New Star Trek Revises the Canon; Not Really a Bad Thing
[The new crew. Can you guess who is who? Via Paramount Pictures.]
Note: I don’t normally write about big Hollywood films on this blog, but Star Trek has a special place in my heart; besides, this one is partially set in a 23rd-century San Francisco, so there is at least some thin justification for me to lean on here.
As we all know, the new Star Trek movie will open here in San Francisco next Friday (what with my allergy to crowds and opening nights, I plan to catch it at the Kabuki on a weekday). I’m really looking forward to seeing the thing, despite my mixed feelings about it.
But let me be clear: my feelings aren’t mixed because I can’t stand the idea of somebody besides Shatner playing Captain Kirk; they’re mixed because, as any reader of this blog knows, I’m no friend of blockbuster-style Hollywood action films, with their exhausting tendency to feature frenetic pacing, ADD-inducing editing, over-the-top special effects, and overwrought dialogue. The trailers indicate that this movie is going to have them all, except perhaps the typical dose of lame writing, so I’m a little worried.
But I’m still willing to risk an hour or two of irritated disappointment, in hopes that this latest entry in the Star Trek franchise is all that it can be — and possibly even be a movie that can introduce the franchise to a whole new group of science-fiction fans. Comments from colleagues who’ve seen it, the reviews I’ve read so far (mostly raves, for what it’s worth), and this interesting article in the New York Times about JJ Abrams and his collaborators on the film, indicate that this is going to be one of those movies that Trekkies obsessed with consistency are probably going to hate: the bridge of Kirk’s Enterprise, in this movie, looks like it was designed by the bastard spawn of Apple and Hewlett-Packard, the iconic characters are re-interpreted by young actors who look nothing like the original ones, and the revisions to the Star Trek universe are said to be substantial.
But there’s another kind of fan — and I like to think I’m one of them — who just doesn’t care much about that kind of thing, and is willing to be taken on a new journey no matter where it leads. That may be because I’m sort of a newly-minted Trekkie: my wife introduced me to The Original Series less than two years ago, and I became an immediate convert, purchasing the DVD set for watching and later re-watching, and since then I’ve gone on to watch almost the entire run of The Next Generation via Netflix, all the movies up through Generations, and the first season of Deep Space Nine.
To put it into numbers, I’ve seen about 250 TV episodes and seven movies, originally released over a period of thirty years, in the span of about eighteen months. It has been incredibly interesting to watch the franchise evolve and revise itself in this compressed period of time. And I’ve watched the DVD extras too, which give a window into the creative process behind each episode or movie.
The biggest lesson I’ve found in all this watching is this: when a science fiction franchise places storytelling over consistency, the writers will inevitably produce revisions to the history of the fictional universe from time to time, in the interest of serving the story. Sometimes that’s because the writers haven’t seen anywhere near all the stuff most fans have; sometimes it’s a creative choice made knowingly. (Even a franchise authored by one individual can evolve in this way — I think of how the Ultima series of computer role-playing games, all authored by Richard Garriott, routinely scrapped and re-wrote huge chunks of its own history for similar reasons.) Sometimes these revisions work and sometimes they don’t, but those failures are the price of letting new hands work with old materials.
So I’m still looking forward to it: I just hope that the explosions and fight sequences don’t trump good storytelling.
[Have you seen an advance screening? What did you think of it? Leave a comment and let us know your thoughts.]
posted: 09 April 28
under: The Next Frame
(Let me preceded this by saying that I was lucky enough to see a preview screening last week)
As a long time Trek fan who grew up going to conventions with his dad (I wouldn’t quite call us “trekkies” though), I thought this movie hit every right note and the characterizations were pitch perfect – especially McCoy. His performance brought tears of trek joy to my eyes.
Besides the obvious reasons—writing, effects, acting— the movie worked because it somehow captured the feeling I get when I watch star trek – both TOS and TNG. I can’t define it, but there it was in my gut: the feeling that this IS Star Trek. Abrams and crew just nailed it.
As far as continuity goes – all discrepancies between this movie and original canon were satisfactorily explained as far as I’m concerned. But we can discuss that later.
on an unrelated note, the new site’s looking great!
Hey Jimmy, thanks for the comment (first one on the site!) and the praise! And it’ll look even better in a week or two, when the layout is fixed. I’m glad to hear you think they really captured the spirit of the franchise!
I don;t mind some of the changes….some of it i have to get used to. But i hope Spock character in the course of his adventure becomes the stoic science officer we come to know and love. It was his inner conflict over the course of the series that made the series great.