slashymoviereviews.com

Welcome to slashymoviereviews.com! If you haven't been here before, please review the Terms of Use before proceeding further. If you have an account with livejournal.com, an LJ clone such as insanejournal.com, or another site that supports OpenID, you can use your journal URL (e.g. username.livejournal.com) to leave comments on this blog: simply enter your journal's web address in the "OpenID/Livejournal URL" box at the top of the comment form, and after you have added your comment it will be displayed along with your standard icon. If you want to add a post to a social bookmarking service such as delicious.com, you can do so by clicking the green "ShareThis" button at the end of each post. Thanks for visiting this site and I hope you enjoy your stay!

I have to admit I knew next to nothing about Star Trek except that slash originated through two of its characters, in a pairing that, of all things, can be shortened to KOCK. And that there is the legend of William Shatner heroically sucking in his gut for several seasons and various movies. And I’m not really much of a Sci-Fi fan, but I figured, “It’s a movie about the origins of the origins of slash. And the actors of KOCK knew each other from working out in the same gym.” Let us let this last one sink for a while…yeah, you can’t really go wrong with that.

What’s the movie about?

The official plot has something to do with black holes and time travel, which were apparently written in to avoid anachronisms with the original series and so that Leonard Nimoy could have a guest spot…it involved exploding planets, Spock’s mother (Winona Ryder), revenge, and Evil!Eric Bana looking disappointingly non-sexy…and that’s pretty much all I remember of it. But the set-up goes like this: James Tiberius Kirk (Chris Pine), son of war hero George Kirk (who sacrificed himself to save 800 lives), grows up to be a rather directionless young man - he has no aspirations beyond enjoying speedy vehicles, women, and bar fights. But by appealing to Kirk’s daddy issues, Captain Pike (Bruce Greenwood) convinces the young man to tap into his potential and join the Starfleet Academy. Kirk befriends fellow cadet, doctor, and flying phobic Leonard McCoy (Karl Urban), doesn’t manage to get it on with female cadet Uhura (Zoe Saldana), and gets off on the wrong foot with half-Vulcan Commander Spock (Zachary Quinto). Naturally, they all end up on the Enterprise, along with a bunch of other cute guys, and much adventure ensues…see “plot” above.

Is it a good movie?

It’s kinda hard to say, given that I don’t remember the plot and all. But everything was very shiny and I do recall enjoying myself for most of the time and finding things engaging (the movie did suffer from a few action-comedy-car-chase-esque scenes which I assume were supposed to be entertaining and funny, and sadly belong to the typical blockbuster array). And while destiny and daddy issues aren’t going to win you any prices for originality, “Star Trek” is in fact character-driven (within the limits of the genre) and the producers paid attention to who’s acting - this means that clichéd scenes which would otherwise have been entirely cringeworthy are instead delightfully cheesy and leave you with a fuzzy feeling of fondness. There are some hilarious moments, like when Kirk and McCoy first meet each other on the Starfleet shuttle (”I may throw up on you.”), and Chris Pine assuming Shatner’s trademark position in the command chair is hysterical in itself. The ending left even me with a huge grin on my face and I’m probably as far away from a Trekkie as sales receipts are from Winona Ryder’s purse.

Is it a slashy movie?

There are at least half a dozen hot guys in the film and not really anything in the script to contradict slash, which is an invitation in itself. That said, I tried to see the KOCK. I assume it’s there, because other slashfans have reported on having seen it, but no matter how hard I tried to focus on Kirk and Spock’s epic future love, I failed to pick up on the UST between them. Is this blasphemy?

I did however notice a long, soulful look between hunky George Kirk and his Captain…sizzling vibes between Kirk and Pike (erastes also mentioned Pike/Spock)…a dirty plot bunny for Evil!Eric Bana/Pike (he kept Pike prisoner and called him by his first name) and finally dirtybadwrong tension between Kirk and Leonard Nimoy. And Scotty and that cute stony gremlin type dwarf, but let’s not go there.

Is there any fanfiction for this movie?

Let me, for obvious reasons, focus on this movie (number XI) instead of decades of Kirk/Spock based on the original series: newtrekslash is the place to seek out on LJ. kateandromeda has compiled a spiffy new Kirk/Spock fanfiction masterlist here and trek_news will guide you anywhere else.