Well, the darn movie has finally come out, and after seeing it two times (One regular, one Imax) I have the following things to say.
My fears of Star Trek taking a step back in the gender representation has unfortunately been well founded. Of all the female roles that were featured in this movie, only one was made to have any outgoing significance outside of dying. That character is, of course, Uhura. Literally the only female character in a cast of all male characters. And what does she do? Get a station on the Enterprise that limits her to answering phone calls and watching what goes on on the bridge.
Let me try to identify other female characters here as well.
- Winona Kirk. Gives Birth to James T. Kirk and after the opening sequence is only mentioned once and never seen nor heard from again. At least when Spock's mother died, Sarek was there for him. Kirk's mother? Not in the slightest.
- Amanda Grayson. Purpose in film is to simply get Spock angry at Kirk after her death. She is Star Trek's 1 of 2
WiR.
- Transporter Tech. Does her best to lock onto Kirk and Sulu but is booted out of her station by Chekov and is never seen again. You could say that Uhura booted that communications guy off of his station, but she didn't do
anything once she took the post.
- The Orion Girl. Only purpose in the film is to show off some fan service. Is commissioned to a ship that is later destroyed and forgotten.
- Nero's Wife. The second WiR. Talk about throwing as many cliché elements into a character's tragic past just for making him angry. I was almost expecting Nero to list all sorts of convenient information that would make this more tragic. At least Khan's wife had a name.
- Romulan played by
Lucia Rijker. The only female crew member seen in the movie has a role that's equal to "BLINK and you'll miss it".
- Mini-skirts. Iconic? Yes. Realistic? No.
Those left behind.
- Nurse Chappel. Was she even in this? Everyone says there's something in this movie that involves her but I cannot find anything remotely resembling Nurse Chapel or even a mention of her name.
- Number One. Not only is she the first female character in Star Trek, but also the first "First Officer" of the Enterprise. Do we get her? No, we get Chekov and Sulu. Why? Because we want as all of the original series' 2nd season and after characters.
- Carol Marcus. Instead of her being in the movie, we get the Orion girl. And why not? Carol was a woman of action and authority in Khan while Orion girls are pretty much just alien.......you get the picture.
- Kaleh. The other female member of the Romulan crew who does more work at her station in Countdown comics than Uhura does in the entire movie. After the Narada gets sucked into the distant past via the black hole again, she leads four other Narada crew members to try and warn Vulcan of Nero's still insane quest to eliminate Romulas' future threats. Can you believe this? The most interesting female character in the whole god-dang story isn't even in the movie. It's up to fan's interpretation of Canon whether or not she even exists.
If Fate and Destiny are absolute entities in the way our two glorious writers explain them to be, they're obviously sexist.
Don't women go to the Academy or something?
