Why is having a shot of Uhura taking off her shirt necessary for the new Star Trek trailer?
Why does the only major female character on that ship have to strip down?
(Well, obviously it's to titillate the audience with sex in hopes of better selling the movie to the public -- but I'm just letting them know I'm calling them out on it!)
see io9 for a complete shot-by-shot breakdown of the trailer.
(And yes, I know there is also a scene of a half-nude Kirk having sex with what looks to be an Orion Animal Woman. My. Point.)
They still have bras in the future? I thought all of that was taken care of by force fields.
ReplyDeleteAfter seeing the trailer, I'm a bit skeptical about the film as a whole. But, well, haven't seen it yet, so...
All I'll say is that showing young Kirk driving a car is a grave mistake. As I'm sure we all know, he was unable to drive a car in TOS.
A grave, grave mistake.
I've always loved Trek but I'm not sure I'm in for this movie. I could dig this cast, this ship, everything... if it was set on another ship in the Trek universe and the characters had different names. But being new and different is much harder than tweaking pre-existing concepts so that was never a possibility, I guess.
ReplyDeleteA legion of male trekkies have dreamed of Uhura boobies for years!
ReplyDeleteHooray for Uhura boobies!!!!
Well, with the current state of the Star Trek franchise, they don't just need to titillate the audience to get people in the seats, they ned to give everyone fre tickets...
ReplyDeleteYes, it's sad they have to resort to such obvious T&A techniques to generate interest, but it's due to the sad state of the franchise that's creating that need. Hopefully J.J. Abrams can turn it around.
Why is the Uhura Bra Scene even in the movie? What possible plot point could require this scene in a movie from a "family friendly" franchise? Evidently in space, no one can hear you sexually objectify Starfleet officers.
ReplyDeleteWhy, 'cause it's ABRAMS, of course! It's so people know this Trek is HEP, MAAAAAN ...
ReplyDeletePlus, I really would have hoped that science would have created a more sophisticated -- nay, ergonomic, even -- bra by that point in time.
ReplyDeleteWell, I remember how in the trailer for the movie "The Craft" there was this inexplicable scene where one girl had her shirt off, and the other one was rubbing her. Probably a totally harmless scene, which was cut out of the final movie. But why was it even in the movie trailer? For teh sex appeal.
Used to be known among my male friends a "the craft naked lesbian scene"
Evidently in space, no one can hear you sexually objectify Starfleet officers.
ReplyDeleteI'm waiting for someone to mention the TOS short skirts and the sheer amount of woman flesh that appeared on that show. Orion slave girls anyone?
Sex and Star Trek are no strangers.
I think people are just kind of offended that an iconic and idealized character like Uhura is being treated like just another piece of flesh. I like to think we want all of our favorite characters to be treated with dignity. But then, I'm sure there's a huge segment of fanboys that want to do her.
Not a Trekkie, but I do know that Uhura is one of the most memorable/sexy to a fans of Trek. So, for the new one to have the "strip" scene is exciting, plain and simple. I mean, she isn't scantily clad. She is mostly covered, and she does have the bra on. I guess if you're a kid that is like the best-scene-in-the-movie type o'deal. I Don't think it's being sexist. Plus, Zoe Saldana is very attractive and she's show a little bit of that. Wonder who else is in the scene. But according to the seduction of green women in the one scene, I'm sure it'll be a Kirk fling with a Uhura, just make Trekkies go, "I knew IT!" - Followed by the Conan O'Brian push-up-glasses hand-gesture.
ReplyDeleteAside from this explaination, I really don't wanna see it. Heh. Sorry, after all that build, I know. It just looks like eye-candy mixed with familiarity and that's it. Not much of a story. I mean, it is Abrams. I have yet to see him do a story on his own with out rippin' off somethin'. Even with the Star Trek mythos-net, he'll fail.
My older brother wants to see it. He's hilarious. My bro isn't really into any nerdy stuff as big as I am, as in quantity, but when it comes to Star Trek, Buffy, Smallville, and a handful of other things... He likes all the nerd stuff that is considered stereotype, and that's awesome.
