I have been a huge Star Trek Fan since seeing Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan sometime back in the late 90s. I am also an avid reader so I devoured the novels for about 5 years before falling away, losing a lot of interest during the time of DS9 and Voyager and the last 2 Next Generation movie.
Star Trek has been around since 1966 when Gene Roddenberry took his wild and wacky idea that in the future we would have moved beyond certain human tendencies that are dominant today and have established a world government, living peacefully at home, directing all our energies in exploring the galaxy and co-existing peacefully with other races. It was an amazing series and dealt with issues of war and peace, the value of personal loyalty, authoritarianism, imperialism, class warfare, economics, racism, religion, human rights, sexism and feminism, and the role of technology, but above all else it was just damn good television that made actors like William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForrest Kelly, Nichelle Nichols, George Takei, Walter Koenig and James Doohan househld names. Who in the world has'nt heard the expression "Beam Me Up Scotty!
The series was successful enough to last 3 years, but exploded in popularity when it went into syndication in the 70s and has since produced:
Six Movies with the Main Cast
- Star Trek: The Motion Picture
- Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
- Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
- Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
- Star Trek V: The Final Fronteir
- Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
4 Spin Off Television Series
- Star Trek: The Next Generation (87-94)
- Star Trek: Deep Space 9 (93-99)
- Star Trek: Voyager (95-01)
- Star Trek: Enterprise (01-05)
4 Movies with the Next Generation Cast
- Star Trek: Generations
- Star Trek: First Contact
- Star Trek: Insurrection
- Star Trek: Nemesis
For a franchise that has not been afraid to push the envelope and evolve, why the need for a new movie bringing back the classic characters ?
Simply put - The franchise was dying. Like James Bond before it, like John Byrne's Superman relaunch in 1986, like Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Retuns, like Christian Bale's new Batman movies - every now and then a face-lift is needed.
Star Trek had gone through its various incarnations and with help from Rick Berman and company had progressively lost popularity. The tone had changed from the 60s - Kirk solving problems by jumping in head first and using his fists and/or phasers to solve a problem, to Jean-Luc-Picard's noble presence which demanded negotiation and rationale before taking action if necessary. It did not help that for every good Star Trek movie that was produced there were a few duds in the lot (Final Fronteir, Insurrection, Nemesis) and that also extended to the series (Enterprise).
I saw Star Trek on Saturday night and at the end of it I proudly proclaimed that the franchise has been reborn in the capable hands of JJ Abrams. Known for his Executive Producing popular TV series Alias, Fringe, Lost, Felicity and others, Abrams took up the task of re-introducing a Star Trek that would have mass appeal beyond the core supporters (Trekkers, Trekkies). His solution was to go back to beginning of James T. Kirk and crew members of the Enterprise and "re-tell" their first meeting and then to "take it from there....." He ran the risk of alienating millions of Star Trek fans worldwide and not attracting a wider audience and had to straddle a fine line in doing so. His solution to the problem was to do a time travel story and have the subsequent events branch off on a seperate timeline leaving the original intact.
I won't get into details about the plot and story, just to say that JJ Abrams delivered Star Trek on full warp drive with space battles and explosions and feeling of intense danger the likes of which have not been seen since Star trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. We no longer felt that the characters were sacred and changes were impossible.
Lenord Nimoy's appearance to hand over the batton to the new crew was handled well and his character was integral to the story, and while the discerning among us saw plot holes and coincidences large enough to drive a semi-trailer through, it did not distract enough to lessen the impact of the movie. The cast settled into their roles comfortably and I expect them to grow into the characters bringing their own unique personalities to bear in the near future.
Star Trek is back - Hip Hip Hooray !! JJ Abrams already has plans for Star Trek II sometime in 2011 and this is one Trekker who will be waiting with anticipation.
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