I feel like I really ought to give this a second time chance a few months down the line and see what my impressions are of it then.

I really don't like Chris Pine though. It's not that he's a bad actor, because he isn't. But I feel like if we had went to high school together, we wouldn't have gotten along at all. He's a little too much of a pretty boy too. When you look at past captains - Shatner, Stewart, Avery Brooks, Bakula - none of them were ever in contention for being voted Sexiest Man Alive. Shater in his prime was not a bad looking guy by any means and his character slept with a whole lot of alien women, but he was no David Cassidy either. And honestly, that's part of the appeal of Trek. Picard was the best captain ever, because he validated the fanbase. He was balding, aging, average looks, but he was also brilliant, resolute, and courageous. He wasn't cool in any traditional sense of the word, but he was cool within nerd culture. But he still had some mainstream appeal too, because TNG was the most successful Trek TV series. Everyone in the Abrams movie is just a little too photogenic for my tastes.

You know, I was thinking. At the beginning of either Generation or First Contact, Picard finds out that his brother and young nephew died in a fire at their French vineyard. It was a very minor scene, but I think it also wreaks of missed potential. A series built around Picard's nephew could have worked. It would have taken place within a slightly futurized version of familiar universe and had opportunities for guest stars from TNG, but still would have given the writers enough distance from TNG to tell their own stories and build a new franchise in its own right.

Ermac wrote:

but that's a fault of all movies in general, you can't have clever successful people as the heroes because the audience feels intimidated

Yeah, but there's a certain douchey handsome look that certain guys have that just really makes me want to punch them. Chris Pines is one of them. Paul Walker is another. And pretty much the entire male cast of The Covenant, whom I'm only familiar with from the shitty trailers.

And not all successful actors are necessarily good-looking. Look at Tom Hanks, Jack Nicholson, and Nicolas Cage. They're all fairly normal looking guys. And guys like Tom Cruise, Edward Norton, Ben Affleck, and Hugh Jackman are certainly significantly better looking than your average person, but none of them are so good looking as to inspire any sort of jealousy.

Knyte wrote:

@ SoliderHawk: There is and forever shall be only one TRUE Bond. And, if he was here right now, he would smack you in the mouth.

Brosnan, Moore, Connery, and even Dalton were all excellent.

Yeah, it's hard to hate Brad Pitt.

DiCaprio has yet to impress me though.

SoldierHawk wrote:

I have, however, progressed beyond the 'I want to punch him in the face for Titanic' phase, which is actually quite an accomplishment.

Ditto. Still refuse to watch Titanic though.

It's just most of his stuff just doesn't interest me. I liked "What's Eating Gilbert Grape?", but that was primarily a Johnny Depp movie and DiCaprio was pretty much just furniture in it. I have been wanting to see Blood Diamond lately though. And he was good in The Departed, but I didn't like his character and was actively rooting for him to get killed.

Why would I ever want to see Titanic? Maybe someday I'll see it as some grand gesture for a girl or something, but otherwise, not interested.