Star Trek, oh Star Trek.

I’ve been “between things” recently, so that’s why I have all this time to watch movies and write about them. There’s a box set of the original five Star Trek movies on Blue Ray on a shelf next to where I sleep. The answer is, Yes. I’ve been watching them.

I’ve never watched the Search for Spock all the way through so I decided to rectify that. And I failed. I got about halfway in and just gave up. It’s a Long Ass Movie and it’s not helped by the slow as nails pacing and overall boring-ness especially when compared to The Wrath of Khan, which Search is the sequel to.

This is the lone blemish on my otherwise flawless record. I’ve seen every other Star Trek movie ever made, even the ghastly Final Frontier, which I know we’d all love to forget ever existed.

As I re-watched these six fabled classics I, of course, began to think about the more recent Star Trek movies. I know that a lot of Trek fans don’t really like them, but I gotta say, whatever faults those movies have, they are FAR from the worst it gets.

I prefer the humorous Star Treks like The Voyage Home, you know, the one with the whales or the parts of First Contact when the Next Gen crew are befuddled by Zefram Cochrane’s alcoholism. I guess the new Treks aren’t that humorous, and they have a lot more flash and fire than the traditional Treks. They seem to have taken their acting cues from the brash gallantry of Kirk and Riker rather than the eggheads we all actually like watching, such as Spock, Picard and Data. Everybody argues in New Trek. The bridge feels more like a boxing ring rather than the helm of a huge beautiful starship, the players feel more like whiny college students than professional explorers.

But I still like watching them. For all they’re faults, they’re better than a large sample of Star Trek movies. I will list the Treks that are worse: The Search for Spock, The Final Frontier, Generations, Insurrection and Nemesis. Honestly the only ‘Next Gen’ movie that holds up is First Contact.

I’m not trying to talk shit, I’m just being objective. You can love something and be critical of it. Heck, I posted earlier how Starship Troopers is my favorite movie of all time.

So don’t get me wrong, I still think there are original Treks that easily outshine the rowdy bluster of these New ones. I guess I’m just happy they’re still making Star Trek and they’re doing a pretty good job, all things considered. Was Kirk’s revival in Into Darkness really any crazier than the revival of Spock with the Genesis torpedo?

Maybe they shouldn’t have tried to remake the Wrath of Khan, but you know what? The Wrath of Khan isn’t really that great. I mean it’s fun, and it presents Star Trek in its “mature” style for the first time with a well imagined space battle, that in terms of special effects still looks pretty good. It also shows us how world weary our heroes had become, and it has the Kobayashi Maru. Yes. It’s a classic. But… eh. Star Trek, for me, is about fun.

And New Trek is fun. I guess I appreciate that they’re trying to make exciting movies rather than pandering to a fanbase that has always been fickle. A fanbase that, even I as a Trek enthusiast I find tiresome. Trekkies, in my mind, represent an old guard of nerd-dom that started to see its kingdom crumble right about when Iron Man transitioned from a b-list comic book hero into a gazillion dollar franchise. Because you don’t own Star Trek. You are not the arbiter.

My mom likes Star Trek. She’s pretty into Jean-Luc Picard, and I admit that I’m pretty fond of the captain too. One of my old coworkers who also likes Star Trek used to call Picard “captain wooden-head” because she found Picard to be god awfully boring. I don’t understand how anyone could feel that way, but you know what? There’s no ‘right’ way to enjoy Star Trek.

So some people didn’t like Into Darkness. I guarantee its not the first time they disliked a Trek movie, and if it is, your tastes are nonsensical. Besides these movies are based on a show that visited places like the “Nazi Planet” or features androids who travel back in time to befriend Mark Twain and almost every alien race looks exactly like a human with a little silicon ridge of one shape or another glued to their forehead. Some of the aliens don’t have any ridges at all. Yeah I know, they explained why that is in an episode of Next Gen, but who cares? It’s more fun to enjoy it rather than obsess over it.

Besides the best Star Trek movie of all time isn’t even technically Star Trek.

