My pal Todd published his thoughts on the new Trek film. As I was commenting, I realized that “New Trek” has tainted “Old Trek.” I include “Wrath of Khan” in that.
Yesterday was a rainy day in Chesapeake, Virginia. After church, I got comfortable and watched Trek II and III. The thought struck me that the writing was very laborious. Don’t get me wrong, I still liked them, but there is so much more potential.
I also was reflecting on my three Trekkie encounters (not including Mot). The first was at the Richland Public Library. I honestly cannot remember how old I was, but I think I must have still been in high school. The second was the 25th Anniversary Marathon. Jay and I drove from Columbia to Atlanta. We found that the fans ranged from nice to down right rude. Lastly, Jay and I met in Raleigh, NC, for a full on convention – complete with William Shatner. As far as his wife knows, he was delivering blueprints for his dad (or was it mine?).
I have come to the conclusion that I am a closet Trekkie. I would love to come completely “out of the closet” but there is something that restrains me. I still say that TOS is my favorite, because I grew up on that. I read all of the James Bliss novels, had the Alan Dean Foster set, and saw each show at least a dozen times. Of any of the future endeavors, TNG was the best. I could never really get past the “grit” of DS9, although I loved the Sisko character. Voyager was lost on me. I started watching it while in Okinawa on cassette tapes mailed over by my father in law. Enterprise had a lot of potential, but it never sparked for me.
5 comments:
Last weekend after seeing the movie, I crammed as much Star Trek into the weekend as possible including a viewing of ST II TWOK, a quick trip through ST TMP (skipping through the boring parts which is 1/2 the movie), and watched The Tholian Web (a personal fave and some good Spock/McCoy conflict).
This past weekend when my sister was here, we saw the movie again and Sunday morning I pulled out my books (you know guys - the Shrine) and looked through all the cool books and stuff I had. I have all 12 of the James Blish books with the short story versions of the episodes (this kept me enthralled during the school year as the summertime is when the episodes would be shown on channel 5). Jim was busy rolling his eyes as I turned into an excited 13 year old.
I found my book that George Takei had signed (y'all remember the 'trek' to Pic-a-Flic video in the spring of 1985), and of course I have the ST bible (The ST Concordance) and I met James Doohan and he signed it for me at my first ST convention in Columbia in 1991. I have been to 3 conventions with Scotty, Sulu, and Checkov and they were all fun.
So I have had some monumental ST moments, but I must say that this new movie is close to the top of the 'moments'. I can understand where you are coming from Chuck on how the older Trek films hold up. I think ST II is still my favorite (after all - it was my epiphany when I really GOT IT) as Martha the Trekkie was born. Now that this movie is out and I have seen it twice - I am back to the junkie stage as I want MORE MORE MORE!!!
Oh yeah, Jim told me to 'get a life' when I showed him all my books and the clippings and posters I had taped to the back of my bedroom door at home.
I joke that I was sprayed with male repellant at an early age (b/c men mostly ignored me in my mid 20's), and Jim pointed out that my giddiness over ST was part of the male repellant!
Ditto on your last paragraph - that's how the new incarnations have panned out for me as well.
But I'll come to the defence of ST2:TWOK. After seeing the new one, Trace wanted to see it, too. He's got absolutely no experience with anything ST - it's just not in the culture currently as much as in our day. To bring him up to speed w/o overwhelming him, we watched ST2 together. It had the Kobayiashi Maru, enough tie-ins to the new one, etc - and he enjoyed it. The new one for him was better, but in my mind I think I hold this new ST and ST2 up as the co-best of the movie franchise. I thought the story in both drove the films, not the action and not the SFX.
And HBD, pal - enjoy PRINCESS BRIDE (was on BravoHD last night!!).
I think the difference between the two movies is the audience that the movies are pointed at.
The TOS Trek movies are definitely pointed at fans - just in the first 20 minutes, there are so many references (Romulan Ale) and a lot of "techno-speak" ("a piece of pre-animate material stuck in the matrix").
The new Trek film is not pointed at any group in particular. It eschews (just wanted to use that word) the conventions of earlier incarnations and focuses on telling the story. It is approachable by a much wider audience.
The TOS Films are fun, but I would say that the feel dated. Well, actually, I am the one who is dated.
Here is what would be cool...we could sync up our dvd players, get on Skype and have a "cross web" viewing of a Trek film!
Chuck - I love your idea!! A virtual reunion - and with Star Trek. Another thing about TOS films vs. the Reboot - the TOS films were with them as older versions of their characters and so they would feel dated for that reason too. Kirk was 34 in TOS and Chekov 22, so here we are now with TOS characters in the TOS age and not in the film age.
So that is another reason why this feels fresher.
What I really love is the fact that this will ignite a whole new generation of TOS Trekkies!!!
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