Just back from my hols and feeling a bit … well, a bit like Scotty.
Original, James Doohan Scotty, that is – not that there’s anything wrong with Simon Pegg’s version, I thought he was great, but he’s just different and … no. I’m really fighting the urge here to post a four hour rant on the new Star Trek film – which, despite the odds, I enjoyed. Seriously, don’t get me started … would it really have been so difficult, as well as making it action packed and visually stunning, to get it to make sense? I don’t even mean making sense from one end of the film to another – it’s a long film and that’s quite difficult – but couldn’t at least one scene have made sense from beginning to end? Just one? It was everything Star Trek should be: bright colours, short skirts and fist fights but … surely, just one scene where I didn’t think ‘Hang on, didn’t he just say they couldn’t do that?’ wouldn’t be that difficult, would it?
Sorry. I’ll shut up now.
As an aside, how gutted would you be if someone rang you up and offered you the role of Scotty in the new Star Trek? I mean, yes, on one hand Scotty was a great character and probably one of my favourites on the crew, but come on! We all secretly want to be Kirk, don’t we? I think my first thought upon being offered the role would be “So I’m not the charismatic, ladies’ man with natural leadership oozing from every pore? Are you sure? I’m fat, ginger and balding, that’s got to count for something, surely?” It would be a bit like Stephen Moffat ringing you and asking you to be in the new series of Doctor Who … as Sergeant Benton. Nice to be asked, but a bit of a slap in the ego.
Anyway, I’m back from hols and feeling a bit Scotty:
SCOTTY
I had me a wee bout, sir – but, uh, Doctor McCoy pulled me through.
KIRK
A wee bout of what?
Uncomfortable, Scotty exchanges a glance with Bones.
BONES
Shore leave, Admiral.
Yes it was great to relax and spend time with my family. I had a great time, it was relaxing. And fun. But I want to get back to work, I’m itching to get back to work. I have contracts to sign, treatments to write, scripts to plan and … oh fuck, I’ve just remembered: my laptop power supply exploded the day before I went away.
Bugger.
And yes, before you say it, I know I should have bought a Mac, because Mac power supplies never explode; but how fucking boring is that? What’s the point of life if occasionally bits of it don’t go POP, FIZZLE or BANG and make a spirited attempt to set fire to the curtains?
You know, I think my attitude to technology is skewed by my love for the Millennium Falcon and the TARDIS – both are a bit unreliable, a bit dated and have a nasty habit of exploding at inopportune moments … but they’re all the cooler because of it. Reliable technology? Who wants it?
Oh shit.
My laptop’s not working.
My laptop’s not working!
Shit!
Argh! Panic! Fuck! Argh!
What am I going to do? What if I want to go and hide in the Caribbean? In fact … I do want to go and hide in the Caribbean. I want to go tomorrow, but I can’t, not without a laptop. What the fuck am I going to do?
Okay, calm down, it’s just the power supply (the second power supply, since you’re not asking – the first one maliciously went ‘fizzle’ some months back) I can order a new one.
But it won’t arrive by tomorrow.
No, wait! I have a variable laptop power supply from an old laptop whose power supply went POP one day!
Is there a pattern here?
Where is it? Where is it? Not in the shed, or the other shed, or the thing under the stairs outside which is kind of like a shed.
Ah! I know!
I sent it to the insurance company when they didn’t believe my original laptop refused to work anymore.
Bugger.
Hmm … now I come to think of it, my laptop does have a sticky ‘d’, the ‘a’ is beginning to get a bit suspicious and the wifi adapter doesn’t always find a network. And it’s always been a bit on the pink side for me … I think there’s only one sensible course of action here …
A new laptop! With Touch Screen! A touch screen laptop!
I have it now.
It’s mine.
I can relax.
Phew.
Ooh, pretty. I’m off to stroke it … and maybe pretend I’m Captain Kirk.
