I find it odd that people who will accept multiple interpretations of a character like Batman seem to only accept one interpretation of Star Trek. :?
It's not that at all. I've accepted
dozens, when you include the inconsistent spin-offs. TNG gave us more of the same, but DS9 was schizophrenic, going from old-school exploration to gritty war, to political neutral zones, to soap opera. Voyager and Enterprise were just stupid.
I have no problem with any of the actors, nor with the special effects. I think they didn't need to even 'reboot' it in continuity; I felt the reboot Bond and Batman get, i.e. they just start again with different actors and no attempt reconcile it with past stories, would've been much more preferable.
Now, you may be arguing that my "I want the poetry back" is like hypocritical since I'll argue that having both the Nolan and the Brave/Bold Batman is absolutely fine and wonderful to have two such different takes, however, it is somewhat different.
Batman is, and always will be, a pulp hero: he punches bad guys in the face until he wins. Sometimes the bad guy will be space pirates and Batman will smile as he does the punching, and other times the bad guy will be a diseased maniac who slaughters babies. The tonal shift from light to dark, from fantasy to actuality, can fluctuate, but it will always be Batman.
STAR TREK is, and always has been from its earliest inceptions, hard science-fiction (not always
good sci-fi, but hard sci-fi). It has NEVER been about action, precisely because
it couldn't afford it. Now, I don't mind there being some action, or even quite a bit of action, but hard sci-fi requires tough moral crises and deep intellectual concepts to work at all, whereas action requires
the opposite as action runs on adrenaline, not curiosity. Making STAR TREK more popcorn-y isn't a tonal shift, but a
genre shift, which is more substantial.
However, this movie didn't really intend that. It
tried to have hard sci-fi, but couldn't because it sucked. It tried to be an exciting action ride, but it was far too stupid.
My problem is not that it was too action-y, but that it was too dumb. DIE HARD is pure action. It is not too dumb. DUMB & DUMBER is idiotic comedy. It is not too dumb. STAR TREK is a dumb movie. The directing, acting, music, and photography is all top-class. The story is a pile of wank.
That's what I'm complaining about. My "plea for poetry" was just pointing out that the key concept of the movie, if done properly, would shift it from action/adventure to
high adventure, a more thoughtful form of adventure, not that is inherently better but it would be more preferable for a blockbuster Star Trek movie that a movie based on TOP GUN.
