things i learned watching Star Trek 2009
Okay, so I am by no means a Trekkie, a Trekker, or even really a fan. I never watched the show but have flashes of memory about a few early original episodes and The Wratch of Khan. Didn’t some bad guys put bugs in one’s ears to make them talk? Or was it that you had to put your hand in a box? No… I think that was Dune. Wow, did I just make a Dune reference? I am clearly nerd-adjacent.
Not only nerd-adjacent. Just geeked out about other things.
However, nor am I opposed to Star Trek. I went willingly to see the film last night (with my resident Dr. McNerdy), hoping against hope that my lack of critical Star Trek knowledge wouldn’t impair our experience—mine, because I’d have no idea what was going on, and his, because I’d be whispering questions into his ear for two hours. Thankfully, neither happened. We both agreed it was a fun flick, and I came away with some newfound revelations about Star Trek that I hadn’t had before:
- James Tiberius Kirk can sure take a punch.
- He also has a lifelong habit—one that he picked up in childhood—of hanging precariously from cliffs and ledges, often while some baddie is trying to stomp on his fingers.
- Everyone is hotter in alternate reality (c/o twitter pal @livingpixel).
- Eyebrows are a foolproof species marker.
- The middle of Iowa will never be any more populated than it is right now…
- …and we’ll still be hooked on high fructose corn syrup.
- Face tattoos are never a good thing… and Mike Tyson may be Romulan.
- Spock must have been really into Uhura. There he was, old Spock, back in time, knowing all that he knew, with a Starfleet outpost just a snowy walk from his cave on Delta Vega… why didn’t he beam up and warn everyone like, 8 hours earlier?! Hello?!?!? There can only be one reason—alternate reality Spock gets some chocolate lovin’.
- Speaking of Delta Vega… is it just me, or do (male, I assume) sci-fi art directors, special effects artists and CGI animators have a penchant of making bad-news-fuck-you-up-big-time alien monsters look vaguely vaginal? Complete with teeth, of course. Uh oh, I feel a feminist literary critique coming on… complete with discussion of intersections of gender and power, the vagina dentata myth, castration anxiety, the male gaze, archtypal patterns, phallic symbols, etc. But I digress.
- There will always be two uber-nerd super fanboys sitting behind you in the theatre, chatting away at full volume like they think they’re recording the DVD commentary. Irritating, illuminating, and, yes, a little bit insane.
What else have we learned? hmmmm.