I just re-watched When Harry Met Sally, and I must admit its still pretty good. I remember watching it either in high school or middle school with my friend Ben, because for some reason at that time he was SUPER into rom-coms. He watched Friends regularly and his favorite movie, for some inexplicable reason was “Kissing a Fool” starring David Schwimmer and Jason Lee.

Anyway, there’s a part in When Harry Met Sally that has always stuck in my head. Near beginning Sally tells Harry that they’ll just have to be friends rather than pursue anything romantic, at which point Harry explains that men and women can never truly be friends. “Because the sex part always gets in the way,” he sagely reveals.

In one sense this sets up the friendship they later form and also predicts the doom of that friendship which ultimately morphs into a romance. I originally watched this movie at a formative age, and Harry’s claim about the impossibility of platonic friendships with the opposite sex has, for better or worse, always stuck in my head.

Today I am a 27 year old man and I like to think that I’m “just friends” with a number of women. The use of the classifier “just”, however, is totally needless. On the internet it’s easy to find examples of a campaign against the concept of something called “The Friendzone” which is a term that did not exist at the time of Harry’s speech. I don’t think that Harry felt he’d been “friendzoned”, rather I think he was just being honest with Sally when he told her he didn’t really want to be friends.

I wonder how many other young men have seen this and taken Harry’s words at face value: “men and women Can’t Be Friends because Sex.” Being “just” friends with someone who you’re attracted to can be tough, and I’ll admit I myself have ruined friendships in the past with the dreaded “hook up”.

Over the course of the film Harry proves himself wrong by striking up a deep and decidedly sex-less friendship with Sally. Then, of course, because this is a genre with certain preexisting requirements, they have sex. Then, at some point after this they decide they’re in love.

But the questions remains. Can men and women be friends? I left the “just” out because I think the questions sounds more serious and inspires deeper consideration without it. Can men and women be friends?

Easy answer. Yes they can. I have several.

But I also think that Harry was partially right. It’s not cut and dry, but in many friendships between heterosexual people of the opposite sex a specter of attraction can hover even when it has been banished by formal declarations.

“We’re just friends,” is a statement that can be tough for some single men (I believe, maybe I’m projecting an obnoxious part of myself onto others) to say to their male peers, because there is an emasculating subtext. I’m not saying that the ‘subtext’ is grounded in reality, but I think there is a modicum perceived weakness in the “just friend” statement. For if a man is friends with a woman but they are not romantically entangled, a weaker male mind might see two possibilities. First that the man has been rebuffed by the woman yet he still spends time with her, in which case he’s hopelessly “out of his league” or something. Or possibility two: that the man doesn’t know how to seduce her properly, in which case he’s a “pansy” or a “coward”. Both of these premises assume something that is often assumed of men: that all they think about is sex.

In When Harry Met Sally, Harry does think about sex a lot. True to form he has casual sex much more readily than Sally. Harry’s male friend is suitably confused about how Harry can be friends with a woman he’s not having sex with. Harry then assures his male friend that he’s having plenty of great sex with other women so there’s nothing to worry about. This solves that problem.

I still really like this movie, and it has lots of great lines, and it also underscores how romance and friendship are tightly entangled but it does make some assumptions that don’t totally hold up today. In some respects I wish I’d never heard Harry say “Men and women can never be friends,” because it makes me wonder if it didn’t color some of my interactions with women over the years. On the flip side it is important to recognize feelings of attraction, whether or not you choose to act on them, which I think is what Harry really meant. If you are going to pursue someone’s company, in whatever form, whether it be for friendship or something else, you have to be honest with yourself and it doesn’t hurt if you’re honest with the other person too.

Honesty is also what our titular characters must grapple with, and it is what ultimately saves their relationship. Similarly I think honesty is what critics of the term “Friendzone” are up in arms about. If you’re going act like a friend then you should BE a friend. Be honest.

In the end though, I’m not an expert. I don’t know much. When Harry Met Sally is still a good watch, though.

