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I once sat in a movie theater with some high school friends, such geeks and nerds that for us this was a "wild night out" - more excited just to be hanging out with them, as opposed to being excited about the movie we were about to watch - which was then the most current film in the Trek franchise, 1986's Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. One of our newest friends to the group, Charles, who I just beginning to get more acquainted with, was a die-hard Trekker, so the rest of us were there just to accommodate him. Most of us pretty much were lukewarm about Star Trek.
I had only seen the two preceding films, Wrath of Khan and Search for Spock, because they were just that popular with general audiences, much less with Trekkies and Trekkers. I had liked them very much, but wasn't overtly mesmerized by them, yet. And although I would claim to be a die-hard sci-fi fan, through the indoctrination of cinema such as Star Wars and Blade Runner, and the animated series (and comic books) of The Transformers, I had just otherwise never really immersed myself with Star Trek. Back then it was just kind of hard to even if you wanted to. Like just about anybody, I had seen some episodes of the original show here and there (thankfully, my older brother Paul dug it enough to watch it on occasion), but the low budget, phony looking productions were hard for me to acquiesce, and I was far too young and impatient to appreciate any of the intellectual, cerebral aspects of the show (besides they were virtually randomly aired at that point, and I prefer to immerse myself from the ground-up with these things). As an animation fan, of course I had also really enjoyed episodes of Star Trek: The Animated Series, especially for it's strivance to be as much like the original show as possible, but, for example, I never even bothered with the first, Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) because the word of mouth on it was that bad! It might surprise you then, that The Voyage Home didn’t exactly convert me into a Trekker, either. Or maybe it got me started on a long, leisurely journey; I’m not sure. The Voyage Home is largely considered one of the most successful and accessible of all the Star Trek feature films, and I found it to be a grand time at the movies. It was VERY funny, and the angle about the importance of the “save the whales” campaign was topical. I didn’t love it, but I did really enjoy it. After the film, I had at least a zillion nerdy continuity based questions for Charles, and he happily clued me in where he could. I was very impressed with his knowledge, and even envious that he could be excited about seeing an actor that, at that time, I had never even heard of (Mark Leonard, for those of you curious enough, returning from the original series and previous film to play Spock’s father, Sarek.). Although I would have no access to previous materials (you couldn’t even rent episodes on VHS yet) I was, at the least, excited to see where Star Trek would go next (little did any of us know what an abomination would follow, at least where the movie series was concerned). As a fan of histrionics, I was always curious about Star Trek and the evolution of it. I had known all about Star Wars, of course, but in those days there was no internet with which to research, libraries seldom carried any books about it (or if they tried to, the books all went missing), and book stores couldn't keep them on the shelves enough! (Just check any copyrights page of a book about Star Trek from the 1970's; at least twenty printings per title!). What scant little I did know was that the show had only run three seasons in the late '60's, was cancelled for muddled, confusing reasoning, and got that much more mega-popular in syndicated reruns in the 1970's. Big "oopsie" on the part of the NBC network that cancelled it in the first place! It was barely a month or two later when we convened at Charles' house to watch the premier of Star Trek: The Next Generation, a new sequel series featuring all new characters in a farther future time line. I wasn't overly excited, and I remember thinking this was actually going to be a huge gamble for the franchise, one with potential for disaster. Some Trekkies were even already grumbling against it for not being the original cast, even though with the success of the film series that would obviously be an out-of-the-question concept! Despite some good production values, we were all a little under-whelmed by it, despite once again Charles informing us of behind the scenes connections, such as original series story editor Dorothy Fontana having written the new script. Sometime afterward, another friend of mine, the very webmaster of this here site, would invite me to Star Trek conventions. I had to inform Tony that I wasn’t really that much into Trek, and he agreed that he wasn’t either. Once he explained to me that we could go there for the vendors, who would engage in the proliferation of comic books as much as