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New observations after home viewing...

I saw it at a drive-in, so what I saw onscreen might have, I thought at the time, been an issue of ambient lighting interfering with the intended imagery. Home viewing just confirmed that the visual experience was as crappy as I thought. The story experience was equally shallow and shabby both times; I couldn't excuse that from the drive-in. I wouldn't say I 'hated' the movie - and it has very little to do with any preconceived notions of what Star Trek 'should' or 'shouldn't' be; I just found it a very poor example of big-budget excess and self-involved mark-making taking precedence over telling a good story well, and over pulling strong performances out of the cast - especially in Urban's case, as I found him to be a caricature, not a character at all. Watching the movie in conditions I can control just highlighted its faults, for me.
 
While we're both dedicated Trek fans, and both have wildly divergent opinions on the movie, it seems we both agree that Bruce Greenwood's "Captain Pike" was excellent. :D

J.
 
I'm thoroughly aghast at how bad the Orion make-up was, as well - jeesh, it looked like a bad high-school play attempt at the Wicked Witch of the West - an Orion shouldn't look like a Caucasian with green pancake slathered unevenly all over her!

Which is exactly how the Orions in TOS looked.
 
Now that I've seen it at home, I have to say that the lens flares were MUCH, MUCH, more distracting and got extremely annoying very fast. Also, the sound FX and music weren't as prominent as they seemed in the theater, but that could just be my own crappy hearing, lol.

I still say this movie could have been an entirely Captain Pike film... Bruce Greenwood kicked so much ass as Pike, and I would love to see a Pike movie with him.
 
EASTER EGGS IN THE NARADA LANDING BAY!

Take a look just as Spock takes off in the squid ship and flies through the bay.

There is an original series Romulan Warbird on one of the landing platforms AND three Vulcan ships from First Contact (the tripod kind). There are others, but I can't zoom in and see them. I have yet to figure out all the frakking options on my BluRay player.

~String

I noticed the Vulcan First Contact ship, where is the Warbird in relation to them?



-Chris

Bottom-ish, center-left-ish.

~String
 
I'm thoroughly aghast at how bad the Orion make-up was, as well - jeesh, it looked like a bad high-school play attempt at the Wicked Witch of the West - an Orion shouldn't look like a Caucasian with green pancake slathered unevenly all over her!

Which is exactly how the Orions in TOS looked.

Yeah, and the sets were made out of plywood and plasterboard; not sure what the point being made is. We can 'justify' it as being 'canon,' that Orions really do look like Caucasians with bad bodypaint, but ... I don't know, I expected better with a budget of $150 million! She should've been green, not blotchy greenish pink, whether it had to be done with makeup or with post-processing digital tricks. Even Susan Oliver looked better, and Yvonne Craig looked lots better.

Chrisisall said:
But Ptrope, did you like the movie?:shifty:

It was better than Nemesis and STV, I guess ;). I just didn't think it was very smart, and I thought the visuals were way too overdone. But hey, I still bought a ticket, and a DVD, so I guess I at least paid for the right to criticize it ;)
 
I'm thoroughly aghast at how bad the Orion make-up was, as well - jeesh, it looked like a bad high-school play attempt at the Wicked Witch of the West - an Orion shouldn't look like a Caucasian with green pancake slathered unevenly all over her!

Which is exactly how the Orions in TOS looked.

Yeah, and the sets were made out of plywood and plasterboard; not sure what the point being made is. We can 'justify' it as being 'canon,' that Orions really do look like Caucasians with bad bodypaint, but ... I don't know, I expected better with a budget of $150 million! She should've been green, not blotchy greenish pink, whether it had to be done with makeup or with post-processing digital tricks. Even Susan Oliver looked better, and Yvonne Craig looked lots better.

Chrisisall said:
But Ptrope, did you like the movie?:shifty:

It was better than Nemesis and STV, I guess ;). I just didn't think it was very smart, and I thought the visuals were way too overdone. But hey, I still bought a ticket, and a DVD, so I guess I at least paid for the right to criticize it ;)

Gaila's greeneess didn't look splotchy or bad to me, she looked fine. I'll submit, though, that I may have simply been distracted by other things about her whilst looking.
 
But hey, I still bought a ticket, and a DVD, so I guess I at least paid for the right to criticize it ;)
Actually, most of your criticisms are fairly valid. Each time I see it, I like it better. That's usually the mark of 'forgiveness', unlike, say, Blade Runner, Undiscovered Country or Serenity, which I love each successive time as I did the first, if you take my meaning.;)
 
Which is exactly how the Orions in TOS looked.

Yeah, and the sets were made out of plywood and plasterboard; not sure what the point being made is. We can 'justify' it as being 'canon,' that Orions really do look like Caucasians with bad bodypaint, but ... I don't know, I expected better with a budget of $150 million! She should've been green, not blotchy greenish pink, whether it had to be done with makeup or with post-processing digital tricks. Even Susan Oliver looked better, and Yvonne Craig looked lots better.

Chrisisall said:
But Ptrope, did you like the movie?:shifty:

It was better than Nemesis and STV, I guess ;). I just didn't think it was very smart, and I thought the visuals were way too overdone. But hey, I still bought a ticket, and a DVD, so I guess I at least paid for the right to criticize it ;)

Gaila's greeneess didn't look splotchy or bad to me, she looked fine. I'll submit, though, that I may have simply been distracted by other things about her whilst looking.

What a delicious woman... my god i love her!
 
^

It did look bad... horribly bad. I mean, her lipstick was bright RED... that, plus her red hair, made her look like a green human... hell, for all its flaws, at least even ENT managed to pull off WAY more awesome-looking Orion women than this film did. I'm not saying the girl wasn't sexy... she was. But she did not look like an Orion, aside from simply being green.

For everything else, I pretty much echo what Ptrope has said, verbatim.
 
^

It did look bad... horribly bad. I mean, her lipstick was bright RED... that, plus her red hair, made her look like a green human... hell, for all its flaws, at least even ENT managed to pull off WAY more awesome-looking Orion women than this film did. I'm not saying the girls wasn't sexy... she was. But she did not look like an Orion, aside from simply being green.

For everything else, I pretty much echo what Ptrope has said, verbatim.

I was going to say exactly what I bolded ^
 
Watched the DVD at home for the first time last night (I saw it twice in the theater). My impressions:
- Plot holes/inconsistencies are more apparent this time around. I do find it a tad bit irritating and wish some elements of the writing were stronger.
- Definitely not enough Enterprise love. We barely get a decent glimpse of her most of the time.
- The Engineering decks still look out-of-place. I prefer the cramped, submarine-feel of a starship interior than a massive, open space of pipes and tubes.
- Lens flares don't bother me. Never did.
- The cast is simply amazing.
- There are a lot of great musical cues that were not included on the soundtrack and I do not understand why!
- Kirk getting promoted from suspended cadet to starship Captain still doesn't sit well with me, no matter how many times I see it.
 
- Kirk getting promoted from suspended cadet to starship Captain still doesn't sit well with me, no matter how many times I see it.

The thing that saves this for me is that: (1) he's a Lieutenant in the film; and (2) we know he gets a commendation for original thinking for the Kobiyashi Maru incident (per TWOK) so his temporary suspension is probably not a huge factor.
 
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