It’s just not possible for us to see and review every movie while it’s hot. So one of our readers had a great suggestion: an open thread where those who have seen the new Star Trek can tell us what they thought.
This is it. Tell us what you thought about the female characters and any gender issues or politics the movie raised. And feel free to talk spoilers.
This comment thread WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS.
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{ 42 comments… read them below or add one }
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We heard Nurse Chapel’s name, he could increase her screen time in the next film; again he should have more room to play with her character and Yeoman Rands later with an alternate time line: because in the previous one, both of them were pretty lame love interests, especially Chapel. There could be a lot more room for Rand, they should write her in as an intelligence or security officer; as long as she doesn’t become to much of a Tasha Yar. There can be only one Tasha.
Cassie(Quote) (Reply)
Okay, I was waiting to look at this until I got a chance to *see* Star Trek.
Lots of great comments here already, so just my $.02 (btw, AJ, your numbered items cover a lot of my opinions, and Dani A., I love you’ve included trademarks on standard plot ideas)…
I *loved* certain aspects of Uhura in this movie. I think the Uhura/Spock pairing is a very interesting twist. I can totally see an intellectual woman like Uhura not being attracted to her student peers. Is she required to find romance? No, but if she does, I can see the appeal in Spock. Also, nice that they showed it was more than a meeting of the minds, but included physical romance; just because she’s mostly distant and professional and craves a man who tickles her brain doesn’t mean she’s frigid… though I, too, could have done with more meaningful glances instead of public tonsil-hockey. Points for an attempt at a well-rounded character, though not so well executed…
In all, I thought this was an interesting departure from standard Trek fare. I tried to keep in mind that perhaps the members of Star Fleet Academy weren’t as mature and dispassionate as their alumni. However, I agree with many previous responders that during the planning phase of this movie, there were a lot of Trekkies sitting around letting their imaginations and hormones run wild with what everyone on the bridge would have done during their ‘college’ years.
ACW(Quote) (Reply)
He does have a weak spot when it comes to depicting women in love relationships (cf Sydney/Dixon vs Sydney/Vaughn, or Kate/Sayid vs Kate/Jack/Sawyer) – so pairing Uhura with Spock isn’t playing to his writing strengths.
Couple that with your observation about the film industry’s unwillingness to experiment, and while sad and annoying it’s not terribly surprising.
SunlessNick(Quote) (Reply)
I liked Uhura and think that they expended her roles in some good ways. In particularly, I agree with Dani Atkinson that it was cool how they used her to subvert romantic comedy conventions. She never did tell Kirk her name, he just picked it up from Spock.
Not saying anything new here, but the problem for me was that there weren’t other women, aside from the two mothers, with prominent roles that had different strengths and weaknesses traits than Uhura. The obvious candidate is Captain Pike’s female first officer from the original series. I suspect she was cut because she’d just be another bump in Kirk’s road to the command chair, although I’d consider that all the more reason to keep her in.
I enjoyed the film, but thought it suffered from young adult novel syndrome of rushing the protagonists to be in position to save the day. If you really need to make Kirk captain, how about just including some time skips of a few years in the plot?
Greg Sanders(Quote) (Reply)
As a Trekkie, I really hate this movie. They just made all the Star Trek we know and love never happen by shifting onto this alternate timeline. It was a good movie if you’re not a Trekkie, so at first I thought, oh, they will fix the timeline and I will never shut up about how Uhura ordered a Cardassian drink when there is no way the Federation has had cultural exchange with Cardassians at that point in time. But then they never fixed the timeline and it’s like they just can’t get enough of destroying everything I hold dear! (Making Kirk a captain right out of the academy is also ridiculous. That’s making allowances for “maybe he was just about to graduate anyway or maybe he graduated offscreen while we weren’t watching” because I totally didn’t get the impression he graduated or even spent that long at the academy.)
As for female characters, I thought the Spock/Uhura thing was a bit random, and all the women sure were Hollywood thin (but hey, maybe they genetically engineered everyone to be thin before they had the Eugenics Wars and decided to outlaw unnecessary gene-messing-with). But I was a bit distracted by my outrage as a Trekkie to be outraged as a feminist.
