He's Dead, Jim

Saw "Master and Commander" today, and the truly horrible thing about the movie is I had "Star Trek" flashbacks.

Yes, I know.  I'm a geek.  But I'm not so geeky that I frequently have "Star Trek" flashbacks.  It isn't like I see anything with a security officer in it and think, "Dude, you're dead by the first commercial."  What I'm saying here is that for something to give me "Star Trek" flashbacks, it has to affirmatively be enough like "Star Trek" to dredge the memories up from my hazy childhood.

And there were some places in "Master and Commander" in which Russell Crowe's character (Captain Aubrey) was decidedly Kirk-like.  And let's be real here -- if there's an actor you want to model your performance on, perhaps you want to aim a little higher than William Shatner.

Now, obviously, there's going to be some sort of overlap.  I mean, "Star Trek" was created on a Navy model -- they don't call it a space SHIP for nothing.  So, yeah, "Master and Commander" whistles are going to sound like "Star Trek" attention whistles, because they're both working from the same model.  Similarly, captains are going to be stuck wearing a little too much glittery braid on their uniforms in either universe.  But there's something more than that going on here.

I don't know whether it was Captain Aubrey's likeable commanderness; his casual friendship with the ship's doctor; his thinking outside the box; or his obvious flirtation with the only female in the movie ... or maybe it was the way Russell Crowe wore his vest too tight over his sizeable midsection ... or that when Aubrey wondered if he'd done something personal to the enemy ship's captain (like killing a relative), I immediately pictured Shatner yelling, "You Klingon bastard, you killed my son!" ... but somewhere I got the distinct impression that Captain Aubrey and Captain Kirk were created from the same mold.

Really.  About two hours in, I started checking the other officers for pointy ears and signs of logic.