Star Trek XI
I grew up on Star Trek. The original series and later The Next Generation. Later series haven’t thrilled me as much but I’ve given all of them a chance (Enterprise, unfortunately, was cancelled just when the writing started to become adequate). Star Trek is one of the main reasons that I became a science fiction fan and wannabe writer. I have seen every single Star Trek movie in the theatre. Sometimes I’ve been happy, sometimes I’ve walked away saying, “Boy did that suck.” Too often, actually, but the good has mostly outweighed the bad.
When I heard that the new movie is going to be a “re-imagining” of the original series, I didn’t bother to suppress the shudder. To my mind, the problem with the idea of re-imagining something is that it usually throws out the original imagination completely, the good with the bad. Yes, there was certainly bad (Hey, can I borrow those Roman costumes you’re not using?), but there was a lot more good. Any time something is “re-imagined”, I’m wary of the potential results.
Against the recommendation of a very good friend of mine, I just watched the teaser for the new Star Trek movie. It tells me very, very little – which is what a teaser is supposed to do. But it seems to show that, contrary to everything we’ve ever been shown in the past in the ST universe, the Enterprise is being built on the ground. Disregarding that, the teaser looked good.
Is canon important? Yes, but it’s not the only thing that matters, but by a long shot. Writing, casting, acting, visuals, but ultimately the vision is the critical thing. Show me the vision, JJ. Consider me teased, but show me the vision.
Re-imagining Trek concerns me. The teaser teased me. Am I going to see this movie in the theatre? Sure, and I’m going to take my son, who’ll be just a bit over ten by then. Good or bad, we’ll see it together. Kind of a family tradition. And I’ll be sitting on the fence until I’ve actually seen the film.
Still cranking along. Just finished a really fun action scene and now I have to write the clean up and fall out. I’ve started the basics of plotting that next big story and done a lot of editing on some shorter pieces, several of which might actually be ready for submission, maybe. A shorter piece that I’m only really working on during “weekends” is currently sitting at a touch of 17k words and will probably finish up at 19 to 20. I’m feeling pretty productive.
