Trekkies whine as J.J.Abrams defends Star Trek XI
Star Trek fans are about to get a new Star Trek movie but rather than rejoice you’d think it was the end of the world. Recently J.J. Abrams, the director of Star Trek XI, attended the Television Critics Association and attempted to address some of the questions and issues that have been thrown his way. SCI FI Wire has posted an article about his responses here, and in response the majority of fan rhetorical has been nothing short of whining.
Of course negative expectations towards Star Trek XI shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise considering how poor most of the previous Star Trek movies have been. Apart from Star Trek 2: Wrath of Khan and a few cool Borg scenes in Star Trek: First Contact the Star Trek film franchise has rarely delivered anything worth raving about. Most of the rhetoric seems to ignore this in favor of criticism of Abrams himself, but on that note, Abrams has hardly scratched the surface of bad screen time compared to the astounding record the Star Trek franchise has amassed.
I’ve been watching Star Trek my whole life. I was a fan of the original series, a big fan of the Next Gen series, have given every feature film a chance by seeing it at the cinema, and have consistently been disappointed by them all -- Wrath of Khan excluded. And although I really don’t like the idea of more prequel movies, Star Trek is famous for its continuity reset button -- perhaps it will benefit from an all new reset button in the form of a more balanced non-trekkie vision of the Star Trek universe. Abrams says it himself:
“I would say that the fans of Star Trek will be very happy with the movie. It honors what’s come before, but I didn’t really make the movie just for the people who are already inside, because I like Star Trek but I was never a massive fan. So I think the movie’s going to not satisfy everyone, of course. It can’t. But it’ll satisfy most of both.”
I’m willing to give Abrams a go and hold back my judgment until after I see it. Hell, I did that for every other movie irrespective of who was at the helm. I don’t see any reason not to give it a chance this time either.
The ironic aspect of all of this is that rather than negativity, fans should really be pleased. It’s highly unlikely J.J. Abrams could make a movie as bad as most of the Star Trek movies that have come before this one. Really, the only way for Star Trek is up – and if I’m wrong? Then history won’t have been changed and Star Trek collections all over the world will benefit from a movie that blends right in.
Watch the trailer:
June 2nd, 2010 at 3:51 pm
I watched a “making of” clip about the new movie before watching it. In it someone mention they wanted to “learn some lessons from Star Wars” or make Star Trek more like Star Wars. I took it to mean they wanted more action, less intellectual dialogue and more mass market stuff. Not something I would prefer, but which would have been somewhat tolerable since I like Star Wars myself even though I’m a hardcore Trekkie. But when I finally watched the film…it seems the idiots who made it LITERALLY wanted to make too much like Star Wars. Way TOO LITERALLY. I mean really …the young Kirk stranded on an ice planet pursued by a monstrous beast? The chase ending up in an ice-cave? Wow…how original! I mean whoever wrote that scene literally ripped it off Empire Strikes Back! Duh!
Overall…the new film’s only saving grace is SPOCK…and I mean Leonard Nimoy, not the new guy. His presense in the film makes it worthwhile. It’s an ok film, too much spectacle, not enough thought-provoking stuff. Which is another thing the director and his writers got wrong…they assumed what previous trek movies or tv shows lacked was “resources” and “money”, which supposedly prevented them from doing what they making trek “they way it should have been”. Wrong…TOS lacked money and resources yes…but this lead to creativity and doing stuff they would not have done had they had tons of money, the movies and 80’s-90’s Trek series had pretty good budgets. The best of Trek happened when it acted as a high-tech mirror of our present day existence. It examined current, real-life issues affecting our world, but wrapped in the shiny aura of the future. That way instead of someone offended by some controversial issue being examined, they will watch it coz of the detachment provided by the scene being set in the future. One of the most creative episodes (yeah it was low budget), was the TOS episode which examined racism…when they encounter aliens who were literally half-white and half-black (half their body is black, half is white). These aliens were in a civil war…why? Coz they aliens who were white on the right side of the body, and black on the left, didn’t like the guys who were black on the right side of the body and white on the left. ABSURD huh! Indeed…but that was the whole point…racism is absurd! Brilliant show! Of course the people who make movies will not get this. They just want to make spectacular space scenes and explosions for the mass market.