I’ve been wanting to reply to this thread for quite a while because I’m a huge Trekker! But it took me a while to even get to see the movie. So here goes:
First of, I agree with Chance’s sentiment that you can never recapture your feelings of when you were younger. And that goes for any Fanboy franchise. It’s like Fanboy crack… you’re never going to get that same type of “high” you had when you first experienced your first hit. And the Star Wars anaology is the best way of putting it. I remember finding nothing wrong with “Phantom Menace.” (Set phasers on stun first, please!)
That being said, I loved the new movie! I took it as a completely new movie, apart from what had been done before. Certain aspects of the movie deviated from the original vision and formula. Mostly, I noticed that there was no “message” that was in the movie. That’s why the show was originally created… to tell these morality plays without putting it in terms of “Americans” or “majority” versus “them” or “minorities.” The show was originally created when there was lots of change going on in the world - the 1960’s. This movie kind of went “eh” with that idea. Ok.
The little nods to Trek’s history were my favorite. Either they were planted there or I just wanted to see them. You decide. The very first interracial kiss seen on national TV was first seen on Star Trek. And some stations refused to show the episode. Why would Uhura (a black woman) kiss Kirk (a white man)? There had pressure to change the story to have Uhura kiss Spock (a non-human), but the creator (Roddenberry) insisted on making it the two humans to show that there was nothing wrong with it. Some couldn’t wrap their heads around it. A black woman kissing a devil-like alien was Ok, but a white man? Kind of like how people were all up in arms about the “obscenity” of Brokeback Mountain. That’s why I loved the scenes of Spock and Uhura kissing because to me, it was a nod to the original turmoil on the original series and show those of us who knew this, that we’ve evolved to where today we do see interracial couples and it’s no big deal. (mostly.) Now, it was done to show that Uhura could rile up a Vulcan who was supposed to have control of his emotions - and his lips!
In it’s hey day - the original crew was seen as being young and hip. To me, the original cast has just gotten old. It happens. I can’t imagine going to watch Batman Begins and expect Adam West to STILL be Batman. Pavel Chekov was placed into the original show because it was around the time of the British Invasion and they wanted someone to look like the offspring of Paul McCartney and Davey Jones. Check out his hair style… he’s a Monkee! It was just the producers trying to get the young hip kids to watch Star Trek. They put the “moral” spin on it by making him Russian. Back in the 60’s, Russians were not the U.S.‘s friends. But the creator wanted to show that it won’t always be like that. In the future, we’ll have gotten past that. Now, I see what people are complaining about. But to me it’s the creators going back to that angle of the show: “Let’s be young and hip!” And while I had grown to love the original series… I don’t miss William Shatner. To me he’s just the Priceline Negotiator guy! Now Leonard Nimoy will always be Spock. He’s just always been a better actor that Shatner in my eyes. Plus, according to Hollywood gossip, Shatner was always dissing Takei (the original Sulu). I’m sure it’s biased, but Takei’s one of us! (Gets off soapbox.) A-hem…
I like that the creators hinted at certain things, like how Red Shirts die horrible deaths and lo and behold, guess whose chute doesn’t open and gets sucked into the giant space drill? Red shirt! Sulu goes a little nuts in the original and that’s the only time you ever find out he can fence. This time he was in control and busted out with his blade. I loved that!
One of the major things that bothered me, that I just had to get over is the whole “change the time line” event. It’s been so played out in every incarnation! In the “Voyage Home” they changed time by going into the past and bringing some whales with them. And everyone was OK with that. But when the Borg went back to change time in “First Contact”, the crew of the Enterprise had to also go back and fix it. In Voyager, I remember Harry Kim once accidentally destroyed Voyager while trying to get the crew home, but what does he do? Fifteen years later, he goes back in time to fix it like it never happened. The movie contradicts what they’ve accustomed me to. No more Marty McFly Syndrome: “Don’t worry about messing up time. We can always go back to fix it!” Or as I see it, “we can always fix the timeline as it is for the benefit of the good guys.”
But in my little FanMan head (Ok - Fanboy head!) I imagine that each time the timeline skews, the original time boo boo still exists (except in a parallel dimension away from where hardcore fans can see) and we are protected from seeing how it plays out. Unless it’s in the mirror universe. Which was always a treat for me to see! This same theory protects me from recalling and joining “The New Adventures of He-Man” with the rest of the Filmation canon.
I hope I didn’t come across as being mean or condescending to anyone’s opinion. If anything that Roddenberry wanted to enforce in any of his tales, be it original, new, or future, is that there should always be tolerance and acceptance. Just because someone or something is different, it doesn’t mean we have the right to eject them out the airlock. No matter how much we may want to! I love the old, but I love the new also.
P.S. - Random trivia: Gene Roddenberry was born here in El Paso, Texas. My hometown.