But, anyways, back to the FAILING. I think, and you watch, it'll happen, that the movie will make some killer weekend box-office, and then the reviews come out. Majority of non-specific entertainment reviews, like local and/or general entertainment mags and newspapers will have decent reviews cause they don't wanna rock the boat due to the fanbase. But it'll be like a week, I'll give it a month, and all the Trekkies'll start basin' it. No, no, no. Uhura would never...yak yak. What was with the metrosexual Spock!? ARgh. Why wouldn't Kirk just set his phaser to kill? I mean...ugh. Worst SCOTTY EVER! Heh. (Oddly enough, I think Simon Pegg's Scotty will be the decent part of the movie with his can't-help-but-laugh-with-him humor.)
But, ya, if I could, I'd pass on this one.
Am I so in for this movie it's ridiculous. I have been a fan my whole life I can't wait for a new perspective and take on my favorite series.
ReplyDeleteBart Jarmusch, family friendly? Maybe you've never seen an epise with Kirk or Riker in it.
As far as the bra, it's sexy. Isn't Uhura supposed to be sexy? Smart, sophisticated, strong, atractive. She was all those in TOS. Besides, not everyone spends all day in their uniform.
What struck me was your reminder that Uhuru is the only major female character. I guess that's true, but I'm surprised.
ReplyDeleteI guess I'd gotten so used to trek getting more and more egalitarian (Illya, then the Doc and Counselor, then Janeway) that when we go to a reboot, its really odd because the casting decisions have to fit what was bold in the 1960s.
As long as they don't have Uhuru have to go though decontamination goo-rubbing, the new movie will be an advance on the latest Trek sexism.
Actually, I'm hoping Uhura is a sex-positive character. Fingers crossed.
ReplyDeleteWhoo HOO! We're gonna see Orion slave girl fangirls all over the place once this hits!
ReplyDelete(I once attended a convention masquerade where the Orion slave girl auctioned off a kiss for charity. I think the lucky sod paid $100 in 1988 dollars. Yes, he got his money's worth.)
Wait... so Kirk was the last of the crew to be commissioned? Heh. And that clip of young Kirk? He's driven a long way from Riverside, Iowa... They couldn't show something cool on the Moon?
And yes, regarding Uhura's bra... the uniform should have tailored support. But then, they'd have to reshoot the scene... and if you think this is bad, how about her fandance from ST V? (At least Nichelle Nichols was able to use her talented voice...)
Val, while I love your blog, I'm compelled to say that you're a tad puritanical in your confusion of sexy and sexist. I don't find anything necessarily harmful or anti-intellectual about this, nor do I find Sawyer's shirtlessness in Lost (Adams' other project) offensive. Speaking as a heterosexual man, it's just sexy and human and energetic.
ReplyDeleteTorsten beat me to it.
ReplyDeleteI am not excited by the film. They keep telling me it's not a reboot. But Kevin Smith saw the film and said it was a reboot. I'm not interested in a reboot.
Kirk was topless _all the time_ in the original series. Unless there's a gratuitious topless scene with Uhura or Yoeman Rand or someone, I think we're ok.
ReplyDeleteI get your concerns, though...other people have stated things better than I could.
However, what's wrong with a reboot? Just say it takes place in an alternate reality and "our" Trek is still going on just fine. What's wrong with that?
"However, what's wrong with a reboot? Just say it takes place in an alternate reality and "our" Trek is still going on just fine. What's wrong with that?"
ReplyDeleteBecuase Star Trek is about moving FORWARD, not going back like they did with Enterprise or doing the same thing over and over. I want to see what happens after Voyager gets home. I want to know what a post-DS9 universe looks like. I want us to approach the 25th century. I want us to stop living in Kirk-worship and give us a new Captain who can enter into debates over who's the best Captain.
If Riker had been running around in The Next Generation movies in a banana hammock, I'd concede the point. But as a franchise, Star Trek has tended to avoid such base sexual objectification (well, not Voyager and Seven of Nine). Riker and Kirk's exploits go to their character, but having the camera focus on Uhura's undergarments is solely titillating.
ReplyDeleteI don't have any interest in seeing this movie.(but I may copy that trailer)
ReplyDeletebut seriously let this series die. The shows since DS9 have been bad. The movies have been worse.
