My first love was Captain Kirk. I mean, Dad was way up there, but frankly, when I was four years old, I wasn't quite sure that the guy on the television wasn't Dad, or that the guy weeding the garden on Sunday hadn't spent the week before hanging out with alien princesses and shooting monsters. I've always walked a thin line between fiction and reality.
When the show was in nightly syndication in the 1970s, the family would play, "Name that Episode". The winner could name the Star Trek episode -- by title, not by "you know, the one where the invisible aliens are just super speeded up so they sound like buzzing flies" -- in the fewest seconds of the pre-credit sequence. I was usually the winner. I wore a miniature U.S.S. Enterprise pendant on a little silver chain around my neck in my senior year of high school, and I took it to college with me as a talisman. The scorn I held for the 1970s Battlestar Galactica, a mere shadow of a show in comparison, could not be contained in words.
Even so, my interest in the Star Trek universe waned over time. Captain Kirk became synonymous with the cowboy arrogance and unthinking conceit of the American establishment. I was embarrassed ever to have loved him, unsophisticated and hayseed as he was. Han Solo (and then Indiana Jones) shouldered Kirk to one side, and was in turn displaced by others. The heroes of more recent mainstream science fiction have been too dark and sophisticated to love -- Kyle Reese (or should it be the Terminator himself), the shocking cynism of Neo in The Matrix, the brilliant coward Baltar in Battlestar Galactica.
I watched a year or two of the Next Generation; virtually none of any of the later franchise series. I stopped seeing the movies after the wretched fifth one. Most recently, I have been enthralled by Battlestar Galactica, the dark, frakking anti-matter to the bright, optimistic Star Trek universe. When I heard they were making this prequel, I was amused, impressed by the announcements of casting choices, but not overly interested.
And then the reviews came out, and even HomoDommi expressed an interest in seeing it on the big screen, and I started getting excited. So a group of us saw it yesterday.
What can I say? This movie gets it right. Gets it all exactly right. The casting is perfect -- all the main characters are there (embodied now in actors a decade younger than the original cast was, originally) retaining the mannerisms and essential personalities of the original, while allowing for new shadings. Through very clever use of time travel paradoxes, the movie establishes that we are now in an alternative reality to the one our old Kirk and all the rest lived -- so the Star Trek universe has been reset: the prequel doesn't have to lead to the stories we watched in the the tv series. Talk about brilliantly starting a new franchise!
But mostly, it is the attitude of the original show that has been returned, honored, and updated. Each character gets his (or her) duly appropriate introduction. The loving shots of the Enterprise in space don't go on too long. The dorky skin tight uniforms now look more like a light Tevlar-like chain mail sweater over a comfortable cat suit. Plotting shows some thin spots here and there, but there's lots of it. Coincidences abound, but only when they are for the good, and there's always some backup plan that falls into action at the exact last perfect moment, saving the day. A very Star Trek experience.
One review I've read felt that the new film "desecrates" Roddenberry's original stricture that there should be complete peace on earth, no whisper of disunity. Yawn, I say. Yeah, the new Kirk would ignore the Prime Directive, given a chance, but that's not the point. The point is that we made it. It is, like, the 24th century, dude, and the Earth is still around! (Even so, the cities are pretty ugly, and Iowa looks rather like southern Utah.) There is true multi-cultural diversity, aliens and humans working, and loving, together. Those who want to be challenged and admired, go to college. Physics is revered, linguistics is sexy. This is the way the world should be. Thinking that everyone will be happy all the time in that good world, and that ambition can exist without discontent, is naive.
So, I won't recommend you go see the movie, because you can't enjoy it as I did, returned to the arms of my first love, good ol' James T. But I intend to see it again (in the cheap theatres, with pizza and beer).
Trekkies Bash New Star Trek Film as "Fun, Watchable"
4 comments:
Netflixed it last week. Good to know we have something to look forward to.
Love the news story at the end of the Onion bit (which is fab, btw) -- Hundreds of Millionaires Crushed in Collapse of Scandinavian Ice Hotel.
Not having seen the movie, I do want to make ONE big complaint about said motion picture which the casting directors should have followed. That is, they should have recognized the age differences between the cast members (and here I an not talking about the actors, but rather about their characters) within the movie, rather then making it seem as if all of the main characters are just out of the academy, when that is neither realistic nor in keeping with the original cannon.
In my opinion, McCoy was the oldest in his late 40's, Scotty was next in his early 40's or late 30's. Then can Kirk in his early to mid 30's, Sulu and Uhura were in their late 20's, and Chekov was still very green kid just out of the academy. I'm not sure where I'd put Spock, but he is not among the younger crewmembers. Let me put him quote in his 30's or 40's (adjusted for the species and culture that he came from) unquote.
Given what I've seen (the televised trailers and teasers), it seems to me as if Kirk and Company are on a Cadet Voyage onboard the ENTERPRISE when something goes wrong, and he ends up taking command, and at the end of the cruise retains command, which is NOT realistic. Napoleon once said that within every soldier's knapsack you would find a Field Marshal's Baton. I don't know how true that is, but scratch almost every naval officer (and let's face it, to a certain extent, that is exactly what Kirk is), and you'll find a Ship Commanding Officer. There is no way that an organization such as Star Fleet would allow Kirk to retain command of the Enterprise, because multitudes of senior officers would be doing everything they could to take command of that ship.
Another thing that grips me about what I've seen is where were they constructing the ENTERPRISE? In a shipyard down here on Earth, when it would be far more realistic (and far easier) for them to build it in a giant shipsized airlock in orbit. I'm with you Vivi, when I was growing up I wanted to BE Captain Kirk and command that "wonderful" ship, but since then I've come to realize that I cannot command what has not been built and so have transferred the dream to build the ENTERPRISE, or at least it's realistic, 21st Century space traveling equivalent.
Just call me Master.
David, you'll have to see the movie. It may not be as good an experience for you as it was for me, but several of your complaints are addressed. The logic works generally within the universe of the movie.
Granted, there is a collapsing of the ages of the characters, but they are still relatively aligned -- McCoy *is* older, Chekhov is a lot younger (than the rest), Spock is indeterminately older (he's like a grad. student, sort of, to Kirk's undergrad, but it's not at all clear that Kirk is supposed to be an undergrad age, i.e., 22ish). I would even argue that Star Fleet Academy is shown as a post-graduate institution (but that's simply not addressed in the story, and frankly, there are a lot more interesting things happening).
[Mea culpa: I stretched a point in my entry -- the current characters are not a *full* decade younger than originally. (Shatner was 35 when Star Trek first aired; Pine is 29.) However, saying, "5 or so years younger" didn't meter right -- My blog entries allow for poetic license most of the time, rhythm and story beating out factual accuracy if necessary.]
Also, the movie has an explanation for sending recent graduates (not cadets, exactly) into what turns out to be a battle -- that is not exactly as it seems in the preview as well.
Still, your point is taken. I hope when you see the movie, you let yourself settle in and allow the *movie logic* to take over -- and let these issues get minimized to the feeling of the joy of returning to that universe. At least, that's what I felt.
Vivi:
You know me, Mister Ultimate Suspension of Disbelief himself, so that when I see it I'll believe anything that I'm told, and only become critical after it's done.
I'm thinking about trying to talk Mother into going to a matinee this weekend. We'll see.
Just call me Mister
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