Thoughts on The New Star Trek Movie

If your're a child of the 60s, there's a good chance you'll have grown up watching original runs of the original Star Trek episodes. In fact, Trek was the first program on TV I ever saw in color!

People seem to have the greatest allegience to the show they grew up with. For those born in the 70s and 80s, it was Next Generation and/or Deep Space Nine. Those born a few years later favour Voyager. And those people who appeared on the planet in the mid-80s and after, seemed to go for Enterprise.

Most people who were there for the original run of TOS (The Original Series) remember it fondly and feel its morality tales still have relevance in today's world. Those growing up on later series have a less favorable impresssion. It's interesting that because TOS was shot on film, Star Trek is being released on Blu-Ray in high definition whereas Next Gen was shot on video and so no high-def copies will ever become available.

Enterprise is the only other Trek series incarnation that's likely to appear in high definition on Blu-Ray. This series received a lot of criticism from Star Trek fans for palaying around with Trek history. Spock was supposed to have been the first Vulcan serving in Starfleet, yet T'Pol served as First Officer 150 years earlier in Enterprise. since she wasn't a Starfleet officer, the apparent dichotomy was solved. Enterprise contained other Trek history rewrites also. Actually, this didn't annoy me that much as Enterprise was much more in line with the spirit of TOS than the intervening efforts.

The first Star Trek movie appeared 30 years ago. The last movie, Star Trek: Nemesis, out in 2002, was a dismal effort and put paid to any future Next Gen movies being developed. And now, seven years later, Star Trek XI lands on May 8th, 2009.

I've looked at the trailers and hmmm...I have a lot of reservations about this movie. But that's because I grew up with the old crew and I don't think it's a good idea to tinker with Star Trek history (despite not being put out by what Enterprise did). The problem for me is that Star Trek XI messes with the characters' own histories, takes liberties with their relationships and will fundamentally change how those characters will be perceived.

I know that this is a reboot for a new, younger audience, but (not having seen the movie), perhaps it would have been a better idea to use a different crew and ship, but set in the pre-TOS years. I'm not enamoured with some of the casting choices either. Okay, I agree I'm something of a curmudgeonly old fart on this.

Time will tell. There's only a couple of weeks more to wait till Star Trek XI hits the theaters. Naturally, I'll go along to it. I really hope that I'll be applauding at the end of the movie and wanting more instead of holding my head in my hands disappointed with the "vision" of a director who wasn't even a Star Trek fan.

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