STAR TREK, THE DVD

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SPACE OPERA REBOOT ALTERS THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE
FOR NO PARTICULAR REASON & TO NO GOOD END

YOUTUBE: STAR TREK TOS
"Star Trek Original Series Intro (HQ)"
Time-travelling from 1966 to 2009, the beginning of the franchise.



NON-TREKKIE DIRECTOR DOES THE TIME-WARP TOO MUCH

Trek Prequel Messes With Your Mind AS WEll As The Oldest Cliche's In Sci-Fi

[NOTHING BUT SPOILERS!!!]

Hack Hollywood writers all share the same cardfile of lame tricks. When they write themselves into a cul-de-sac, they whip out plot device Card #40, "The Mafia," or Card #87, "The IRA," or, worst of all, card #193, "Amnesia." Pretty soon, the movie or TV episode is over, and you've wasted another hour or two based on a good start without an ending. That's typical of novice movie director JJ Abram's TV-producing career, which includes the hopeless Lost and the unbelievable Alias. The writers on this new Trek film are his producer-partners in TV crime.

In Science Fiction, the lamest and most overused plot device, other than the worm-holes they pull it out of, is time travel. Some great time-travel stories have been written by genuine SF writers over the years, from HG Wells to Phillip K. Dick. But great science fiction requires great ideas, carefully thought through in all their fascinating complexity. Time travel and alternative realities are especially interesting themes, when handled just right. As mere plot devices dragged in by writers who seem to have lost their way, then never quite find it again, they are the worst.

We're not saying that "Star Trek: The Future Begins" was all bad. But it wasn't all good, either. Maybe they were just desperate to reinvigorate the franchise after the last Star Trek movie, which was awful. Maybe they are trying to lay the groundwork for more sequels. But what they've done is leave a mass of loose ends, incongruities and violations of the ST canon that will be hard to unf**k.

The fact that James T. Kirk rises directly from disgraced cadet to starship captain in one jump, while Mr. Spock drops from savvy starship captain to mere first officer in the same jump is nothing but a lame plot device, and now they're stuck with it. Likewise the romance between Spock and Uhura, which had all the chemistry of a wet match. Will they be knocking Starfleet boots forever in the sequels, or tiptoeing around the bridge like sitcom character ex's? And Spock's human Mom, an unrecognizable Winona Ryder, so important to his development as a character on the original series and subsequent films, is now dead, along with nearly everyone else on Vulcan, which no longer exists. Ooops! There goes another dozen classic TOS episodes. Or is the director planning another leap still further back in time, to undo everything he just did in this movie? Then why did he do it at all?

For a series which famously championed logic, mainly through the Spock character, this movie is unforgivably illogical at many turns. For us as viewers, it was annoying and distracting. The narrative was broken several times by pulled-from-the-ass plot devices that simply did not work, or even make sense. Having the future bad guy pop up in the past just to kill Kirk the father, and then suddenly pop up twentysomething years later just as Kirk the son is about to enter Starfleet, while actually pursuing Spock the whole time, well, that is illogical, Captain. And so is having the bad guy chase the young Spock around and then admit that he didn't even know the Vulcan kid was on the ship he was chasing. Duh? Meanwhile, the old Spock that he really is chasing somehow turns up on the planet that young Spock inexplicably marooned Kirk on, just in time to save him from irrelevant but scary monsters??? It's like a video game being played by a drunken idiot. Fun, maybe; stupid, definitely.

We did sort of enjoy the film. It was a thrill a minute, as long as you turned your head off. But science fiction is supposed to be aimed at your head. It is the development of the novel of ideas. And there are no ideas in this movie. It doesn't boldly go anywhere that a hack writer hasn't been before. Toke up and enjoy!
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