Just got back from a matinee of Fast 6, and I think I enjoyed it more than the Iron Man movie this summer. Despite all the Peter pan-style action by various people and vehicles, the only thing that really broke my suspension of disbelief was Shaw and his men being released on the Rock's say-so after attacking military targets and turning God knows how many Spanish civillians into road pizza with a stolen tank.

If ST is supposed to convey an egalitarian future, in comparison to the present day, Pine is failing rather more than Shatner did.

This entire sentence, honestly, is exactly what JJ doesn't get about Trek.

Trek is supposed to be the future done with hope. Not just witch explosions and sex.

I think JJ is completely unconcerned with the idealism that pervaded TOS, and even washed over onto TNG a great deal.

But just because DS9 wasn't all happy shiny through and through (with the Federation also vulnerable to 21st century human frailties) doesn't mean the culture wasn't operating from a different base set of assumptions.

JJ's biggest miss, IMO, is that although there are shiny pretty things that make the future look like a fun place to live, there's no hint of the utopia that Gene was fervently attached to. Most of the complaints I see about how he's fucked up leave me mildly bewildered, but this idealism is the important thing I think they miss. You can lay action and intrigue on top of it, although I think most of the ST movies are actually pretty uninteresting, with DS9 as a guide to one approach.

I don't think he's trashing a noble movie heritage because I think there have only been a couple that are good good, but he is missing the point of the entire franchise.

I saw Star Trek Into the Lens Flare tonight and it was okay. I was confused about the whole Spock and Kirk aruging over violating the Prime Directive when stopping the volcano was violating the Prime Directive.

Also I thought the combo of Spock's single tear of Human Manpain and yelling of KHANN!! was over the top and me wonder if Spock was going to have some kind of revelation about his One True Love. I'm sure there's fic out there.

Before the movie I was killing time in Best Buy and one of the associates said he 1) hated Iron Man because it deviated from the comic books! 2) hated Star Trek and he threw in something about how JJ Abrams only took the directing job because he hates Paramount and wanted to take control of Star Trek away from Paramount. But Paramount produced it so I didn't really follow that.

And someone in line behind us said that their friends hated Iron Man 3 because there was NO ACTION! At all. It was just Tony Stark sulking. and no action.

Her boyfriend didn't know that the Star Trek movie was a sequel. And was surprised there was a Fast and the Furious movie. I'm not sure what they were going to see.

We saw trailers for Now You See It, Man of Steel, World War Z, and something else.

There was also a sign listing all the movies that were sold out - the only one was Great Gatsby.

Oh the Best Buy guy didn't like the Star Trek movie because of the way it was rebooted. It wasn't the same! He wanted it to be exactly the same as the series, or possibly the books, but just with different actors. But playing them exactly as they were played in TOS and the movies.

We saw trailers for Now You See It, Man of Steel, World War Z, and something else.

We got all those for F&F6. I really want Now You See Me to be awesome, but I have a feeling it's not as cool as the trailer. I hope I'm wrong, though, because it looks really cool.

According to Will's son Now You See Me has to be cool because Morgan Freeman is in it.

Make him sit through Dreamcatcher and see if he still holds to that maxim.

Just saw "Stories We Tell" the Sarah Polley documentary. Very well and thoughtfully done. I was enthralled the whole time.