I gotta say I found Uhura to be pretty cool with her xenolinguistics, but that’s because I’m a geek. Strange that the entire planet of Romulus only has three dialects though!
meerkat(Quote) (Reply)
I fail to see how an alternate timeline causes the original timeline to “not happen.” If anything, it gives more respect to the original timeline than if they had simply established the new film as a separate, unrelated continuity sharing similar characters and premise (like the Battlestar Galactica reboot).
The new film clearly establishes that the time travel that sent Spock Prime back in time would have no effect on his own past, because it created a new timeline (i.e., an alternate reality) that diverged from his the moment the Romulans showed up in the past. This is (unusually for Star Trek) about the most plausible form of time travel that one can present, because it prevents any form of paradox.
Patrick(Quote) (Reply)
I just saw the movie this past weekend and have a comment on jha’s comment (#11) on Orion women being hypersexual. That comment is “Nonsense!”
IIRC, the phrase in TOS was always “Orion SLAVE girls.” Slave as in NOT FREE. Bought, sold, and forced to do what their master ordered them to do. And I’m going to conclude that the ones who were dancing around looking sexy were sex slaves.
I know there are some people to whom the concept “sex slave” is the ultimate in “Oooh! Hot and oversexed!” But I expected far better of a feminist. They are in precisely the same position as their older, less attractive sisters who are washing dishes and changing diapers in their master’s home, or in the sex slaves’ dorm. Or for all we know, doing heavy labor in the mines and fields. Or breeding babies for Master to sell. (Or – it’s well known to all Trekdom that Orions sell their women, but are males ever sold? Are Orion women ever free at home?)
I also note we never hear of Orion freedwomen
Patricia Mathews(Quote) (Reply)
I thought the Orion women were enslaved for sexual purposes BECAUSE the race was considered hypersexual. In which case jha’s comment makes sense and still stands (though your clarification is worth mentioning, too).
Am I mistaken?
Jennifer Kesler(Quote) (Reply)
Sorry to go ST geek here, but it was also established in Enterprise (the series, and yes, I know) that it wasn’t really the Orion men who were in control–the men were controlled by the women by their pheromones. Of course, that just swaps out one bad trope for yet another bad trope (the wimmens! they are the ones really in power through their overwhelming sexxing!).
But I just thought I’d mention it.
gategrrl(Quote) (Reply)
Disclaimer: I haven’t seen this film.
I was disappointed to hear that Yeoman Rand wasn’t in it. In the beginning of the series, she was the female lead. She was intended to stand beside Kirk and Spock as an equal. Then the actress playing her fell afoul of the casting couch and she was dropped from the series, and Uhura and Chapel (who I think were both already planned or in the series already) stepped in to pick up the slack.
I think she should have been in the story. I think she was owed that much.
Anemone Cerridwen(Quote) (Reply)
I missed the new movie this summer due to my father’s death. I was very excited to purchase the new DVD. OH MY GAWD! What have they done to my beloved Star Trek???? I don’t need or want to see Mr. Spock kissing pooing Uhura!!!! Don’t get me wrong Uhura (especially the original) is a knock out beauty, but I just don’t need to see them kissing and groping on the bridge!
I guess I am am an old 54 year old man who has watched the original (over and over) for 44 years. They made star Trek a knock off of Star Wars!!! The ship looked terrible, the aliens were stolen from Star Wars and the plot sucked. And they have mysterious stoic mystical Mr. Spock kissy pooing Uhura having Bridge sex! YUCK!!!! It is a terrible movie, bring them back from what ever time-line the producers stuck them in…I want my heros back in “real” Star Trek time!!!!!!
RLP(Quote) (Reply)
@meercat: “Making Kirk a captain right out of the academy is also ridiculous.”
Yes. This. No matter how much you save the day, you don’t go directly from cadet to captain in Starfleet. That would be skipping over three full ranks – ensign, lieutenant commander, and commander – which is horribly unrealistic. I can maybe see his superiors jumping him to LC, but after his earlier behavior, he’s probably lucky just to graduate and be given a commission. If anything, new!Kirk reminded me less of classic!Kirk than of Tom Paris from Voyager (who I like, but still). And don’t even get me started on the writers stomping all over established canon. They’ve been doing that since Enterprise, which is why I couldn’t bring myself to watch it. (Well, that and the power ballad opening theme. Ick.)
That said, the new movie did have some good parts. It’s just that the missteps vastly overshadow them in my memory. I really wanted to love this movie. It seems I’ll have to settle for liking it for the casting and callbacks to the original mythology.
Robin(Quote) (Reply)
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