I was surprised to find during my recent re-watch that my favorite line in I, Robot is not actually in the movie at all. There’s a scene when Lt.John Bergin (played by Boston Public’s principle Chi McBride) get’s up from behind his desk and cocks a shotgun in preparation to destroy some robots. I distinctly remember him saying, “School’s back in session!” at this juncture, but he does not. As I stroked my chin in confusion I realized that actually it wasn’t McBride who said the line. It was my friend Josh who, when we went to see I, Robot in theaters in 2004, loudly cackled it both to me and the rest of the theater.

This proves two points. Firstly that sometimes audience participation really does enhance the experience. And secondly that our memories are murky things that should not be trusted.

In this case, however, I found I, Robot was pretty much just as mediocre as I remembered. There are some funny things that date it. For instance there’s an extremely young Shia LaBeouf on display. His inclusion in the movie seems completely arbitrary. He’s barely even a character. Also there’s a lot of slow motion action sequences which feel more like a stylistic hold over from The Matrix than anything that’s actually necessary.

Of course the real reason to see I, Robot is to watch Will Smith do his Will Smith thang. Will Smith is one of those actors that essentially plays the same character in every movie, though I’d still argue that his repertoire is really a kaleidoscopic umbrella under which he can give us many different Will Smiths. Me and my friends like to say the key to Will Smith is that his characters ‘don’t play by the rules’. That’s like his central tenant. Seriously watch one of his movies, you’ll see. He just doesn’t play by the rules.

Don’t get me wrong, I like Will Smith. But even the proverbial rule breaking Will Smith in I, Robot isn’t so great. He’s supposed to be a grouchy detective who’s scarred by the past. Let me tell you, it’s not the Will Smith we want to see.

On the other hand the movie opens with him getting out of bed shirtless (which maybe you do want to see?). Then we see him workout a little and then he takes a shower. This is all super boring in terms of the plot. Finally he’s ready to walk out the door, but first he makes sure to put on a pair of “vintage” 2004 (the movie is set forty years in the future) Converse All Stars. “A thing of beauty,” he whispers before donning them. It’s basically a shoe ad. Then he struts out the door into a city full of robots.

And the movie has finally begun!

But first he has to stop at his grandmother’s house, who of course asks him, “What’s that on your feet?”

Will Smith quickly educates her as to their branding and vintage, while propping them up so that she and the audience can get a good look. It’s such brazen product placement that it’s almost entertaining.

Now the movie may begin. There’s a murder plot, and chases and escapes. Will Smith says stuff and does stuff, most remarkably he rides a door like a surfboard out of collapsing building. The robots are very reminiscent of the old iMacs, which makes them look sort of old, even though they’re clearly supposed to look new. It’s not a bad movie but it’s not that great either. If you’re looking for a solid Will Smith fix, you should look for it elsewhere.

I didn’t realize until after the movie was over that the character Sonny (one of the robots) is actually Gollum-suit-acted by Alan Tudyk, who’s famous from the much lauded cowboys in space show Firefly. I’m not sure if he does a good job or not. It’s always hard to tell with those Gollum-suits. In this case it’s even harder because Sonny delivers his lines in a sort of droning innocent Hal-esque way. Which is fine, I guess. Robots will be robots.

I have to say that the special effects were pretty good at the time of this movie’s release. Unfortunately they’ve gotten even better since then. Somewhere between the release of Avatar and the first Avengers movie I stopped caring much about special effects because it all started to look totally real to me. I know it takes hundreds of magicians working tirelessly on a fleet of super powered computers to render it all, but I just don’t give it as much thought as I used to. I no longer suspend my disbelief. What’s on the screen, these days, is pretty darn convincing. But the 2004 digital effects of I, Robot don’t quite hold up. They have an artificial quality (Ha! Get it? Artificial?). They’re sort of fun, but also kind of distracting. Much like the Star Wars prequels.

Ultimately I don’t have the heart rip the movie apart, but I’m not sure I can recommend it either. If you’re stuck inside during a blizzard like I was it can be a fun time. Just don’t forget that the best line in the movie might have to be supplied by the audience.