Been being nerdy

Crap! Crap crap crappity crap! I've gone almost a month with no post! So much for posing more regularly! And I got a netbook for my 30th (thankyou Faye!), so there's not really a good excuse, I should be able to post a blog anywhere! I am hopefully going to post more, but I have filled my time with nerdy activities.

I was a bit unsure what to talk about. Obviously there was the Doctor Who special recently, but you know what? I've been massively in a Star Trek mood of late. So I'm going to reflect a little on some of my Star Trek viewing in the last month.

I got the 2nd series of the original Trek on DVD for my birthday. I got the 1st series a few months back and have watched a few episodes here and there, but slowly been working through it with my fiancee who, bless her, is enduring this experience to share time with me. So far we've found that when I say 'this is one of my favourites!' she normally doesn't like it! And I mean she doesn't like The Corbomite Maneuver or Balance of Terror. I am aghast! However, she apparently enjoyed Miri, The Conscience of the King and The Menagerie, so all is not lost. On top of this, she has the charming habit of pretending that she thinks the recent movie is part of the same continuity to wind me up. And an odd thing that she keeps mixing Scotty and McCoy up. I can't figure that last one out, but I don't think that's a deliberate thing!

Visually these remastered episodes look amazing. The picture is all cleaned up and looks great. The effects shots though...wow. All the shots of ships and planets in space have been replaced with new effects. And they look really good. But more than that, they don't look hugely out of place. A lot of effort has been put into replicating the style of the original series effects. The Enterprise moves and orbits like she always has, but as a cgi model looks more like a spaceship than a model of one. And in many cases things have been beefed up. Planets all look better, and shots of outposts on planets look awesome. Watch The Naked Time for a great example of this.

I don't know if there's been a negative reaction to these sets, I've deliberately avoided finding out. It's one of those things that I can imagine 'purists' ranting that it spoils the feel of the episodes and the original effects are part of the charm. If so that's fine, but I enjoy the new visuals, and I always found the charm of the original series to be in the characters and the stories. And these are as strong as ever.

I may get a little defensive here, but I've got the feeling on occasion that I'm not supposed to 'get' the Original Series as much as i wasn't around in the sixties. Y'know what? i think I do get it. I enjoy these episodes as much as anyone. Right, ok, deep breaths...
So recently I've noticed McCoy's moments a lot more than I think I ever did before. I'm not sure why, but in my recent viewings, Deforest Kelley has really stood out for me. Maybe it's because I've become disillusioned with Shatner and his childish arguments with George Takei, (FFS you're both pensioner age, grow up!) but then there's the awesome character moments with Kirk and McCoy, Spock and McCoy and Kirk and Spock that are also standing out for me more than before.

I also wondered if it's part of this thing that people also say about Star Trek that it represents a hopeful future with a better world. So when I was younger I like the idea of a future where the silly conflicts of earth were resolved and we went out into space. Because, y'know, space! (Odd, I don't even like to fly...) As I grew, I appreciated the resolution of these conflicts more. Star Trek showed a society built on equality and tolerance, it was something that our current society should be aspiring to.

So maybe at this time in my life I'm appreciating the various relationships in my world and finding the core friendships of the 3 main characters in Star Trek to be something that resonates a little more with me than before.

It's an odd amateur psycho-analysis of myself that I've veered off into here!

I watched the new movie again this week. Still loving that. And I found that the core friendships between Kirk, Spock and McCoy, while not developed as they are in the series, are key points in the movie. They made tremendous efforts to lay the seeds and I think they've got a good handle on it. There's enough going on between the three of them that I can see it establishing. Hopefully the next film will give some time to showing us a more progressed friendship. I particularly want to see some Spock/McCoy exchanges. Those moments were unequalled, though DS9 had some marvellous Quark and Odo moments. But yeah, in the next film, I want some Spock McCoy arguments, and the climactic confrontation should be driven by Kirk finding a plan from the extremes of Spock's logic and McCoys emotion. Oh and some explosions! Loadsa explosions! I know there's a lot of talk about Khan, but isn't the point of the last film that they have a whole new direction to go play with? I know you could go many different ways with Khan, I've read some suggestions. But I still think Klingons, explosions and Kirk/Spock/McCoy relationship is the way to go! After all, and I shouldn't say this after the successful recasting that Star Trek demonstrated, but who could really play Khan like Ricardo Montalbahn??