Drunk on Star Trek

By Lisa Fary

For the first time ever, Dr. Leonard McCoy ruined a movie theater seat. Specifically, the one I was sitting in.

If it hadn’t been Bones, it would have been another unsuspected culprit. Perhaps Montgomery Scott (and not just because it was Simon Pegg – although that helps). Or even Spock. Spock, people. Historically, neither Spock nor Zachary Quinto have been particularly attractive to my freakish sensibilities, but this Spock’s intellect combined with  his love for his mother and affection for Uhura made him surprisingly hot.

Dr. McCoy. . . . well, I guess that was partly about Karl Urban. However, had he played a caricature or simply played DeForest Kelley, I would have been annoyed and his rating on the sexy-meter would have gone down. Not much, though because it is Karl Urban (the only reason I watched all of Pathfinder was because he was half-naked in a loincloth and chaps).

So, I’m going to say it.

I LOVED this movie. I thought it was going to be an impossible feat for JJ Abrams, that it would be another crappy prequel debacle that would make me want to take a shower. I was thrilled to be wrong on both counts. Dare I say this Star Trek was damn near brilliant and I was drunk on it all weekend.

Nemesis keeps coming to mind as a point of comparison. Nemesis wasn’t a terrible movie – like the rest of the Next Gen movies, it had the feel of a very special episode rather than a film, but I did kinda like it even though Shinzon was kinda lame and Data’s self-sacrifice was anti-climactic.

The biggest problem with Nemesis was that it had no room to bring new fans into the fold. It was aimed squarely at existing fans with payoffs that only existing fans would appreciate; for example, the marriage of Riker and Deanna Troi, if that can be considered a “payoff” (DEANNA + WORF 4EVER).

Nemesis was kind of a filthy gold digger of a movie. I mean, every movie is just after your money, but with Nemesis it was like Paramount wasn’t even trying to hide it. The movie may as well have been called Star Trek: Give Us Your Nerdy, Sexless Cash.

Star Trek has always been a nerdy endeavor. I’ve never sought Trek acceptance from the slackjawed masses (as the Amateur Scientist termed them) and have been fully aware that when I disclose my Trek love to a non-Trekkie, that lip curl/ wrinkle nose look will soon fill my vision.

I am OK with all of this. However, Star Trek had been dying a slow death for years. It was heartbreaking to watch, really, to see something so groundbreaking and influential suffocate under its own weight. It’s not a dignified way to go.

Star Trek, if it was going to continue in a meaningful way, needed someone with the balls to say, “Yeah, this all happened and it was great. Now let’s move on and make this relevant again.”

And that’s what JJ Abrams did. The movie took a concept that’s being explored on Fringe, parallel universes in which every action we can make forms new branches, and applied it to Star Trek. Everything that we know, everything that has happened, continues to exist. However, from the moment Nero’s ship comes through the singularity and encounters the USS Kelvin, a new timeline is created. One that isn’t beholden to canon and will be a Trekverse unlike anything we’ve seen.

The inevitable question, I’m sure, would be Why not just come up with new characters and put them on a new Enterprise? Because creating new ones would have sent the message this is another installment for people who are already entrenched in the franchise. Whatever new characters took the bridge would also continue to be slaves to forty-five years of story.

And really, the original crew was always the best. Kirk, Spock, and Bones balanced one another perfectly. The crew was diverse in a human sense rather than the artificial sense that came from having a Klingon, an android, and a Betazoid on the bridge. Just about whoever you were, it seemed there was a representative on the Enterprise.

But, I guess the question is, why do I like this new version so much? For a bunch of reasons:

The aliens looked alien, rather than being adorned with a forehead ridge to set them apart.

Vulcans are kinda racist douchebags. They’ve always come across to me as superior minded dickweeds, and I really thought I was the only fan to think that way. Spock’s child tormentors and the Vulcan ministers tell me otherwise.

The villain isn’t an evil empire. It’s one guy, twisted with grief, who’s gotten his hands on a horrific weapon.

Uhura had stuff to do. She was plucky and didn’t take crap. I also love this thing she has with Spock.

There’s a place for action, but more often than not, smarts save the day.

It was hopeful with moments of genuine humor, which is something I’ve missed from sci-fi for years. I’m so bloody sick of grim, somber sci-fi.

This Star Trek couldn’t have come at a better time. We’re coming out a dark, frightening period in our history – it’s not over yet, but we’re taking the steps to get there – and culturally, we need something positive and hopeful that gives a bright vision of a possible future.

Look at it! Earth in this future looks like a nice place to live. There are no tent cities. There are no evil corporations and banks trying to screw people. And when you have no where to go, you can still go into space! I want to live there.

I don’t see the reboot as making Star Trek shiny and hip for the kids or making it “better”. I see it more like taking something that belonged to our parents and making it work for us. Hopefully making it work for us will involve more Karl Urban. Naked.

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Lisa Fary’s early exposure to classic Battlestar Galactica in 1979 is largely responsible for her lifelong interest in science fiction and her childhood ambition of being an intergalactic space cowgirl. She thinks diagramming sentences is a fun alternative to Sudoku.

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