The Jobbing Scriptwriter 
I loved STAR TREK. It made perfect emotional sense to me. The only bit that felt forced was Nero hanging around for 25 years, but that was answered in the script. It was a fantastic film … and just to be even more of an irritating commentator, Simon Pegg was the weak link in the whole cast overacting like a cartoon character and basically feeling about as out of sync as someone from Galaxy Quest on board. No, scratch that, he was too OTT even for GQ, and his accent was woeful. Ah well. Still loved the film.
Or commenter, even. I’m not Murray Walker. :p
Emotional sense, yes – but what about some actual sense? You know, like a guy who says he has to stay behind to fly the ship, actually flying the ship when he’s stayed behind and not wandering off to sit in a different chair because it looks cool? There was very little attention to detail throughout the whole film.
And I liked Simon Pegg – true, he was the most different of the new characters and the least like the original Scotty; but I don’t really see that as a bad thing.
You’ve convinced me, Phillip! The movie was fucking awful!! :p
I liked it. But the plot holes made me uncomfortable.
SPOILERS, obviously.
Let’s take, for example, Nero. Chief villain. He’s so mean he blows up planets just to emotionally torture one man.
Fair enough. He has twenty-five years worth of patience, a kickass ship from the future, an ability to handle stress under pressure.
And yet when he has the legendary James T Kirk, who he KNOWS FOR A FACT is one of the most dangerous people in the galaxy, defeated and at his mercy, he…
…buggers off and leaves him there.
I MEAN, REALLY.
All that, and he can’t take TWENTY FUCKING SECONDS to push a man off a ledge to his death?
Twenty seconds.
He could’ve done it in ten if he’d hurried.
And how fucking easy is it to get promoted in Starfleet? I always figured Kirk got to be the youngest Captain in the fleet because he was actually good at his job … but no, it’s because someone liked his dad (who obviously hated his wife and would rather lounge in the Captain’s chair while the ship crashed than run to an escape pod) and randomly gave him the job.
And how come they had about thirty starships knocking around with no crew? Who thought filling them with cadets was a good idea? Where the hell were the adults?
Why the fuck did they let Kirk stay Captain at the end? Surely they’d go “Nice job, son – have a gold star and spend three years mucking out the space toilets like I had to do at your age. You cocky little shit.”
And how close was that ice planet to Vulcan? How the fuck did that not get sucked into the black hole? I’m pretty certain if the moon suddenly turned into a black hole, the Earth would be a little on the fucked side.
What the fuck is red matter anyway?
How come some black holes are time machines and others aren’t?
If you can now teleport people onto starships which have been travelling away from you at warp speed for several hours … what the fuck do you need starships for anyway? Just fucking beam people from planet to planet.
How come Scotty was the only engineer on the Enterprise … when he didn’t even fucking work there?
What’s the fucking point of putting the shields up if inanimate objects just pass straight through and scrape the fuck out of the hull?
At one point, I’m pretty certain, EVERY FUCKING PERSON LEFT THE BRIDGE! Everyone! Every fucking one! In the middle of staring at a giant ugly ship which had just blown up the spare fleet full of students.
If you’re a starship captain and you’re looking for people with combat experience … ask the fucking security guards, not the fucking driver.
I could go on and on and on and on … I really could … but I still kind of enjoyed it and will probably buy the DVD.
Your new laptop isn’t pink….
I’m disappointed, Phill. That pink laptop really said something about you.
*sigh*
The new one is very touchy feely, but it has no – – character.
It actually has a vaguely flowery design on the lid – so it’s still a little effeminate.
Does that count?
What kind of flowers?
… You may have redemed yourself.
😉
redeemed
GRR!
Darned fingers aren’t working. It’s due to the distress caused by you changing your laptop.
Need to see photo of vaguely flowery lid design. 🙂
You can see it here.
That rotating effect is giving me a headache.
Yeah, okay, vaguely flowery. 😉