I was just wondering the SAME thing about the new Fast and Furious trailer. There's a split second scene of two blonde girls making out. It was so brief that my boyfriend didn't even notice xD. I think there's two possibilities. A) They want to sell tickets to as many people as possible, not just Trekkies, so they're trying to appeal to as many people as possible and consider it harmless. Or B) the movie is SO bad that they think only people who are in it for Uhura's boobies are going to go. Hopefully it's Option A for Star Trek, but it's probably something like Option B for Fast and Furious haha.
ReplyDeleteIs that green skin or is that the lighting? That could be a simple earth girl.
ReplyDelete"Becuase Star Trek is about moving FORWARD, not going back like they did with Enterprise or doing the same thing over and over. I want to see what happens after Voyager gets home. I want to know what a post-DS9 universe looks like. I want us to approach the 25th century. I want us to stop living in Kirk-worship and give us a new Captain who can enter into debates over who's the best Captain."
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, it's too late for those shows. Trek has become so divided into subsets, a genre where the fans are so protective, that they almost have to go back in order to start over. If you do a Voyager movie, DS9 fans get mad. If you continue with TNG, fans of the Original Series get bored and annoyed. They seem to be combining all the aspects of each series (and there's no reason why Sisko or Picard couldn't go back in time and hang out with this new cast...Patrick Stewart is still damn spry for his age, and Avery Brooks is still an imposing presence)...
Don't get me wrong, I agree about going forward, but I just don't see it happening. I'm reserving judgment until the movie comes out.
Time to be the angry geek. Okay, actually I'm not angry at all. But that trailer made me not want to see this movie.
ReplyDeleteIt's like they took everything I don't like- teenybopper style acting, cutesy one-liners, over the top action and really lame would-be badass action movie lines- and stuck it all in there, leaving out any of the stuff that actually defines Star Trek.
Which is fine in terms of broadening the franchise's appeal. God knows at this point you'd be dumb aiming a huge, expensive movie of this nature at hardcore fans. There are too few of us to turn a profit for the studio at this point.
But I do wonder why remakes tend to be dumbed down. Must everything be made loud and stoopid? Must Kirk be a "good looking rebel from the wrong side of the tracks" who'd be more at home in an episode of The OC than on a starship bridge? Hiding under beds in sexy predicaments, roaring off on a motorcycle, pissing off Spock and Pike and everyone with his overweening arrogance and "play by my own rules" bad boy ways... until at the end after he's defeated the cosmic menace of Eric Bana and there's a moment where Spock calls him "Jim" and we know they've become bestest friends.
And is he going to go from rankless outsider to captain of Starfleet's flagship on the basis of one adventure? Have they decided there's even less of a need for plausibility for this movie?
That opening sequence with the car-stealing Leif Garrett lookalike? Wow, that's terrible, terrible stuff.
Heck, after seeing that trailer I feel as though I've already seen the movie. Half the new elements in this flick seem to be things that are already cliches. This is more Rollerball and Death Race than it is anything akin to the cerebral (but sometimes silly) original. I'm just not sure the new direction is going to have that longterm pop cultural resonance the original had.
It kind of seems there's little for old schoolers and not much for modern audiences they haven't already seen and been bored by in other similar "reimaginings."
There may be a more enticing trailer down the road for us old school weirdos but for now I'm going to enjoy the marathon of remastered original series episodes that's going to run on SuperDrama here in Japan this weekend and just pretend the new movie doesn't exist.
But yeah, I'm not mad, just alienated and amused. I've done the comic book iconoclast thing too often to get very upset about this kind of thing. I've grown out of this movie's demographic range, it seems and hey... I can live with it.
But can Paramount? They better hope for some really killer reviews and some weak competition that weekend!
After reading the other comments here, I really feel this movie is going to underperform. The reviews will probably be middling-fair. They'll say it's "Trek for a new generation," that apart from some familiar names and a few bones tossed to hardcore fans (Trekkies vs. Trekkers will figure into it) it lacks anything distinguishing it from generic space opera like the regrettable Wing Commander movie and that atrocious Lost in Space remake...
ReplyDeleteIt'll hit big the first weekend if nothing else is released, then drop to number 2 on so-so word of mouth and eventually become the Superman Returns of the Trek world instead of the Batman Begins. It'll turn a profit but I can't see it doing much business overseas. There is zero anticipation for this flick here in Japan now that I've lost interest.
