Gnomic Statements VII.

Honestly, could you not have worn flats, Erica?

- Sid

Star Trek: The Next Imitation.

Christopher Pike: That's a technicality.

Spock: I am Vulcan, sir. We embrace technicalities.

Christopher Pike: Are you giving me attitude, Spock?

Spock: I am expressing multiple attitudes simultaneously sir, to which one are you referring?

Star Trek: Into Darkness

I freely admit that when I headed over to the Scotiabank Theatre last night to see Star Trek: Into Darkness, it was pretty much out of a sense of duty.  I was disappointed by the first movie of the Abrams reboot: too many holes in the plot, the alternate future concept didn't work for me at all, people kept beating Kirk up, and the engine room looked like a brewery. Frankly, I expected more of the same with Into Darkness, but I've had an unused twenty-five dollar Famous Players gift card floating around since Christmas, and this was probably my only chance to see this movie on the big screen.

To my mild surprise, I found that in some ways I very much enjoyed Into Darkness. It still suffers from the same sort of issues and inconsistencies as the first film, and the art direction still isn't working for me (in other words, the engine room still looks like the factory floor at Molson's) but they're starting to establish the elements of character which were the greatest strength of the original series.

One of the brilliant things that Gene Roddenberry did in Star Trek was to create the triangle of Will, Logic and Emotion represented by Kirk, Spock and McCoy. By splitting these personality traits between three characters, he gave the writers of the episodes an unprecedented tool for externalizing and verbalizing the debates and conflicts between these aspects of the human soul.

The fascinating thing about Into Darkness is that we begin to see the development of that three-sided synergy, but it's not between Kirk, Spock and McCoy - in the new version, Uhura is well on the way to replacing the good doctor in that part of the triad.  In the original series, it might not have worked, but the introduction of the romantic relationship between Spock and Uhura allows her access to the dynamic between the two men, and that relationship also lets the writers introduce a completely different level of interaction between the characters.  Spock's feelings for Uhura could humanize him in a way that would have been impossible in the original series, and force him to accept parts of his personality that otherwise would never be allow to surface.

They'll have to be careful, though, or else the Spock/Uhura relationship will be separate from the Spock/Kirk relationship, hereby losing the strength of the original combination.  Can Uhura become Kirk's confidant and friend in the same way that McCoy did? It seems far more likely that she'll need to create a different framework for interacting with the captain.

So far there's no suggestion that the triangle will become a square, that McCoy will emerge as an equal in the interaction of the main characters. There's a bit of an attempt to place McCoy in his original role, but it's not maintained throughout the course of the story - it's almost like they're doing it because that's the sort of dialogue that was written for the character in the original series.

In fact, that sort of homage to the original made the whole thing a bit strange as far as I was concerned.  Watching Into Darkness was like watching a really well done fan tribute to the Sixties version, one with a huge budget, loaded with all the right references, and with professional actors doing brilliant impersonations of the people who originally performed the roles. There were several times last night when I found myself thinking, “Wow, this Quinto guy just did a great impression of Leonard Nimoy, that was bang on!" and the manner in which Karl Urban is channeling the ghost of DeForest Kelley is more than a little eerie.

Similarly, they chose to rework one of the original episodes, albeit in the rebooted universe.  What if they continue to mine those episodes for future movie concepts?  It would be an awful temptation to rework classic scripts like The City at the Edge of Forever*, Amok Time, Balance of Terror, and so on, but I think that would be an unfortunate error.  To make the reboot succeed, they're going to have to take a fresh look at the universe created by Gene Roddenberry, and also allow the actors some freedom to make the roles their own, rather than just imitations of the original portrayals.

Which is as it should be.  Reboot or not, shouldn't they be boldly going where no one has gone before?

- Sid

* And get their asses sued by Harlan Ellison.

July 23rd, 2013:  comments closed due to just ridiculous spamming.  I'd love to blame Eastern Europe exclusively, but there's some air conditioning company in the States that seems to be a frequent flyer as well.

Hero's Journey.

I saw IM3 a few days ago. I thought it was okay. Wasn't as good as I had hoped. The Avengers has set a bit of a high water mark for me.

- IR Science Correspondent D. Hides

Okay, here's why I didn't like Iron Man 3: because of the same things that I didn't like in Iron Man 1.

Ah - you'd probably like a little more information.

I have a very fundamental expectation for movies based upon comic books: I expect that the good guys will beat the bad guys, and I expect them to beat the bad guys because they are in some way better than they are.  I realize that this is a simplistic approach, but let's be honest, at their most basic level that's what comic books are about, the good guys beating the bad guys.  The good guys may suffer setbacks and difficulties (this is called plot) but when it comes right down to it, we all expect that ultimately the Batman will foil the Joker's villainous plans and send him back to Arkham Asylum.

Last year I read the first draft of my friend Annie's fantasy novel, and among other questions that she had for me when I finished, she asked me who my favourite character was. I gave it a little thought, and somewhat reluctantly announced that it was one of the supporting characters, because her part of the story struck me as more interesting than the main character's - she was the one who risked her sanity in an attempt to discover her friend's fate, she was the one whose father may or may not have been the fallen hero, she was the one who ended up with a boyfriend at the end of the book, etc.  Annie somewhat stiffly replied that she would have a problem with the (eventual) publishers of the book if they demanded that the hero have the most interesting journey in the story. 

I thought it prudent to move on to other topics at that point in the conversation (Annie is a little volatile when it comes to discussions about her writing), but really, isn't the hero supposed to be the person who has the most interesting journey?  Certainly not the only interesting journey, but the most interesting?  I would think that by definition that's how you recognize the hero - the person with the most interesting journey.

On that basis, I'll reluctantly give the role of the hero in Iron Man 3 to Tony Stark, because he probably has the most interesting journey, but the flip side of that coin is that it's not really a heroic journey.  If anything, it's a journey away from heroism:  Tony Stark doesn't rescue the President of the United States, he doesn't save his beloved from certain death, and he doesn't defeat the villain.  For a comic book movie, these are odd decisions to make, because (trying to avoid spoilers here) the President is rescued, his beloved does escape death, and the villain is defeated - just not by Iron Man.  The first Iron Man movie suffers from a similar problem, in that ultimately the Ironmonger isn't really beaten by Iron Man.

However, I'm willing to entertain the possibility that there's an attempt to do something more complex in IM3, based on the amount of personal development that Tony undergoes in this film.  The Tony Stark that we see at the start of the movie is in serious emotional and psychological trouble, to the point where the armour has become Tony's refuge from the outside world.  It's interesting to see how over the course of the film, he spends less and less time within that protective shell, and has to rely more and more on his own abilities. At the end of the movie, he has an epiphany:  that being Iron Man, being a hero, ultimately has nothing to do with wearing high-tech armour.

But if that's the purpose of the exercise, Iron Man 3 is a failure, because the journey that precedes it doesn't involve Tony Stark being the hero either.

The quote from my friend Donovan at the start of the posting becomes relevant at this point. What made The Avengers a better movie?  The same things that made Captain America and Thor better movies - the heroes win by being better than the villains, and by a willingness to sacrifice everything, including their lives, to save others. The odd thing is that in The Avengers, Iron Man is that hero - how unfortunate that he couldn't be that hero in Iron Man 3 as well.

- Sid