Saturday, May 16

Star Trek: Where JJ Abrams Should Never Go Again

First off, let me say this post will contain spoilers, but as another dissappointed Trek Master said " the whole movie is spoiled" so what's the difference. JJ Abrams just proved to me why he was so successful with a show about a bunch of people not knowing what the hell is going. He just looked in the mirror and divided by 9. Not to copy Keith Olbermann, but WTF?! I don't even know where to begin. First off, the technical. The ship in that movie was NOT, repeat NOT, the original Enterprise. The original ship had a satellite dish atop its deflector array( that's in front of the bottom section to you non-nerds.) The ship in this movie was the NCC-1701-A, which was not created until Kirk was already an Admiral in his late 40's. Two, Uhura and Spock? Just, NO! Three, and most important, the timeline. If you make a movie about Colonial America, and then have everyone loving ol' King George and flying Jetsonmobiles, than at least have the common decency not to call it "Colonial America." Call it " This Ain't Real But It's Got Really Cool Special FX So Shut Up And Suck It!" At least then the people know what they're walking into. However, if you name a movie Star Trek, then you have to have everything happen within the already agreed upon timeline. You can't have Kirk becoming Captain of the Enterprise right out of the Academy. Hello, you missed a little thing like, oh, I don't know, HIS CAREER! Also, after 3 seasons of the original, 7 seasons of Next Generation, 7 seasons of DS9, 7 seasons of Voyager, 4 seasons of Enterprise, and 10 movies before this one, I think we would have heard about Vulcan being obliterated. I think it would have come up, maybe, over some Earl Grey or something. And what's worse, JJ knew that everything I just wrote was going to be said by a plethora of Trekkies. So what does he do? He slips in that because the timeline was altered, everything we're watching is actually an alternate reality. That way he's free to completely mess up the Star Trek universe, since technically, it's not the one we all know and love, but some weird alternate one, like that one burnt Cheez-It that comes in every box. Only there's a question that immediately pops into my head due to this approach: what do you do for an encore? Do you continue on in this alternate reality that bears no resemblance to the true Trek universe? Or do you admit you were wrong in to do this in the first place and come back to your senses? I'm hoping it's the latter. One heaping pile is already one too many, no need to duplicate.

For all you non-Trek fans out there, this movie is what you want to see. It's full of beautiful people doing cool stuff amid explosions and phaser fire. However, if you're a true Trekkie like me and many others, either forget everything you've ever seen with the title Star Trek attached, or, before you go see this movie, make an appointment with your eye doctor, because as many times as your going to roll them, your going to want to get them checked out as soon as possible.

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