JTK meets IPH

Star Trek.  Seen Sunday evening May 10, 2009 at the AMC Empire, screen #6.  3 slithy toads.

This is the Star Trek meets Star Wars movie that we've all been waiting for, the one where James T. Kirk lands on the Ice Planet of Hoth, is attacked by a Tauntaun, gets rescued by Obi Wan, but somehow misses the Imperial Walkers.

Or is it the movie where Sar-Ek saves his son Spo-ck from the destruction of his home planet Vulton (Kyrpcan?) by putting him into a rocket ship?

I'm kidding some, but only some.  A large part of the pleasure from this very pleasurable re-boot of the Star Trek movie franchise is in finding all of the lifts not just from the Star Trek series but from any other sf movie franchise that starts with an "S" that's been around over the past 30 or 40 years.  

I was never a huge fan of the Star Trek TV show.  It's not that I disliked it, but I wasn't part of the cult that surrounded it.  But I faithfully saw all of the Star Trek movies, from ST:TMP at the Cate Plaza Twin in Middletown, to the classic Wrath of Khan at the RKO Stanley Warner Route 4 Paramus Quad, then Star Trek 3 and Star Trek 4 at the old Loews State Twin in Times Square.  After that closed, it was off to the Loews 34th St. Showplace for Star Trek 5, then to the Loews Orpheum for Star Trek 6.  The first movie I saw at the Loews Lincoln Square was Star Trek 7, and then I was very happy when the series returned to Times Square in grand style for the next few movies at my much beloved Loews Astor Plaza.  With the exception of Star Trek 2, I can't say I was thrilled with any of them, but the sf geek part of me always compelled me to the theatre, and always on the nicest screen I could think to go to.

So yeah, goosed by the excellent coming attraction and the attractive young cast, Star Trek is the first movie in a while I was heavily anticipating, and I saw it at the biggest non-Imax screen at the AMC Empire, and I had a really good time.

It's a very energetic movie, a lot of fun, the casting is excellent pretty much all the way around, it's got good action, good humor, nice eye candy.  I liked the depictions of all of the young characters, and don't have favorites or an "I liked all of them but..." reaction.  The special effects might be expensive but they're human scaled.  The move to warp speed wasn't so hot; I don't know if there will ever be a match to watching them go to warp in Star Trek 2 on the gigantic screen at the Paramus Quad with then state-of-the-art 70mm 6-track sound bringing it to life, but that's about the only aspect of the movie that left me feeling at all flattened by what JJ Abrams had wrought.  And the villain is no Khan, but Khan was the one and only...

I don't know if it's a great movie, or if it's something I'll want to see over and over again.  But paired as it was with the coming attractions for some pretty dismal summer stuff to follow like the new Transformers movie or Land of the Lost.  Land of the Lost looks truly totally dreadful on any level.

It's fun.  And not overblown fun.  I like that in a movie.

The Death of Khan

1982.  It is the weekend of my senior class trip, and on Friday we go off to Great Adventure theme park in New Jersey.  We get back very late at night, and on Saturday morning I am woken up all too early to join my younger brother and parents in driving down to Paramus to see Star Trek 2:  The Wrath of Khan.

We went to see it at the RKO Stanley Warner Route 4 Paramus Quad.  If you really want to know more about the history of the theatre click the link, but at that point in time it had a huge huge huge huge main downstairs screen in its original building, which was added on to before then added on to later and then the original main screens cut up a bit, but even at its death a couple years ago as a tenplex the main screen at 2/3 of its original size was awfully danged big.  We would drive down, 1:15 in good traffic which rarely there was, to see big new movies on that big screen in glorious 70mm.  The Empire Strikes Back and Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan were the two best of them, and I have lots of fond memories of the Paramus Quad.

Star Trek 2 is a great movie.  It's incredible fun from beginning to end, and Ricardo Montalban's performance as Khan was a hoot.  And I say that in the very best and nicest and most wonderful sense of the word.  It's a movie that holds up.  I saw it again on a big screen at the Loews Jersey not all that long ago with a pretty decent crowd, and I was in love with it as a fortysomething every bit as much as a teenager on his senior class tip weekend.

Ricardo Montalban, you will be missed.  Or as Khan might say "I shall avenge you!"