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Inevitably, I went to see the newest Star Trek<\/em> film with my wife on Sunday. Now, I’ve always thought of myself as a Star Trek<\/em> fan, even though I’m too young for The Original Series<\/em> and it’s The Next Generation<\/em> that is the most memorable for me. I never did get around to watching Deep Space Nine<\/em>, only watched bits and pieces of Voyager<\/em> and made a deliberate effort to avoid watching Enterprise<\/em>.<\/p>\n Still, I’m reasonably up to snuff on the best parts of TOS<\/em> and combined with the best parts of TNG<\/em>, I have a very firm idea of what it is that makes Star Trek<\/em> great: as a mainstream platform on which to tell high-brow science-fiction. After all, it’s not a coincidence that many of the very best episodes were written by the most notable writers of print-based science-fiction, for example, City on the Edge of Forever (TOS)<\/em> by Harlan Ellison, The Measure of a Man (TNG)<\/em> by Melinda Snodgrass, The Doomsday Machine (TOS)<\/em> by Norman Spinrad etc. Plus, there’s the fact that Star Trek<\/em> always had a single very clear vision: creator Gene Roddenberry’s dream of a unified and noble humanity venturing out to do good amongst the stars.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Of course, there has always been an element of action adventure as excellent episodes like The Best of Both Worlds (TNG)<\/em> and Balance of Terror (TOS)<\/em> demonstrate. But to my mind, it has always been the introspective, speculative and even philosophical aspect of Star Trek<\/em> that makes it stand out. Well, that aspect is dead and buried and judging by the cues we’re given in The Future Begins<\/em>, probably for good.<\/p>\n The new film begins innocuously enough with an exciting, slapbang space battle that wouldn’t have been too out of place in any of the previous entries of the franchise, but it’s when the new and sexy Uhura saunters into a bar that you know this is not your grandfather’s Star Trek<\/em>. It’s loud, it’s edgy, it’s boisterous, it’s chaotic. It has Starfleet officers engaged in a bloody and senseless fistfight in a bar for crying out loud. All very far from the clean and orderly Federation<\/em> that Roddenberry envisioned and that the cultured and dignified Captain Jean-Luc Picard of TNG<\/em> perhaps best exemplified.<\/p>\n Not that this makes The Future Begins<\/em> a bad film. On the contrary, it’s easily one of the best Star Trek<\/em> films ever made, on par with The Wrath of Khan<\/em>. Part of the reason for that is that Star Trek<\/em> has never really felt at home on the big screen. The episodic format of television was always best suited for telling the idea-driven stories of the old Star Trek<\/em>. But most of it is because this is unarguably a good film. It’s well shot and directed. The new cast is impressive for the most part despite some lingering doubts I have about Simon Pegg and David Cho due to their roles in previous films. But the Holy Trinity of Kirk, Spock and McCoy is pitch perfect.<\/p>\n If the primary purpose of a film is to entertain and never bore, that there’s little doubt that this film succeeds. It has action, it has humor and it’s chock full of shout-outs to established Star Trek<\/em> lore to appease long-time fans, but it’s clear that J.J. Abrams’ main intention is to open up the Star Trek<\/em> franchise to a new generation of fans. One possible point of critique is that Abrams seems to be channeling the Michael Bay school of film making, using an unrelentingly fast pace to cover up plot holes and inconveniences (how could Spock Prime possibly see what’s happening on another planet if he’s supposed to be standing on another planet far away?) and showing only the most awesome looking scenes, never mind that they don’t serve much purpose story-wise (what is the point of showing Kirk’s teenage joyride?)<\/p>\n At least so far Abrams has managed to avoid the worst of Bay’s eye-rolling excesses and has delivered a genuinely thrilling action adventure. Part of me is still quietly mourning the death of the old Star Trek<\/em>, but to be fair to Abrams, he was not the one who killed it. Long-time producers Rick Berman and Brannon Braga did that by moving away from Roddenberry’s original vision following his death in 1991, at first by baby steps in Deep Space Nine<\/em> and Voyager<\/em>, but then by huge leaps in Enterprise<\/em>. If Star Trek<\/em> is to live on, it seems that it must be in this form or not all. What happens to the planet Vulcan in this film, always the civilized and intellectual side of the Federation, is a pretty overt symbol of the new direction the franchise is going to take from now on.<\/p>\n So the old Star Trek<\/em> is dead. May the new one live long and prosper.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Inevitably, I went to see the newest Star Trek film with my wife on Sunday. Now, I’ve always thought of myself as a Star Trek fan, even though I’m too young for The Original Series and it’s The Next Generation that is the most memorable for me. I never did get around to watching Deep … Continue reading Star Trek is dead. Long live the new Star Trek<\/span>