0720 where no one has gone before

Liz and Rome came by to pick me up to see a showing of “Star Trek” in a theatre. The movie’s been out for two months, but if you haven’t seen it and still want to be surprised, read something else. I’m gonna talk about what I saw.

The movie was showing at only a handful of theatres, but I found it at the AMC in the Marina Pacifica Mall in Long Beach. I have to say that, since a friend thought Marina Pacifica was in West Los Angeles.

After getting the tickets, we got some popcorn, soda, and candy. As I was stocking-up on Milk Duds, Liz asked, “Aren’t you restricted from eating chocolate?” I assured her that the restriction was lifted in 2007, but I hadn’t thought much about it. It was restricted not for nutritional reasons, but because chocolate causes saliva to form and at the time I was having problems with swallowing. A build-up of saliva used to cause me to choke. Fortunately, I overcame that. “Fortunately” because I am a chocoholic.

The movie was filled with action, but the director had changed some of the details. In the movie, Jim Kirk was an only child and his father died when he was born. In the series, Jim Kirk had an older brother and his father lived during his childhood years. In the movie, Spock’s mom was killed when the planet Vulcan was destroyed. In the series, Spock’s mom dies of natural causes at an old age and the planet Vulcan was never destroyed. And in the movie, there were scenes that suggested that the U.S.S. Enterprise (NCC-1701) was Dreadnought-class, not Constitution-class, because of a third warp nacelle.

I know that there’s a sequel in the works, but I wonder if this “new” history will supplant the “old” one. The one that was the basis of five series (I don’t count “Star Trek: Enterprise” because that took place earlier in the timeline) and ten movies. I know that it directly affected episodes in The Original Series, The Animated Series, and The Next Generation. I’ll have to think about Deep Space Nine and Voyager.

There are other details that changed, like knowledge of the Romulan-Vulcan connection, Sulu’s first assignment on the Enterprise was in Botany, and that Pike was an admiral at the end (in the series, he retired as a commodore; he never made admiral). I guess I’ll have to wait and see the sequel.

One nice thing about remaking it now. A Russian actor (Anton Yelchin) played Chekov and a British actor (Simon Pegg) played Scott, so accents were relatively accurate. However, when Anton saw tapes of Chekov from The Original Series, he said, “Real Russians don’t talk like that.” So he had to learn to talk like Chekov.

After the movie, we had dinner at the Acapulco Restaurant. Rome and I had Mango Mojitos, while Liz had a Margarita.

Dinner was good, but so was the stroll along the water afterwards. We parked by the theatre, which was on the other end of the parking lot. So we “walked” dinner off and looked at boats in the marina.

Rome was driving and he said, “We’re taking you home, but we’re not going straight home!” They treated me to a driving tour of Second Street, Ocean Avenue, and Shoreline Drive, before heading home on the 710 freeway. Some things have changed, but other things have stayed the same.

It was a lot of fun, and seeing a movie in an air-conditioned theatre on a hot day was a good idea. Rome and Liz, thanks a bunch!