People here are going to be more into the Harry Potter flick. It'll roar into theaters in the summer, while Trek will limp over here in the early fall and play a week at most. I didn't even get to see Iron Man, it was gone so fast! But Dark Knight played for over a month!
Actually, what we saw in TOS was that Kirk couldn't drive stick. As long as the car in the clip is an automatic, continuity is preserved.
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised at some of these comments going up. I honestly thought that the feminist comics blogging community had already dealt with the whole "male nudity =/= female nudity due to the completely different contexts surrounding the representation of each" thing.
ReplyDeleteJust because the Shat got shirtless a few times doesn't give Abrams a carte blanche to shove fan service in his films.
star trek: big dumb action movie!
ReplyDelete"Becuase Star Trek is about moving FORWARD"
ReplyDeleteYeah, but they hurt the space/time "environment" if they go more than warp 5. What fun is that?
A rebooted trek can go Warp 9.
Also, more seriously, they filled in too many of the edges of the map in the canon Trek. We could do a post-federation-apocalypse trek I suppose, where 300 years after TNG a new starfleet goes out to recover from a dark age.
No one is saying it's ok.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I find it interesting to look at this via our own generation's view of women, when the original show had women in miniskirts and go go boots.
I'm not saying it's right or wrong, just saying that I've always found the portrayal of women in Trek and the attitudes about *actual sex* or arousal in Trek to be at odds. It's an interesting thing.
Oh it's totally sexist - movies are made For Men, so you have Men doing Manly things with their Macho Mannitude, and then off to the side there's The Chick, and just to make it clear to the audience that she is The Chick, you show 'em the goods.
ReplyDeleteIt's no more sexist than like, 90% of every movie ever made. But how much is that really saying?
pduggie, I really like that idea. You should submit that shit.
ReplyDeleteAbrams is making a movie for the next generation of fans. Introduce them to TOS this way. Maybe it will pique their interest.
Now I don't know if I would call myself a hardcore fan, but I have seen every episode of every series multiple times. People with the problems before the movie comes out are the same people who've had problems with every movie that has come out since the 1st movie.
Honestly, only in rare circumstances can you tell if a movie is going to suck from the trailer. I mean "suck" not in terms of your personal feelings, but "suck" as in overall quality.
Uhura taking her shirt off and exposing her future bra *gasp* is extremely tame compared to many of the costumes that have been worn by both men and women since TOS.
You know this. So why are you getting upset over something that is considered "PG" in the movie?
Because it's not how is supposed to be? Says who? You?
Get something straight. You are a fan. You do not represent all fans. This movie is not for you. It's for anybody and everybody.
If it sucks, it sucks. I doubt it would suck more than the last 2 TOS movies.
I totally disagree. You usually can tell if a movie's going to suck from a trailer if the trailer gives enough of the story and movie aesthetic away. Did anyone think Epic Movie was going to be the cat's pajamas based on its trailer? Did anyone and then they saw it and were bitterly disappointed?
ReplyDeleteI don't even think this movie's going to suck, just that the trailer's so full of obviously cliched junk it doesn't bode well.
Nor does the trailer's ability to draw mostly negative reactions.
Looks more like big budget mediocrity so far. If a trailer's intent is to get various people excited about seeing a movie, then this one fails. But is it worth getting angry about? Not really. It's silly enough I've mostly been thinking of goofy jokes based on it.
Apropros of Nearly Nothing: Why is it that I buy into almost all geekery, and have never given a rat's ass about STAR TREK (Okay, wait... I liked Nickelodeon's STAR TREK cartoon when I was a little kid)
ReplyDeleteBart Jarmusch, Uhura showing her bra in her quarters is a different situation than Riker running around in a banana hammock. Come on. It’s like you said the first thing that came to your head instead of thinking about it.
ReplyDeleteJoel Bryan, I'm sorry. I would really love to discuss and debate this point with you, but comparing Star Trek and Epic Movie.
Really?
Epic Movie? Really? You're gonna compare those two movie trailers? I somewhat understand what your point is, but it’s not made well at all. You just cannot compare those 2 movies. It’s like comparing a car and a bowl of spaghetti to eachother. Doesn’t work.
Bart, Joel, I apologize for coming off insulting, but I don’t know how else to say it. I’m always open for a different perspective, but it’s hard for me to see your points because they are wild leaps mixed with poor arguments and terrible comparisons.