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"Could this Ness guy be a teenager?"
May. 14th, 2009 11:45 amThat line is, of course, from Brian Michael Bendis' "Fortune and Glory", the story of his attempt to pitch his screenplay based on the true crime saga of Elliot Ness taking on the Cleveland Torso Killer. It also includes one source of of my still present disdain for the new Star Trek movie.
No, I haven't seen it yet. Yes, I know it's getting good reviews. But let me unpack my primary complaints:
1) there is no reason why this movie has to be about Kirk, Spock et al.
2) there is no reason why this movie has to play hob with the existing Star Trek history.
I just don't see it. I don't see that the original show characters are so iconic that they have to be revamped, modified and then recast. The Trek universe has been re-examined from different angles for decades now, and there was no mass exodus from TNG because it didn't feature the original characters. Ditto the other series. (There may have been a mass exodus because the scripts and plots weren't particularly good, but that's a whole other issue.) I just do not see a compelling reason why Paramount couldn't have spent the degree of money and advertisting pushing a new Star Trek movie with a different crew in a different time period.
After all, they're already messing with the existing characters beyond minor tweaks - from what I have heard there's a romantic rivalry with Kirk and Spock after the same woman for example (!?!) - so there's no overwhelming reason to apply the old names to them. By making all of them younger we trample into the realms of the absurd - Trek canon went to great lengths to explain how Kirk got to be a Star Ship captain as young as 30, with Roddenbery coming as he did from the actual military, but now he's captain right after his Cadet cruise. Because younger is better, apparently, disregarding how the 'aged' Captain Picard became a bit of a 90's sex symbol.
I have also heard that there are a half dozen or so references from the characters about how their future isn't writ, so there will be no attempt to hew to the continuity of the old show - in which case why bother even worrying about it?
As for not playing hob with history, why not set the movie say, 75 years after the events of Voyager where the Federation has been upended and is starting from relative scratch, with the fanboys itching to find out what happened to get to this point rather than looking for the things that are being ignored? Or have it be in the Christopher Pike era but make the characters the crew of the USS Constitution, so we aren't tied to a pre-existing set of character concepts.
I know that in Hollywood there is a strong, strong preferece for redoing what has been done (a Footloose remake? Footloose?!?) rather than breaking new ground. But Trek is one of the few franchise entities that has successfuly broken new ground, so falling back shows a fundemental lack of faith in their material. This has been evident for some time - with Enterprise eschewing all constraints of what has gone before and relying on Vulcans in belly shirts to draw viewers - but I don't understand it. And this movie - which might be a lot of fun and enjoyable - is just another part of it.
( Enterprise Rant )
No, I haven't seen it yet. Yes, I know it's getting good reviews. But let me unpack my primary complaints:
1) there is no reason why this movie has to be about Kirk, Spock et al.
2) there is no reason why this movie has to play hob with the existing Star Trek history.
I just don't see it. I don't see that the original show characters are so iconic that they have to be revamped, modified and then recast. The Trek universe has been re-examined from different angles for decades now, and there was no mass exodus from TNG because it didn't feature the original characters. Ditto the other series. (There may have been a mass exodus because the scripts and plots weren't particularly good, but that's a whole other issue.) I just do not see a compelling reason why Paramount couldn't have spent the degree of money and advertisting pushing a new Star Trek movie with a different crew in a different time period.
After all, they're already messing with the existing characters beyond minor tweaks - from what I have heard there's a romantic rivalry with Kirk and Spock after the same woman for example (!?!) - so there's no overwhelming reason to apply the old names to them. By making all of them younger we trample into the realms of the absurd - Trek canon went to great lengths to explain how Kirk got to be a Star Ship captain as young as 30, with Roddenbery coming as he did from the actual military, but now he's captain right after his Cadet cruise. Because younger is better, apparently, disregarding how the 'aged' Captain Picard became a bit of a 90's sex symbol.
I have also heard that there are a half dozen or so references from the characters about how their future isn't writ, so there will be no attempt to hew to the continuity of the old show - in which case why bother even worrying about it?
As for not playing hob with history, why not set the movie say, 75 years after the events of Voyager where the Federation has been upended and is starting from relative scratch, with the fanboys itching to find out what happened to get to this point rather than looking for the things that are being ignored? Or have it be in the Christopher Pike era but make the characters the crew of the USS Constitution, so we aren't tied to a pre-existing set of character concepts.
I know that in Hollywood there is a strong, strong preferece for redoing what has been done (a Footloose remake? Footloose?!?) rather than breaking new ground. But Trek is one of the few franchise entities that has successfuly broken new ground, so falling back shows a fundemental lack of faith in their material. This has been evident for some time - with Enterprise eschewing all constraints of what has gone before and relying on Vulcans in belly shirts to draw viewers - but I don't understand it. And this movie - which might be a lot of fun and enjoyable - is just another part of it.
( Enterprise Rant )
