Trekkies Bash New Star Trek Film As 'Fun, Watchable'
Apparently this new film contains some time-travel device which sort of resets the clock at the early years of the Enterprise, enabling JJ Abrams to make a whole slew of new films without having to adhere to established canon. There are a lot of fans upset about this one, as if the whole Trek universe will come crashing down on Friday. I disagree. I remember when TNG was announced. It was spring, 1987, and I had fallen in love with Trek the Christmas before after seeing the 4th film, "The Voyage Home," which enjoyed probably the most crossover success of any of the films, and is known to non-Trekkies as "The One With The Whales." I watched as many episodes as I could of TOS, I read books, fan magazines, and comics. I covered my walls with pictures of the USS Enterprise, and started the long process of accumulating an encyclopedic knowledge of every trivial detail of the show: episode names, character histories, timelines, alien races and cultures, etc. There were rumors of a new series being announced, set to take place nearly 100 years after the adventures of Kirk and Spock. It was to feature a boy genius, an android, a Klingon, and a blind pilot. I was so upset, I actually cried. No joke. That summer, I went to a convention and saw Majel Barrett Roddenberry give a presentation on the new show, complete with cast photos and images of the new ship. It looked pretty cool, but I wasn't really convinced. Of course, I wouldn't have missed it for anything, because it was still Trek, and I wanted to give it a chance. It premiered on 4 October 1987, 2 days after my 12th birthday. "Encounter At Farpoint" was cheesy, the costumes were terrible and the situations improbable, but the characters were fascinating, the ship looked awesome, and the story hit right to the heart of the hope and optimism that has been at the heart of Trek for over 40 years now. In a very real way, those TNG characters were my best childhood friends, and made me realize that the Universe is big enough to tell a lot of stories, and it's the stories and the people in them that matter, not the details. Trek is, at its core, about discovery, about the journey. When we turn away from what is new because it's different and might not fit into our understanding of the world, that's the opposite of discovery, the opposite of what the Great Bird Of The Galaxy intended when he gave us this gift all those years ago.
I'm ready for this new film, can't wait to see what Trek and Bad Robot can do...
P.S. I won a contest! The Grand Prize! I get a Trek t-shirt, a COMMUNICATOR!!, the graphic novel of the movie, and tickets to the sneak preview on Thursday night, so I'll see it a day before you. Don't worry, I won't post anything with plot details until Friday night, at which point it is fair game for discussion according to my strict Coletta Factor/spoiler guidelines.
5 comments:
"When we turn away from what is new because it's different and might not fit into our understanding of the world, that's the opposite of discovery, the opposite of what the Great Bird Of The Galaxy intended when he gave us this gift all those years ago."sage advice. applicable to anything and much appreciated, too.
I forgot to ask how you liked watching Star Trek? I took my father, who is a TOS fan, and my daughter, whom I've now converted from Star Wars. We just loved it! I was skeptical at first, being a TOS and Next Gen fan, but thoroughly enjoyed it.
I'll probably write a post about it in the next day or two, but the short answer is that it was frakkin' awesome!
I can't wait to read what you think, but if I must.
I just found out that I will be going to Alberta in July and have decided, due to overwhelming pressure from my daughter and my father, to visit Vulcan. This should be an interesting trip.
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