The “issue” of Alice Eve’s gratuitous T & A in Star Trek is a complicated one for me, because on the one hand, I’d really like to see better developed female characters in movies (better developed characters in general, really), but on the other, I quite enjoy seeing Alice Eve in her panties. It’s also hard to draw a line between not “exploiting” while simultaneously wanting people to lighten up about skin in general and accept the fact that deep down we’re just dumb animals that are engineered to want to rub genitals with each other, and part of that process is naturally objectifying. Is it really so much more enlightened to want to screw someone because they like the same crap as you and dress cool than it is because they have a hot bod? I’m not totally convinced. We all objectify each other a thousand times a day, just try to be polite about it.

Anyway, Damon Lindelof has, perhaps rightly, has been getting a lot of crap for Alice Eve’s character (though I’m not sure why the backlash has been so focused on Lindelof when there were two other writers and a director), a character who didn’t seem to have much to do besides strip down to her undies on a flimsy justification. (“Cor bloimey, guvna, oy rickin me shirt’s going to interfeah wiv da warp droives or somefin!”). Also, how is she British when her dad’s American? DASS RAYCESS. I digress, but it probably would’ve been more okay if her character had had more to do. I mean, we like to see Alice Eve in her underwear the same way we like to see spaceships explode and Chris Pine’s dreamy blue eyes, and half of the movie is a wish-fulfillment fantasy, but at least those are desires we try to justify in the story. As it was, it seemed like she was only there to take her shirt off. Which understandably makes people angry, because it makes it seems like that’s the only role women can play. That is a totally justified criticism. For the record, Damon Lindelof has conceded the point.

Via his Twitter:

- I copped to the fact that we should have done a better job of not being gratuitous in our representation of a barely clothed actress.
- We also had Kirk shirtless in underpants in both movies. Do not want to make light of something that some construe as mysogenistic.
- What I’m saying is I hear you, I take responsibility and will be more mindful in the future.
- Also, I need to learn how to spell “misogynistic.”

Good for Lindelof for admitting “okay, my bad,” instead of just ignoring it or changing the subject. (Orci was probably too busy ranting about false flags and building seven to comment).

Me, I’m just glad this whole sexism thing is finally behind us. (*cracks beer, puts hand down pants*)

“I’m in a glass case of emotion!”

The new trailer for the JJ Abrams-directed, Kurtzman/Orci/Lindelof-scripted Star Trek Into Darkness just hit the web this morning (not to be confused with the shorter teaser from last week or the teaser teaser before that). Like the trailer for the first one, the whole first half is voice over from Bruce Greenwood, who tells Kirk that even though he might be King Sh*t of Huge Balls Mountain right now, there’s going to come a day when his manly hubris and scrotum-based chutzpah are going to get people killed. Or as Val Kilmer would say, “I don’t like you, ’cause your dangerous.” (*air bite*) Greenwood plays Christopher Pike in the movie, but I prefer to think of this advice as coming straight from Greenwood himself. Did you know he lost a front tooth in a bar fight? He also does a mean trumpeting elephant impression. And you know you can trust him because he’s Canadian.

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"Yes, Dave, my penis is huge. Would you like to see it?"

I read a piece on David Fincher recently where he described a distinction between “films” and “movies.” He says The Game is a movie, Fight Club is a film. “A movie is made for an audience and a film is made for an audience and the filmmakers,” he explained. The way I extrapolate that statement is that I imagine a film as something that asks and attempts to answer the big questions, whereas a movie just sort of references them to use as playthings. You could say it’s the difference between art and entertainment, but let’s not, because I’d rather piss hot thumb tacks than get hung up arguing the semantics of “art.” Point being, what I found most compelling about Prometheus was they way it keeps you wondering whether you’re watching a “movie” or a “film,” schlock or philosophy.

It starts off as your basic, rag-tag-team-of-scientists plot. Noomi Rapace and Logan Marshall-Green play a husband-and-wife team researching similarities between ancient civilizations’ depiction of aliens. I could go into more detail, but long story short, as Rapace says, “I think they want us to come and find them!” Yeah, totally, that’s why they got some cavemen to draw their planetary system in wooly mammoth dung and hid it inside a cave 2,000 years ago. “The humans are sure to figure this one out!” they were probably thinking. But Rapace and Green are convinced that the aliens are some kind of race of “engineers,” who created humans.

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"Oh, hello."

With Vince out for the day having another rib removed, we can finally talk about some real movie news around here. I’m talking about zombie movie news, and, in this case, the most important zombie film ever made – World War Z. Unfortunately, this has been a problem-plagued project from the get go, especially that whole part about the film not being based on the book.

The latest word had the film being pushed back to January 2013 from its December release date because the film needed “significant” re-shoots. That’s the movie industry’s way of saying a girl has a great personality. Thankfully, the re-shoots won’t come until the film has been rewritten by Lost co-creator and the screenwriter equivalent of duct tape, Damon Lindelof.

Lindelof, the Lost co-creator and co-author of Ridley Scott and Fox’s Prometheus, is said to be focusing on the movie’s third act. The production hopes to begin reshoots in September or October.

Z, based on the 2006 novel by Max Brooks, is intended to be a zombie picture with sociological and political overtones. It also stars Mireille Enos (The Killing), James Badge Dale and Anthony Mackie. (Via THR)

Well, if he’s only rewriting the third act, that means the whole not based on the book thing is still happening, which is still a bit upsetting, but I actually have an idea for a re-shoot for the first and second acts that would solve all complaints…

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Ridley Scott and Damon Lindelof released the full-length trailer for Prometheus at Wondercon, and from the looks of it, it was BYOB. Bring Your Own (*BRAAAAAAAAHM*)

 In the distant future, two superpowers control Earth and fight each other for all the solar system’s natural resources. When one side dispatches a team to a distant planet to terraform it for human colonization, the team discovers an indigenous race of bio-mechanoid killers.
Ridley Scott, director of ‘Alien’ and ‘Blade Runner,’ returns to the genre he helped define. With PROMETHEUS, he creates a groundbreaking mythology, in which a team of explorers discover a clue to the origins of mankind on Earth, leading them on a thrilling journey to the darkest corners of the universe. There, they must fight a terrifying battle to save the future of the human race.
Starring Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Guy Pearce, Idris Elba, Charlize Theron, and Logan Marshall-Green, Prometheus is due in theaters June 8th. [AMC Theaters via TheDailyWhat]

Have you noticed that literally EVERY movie about the future has one of those giant holographic computer screens with icons that you move around with your hands? I’m convinced that that product actually exists, and this is just the longest viral marketing campaign in history.

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