5-11-09 I Think I Might be a Nickname-for-Richard-Head

It's been four days since I viewed Star Trek XI (Sorry JJ…it's the eleventh film. I will continue to call it STXI no matter how much you whine.)

I've had time to sit and stew and think and review.

I've re-read my review numerous times and for the most part it stands.

STXI is one hell of an action flick!

But now that I've had time to think about it more and more, the plot holes and script flaws are becoming more than just niggles to me. They're growing wider and wider and wider.

The movie simply isn't Star Trek.

I had the same reaction to Nemesis when I first saw it two years ago. I never saw Nemesis in the theatre because my interest in Trek had not yet re-blossomed and I heard they were killing off Data. I wasn't about to pay to see Data go off-line so I decided to bypass seeing the movie until 2007. When I watched it, I had the same reaction – hey fun action flick! Big booms! The Ent-E slammed into the Scimitar! Cool! But then a couple days later things just started to nag me. Since when does Jean-Luc Picard knowingly break the Prime Directive to go fart around on a dune buggy? The script writers really had to work to come up with an excuse to get that action shot into the movie. It was pathetic.

It's now that I'm beginning to see a LOT of that type of script work in STXI, and these plot holes are just flat-out inexcusable and sad really. The script seemed to have been written around the action sequences the boys wanted to see instead of the story being written well, and letting action sequences develop organically. It's typical summer blockbuster writing - upside down.

I'm going to stew on it some more, but someone posted the bit with Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto and Leonard Nimoy from SNL. It was hilarious and a perfect dig on we Trekkies. (Hey, we're used to it.) But in this parody, Nimoy said if someone didn't like the new movie - that they were "nickname-for-Richard-heads." (Knowing the stupid censor thing here will change the word to phlox I wanted you to comprehend the actual word.)

Well, after four days of thinking about the stuff that really bugs me about the new movie: the fact that it no longer carries Trek's true core message (Note to Rod Roddenberry: You're a sweetheart, but I'm begging you to tell me where in this movie there is a message to people about tolerance, acceptance and humanity bettering themselves as a species as opposed to Kirk just pulling his head out his ass…which I'm never really sure he does in the movie.) and that it's full of implausible bullphlox in order to achieve the BOOM! BANG! PEW! JJ wanted to make this film more Star Wars-like, I'm beginning to force myself to admit that I am a "nickname-for-Richard-head."

I think I'm going to have t-shirts made or maybe a lapel pin. I'll wear it to the next Star Trek function I'll go to and proudly state that I'm a phloxhead!

Sigh. Or maybe I'll change my mind in another week.

Nah.

I AM A phloxhead.