Given

[ateolf]

So yesterday was Thanksgiving and stuff. Not a whole lot aside from enjoying the day off. I wrapped up work on my musical piece! Had to do some final editing (threw in a couple little bits of mess-ups from failed attempts for good tape-driven measure). But I think it's finished now. Mary Beth and I took a walk to the park. That was the biggest activity of the day. At night we watched Star Trek: the Motion Picture. What do I think of it? Difficult to say. There was a lot that was kinda terrible, but there were some things that weren't. All-in-all kinda okay I guess. The first act is really bad. One of the reasons I kinda wanted to see it was (even though it has a reputation of being quite bad) I know it's heavily under the influence of 2001: a Space Odyssey (and some of the complaints are about its slowness so...maybe I'd like it?). Anyway, so it's hitting the pacing of 2001 and having a lot of the space ballet kinda stuff going on in the beginning, but the intention and overall effect is much different. For one the music, Jerry Goldsmith's overblown schmaltz going full blast doesn't hit that same register and then the whole thing is just a nostalgic, self-important "ooh look at the Enterprise and be emotional about your love for everything Star Trek." Also, most of these scenes of things moving complexly in space, though over a decade later, look way worse than they did in 2001. Partly it's trying to be bigger, but they're missing something of the care towards detail of 2001 (and they never get a single person out in a spacesuit in space looking anywhere remotely good). Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of really good visuals in the movie, but it's also balanced by a lot of really bad visuals. (And hey, Star Trek had a huge budget, three times that of 2001, these were expensive effects that look bad, granted 2001's effects hold up in a way that almost no other movie does, especially of the time, and of like about any other time, but there's that impulse to try to go bigger and bigger without quite getting it right first...) All of the huge matte painting backdrops are embarrassing. And yeah, Star Trek is actually pretty boring in a lot of parts. Its slowness doesn't invoke a sense of atmosphere or awe or any emotion really. For the most part, it just makes it feel like Star Trek dragged out more than it should. The stargate rip-off scene is a little better about that, though. It's mostly visually pretty good and works. And as the movie goes on it gets better. I had known the whole plot thing about Voyager (or just knowing that "Vger" was "Voyager" 'cuz as a kid I saw that part of that one scene on tv, that's all of the movie I'd ever seen, I guess I was flipping through channels and that's stuck with me). Anyway, that whole part of the movie plot-wise is kind of interesting as an inversion of the 2001's plot. Instead of the ancient beacon sent out by an advanced civilization for humans to find and assist in evolving to some next level, you have the old beacon sent out by humans evolving and becoming sentient and returning to humanity. I don't know, there's probably a bit that's corny about it being Voyager, but there are insteresting elements. And the little Psycho-esque wrapped-up-with-a-bow explanation at the very end is kinda dumb too. All in all, it's, yeah a bit of a mess kinda trying for different things that it doesn't quite hit any of, but I guess there are some elements that make it not completely a horrendous failure. I mean, yeah, it starts off really bad and really boring but sheds some of its worst qualities and maybe picks up an interesting thing or visual here and there. Not warranting a recommendation to go see, unless you're really into Star Trek in which case you've probably already seen it anyway. So, there you have my slapdash criticial analysis of Star Trek: the Motion Picture! Exciting stuff!