Re: A Hand Extended From One Trekker Who Liked XI To The Other Who Did
It's not just about depth (or lack thereof). Or craftmanship. Or scale. Or intent.
It's about fidelity to ST and its creed. About the courage to set forth ideas and philosophies. About having things to say and actually saying them.
Some people have taken objection to the new film simply because, in our eyes, it doesn't actually have any real intelligence or conviction, and so has neither the courage nor the capacity to function as a meaningful art or entertainment.
I've given examples before, and I could go on giving examples. To submit just one example (a new observation, as far as I can tell): Previously, under Roddenberry, and then after, Vulcan was depicted as a matriarchal society. Watch "Amok Time" and "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" and "Star Trek III: The Search For Spock" for televisual and cinematic examples. Female characters preside and adjudicate over Spock in each of those stories. Unfortunately, this is no longer the case in STXI . . .
When Spock goes up against the Vulcan Science Academy, he is addressed by a male elder, who is flanked by two other males on either side of him. Out of seven council members, only two are female, and due to the visual arrangement that the scene presents, they seem of lesser importance than the men, given the fact that they are on the periphery of the frame (when all the council members are shown), and because they are positioned at a decline to the male elder and the other Vulcans adjacent to him (the construction that the council members are stood behind slopes down in discrete increments; each increment marking the place, and implying the relative authority of, a given council member).
Now, that is, in my opinion, a very ignorant depiction of Vulcan, and a retrograde stance where attitudes to gender, intelligence and progress are concerned. Roddenberry did something better, and in a more homogenous era, over forty years ago. What excuse do J.J. Abrams, his screenwriters and his production people have? They literally retarded a highly symbolic aspect of ST to a level it has never before existed at. If STXI is just "fun entertainment", then that's as much reason to scrutinize it as any; indeed, it practically mandates that we scrutinize it, and that we hold STXI responsible for the hegemonic imagery and memes it disseminates in a mass market culture.
My personal aesthetic sense also bristles against a couple of other features of the scene (which can be generalized to the film as a whole):
1) The bleached colours. Over the past ten or twelve years, it has become increasingly trendy to light films a certain way, and through gels, filters and film processing to give films a very blue or green and somewhat washed-out look. Like any movement, this style has its merits, but many directors have been running riot with it, whether willfully or because they've been infected by a memetic parasite they're largely unaware of. Rather than truly establishing its own style, STXI has merely genuflected, consciously or unconsciously, toward an existing trend. Should the world of Vulcan, least of all ST, look cold, harsh, bleachy and bleary? I don't think it should.
2) The production design/art direction. There are several points I wish to make here:
a) In this scene -- the seat of the Vulcan Science Academy -- I get the feeling of Vulcan being a relatively low-tech industrial society, not a place where high-minded scientific endeavour and a kind of ritualized mysticism share a strange, beguiling relationship. The manifold beams and girders give the location the look of a warehouse, or some sort of fugly modern art museum. Add in the omnipresent lens flaring visual system that Abrams uses and you get the sense that some annoying factory light keeps upsetting the best efforts of the cameraman, just out of frame. Ironically, Abrams has said he employed lens flares as a conceit to suggest the fantastical nature of the future; in this scene, and others, I assert it has the opposite effect.
b) There is also the choice of triangles and rhombuses in the design of Vulcan's iconography. This seems like a bowdlerization of the more complex and ecclesiastical patterning shown in TMP (rectangles, triangles, hexagons and dodecagons, and their exquisite mathematical interrelationships). Perhaps, in this case, less is more, but that is not always the case, and I personally find the geometric symbols in TMP -- in and of themselves, to say nothing of how they tie into the metaphorical framework of the film -- a lot more satisfying. Then again, perhaps there is nothing even "less" about the patterning in STXI; maybe it's simply different. Certainly, the criss-crossing, intersecting lines make for some striking imagery of their own; I just feel there is something missing.
c) The costumes. Pretty bland, in my opinion. Actually, make that a lot bland. The members of the Vulcan Science Academy might as well be wearing potato sacks. I understand the desire for ascetic clothing, but STXI takes it to an extreme. The Academy members seem to all be wearing exactly the same monotone fabric, seemingly bereft of any arresting shapes, edges or weaves. Later, when the elders are beamed aboard the Enterprise, some variants are seen, but each garment is muted, and again, essentially monotone, and again, essentially bereft of patterns, save for perhaps the yellow-brown garment of the Vulcan female, which appears to have some shapes sown in, but these barely show up even in HD (at least as far as this screencap goes: http://reboot.trekcaps.net/caps/Star_Trek/ariane179254_StarTrek_4588.jpg). The designs are about as non-descript as the designs for the most forgettable aliens in a given episode of TNG, DS9, VGR or ENT.
d) This started with Khan in STII: Like Khan, who mysteriously lost his South-Asian phenotypic pigment between "Space Seed" and STII, Spock seems to have suddenly lost every hint of his yellow-green skin, as well as the light dash of decorative blue paint below his eyebrows. Two major possibilities: J.J. Abrams and his people either didn't care, or they wanted Spock to look as human as possible. In the world of STXI, arched eyebrows, a bowl haircut and pointy ears are enough; apparently, subtler details, once every bit as important for stressing Spock's Vulcan heritage, are no longer important, or desirable. If this doesn't symbolize the way colour and beauty have been bled out of Star Trek, I'm not sure anything does.
* * *
To my mind, those details are not insignificant. In fact, I think they accrete to a degree of high significance. Either STXI is a faithful representation of ST and a good film or it isn't. I hope it's clear where I stand -- and why.
