#but you can like simon and respect him without extending that to a comedic character he plays. meant to ridicule tories

[heartslobbf]

do you honestly think people like julian bc they agree with his actions

julian is a character that we as an audience are meant to laugh at. you’re not meant to sympathise with him, he is purposefully constructed to ridicule tories and everything they stand for. i’ve seen people say they like julian because he’s ‘good bisexual rep’ or ‘he’s such a father figure’ or ‘he and x character would be so cute together’ and that makes me uncomfortable. he’s not a good or nice person, and when i see people making out like he is all i can think is oh wow you’re a tory sympathiser. like?? why are you defending a man who is openly misogynistic, proud to be a war criminal, etc. additionally, as a queer person i really don’t like it when people say he is queer because he is literally a tory, and he likes margaret thatcher, and those two things really really don’t coincide with the kind of queer representation i want to see, or the kind of queer representation the idiots would give us. it’s actively harmful, if anything, and if you’re not bi and saying he’s bisexual for the sole reason that he shagged around a lot, maybe reflect on why you think that. it plays into biphobic stereotypes.

[cowboyjimkirk]

Hullo Rebekka! I love your blog, I just found it and it is just lovely! I was curious, and feel free to be as wordy or not in your response because I love Trek gushes/rants/vents. How do you feel about the reboot films in comparison to the original ones in terms of....1) Characterization with the same characters 2) Casting 3)How well they keep with the spirit/goals that Gene had for the original? as well as any other things of note between the two? Thank you for your time

Hi, thank you for your question and sorry that it took me a little while to get to! I am at heart a TOS gay, but AOS is what introduced me to Star Trek in the first place, so if nothing else, it has the power of nostalgia on its side.

I don’t hate J.J. Abrams as much as everyone else. He’s a good filmmaker, albeit not a very interesting one. And I may be in a minority of one here, but I actually really like the lens flares. Abrams has explained them by saying,”I love the idea that the future that they were in was so bright that it couldn't be contained.” He’s gone on entire rants about why he loves lens flares. When I look at that quote and read those rants, I can almost convince myself that he actually had a vision for his Trek movies, that he actually wanted to bring something distinctive and unique to them. And I think that he maybe did, but that his vision was entirely superficial and didn’t extend to plot and characters.

I’ve really grown to love AOS Jim. It took me a while because the first two movies turn him into exactly what TOS Jim isn’t: a womanizing jerk. Abrams and his writing team (Orci, Lindelof, and Kurtzman) relied on the widespread cultural misunderstanding of the character instead of how he was actually written in TOS. At the same time, I like the idea of a Jim Kirk who is a little rougher around the edges. I like his James Dean probably-listens-to-too-much-Lana-Del-Rey vibes. But the movies never explore why he’s a little bit rougher around the edges, at least not in any meaningful or interesting way; it’s really not enough to say that he grew up without a dad and consequently is a jerk.

By the time we get to Beyond (which, of course, had a very different creative time that consisted of Simon Pegg, Doug Jung, and Justin Linn), he’s a lot more like the Jim we know and love from TOS. As much as I would love to go back and rewrite all the sexist moments from the first two movies, I also like the idea that it took AOS Jim time to become who he is. Because kindness and hope aren’t easy; they’re work. And in Jim’s case a lot of work, because he literally had to die first. So honestly, I love that dude and the fact that he’s survived and become a better person.

Like I said earlier, I don’t think Abrams really had a vision for his Trek movies. And I think that’s why the rest of the characters are essentially the same as what we saw in TOS but a little more two-dimensional.

Justin Lin didn’t bring a very distinctive visual style to Beyond, but he and his writers treated the characters far better than Abrams did. They removed them from the Enterprise, put them in an entirely new environment, and allowed them to interact in ways we hadn’t seen before. Pegg has talked about how all these people are friends and crew members but we had never seen some of them interact before (I’d link to the interview, but I read it some time last year and have no idea where it was from). So that’s why we get the scenes that are just Uhura and Sulu, these two absolute BAMFs who we’ve never really seen together before. Those kinds of writing decisions allow us to see Uhura and Sulu behaving in new ways, acting not just in relation to the main characters. And even though they are being held captive, they are actively trying to save themselves and the crew, which gives them more agency and just more to do.

I do love the cast. Like, if nothing else, I’m grateful Abrams chose the cast he did. They’re good people and good actors and a constant reminder of how bisexual I am.

As for Gene Roddenberry’s original spirit and goals....I guess I’m not very concerned about that? TOS has a lot of problems, and Roddenberry himself had a lot of problems. After it was announced that Sulu was gay, George Takei criticized the decision because it wasn’t consistent with Roddenberry’s original vision for the character. All due respect to Takei, but I’m just not that interested in Roddenberry’s original vision, especially if it excludes progress.

What I personally want from Star Trek is something that is weird, daring, hopeful, and at least a little bit silly. I don’t think Abrams got that. He talked about a future so bright it couldn’t be contained, but he still gave us a womanizing protagonist and a whitewashed cast. He still blew up a planet and killed Amanda Grayson.

I do have a lot of fondness for the 2009 movie. I like those blinding lens flares, and the comedic beats, and the way they come together as a family at the end; even if the characterization is a bit flat and the relationships aren’t entirely earned, we at least have Michael Giacchino’s score to help give it some emotional heft.

Into Darkness...well, I could spend a lot of time talking about it. I love a lot of the fan work that has come out of it, but I’ve never liked the movie. It’s angry and violent. The inciting incident is Pike’s death, and Jim spends the entire film seeking revenge, and we see the militarization of Starfleet, and cities are destroyed and thousands of faceless people die. I...really don’t like it.

Beyond contains a lot more hope and silliness and comes a lot closer to the tone of TOS. Lin, Jung, and Pegg clearly cared about the characters and understood the source material. We get a lot of philosophizing about the power of friendship and unity, and yeah it’s cheesy, but Star Trek has always been cheesy and that’s part of its appeal. So, if we’re talking about the criteria I listed above (weird, daring, hopeful, and silly), I’d say that it at least meets the last two. And heck, I really love those characters and how they get to grow in Beyond, so I’m willing to forgive it for not meeting the first two.

Sorry, I don’t think I’ve ever taken the time to express my views on AOS before, so that’s probably why this got so long aalsd;sdf. Thank you again for the question!