So I saw the movie, and I’ll admit, I liked it. Going action, and good acting, but it’s really hard to think of specific moments when it’s much easier to focus on the bad, so I’ll get that out of the way, hopefully without giving too much away.

Now, I haven’t watched the original series, and much of my knowledge regarding it is secondhand, but I’m sure some things in this will annoy purists. To begin with, the extent of Uhura’s characterization is “Spock’s girlfriend who can speak alien languages”. She’s still very competent, but it seems like her character has just been very simplified.

Kirk is fine. For the majority of the film, he does seem to know what he’s doing, but for the opening part of the film, he just seems like someone who’s only the main character because Commander Pike is able to let him be that.

The plot progression of the movie is probably it’s biggest flaw. It has a bizarre opening, a strong middle, and a cheap ending. What I mean for the first and third parts is that I find the villain’s initial plot to be rather convoluted. It’s not very difficult to follow, but it just seems like it required one step too many.

As for the ending, it has to do with what this movie ultimately is. There is a line of dialogue early on that makes it clear what this movie is going to be, and near the very end, it does it’s best to be that, but it just felt like switching things up for the sake of standing out. That’s all well and good, but that doesn’t change the fact that the ending feels very rushed. If the point of this new series is to make things easy for newcomers, it failed at its job. Many of the attempts to call back to the old series are so obvious that it just feels like the writers were telling me “See! We watched the old show and the movies!” I get it, they know the source material, and they want to embrace it, but sometimes it just feels like they were so intent on honoring the old that they couldn’t be bothered to commit to doing anything new.

Finally, there’s the visuals, and I don’t mean a shot of Alice Eve only in her underwear. Actually, wait, that is what’s important. No, not that, you perverts. I do often find it to be rather nitpicking to focus on camera angles of all things, but this movie was really pushing it. This movie abuses dutch angles rather often, and one scene in the opening has a very unnecessary turn of the camera where the scene starts from the side, as if the whole world got titled in a ninety degree angle. Furthermore, there are plenty of close ups, and when John Harrison is introduced, there’s a dramatic close up on his face, like we’re supposed to know who he is. “Benedict Cumberbatch? What are you doing here?”

And of course, I have to talk about the lens flares. I didn’t pay attention to them in the past, mostly because I hadn’t heard that this was a thing JJ Abrams is infamous more, but after seeing this movie, I have to wonder how I didn’t pick up on this a lot sooner. It gets extremely obvious, mostly on scenes set on the Enterprise, and often ruins the very atmosphere the lens flares are supposed to establish. The compare this to audio, it would be like having characters talking, but you can barely hear them over how loud the dramatic music is. There’s something great going on, but it’s hard to appreciate it when something is in the way for no good reason.

I’m sure I’ll find other ways to complain about, but those are the flaws I really needed to get out of the way. If you enjoyed the first movie, go see this in spite of what I’ve said. It is ultimately a fun movie, and not in the sense that you have to turn your brain off to actually enjoy it.

(Source: divinise-moved)

Seriously, chapters like this remind me why I love this series so much.

Shikamaru getting everyone to learn Rock techniques.

Kakashi taking Obito’s philosophy, using it against him, and saying that Obito is even worse than the scum he once spoke of?

Minato teleporting a bijuudama.

Seriously, chapter 631?

sound-sasuke:

So apparently Juubi was a giant Vileplume in disguise. Huh.

No, everyone was right and he just started off as a Bulbasaur, and now he’s a Venusaur.

aakhaten:

There are shipping wars.

And there has only been a promo.

ONE

PROMO

For heaven’s sake we barely even understand Alice’s character from the promo, don’t start shipping things yet, it’s stupid.

I for one am quite proud.

So I saw the trailer for this show, and I’m interested. I’ll try not to be a puritan and criticize many of the inaccuracies to the novel, especially when I haven’t read it yet, mostly because I get what they’re trying to do.

However, one thing stood out to me. Dracula has an alias in this show, if not his actual name. I don’t believe the trailer actually refers to him by name, but it could be because if he went around using his old name, his enemies could easily find him. He is known as “Alexander Grayson”, which immediately made me think of Alexander Graham Bell.

However, the trailer seems to suggest that Dracula invented the lightbulb, which is something that many people attribute to Thomas Edison, even though it’s commonly agreed that he just ripped off Nikola Tesla.

As such, I have a theory. Dracula / Alexander Grayson is in fact Alexander Graham Bell, who tried to rip off Nikola Tesla, but Thomas Edison ultimately took credit for the idea. Grayson kept the name “Alexander”, but changed his surname to “Bell”, opting to invent the telephone instead.

I want to say that Tesla is actually Jonathan Harker so we can go for the “Tesla is the hero and Edison is the villain” story, but given my theory, it wouldn’t work, so Tesla would have be some side character. Thus, I can only conclude that Tesla will be Abraham Van Helsing, who is trying to get revenge on Grayson for stealing his inventions.

For an added bonus, I just learned that Bram Stoker, Thomas Edison, and Alexander Graham Bell were all born in 1847. Somehow, I don’t find it too hard to believe that at least part of my theory will be correct.