Franklin said:
It's not just about depth (or lack thereof). Or craftmanship. Or scale. Or intent.
It's about fidelity to ST and its creed. About the courage to set forth ideas and philosophies. About having things to say and actually saying them.
Some people have taken objection to the new film simply because, in our eyes, it doesn't actually have any real intelligence or conviction, and so has neither the courage nor the capacity to function as a meaningful art or entertainment.
I've given examples before, and I could go on giving examples. To submit just one example (a new observation, as far as I can tell): Previously, under Roddenberry, and then after, Vulcan was depicted as a matriarchal society. Watch "Amok Time" and "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" and "Star Trek III: The Search For Spock" for televisual and cinematic examples. Female characters preside and adjudicate over Spock in each of those stories. Unfortunately, this is no longer the case in STXI . . .
When Spock goes up against the Vulcan Science Academy, he is addressed by a male elder, who is flanked by two other males on either side of him. Out of seven council members, only two are female, and due to the visual arrangement that the scene presents, they seem of lesser importance than the men, given the fact that they are on the periphery of the frame (when all the council members are shown), and because they are positioned at a decline to the male elder and the other Vulcans adjacent to him (the construction that the council members are stood behind slopes down in discrete increments; each increment marking the place, and implying the relative authority of, a given council member).
Now, that is, in my opinion, a very ignorant depiction of Vulcan, and a retrograde stance where attitudes to gender, intelligence and progress are concerned. Roddenberry did something better, and in a more homogenous era, over forty years ago. What excuse do J.J. Abrams, his screenwriters and his production people have? They literally retarded a highly symbolic aspect of ST to a level it has never before existed at. If STXI is just "fun entertainment", then that's as much reason to scrutinize it as any; indeed, it practically mandates that we scrutinize it, and that we hold STXI responsible for the hegemonic imagery and memes it disseminates in a mass market culture.
My personal aesthetic sense also bristles against a couple of other features of the scene (which can be generalized to the film as a whole):
1) The bleached colours. Over the past ten or twelve years, it has become increasingly trendy to light films a certain way, and through gels, filters and film processing to give films a very blue or green and somewhat washed-out look. Like any movement, this style has its merits, but many directors have been running riot with it, whether willfully or because they've been infected by a memetic parasite they're largely unaware of. Rather than truly establishing its own style, STXI has merely genuflected, consciously or unconsciously, toward an existing trend. Should the world of Vulcan, least of all ST, look cold, harsh, bleachy and bleary? I don't think it should.
2) The production design/art direction. There are several points I wish to make here:
a) In this scene -- the seat of the Vulcan Science Academy -- I get the feeling of Vulcan being a relatively low-tech industrial society, not a place where high-minded scientific endeavour and a kind of ritualized mysticism share a strange, beguiling relationship. The manifold beams and girders give the location the look of a warehouse, or some sort of fugly modern art museum. Add in the omnipresent lens flaring visual system that Abrams uses and you get the sense that some annoying factory light keeps upsetting the best efforts of the cameraman, just out of frame. Ironically, Abrams has said he employed lens flares as a conceit to suggest the fantastical nature of the future; in this scene, and others, I assert it has the opposite effect.
b) There is also the choice of triangles and rhombuses in the design of Vulcan's iconography. This seems like a bowdlerization of the more complex and ecclesiastical patterning shown in TMP (rectangles, triangles, hexagons and dodecagons, and their exquisite mathematical interrelationships). Perhaps, in this case, less is more, but that is not always the case, and I personally find the geometric symbols in TMP -- in and of themselves, to say nothing of how they tie into the metaphorical framework of the film -- a lot more satisfying. Then again, perhaps there is nothing even "less" about the patterning in STXI; maybe it's simply different. Certainly, the criss-crossing, intersecting lines make for some striking imagery of their own; I just feel there is something missing.
c) The costumes. Pretty bland, in my opinion. Actually, make that a lot bland. The members of the Vulcan Science Academy might as well be wearing potato sacks. I understand the desire for ascetic clothing, but STXI takes it to an extreme. The Academy members seem to all be wearing exactly the same monotone fabric, seemingly bereft of any arresting shapes, edges or weaves. Later, when the elders are beamed aboard the Enterprise, some variants are seen, but each garment is muted, and again, essentially monotone, and again, essentially bereft of patterns, save for perhaps the yellow-brown garment of the Vulcan female, which appears to have some shapes sown in, but these barely show up even in HD (at least as far as this screencap goes: http://reboot.trekcaps.net/caps/Star_Trek/ariane179254_StarTrek_4588.jpg). The designs are about as non-descript as the designs for the most forgettable aliens in a given episode of TNG, DS9, VGR or ENT.
d) This started with Khan in STII: Like Khan, who mysteriously lost his South-Asian phenotypic pigment between "Space Seed" and STII, Spock seems to have suddenly lost every hint of his yellow-green skin, as well as the light dash of decorative blue paint below his eyebrows. Two major possibilities: J.J. Abrams and his people either didn't care, or they wanted Spock to look as human as possible. In the world of STXI, arched eyebrows, a bowl haircut and pointy ears are enough; apparently, subtler details, once every bit as important for stressing Spock's Vulcan heritage, are no longer important, or desirable. If this doesn't symbolize the way colour and beauty have been bled out of Star Trek, I'm not sure anything does.
* * *
To my mind, those details are not insignificant. In fact, I think they accrete to a degree of high significance. Either STXI is a faithful representation of ST and a good film or it isn't. I hope it's clear where I stand -- and why.
