What Star Trek Is To Me

There has been a lot of buzz this week regarding the new Star Trek movie J.J. Abrams directed. The buzz has been overwhelmingly positive, having a 100% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes the last time I checked.

From the trailers and clips that I've seen, the movie could either be really good, or it could be just an action film with some Star Trek branding. I'll see for myself on Friday night.

I'm not overly familiar with the original series, although I've seen several episodes and have watched all the movies. I am much more familiar with the Next Generation and Deep Space Nine. When I first started watching Star Trek, I was in 8th grade and feeling fairly lonely and dejected. I felt I had few friends, and was isolated from the community I was living in by culture, religious views, and physical distance.

The first Star Trek episode I watched was Deep Space Nine's The Forsaken. Soon I was watching Deep Space Nine every night (and later The Next Generation) and had worked my sleeping schedule around school and Star Trek.

What did I find so alluring about the two series?

I loved the character-driven stories. I also loved the moral dilemmas that would be solved (or not) in a way that wouldn't sacrifice the characters' integrity. And throughout it all I loved the undercurrent of hope for a better tomorrow.

As far as canon goes, I really hope the new film stays true to the characters. It looks like Karl Urban has McCoy down, and Zachary Quinto will be passable as Spock. Chris Pine's Kirk just seems like a jerk to me, but maybe Kirk in his youth was a jerk. Hopefully something happens in the film and he turns out to be likable by the end.

From the trailer, I'm not buying that they would let a cadet command a starship, but OK. I'll let it fly if the movie is good.

I'm concerned about the antagonist. I adore the Romulans and really like Eric Bana's work but from what I've read his character comes across as poorly written and undeveloped. I wasn't impressed with how they handled the Romulans in the last movie and I'm going to be deeply disappointed if Nero just ends up being another rogue character. The Romulans really are cool enough they don't need anything "extra" to be in a movie.

I think time travel is OK, but I also think the whole "we're going to reboot the franchise and screw all the original continuity - we can just make our own!" attitude offputting. But we'll see.

I like the new set design of the bridge, even though it does look like an iPod puked on it.

I hope the "undercurrent of hope" in the film will not be summed up as "We hope we can make a sequal". That would be frustrating.

So we'll see. I hope the movie is good enough they will make some more films or series in the future, but I also hope that it doesn't get boiled down to just another action film. There needs to be something intelligent to ponder over too. If they can give me that I think I'll be OK with the movie.