was my attitude before seeing the newest Star Trek, despite everyone else being worried after seeing the trailers. I love Hot Fuzz and Spaced. I have loved the Star Trek franchise ever since I was introduced to TNG when I was 18 (But at the same time could laugh about its flaws as well. After all this is my favourite Star Trek blog).

In other words the creator of a movie/series I love was taking on a franchise I love, which he loves as well. Warm fuzzy feelings all around.

I saw the trailer last Christmas, heard about the decision about Sulu and thought: I'm glad he noticed Star Trek needs more gay.

Then I saw the movie and had some stray observations:

• Yorktown is gorgeous


• This is the first time since TNG that I feel like I would love to live on the Enterprise


• This is the first time I actually like Kirk and would be ok with him being my captain


• Simon Pegg is a master of writing male friendships


• Do Scottish people really say "lassie" that much? I keep thinking of the dog


• All the Easter Eggs in this movie make me happy

I like my movies humorous, positive and hopeful and I was a happy fangirl coming out of the movie. Happier than I had been after the other two. So the week after I watched them again. Another list:

• Kirk is just such a complete ass in the first movie and the movie keeps justifying his behaviour by him being right


• The iceplanet cave is always very Empire Strikes Back to me


• Someone calculate the odds of Kirk, Spock prime and Scotty all being in the same area on the same planet. Ford and Arthur being picked up by the Heart of Gold makes more logical sense. Being out-logiced by the Hitchikers Guide is not a good thing.


• I always cheer a little when Spock is beating Kirk up


• I'm completely team Spock in this movie



• I like the idea of having a movie about the dangers of further militarization of Star Fleet


• Scotty resigning over drone strikes without any juridical process makes him my favourite character in this movie


• He could have disabled the ship before the first attack though, but I guess I had some hidden anger towards the crew members who were killed in the attack and felt that the Enterprise just making it back to Earth with Khan would have been too easy?


• And he straight up murders a guy. Still the best character in this movie.


• I actually like Kirks arc in this movie (finally learning the Kobayashi Maru lesson)


• Kirk should have stayed dead, from a storytelling perspective (not because I don't like him, or maybe a bit because I don't like him)

Other than the difference in tone (drama vs friendship and hope) I noticed another reason the other two movies annoyed me: Fan service. Both times clunky, both times for no other reason than to provide fan service:

Last time, Zoe needed to wear underwear, and this time it was Alice Eve's turn. You know, it's a rather large male fanbase, and JJ wanted to appeal to that.
Source

Yes, sadly that is also a bit of a Star Trek tradition, but Trekkies are proud to be more concerned with stories, characters and ideas that boobs and explosions. We are better than that.

A thought occurred to me while I was watching women standing around in underwear being ogled by Kirk for our amusement. Simon Pegg would not write this kind of scene. This guy would not write this kind of scene.

I like my Star Trek inclusive, I like my Star Trek hopeful, I like my Star Trek not automatically assuming I must be a cis-gendered male. I trust Simon Pegg with my Star Trek.

My friend and me went to see Star Wars over Christmas and both thought it was fun, though we giggled more than we should at certain "dramatic" moments.

Some thoughts (Spoilers)

• They still do the reading thing, it was clunky exposition back than and still is


• I will call the movie "An improved New Hope" as it has a LOT of plot elements from that movie
  - Droid escaping to desert planet with important info for rebels
  - Orphan main character lives on above planet (though she was way more affected by the loss of her parents than Luke by seeing the burned remains of his aunt and uncle ever was)
  - Surrogate father figure who dies in battle with baddie
  - Surprising father - son connection revealed
  - Blowing up a death star yet again (3rd time now)
  I would call it improved because the characters were more three dimensional and the acting was less stilted


• The Empire - Nazi references were strong in this one


• The main, main baddie appeared and both me and my friend were like "Is that Voldemort?" and then the under-baddie (who until then I had called Darth Vader 2.0) took his helmet off and we went "Snape!"


• I sincerely hope the under-baddie was supposed to be a ridiculous, whiny character, because after he took his helmet off, that is what he became.

Unrelated thoughts: Star Trek trailer, I look forward to Star Trek...
There was a live size figure of Toothless in the lobby! I hugged Toothless!

Tauriel could have been a cool character, like Bard or Bilbo. The person who sees the bigger picture, past the greed and pettiness. But instead she ran after a man she had one conversation with, because this is the only motivation a woman can have (to be fair, Legolas ran after her, if it weren't for people chasing each other for stupid reasons no one would have made it to the Lonely Mountain).

Peter Jackson seems to sometimes be confused about which movie he is making. Whenever Legolas appears I feel I'm watching a Super Mario Brothers play-through. Someone has to take the most ridiculous scenes and set it to video game music.
Then there are suddenly Dune worms in Middle Earth? And gone again, because Peter Jackson remembered he was doing the Hobbit.

What the heck was up with super powerful floater-zombie Galadriel?

Bilbo Baggins has a thousand times bigger balls than Frodo.

Thorin's voice changing to Smaug's was a neat effect and the scene where Bard kills the dragon was awesome.