Not Your Father's Star Trek
By Beth Davies-Stofka
May 9, 2009 - 10:07:56 AM
Studios: Paramount Pictures
Writer(s): Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci
Starring: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Eric Bana, Karl Urban, John Cho
Directed by: J.J. Abrams
Produced by: Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, Jeffrey Chernov
Running Time: 2 hr. 7 min.
Release Date: May 7th, 2009 (wide)
Rating: PG13
Distributors: Paramount Pictures
Genre: Action/Adventure, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Adaptation and Sequel
"This is not your father's Star Trek," say the television ads. But that's exactly what it is, of course (unless it's your grandfather's Star Trek). The real question is what happens next.
The original 1960s Star Trek was revelatory: a Western in space with progressive casting and themes. Firmly wedded to the values of tolerance, acceptance, and human community, the USS Enterprise launched in 1966 with the mission to boldly go to where race, ethnicity, language, and ideology no longer divided us from each other.
Promising that in the 23rd century, our differences would unite us and make us strong, this famous starship charged off into space, just to see what it would find. Every moment was an encounter with the exotic Other, on the bridge and through the galaxies. These encounters were driven by a genuine wish to form friendships and alliances, perceived as intrinsically good and desirable. The show exploded with heart, as the bonds of friendship grew ever tighter between the show's lead characters. It also exploded with goodness, because of the crew's unwavering commitment to doing the right thing, like being honest, loyal, brave, and compassionate.
All of this was executed through dazzling special effects, riveting characters, humor, romance, and fisticuffs. It was wildly amazing, and canceled rather quickly.
Now J.J. Abrams presents us with an origin story that brings Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Sulu, Chekhov, Scotty, and Uhura together for the first time. Abrams' job was to jumpstart the franchise, and he did it. Star Trek 2009 is funny and edge-of-your-seat exciting. The voices are all authentic. There is no parody here, and no postmodern self-consciousness. It is revelatory, seeing these beloved personages for the first time, so to speak.
But it isn't nearly as visionary as the original show. There's nothing shocking now about seeing a Russian on the bridge of a ship with an American commander. The women, while perhaps brainier than they were in 1966, are still playing the same role they did forty years ago: objects of male desire.
Yes, it's forty years later. How much progress have we made in the direction of Gene Roddenberry's hopeful vision of what we can be?
Telling an origin story and jumpstarting the franchise allowed Abrams to put that question aside and concentrate on getting the characters and the settings right while laying the table for a banquet of good stories to come. We'll give him a free pass this time, for doing such a good job.
But Roddenberry never shied from difficult themes. His Enterprise was the vehicle he used in order to explore them. It's no coincidence that the franchise faltered and ultimately failed after his death.
There will be tough challenges moving forward. Thanks to Abrams' admirable execution, the Star Trek universe as envisioned by Roddenberry is firmly in place, familiar yet strange. The storytelling possibilities are infinite, and can all be explored within a framework as familiar as home. Yet what made Star Trek endure beyond its friendships was its exploration of the human condition.
Star Trek was never about good guys fighting bad guys, even though that happened a whole lot. The plot always served a theme. The show exposed the stupidity and futility of racism with the simplicity of an editorial cartoon. It asked what makes a man strong, explored the limits of technical progress, suggested new facets to sentience, and always prodded us to be humble and to listen in order to learn.
Star Trek 2009 didn't seem to worry too much about its theme. Even while vaguely suggesting that racial extinction might have a deeply damaging psychological impact on the survivors, it was happy enough to remorselessly dispense with the bad guys. For this new James T. Kirk, compassion has mere instrumental value. His older self knew it had intrinsic value. In this sense, this painfully youthful crew is out of step with your father's Star Trek. Let's hope it's an early misstep. We could be on the verge of something really special.
"It's no coincidence that the franchise faltered and ultimately failed after his death."
This isn't true. The franchise was strongest after Roddenberry's death. Roddenberry was truly a visionary, but Trek’s peak of popularity was in the mid to late 90s spilling over to the new millennium. If there were two nails that put Star Trek in the grave for many years they were Rick Berman and Brannon Braga who apparently had no idea what the hell they were doing. They did well in the Trek universe with a leash on, but once they became in control of the franchise is when it went downhill first with the death of Kirk and that craptistic series called Enterprise. Any fan could tell you in Kirk was to die it would be on the bridge of the Enterprise if at all. It amazes me that these two gentlemen still find work. They raped the franchise and thankfully it look like JJ resurrected the old war horse.
Read the review. Nice. I will say that rather than simply being an object of desire, wasn't it Uhura who was top of her class in linguistics and intercepted the first evidence of the Romulan trap? And while I loved the new romance, I hardly think Spock appeared to desire her! But it wouldn't be Hollywood to produce without a little titillating sex to warm up the sci fi.
I do agree about the characters... It rubbed me wrong that a kid with such reckless impulse control is thrust forward to being captain material. Wrecking cars, chasing skirts, throwing fists, to captain? Those were repressed leadership skills? Not liking that message at all, especially while sitting next to my impulse-control-challenged son who soaks this in as role model material! Some of the other themes were more thoughtful, though. Especially that the bad guy was simply avenging an offense that hadn't happened. Hmmm.
I'll stick with my position on the effect of Roddenberry's death on the franchise. We watched the problem unfold before our very eyes when we lost him partway through season 5 of TNG (I believe that's when it happened). And I've also recently heard the argument that without Berman, the franchise would have died. It's an interesting debate, to be sure.
It might depend on what one likes or appreciates about Star Trek. I thought DS9 was interesting, Voyager boring, Enterprise not worth watching, etc. The whole thing seemed to fall apart before my very eyes. I think only Roddenberry's animating vision kept Star Trek from dying altogether. It is powerful enough to persist despite the many inept and uninspired applications of it.
"Avenging an offense that hadn't happened..." Very provocative point! Part of the fun of the new franchise setup is determining what did or did not happen! I agree that Spock was not culpable, and of course Spock's integrity will always be a sacred cow. But the contrast between the desperate, screaming madness induced by a planet's death, and the rational decision to pick up and start again, was (in a word) fascinating.
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