They both have some minor deconstructionist elements that make you a little nervous while you're watching it. It'd be very easy for either of these films to go horribly awry. Thankfully, they didn't. Both are quite enjoyable.
They are both the sort of film that is enhanced by seeing them on the big screen with the big speakers, so that you can be immersed in the sights and sounds. If you haven't already, I'd say go catch them in the theatres.
The new Star Trek film thrives off judicious application of the Rule of Cool. It has some flaws, but the majority is so enjoyable, you ignore them till the movie is over. Strangely enough, you do spend a lot of time noting things that seem broken, which later turn out to have rational explanations and thus were not worth worrying about.Early in the film, you feel like they're breaking cannon and totally screwing up continuity. Don't worry about it. If you just sit back and relax, it'll all be explained. Not fretting over the details will make a for a more rewarding experience. Eventually, after the film is done, you'll realize a different plothole, but it's pretty much invisible while the film is going on, and it is not the illusory/imagined/explained-away plothole that you're likely to worry about while the film is rolling. So just chill. It's hard - I'd been told it resolves itself in the end, and I still worried. Maybe that fear is part of it's magic and appeal, maybe it detracted from the experience a little. Can't say for certain till I watch it a second time (now sans fear), which I eventually will.
On the topic of breaks with cannon, I'm going to discuss the spiffy upgrades that come from advances in movie special effects.
- Personally, I like the improved heads-up displays and control panels in the Enterprise bridge, and the cavernous feel of Engineering. It feels like Roddenberry would have included such things if the technology to do so had been there. The parts of the design they changed for this film are things that were dictated by budget and technology in the 60s.
- In contrast to that, I hated the change of phasers going from a continuous beam weapon to a particle / projectile attack. Star Trek already has Torpedoes, Phasers are an intentionally different from them. The original writers chose to have both a beam/ray weapon, and a missile/projectile weapon, as different tools in the starship's arsenal. While I feel some lattitude for updating the imagery should be allowed, I can't help but conclude that the change of a Phaser from beam to pulse is an alteration of the physics and technology of the setting. It's the only part of the film that didn't feel like a respectful reinterpretation of the classic - as though JJ Abrams (and company) just didn't "get" this one part of Trek, which is a shame considering how nostalgic the rest of the film is. It's a minor quibble, to be sure, but it made the combat feel less like Trek combat to me, and that annoyed me a lot more than the one small plothole they didn't resolve.
Will you like this movie? That depends:
- If you're interest is just for an action-packed sci-fi film, you'll probably enjoy it.
- If you're watching partly because you enjoyed the Kirk-Spock-Bones dynamic in the good ol' days before they all got fat and wrinkly, then this lovable film will make you laugh and weap alternately and at just the right moments.
- If you thought the little exchanges between those characters at the end of every episode was the lamest part of Classic Trek, you're going to detest the latest incarnation.
Terminator Salvation, on the other hand, is not about feel-good moments with nostalgic characters. Instead, it's a serious and hard-hitting look at the ramifications of the Terminator setting. It's also the ultimate in time-travel self-consistency. Again, all through the film I was worried the plot was going to implode messily, and instead it tied up all the loose ends. Time Travel films are always fun until you get to the ending, when they almost always fall apart. This one not only holds it all together, it also goes a long ways towards buttressing the earlier films.I realize I just gushed on and on about Star Trek, but I gotta say the new Terminator impressed me even more.
T1 and T2 have always formed a paradox when you consider them together. One says resoundingly that you can't fight fate. The other says there is no fate but what you make, and seems to alter the previously predestined plotline. This latest film clearly (yet subtly) picks one of those two paradigms to be true and then shows you that the other film actually reinforced it as well. It's masterfully done. As a big fan of time travel, I really appreciated the sophisticated and understated way they dealt with that.
The best part of that melding, however, is what they did with T3, the red-headed stepchild of the series. T3 has all kinds of flaws, but to some it's cannon and retcon's are rarely welcomed. This film largely ignores T3, but doesn't actively contradict it. They don't dwell on when Judgement Day happened. The HKs have similarities to those prototypes in T3, but clearly aren't the same models and owe just as much of their design to the sequence in T2. The film does show John with a red-haired spouse, but avoids saying her name prominently or commenting on how or when they met. You can decide for yourself if she's the woman from T3, and if the events of T3 ever happened. Choosing one way or the other won't really impact this film. That was a very clever dodge of a potentially lethal bullet.
As T3 demonstrated, one problem the Terminator scripts have always faced is technology. You're doing a big action film, so you want to use the showiest effects. It's a sci-fi film, so you want to include cutting edge science and tech. It's a sequel, so there's a perception that you have to bring some new twist or outperform the previous films. However, the plot involves time-travel, so you can't really justify introducing new tech without it trickling back to the previous movies. Balancing that paradox is hard. T2 pulled it off fairly well, by implying the liquid metal prototype was sent through time just seconds before humanity captures the time machine. Then T3 forgot that, pumped up the tech level again, and didn't stop to consider the ramifications of being able to remote-control any machine via nanites. So sad.
Luckily, T4 doesn't have that problem. Instead, it feels like a corps of engineers and gamers sat down to brainstorm all the logical implications of what we've seen of enemy technology in the first two films. There's a dozen new Terminator and Hunter-Killer models in this film, and they've clearly been in operation for at least a couple years when the movie starts. They're believable, they're consistent, and they make sense. There's a hierarchy as well, you can eyeball roughly which machines were from which generation of design. Not a single plothole or logic flaw. Yes, there's still the need to outdo the previous films, but you understand why Arnold and the Silver Goo get sent back in time instead of any of the new machines we see later. There's a lot of subtlety, plent of details that click together thinking about it after the film. Genius work.
My only complaint is that Christian Bale doesn't let you in. He's charismatic, but aloof. He's cold and hard, even though his character obviously cares about the human condition. Very intense and barely contained, and yet the camera captures little empathy for him. For John Connor, considering his disturbing past and knowledge of his disturbing future, that makes perfect sense. Yes, John should be embittered and defiant and resigned all at once, and utterly unlike the people around him. My complaint then isn't so much with Bale's performance in this movie, it's with the fact that Bale's performance is so similar in some of his other films. Like he was typecast because of Batman. Just the same, it's better than the weak-willed self-hating John Connor of T3, so perhaps I should quit my bellyaching.
With Star Trek, I wasn't sure if the uncertainty of whether they'd resolve the plotholes and cannonical breaks was a bonus or detriment. With T4, that worry clearly detracted from the experience, yet it was still awesome. Watching it again later, knowing that it all makes sense, will be more enjoyable. At the moment, I'm trying to decide whether it's the best or second best film in the Terminator franchise. Guess I'm gonna have to buy the DVD so I can watch them in sequence and compare. Which is okay - this setting left me wanting to GM in it, so I'll need the DVD for campaign reference.
Which to watch? If you've got a one-ticket budget, and are trying to decide between the two films, I have some advice.
If you're looking for internally-consistent, tactically-sound, visually impressive sci-fi action, watch Terminator Salvation. It's got the tighter script, and a grittier feel.
If you're looking for a warm film with nostalgia and a touch of humor, go to Star Trek. It's got a couple minor plotholes, but it's fun and has enjoyable characters.
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