him can cure irradiation. I mean that's pretty fucking incredible, and you'd think it would be mentioned in some way by somebody how fucking incredible this was, and try to explain it somehow. But it seems they felt that all they had to do was put in the scene at the start where Khan promises Ricky he can save his daughter.

So in summary there were things I liked but things that I disliked, and in most cases it was a writing decision (outside of stuff like set design).

Anyway. I hope the next film has some exploration of strange new worlds. Because I think we're overdue for that.

I railed against that in the cinema. But I realised that the reason it was spelt Kronos may have been a translation (Like Moscow/Moskva) as opposed to a transliteration.

Stofsk wrote:I didn't like the militarised uniforms Kirk and Spock wear during the briefing on earth.

I liked those uniforms, personally. A good follow on from the first movie which showed the differing uniforms between the Academy and the ship.

I also liked the semi-TMP badge Kirk and the senior officers wore. Maybe because that's what I use in STO as my "ship commander" insignia so I could be biased.

It is slightly odd why he'd have that on one uniform and not his shipboard uniform. Also I didn't see any obvious sign of the department colors but it seems most uniforms don't bother with that outside of those that'd be worn up in space. Also yay for Enlisted dudes with no department insignia! (aka the suicide bomber guy)

Stofsk wrote:But Uhura blasts him a dozen times and he doesn't drop. Come the fuck on. That was her moment in the film, and it would have been a neat way to end the fight by having him stunned and dropped by somebody holding a raygun. That final battle with them on those aircraft things was also pretty terrible.

I liked the battle itself, but yeah I think Uhura should have put him down, not Spock. I could get nerdrage about how Scotty managed it earlier but I'll just assume he was faking it for whatever reason.

Stofsk wrote:They couldn't beam up either Spock or Khan or both from the moving platform, despite the fact that in the previous film they beamed Kirk and Scotty onto the ship when it was at warp? What the fuck?

Battle damage.

Stofsk wrote:As for the ending, I don't know what to think. It was set up from the start that Khan's superblood had miraculous effects, but they never bothered explaining how or why, and while the original had Spock resurrected more or less by magic anyway they still took time out to explain how. Ok Spock transferred his soul into McCoy, made McCoy crazy in the process. Meanwhile the genesis effect took care of his body. Yeah it's magic more or less but at least there's a reason for it, it follows somewhat organically from the plot. Here we're just told Khan is a superbeing and a blood transfusion from him can cure irradiation. I mean that's pretty fucking incredible, and you'd think it would be mentioned in some way by somebody how fucking incredible this was, and try to explain it somehow. But it seems they felt that all they had to do was put in the scene at the start where Khan promises Ricky he can save his daughter.

Well there was the experiment with the Tribble and McCoy talked about it some.

And let's be fair, they had the whole ST3 movie to "explain" Spock's resurrection, while they had to put this in with everything else.

Stofsk wrote:Anyway. I hope the next film has some exploration of strange new worlds. Because I think we're overdue for that.

I suppose it would be interesting to see how they can make that viable for a two hour summer blockbuster. Either that or they'll be exploring and oh hai there Klingon battleship!

Also there was some other comment I wanted to make but can't remember it now. Fucknuts.

Admiral Robocop continues the grand tradition of Starfleet Admirals at best being well intentioned incompetents and plot irrelevant or at worst dangerously incompetent if not actively malignant.