Tuesday, June 02, 2009
The (Re)Genesis Effect
I may be a month late to the party, thanks to the largely arbitrary international rollouts of American movies, but I am finally ready to talk about the new Star Trek film, Star Trek: The New Hotness.
Seriously, I couldn't believe all the hype I was hearing for this movie from across the Pacific. Apparently everyone loves it save for Roger Ebert, who only sort of liked it. New fans, old fans, it doesn't matter if you know how to do the Vulcan salute or not: Star Trek is a bonafide hit. Critically and financially, this is the most successful Trek movie ever. Not bad for a forty year old franchise that had been in mothballs for most of the 21st century.
I tried to keep an extremely open mind about Star Trek because of my long history of enjoying the television programs and feature films. I was once a Trekkie who went to conventions and spent hours obsessing over each week's episode (hell, I wrote an extended piece nitpicking the hell out of Generations that is still floating around the Internet last time I checked) but I've come to accept that Star Trek has its ups and downs. I didn't want to get caught up in the hype and set myself up for disappointment, but at the same time I didn't want to become a sourpuss who pined for the "good old days" of the sixties, the eighties or even the nineties (the less said about the "aughties," the better). In other words, I didn't want to come out of the theater sounding like these people.
Well, the good news is that Star Trek is a tremendously fun movie. All of the actors did a wonderful job of slipping into roles that were famous years before any of them were born. In particular, I thought Karl Urban (as McCoy) and Zachary Quinto (as Spock) were most impressive. Simon Pegg (Scotty) is brilliant as always, but he doesn't even appear until the second half of the film so I was a little disappointed by that.
Even more than the actors, I was amazed at how well the dialogue was written. When it's not weighed down with infamously meaningless technobabble, one of Trek's strengths has been conversations between the characters. The new movie virtually eliminates all the mumbo-jumbo and just lets these people argue, flirt, and kid around with each other. I thought Kirk had a ton of great lines, making him just as cocky and arrogant as you always figured he must have been as a young man.
The movie has its flaws, the biggest being the story which relies on time travel to "explain" how this adventure doesn't fit into the Trek continuity. While this does allow for Leonard Nimoy to show up as Spock and have a few dramatic scenes with the new cast, it raises more questions than it answers. Frankly, all of the black hole/time warp/red matter stuff doesn't make any more sense than the "Nexus" plot device that allowed Captain Kirk and Captain Picard to share the screen in Generations did.
There were plenty of petty imperfections I noticed in the movie, but I was more concerned with the strangely empty feeling I had when it was over. Even though I had been thoroughly entertained for two hours and was already looking forward to the inevitable sequel (will they call it Star Trek II?), I had a very unpleasant thought while the credits rolled. Knowing that this new Trek film is such a hit, I realized that the Trek I grew up with is officially dead. I know things were bad when Nemesis tanked and Enterprise was canceled, but even when there was no new Trek being produced there was always a remote possibility of a revival. Now that we've got a new cast, a new ship and a new "timeline" to explore, there's no way anybody is going to look back. I'm reminded of Project Genesis from The Wrath of Khan: in creating a new planet capable of sustaining life, it destroyed any existing life in favor of its "new matrix."
So while I applaud J.J. Abrams on his excellent new take on Trek, I must simultaneously mourn the loss of the old Trek which will never return to the small or big screen. There's always DVDs and reruns, I suppose. Maybe someday The Next Generation will get an HD facelift like the original show has been given. And who knows? In twenty years, maybe someone will decide to reboot that show with a new movie. That's the beauty of this: Trek can be killed and reborn an infinite number of times.
Star Trek is dead. Long live Star Trek!
Seriously, I couldn't believe all the hype I was hearing for this movie from across the Pacific. Apparently everyone loves it save for Roger Ebert, who only sort of liked it. New fans, old fans, it doesn't matter if you know how to do the Vulcan salute or not: Star Trek is a bonafide hit. Critically and financially, this is the most successful Trek movie ever. Not bad for a forty year old franchise that had been in mothballs for most of the 21st century.
I tried to keep an extremely open mind about Star Trek because of my long history of enjoying the television programs and feature films. I was once a Trekkie who went to conventions and spent hours obsessing over each week's episode (hell, I wrote an extended piece nitpicking the hell out of Generations that is still floating around the Internet last time I checked) but I've come to accept that Star Trek has its ups and downs. I didn't want to get caught up in the hype and set myself up for disappointment, but at the same time I didn't want to become a sourpuss who pined for the "good old days" of the sixties, the eighties or even the nineties (the less said about the "aughties," the better). In other words, I didn't want to come out of the theater sounding like these people.
Well, the good news is that Star Trek is a tremendously fun movie. All of the actors did a wonderful job of slipping into roles that were famous years before any of them were born. In particular, I thought Karl Urban (as McCoy) and Zachary Quinto (as Spock) were most impressive. Simon Pegg (Scotty) is brilliant as always, but he doesn't even appear until the second half of the film so I was a little disappointed by that.
Even more than the actors, I was amazed at how well the dialogue was written. When it's not weighed down with infamously meaningless technobabble, one of Trek's strengths has been conversations between the characters. The new movie virtually eliminates all the mumbo-jumbo and just lets these people argue, flirt, and kid around with each other. I thought Kirk had a ton of great lines, making him just as cocky and arrogant as you always figured he must have been as a young man.
The movie has its flaws, the biggest being the story which relies on time travel to "explain" how this adventure doesn't fit into the Trek continuity. While this does allow for Leonard Nimoy to show up as Spock and have a few dramatic scenes with the new cast, it raises more questions than it answers. Frankly, all of the black hole/time warp/red matter stuff doesn't make any more sense than the "Nexus" plot device that allowed Captain Kirk and Captain Picard to share the screen in Generations did.
There were plenty of petty imperfections I noticed in the movie, but I was more concerned with the strangely empty feeling I had when it was over. Even though I had been thoroughly entertained for two hours and was already looking forward to the inevitable sequel (will they call it Star Trek II?), I had a very unpleasant thought while the credits rolled. Knowing that this new Trek film is such a hit, I realized that the Trek I grew up with is officially dead. I know things were bad when Nemesis tanked and Enterprise was canceled, but even when there was no new Trek being produced there was always a remote possibility of a revival. Now that we've got a new cast, a new ship and a new "timeline" to explore, there's no way anybody is going to look back. I'm reminded of Project Genesis from The Wrath of Khan: in creating a new planet capable of sustaining life, it destroyed any existing life in favor of its "new matrix."
So while I applaud J.J. Abrams on his excellent new take on Trek, I must simultaneously mourn the loss of the old Trek which will never return to the small or big screen. There's always DVDs and reruns, I suppose. Maybe someday The Next Generation will get an HD facelift like the original show has been given. And who knows? In twenty years, maybe someone will decide to reboot that show with a new movie. That's the beauty of this: Trek can be killed and reborn an infinite number of times.
Star Trek is dead. Long live Star Trek!
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I don't know if this agrees or disagrees with your final statement that the old star trek is "dead" (or if it even factors in to your argument), but I thoroughly enjoyed the movie as well, but I should also point out that I watch the ORIGINAL star trek bi weekly (its on some channel 11 in my area at a ridiculously late time, and I thoroughly enjoy that as well.
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