The new Star Trek film is just fine. The thing I like the most about it is it takes some of the sacred cows of science fiction --time travel, for example-- and tosses it on its head. It doesn't just reinvent characters, it allows them to continue to evolve past how the audience knows them.
So, go give Abrams and company your money if you have any inclination to do so. They should be encouraged to make more of these. This thing should make enough money that the asshole powers-that-be will grant writer Bryan Fuller his wish: bring back Star Trek to the small screen.
Part of the problem with Star Trek, in all of its iterations, is a tendency to preach. It's understandable. Roddenberry was a preachy, hippie kind of guy, but there was a tendency to turn episodes, many episodes, into little sermons about the evils of drug addiction, racism, a woman's right to choose, why you shouldn't park in handicap spaces at the mall... Sometimes in all the preaching about how things could be better if we all accepted some future ideal, the storytellers skimped on the fun. They left out the awe.
Oh sure, the new Star Trek film has some morals to deliver. Science fiction can't help but offer them up, but the story is fast-paced, interesting, but not exactly predictable. Would Kirk and Spock save the day? Sure, but how they get there goes against the grain and leaves plenty for the top tier nerds to argue over. This new Trek opens up a twelve pack of worms for them to wrestle over --not the least of which is, "what happened to everything that came after?"
The new Star Trek is a brand new universe and it's swell.
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2 comments:
Great to hear this! I'm planning on checking it out later in the week.
Geoff and I saw it over the weekend and loved it. Best movie I've seen in a while. Even though I never much cared for Shatner in his Captain Kirk days, I still would've liked to have seen a cameo appearance, but I thought it was very well done.
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