The new Star Trek movie comes out on 5/8/2009. Like many fans of the original series, I’m both stoked and worried. Stoked that a new Star Trek movie is coming out. Worried that it will either suck like the hard vacuum of deep space or desecrate the series in new and terrible ways.
The latest trailer looks awesome. But, it is very action heavy, which makes me worry that what made the original series so great will be lost in the flash of special effects and space battles. Not to say that I do not like space battles, but that I expect more from Star Trek.
Now to be a Trek dork: in the trailer, a young Kirk is shown masterfully driving a car (well, masterfully driving it off a cliff). However, in the original series, Kirk was a horrible driver (“Piece of the Action“) because he had never driven a car before. But, the movie looks like it might kick ass, so I’m willing to supress the geeky nit-picking.
Technically speaking, if you drive a car off of a cliff then you could say that he never really drove the car. Also, any successful modern action movie has to have at least one exploding car.
Star Trek lost me with the next generation. They lost the formula of the original series. In the original series they developed the problem in the first 15 minutes and solved it over the next 45. In the next generation they developed the problem in the first 45 minutes and solved it in the last 15. That is crappy writing for an hour long show. It should have been a half an hour long. I’m sure the length is so they could develop a more “Soap Opera”, touchy feely, develop the characters and complicated personal issues crap. This was probably to market towards women. Made me fall asleep for a sci-fi two thumbs down.
(bystander watching the Star Trek Trailer being filmed)
Bystander: Excuse me, is this where they’re filming the abecrombe clothing ad?
JTK: I’m James Tiberius Kirk!
Bystander: . . .
Bystander: . . . oh, then the new 90210 TV series then?
So true Dave. Obviously Trek history is wrong because a car company advertised in the movie. WEAK! I will not pay money to see it. In fact I wouldn’t if it were free.
I am looking at this take on the Star Trek mythology as a view of our beloved characters in their not-yet-thoughtful youth. Action will not be out of place. Spock and Kirk fighting will not be out of place. Young Scotty finding the chaos of the Enterprise exciting in its newness will not be out of place. We are, generally, quite different in our 20s than we are in our 30s, 40s, yes? In fact, the only character I expect to land on the ship already largely a grown-up is McCoy, who I suspect was born a cynical old soul. Not every version of the Arthurian legends agree in every detail. I don’t need every version of the Trek legend to agree on all of the finer points, either… so long as the primary messages concerning hope, the bonds of friendship, the insatiable curiosity of explorers, and perseverance in the face of overwhelming odds remain intact. I am counting the days until this film is released and plan to enjoy every moment of it.
I did not intend to submit the above comment anonymously. I stand by it!
Kernunos, you are just saying that because there are no Hydrans in the movie. Learn to love the Federation. Or learn to like photon torpedoes.
Melanie, good points. The younger selves would no doubt be significantly different from the characters in the TV series. Of course, young Kirk shouldn’t know how to drive a car. 🙂 Maybe he is punished in the movie by having his driving skills taken away via a mind blanking machine (Romulan Ale?).
Your Kaufman Retrograde is useless against my Hellbores you two-leg, air breathing, green alien loving, red shirt wasting, dilithium hoarding, shuttle scatterpack using, legendary crewing, overloading, gattling phaser tech stealing, saucer on a post with engine human!!!!!!!
A….little bitter.
It would be hard to cast the Hydrans’ parts too. I am imagining special effects to make Rosy O’Donnell and Micheal Moore shorter like the Hobbits in The Lord of the Rings.