Statistically speaking the title of this post appeals to you. Do you know why? Oh, hey, that’s cool. You can go check Wikipedia after you finish reading this article, because as much as I’d like to discuss the rhetorical applications of the rule of three with you, the contents of that title are what I’m all about right now, not the structure of it.
See, I like books. I like to read them, I like to write them. Sometimes I like to just sit and look at my bookshelf without actually taking anything off. Books are comforting to me.
My favorite kinds of books are fiction, specifically fantasy and sci-fi. More specifically sci-fi than fantasy. The reason for this is because these books aren’t about people. Okay, sometimes they are, but those are usually the fantasy and sci-fi books I don’t like. No, more often these books are about worlds with people in them. The Foundation books by Isaac Asimov are some of my favorites, and they have almost no common characters between them. I read The Lord of the Rings trilogy some seven times in high school, and the companion bible of Middle Earth, the Silmarillion, three. Tolkein isn’t a terrific writer. He’s pretty dry. But the world he created for those books is completely unparalelled in liturature. Books that give me a sense of world, a completeness of world, another time and place and a feel of history, are the books that sweep me away, that I’ll read again and again. I’ll spend hours delving into every nook and cranny of that world until I feel like I’m a part of it.
Now, movies. Movies are short, bite-sized chunks of entertainment similar in content to short prose, and in some cases poetry. I like short stories and poetry. I also like movies. But only in a few specific instances can a short story or poem give me the sense of world that a book can impart. Typically, they just don’t have the space. And I’m not talking about giving me characters that have a sense of knowing the world they live in. I’m talking about giving ME a sense of knowing the world they live in. Don’t tell me “there’s unrest in the government,” put me in the chair of someone involved in that unrest, show me the unrest, teach me about the origins of that unrest. If you can’t do that, it won’t seem real, and if it doesn’t seem real, it detracts from the reality of the world. Some movies can do this very well, The Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit among them. Most movies don’t. Most movies focus on characters and situations instead of worlds. This, like short stories and poetry, is an aspect of the medium, not a fault. But it’s why I don’t usually love movies. I like them fine, but they’ll only very rarely win my heart the way a good book will.
NOW! I told you all that so I could tell you this. Star Trek III: The Search For Spock completely squandered a shot at greatness through creating a world. The movie isn’t terrible, I’ve said this before. It’s just boring. There’s a few good character moments, between Bones, Kirk, David and Savik. But the moments where those actors imbued a little life into their characters were separated by wide swaths of dull that border on criminal in nature. Delving into the world between these moments would have, at least for me, removed the boredom and made the rest of the movie feel like a coherant package. The Excelsior is going to beat all of the Enterprise’s speed records? Why was the Enterprise so fast to begin with? Tell me about that, I’m interested. Why is the Excelsior going to be faster? I’m really interested in that. I get that Scotty sabotoged the Excelsior, but how? Give me those technological insights, I’m interested.
Then there’s the Genesis Planet. It’s a freaking planet that we just MADE from a nebula! How cool is that? And holy cow, the scientist responsible for it is on the surface? Why isn’t he completely enraptured with this world around him? I want to know details about the flora, about the geology, the geography, the atmosphere. Sure it’s Earth-like, and conducive to life, but how? The Genesis device repurposes matter, it doesn’t create it. Tell me about the material makup of the Mutara Nebula the planet was created from! Tell me about tectonic instability! You’ve got an entire planet there, created from fantastical technology. Tell me about it! I’m interested!
Instead, we get no details, a series of happenings and character motivation followed by a really dull fight and the end of the movie. The world wasn’t immersive. Sure, lots of movies are like that. The real tragedy here is that The Search for Spock could have been different. The lack of greatness is never so disappointing as the potential for greatness that was never realized. That was this movie, destined to be forever lost between two movies of a trilogy that did provide the immersion I wanted.
See, I like books. I like to read them, I like to write them. Sometimes I like to just sit and look at my bookshelf without actually taking anything off. Books are comforting to me.
My favorite kinds of books are fiction, specifically fantasy and sci-fi. More specifically sci-fi than fantasy. The reason for this is because these books aren’t about people. Okay, sometimes they are, but those are usually the fantasy and sci-fi books I don’t like. No, more often these books are about worlds with people in them. The Foundation books by Isaac Asimov are some of my favorites, and they have almost no common characters between them. I read The Lord of the Rings trilogy some seven times in high school, and the companion bible of Middle Earth, the Silmarillion, three. Tolkein isn’t a terrific writer. He’s pretty dry. But the world he created for those books is completely unparalelled in liturature. Books that give me a sense of world, a completeness of world, another time and place and a feel of history, are the books that sweep me away, that I’ll read again and again. I’ll spend hours delving into every nook and cranny of that world until I feel like I’m a part of it.
Now, movies. Movies are short, bite-sized chunks of entertainment similar in content to short prose, and in some cases poetry. I like short stories and poetry. I also like movies. But only in a few specific instances can a short story or poem give me the sense of world that a book can impart. Typically, they just don’t have the space. And I’m not talking about giving me characters that have a sense of knowing the world they live in. I’m talking about giving ME a sense of knowing the world they live in. Don’t tell me “there’s unrest in the government,” put me in the chair of someone involved in that unrest, show me the unrest, teach me about the origins of that unrest. If you can’t do that, it won’t seem real, and if it doesn’t seem real, it detracts from the reality of the world. Some movies can do this very well, The Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit among them. Most movies don’t. Most movies focus on characters and situations instead of worlds. This, like short stories and poetry, is an aspect of the medium, not a fault. But it’s why I don’t usually love movies. I like them fine, but they’ll only very rarely win my heart the way a good book will.
NOW! I told you all that so I could tell you this. Star Trek III: The Search For Spock completely squandered a shot at greatness through creating a world. The movie isn’t terrible, I’ve said this before. It’s just boring. There’s a few good character moments, between Bones, Kirk, David and Savik. But the moments where those actors imbued a little life into their characters were separated by wide swaths of dull that border on criminal in nature. Delving into the world between these moments would have, at least for me, removed the boredom and made the rest of the movie feel like a coherant package. The Excelsior is going to beat all of the Enterprise’s speed records? Why was the Enterprise so fast to begin with? Tell me about that, I’m interested. Why is the Excelsior going to be faster? I’m really interested in that. I get that Scotty sabotoged the Excelsior, but how? Give me those technological insights, I’m interested.
Then there’s the Genesis Planet. It’s a freaking planet that we just MADE from a nebula! How cool is that? And holy cow, the scientist responsible for it is on the surface? Why isn’t he completely enraptured with this world around him? I want to know details about the flora, about the geology, the geography, the atmosphere. Sure it’s Earth-like, and conducive to life, but how? The Genesis device repurposes matter, it doesn’t create it. Tell me about the material makup of the Mutara Nebula the planet was created from! Tell me about tectonic instability! You’ve got an entire planet there, created from fantastical technology. Tell me about it! I’m interested!
Instead, we get no details, a series of happenings and character motivation followed by a really dull fight and the end of the movie. The world wasn’t immersive. Sure, lots of movies are like that. The real tragedy here is that The Search for Spock could have been different. The lack of greatness is never so disappointing as the potential for greatness that was never realized. That was this movie, destined to be forever lost between two movies of a trilogy that did provide the immersion I wanted.
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