anything else, yes, I was in! I couldn’t believe my eyes! Or maybe I could, because I had read a little previous history of Trek conventions. Still, people would turn out to these things to buy such odd items as color photo stills and, ugh, decorative collector plates of this show? Heck, I would even pass on such things for my aforementioned favorites even if they had them (but I was certainly envious of some of those Technical Manuals; man did I want Star Wars versions of those!). (Also, to this day, for all of my own collector oddities, I still have no such thing as a “collector’s plate”. Nothing would make buy such a thing, at least, not until there’s such a thing as an Optimus Prime or Megatron G1 Transformers collector’s plate[s])! Yet the Trek conventions were fun, certainly. Practicing my “adult” language, I paused before a vendor whose entire table was laid out with the “Timescape” brand of Star Trek novels and I exacerbated, “My god, how many f*cking Star Trek novels do there need to be?” Tony looked to be questioning the wisdom of inviting me to the convention at all, but then the vendor, to his credit, smiled and responded in equal exacerbation, “Oh...oh...oh... It’s at least one new book a month since 1981!” We all laughed and shook our heads incredulously. Seriously, they were pumping these things out like comic books! Tony took a moment to point out that at least the covers were painted by the famed Boris Valejo. Boris who? That was just another sobering moment where I had to humbly acquiesce that most of my friends were more knowledgeable than me (but then, those are exactly the kinds of friends I like to be around anyway, because I can learn best from them). We got to listen to guest speaker Walter Koenig, which was fun, just for being my first real brush with celebrity. Yet I was so little into this thing that, really, my only memory of him were those fun scenes in The Voyage Home of him running around the Navy shipyards! And, just listening to this man talk was fun, because obviously he had done something that was not just important - but literally beloved - to almost everyone there. They hung on his every word, and even he seemed to be as overwhelmed and as out of place as Tony and me. That put all of us in the same boat, and made me feel more welcome. Other fans there were happy to clue us in - when my friend and I talked openly about not having a clue who Grace Lee Whitney was (the second guest speaker at the same convention) and her position in Star Trek, complete and total strangers were very warm and willingly filling us in, completely unable or unwilling to thumb noses at us like some elitist snobs might have. (Again, for those of you who may not know; Whitney played Yeoman Janice Rand [the captain’s aide] for just eight episodes of the original Star Trek and mysteriously left the show under a cloud; once her life was straightened out she was invited back into the Trek family-fold in time for the movie series revival). As our convention visitations rolled on, I still allied my loyalties to Star Wars, but considering the absence of its presence in the marketplace (at the time, only West End Game’s roleplaying game line was the only thing for it being produced) so, in a fixation for more science fiction, I tried my hand once more with The Next Generation sometime midway through season two. And this time, I loved it. I don’t even remember which episode it might have been, but I loved it. I didn’t need to know anything about it’s continuity or history, because now this was a completely new iteration, and I was not only impressed with the story but all the sets, costumes, and special effects had absolutely worked for the story instead of distracting from it. The next day I was at the video store renting The Motion Picture. Much like all other Trek's, for all the grumblings from the fans and the slams from professional critics, I liked it. Didn't "love it"; didn't instantly become a Trekkie, but I liked it. Sometimes, that's just enough, right? I stuck with TNG for most of the rest of it's run, picked up a few Trek comics and books here and there (I have to be careful with the books - good gravy there are so many of them), and have seen all the movies. Even amongst the worst of them (Final Frontier, Insurrection and Nemesis, here's farting in your general directions) I can find something enjoyable and completely viewing worthy in all of them. I started to finally really appreciate the original series more ever since the remastered episodes began airing in 2007 (and have since bought them on Blu Ray and my god are those ever glorious). I never really warmed to the post TNG shows, even though they all have reputations for excellence, especially DS9 (there's no denying that "Far Beyond the Stars" is one of the finest Trek episodes EVER). Okay, maybe Enterprise doesn't have a reputation for excellence, but there are definitely some fine episodes in it's later two seasons. And if, like me, one of your favorite sci-fi themes is multiple alternate realities and divergent timelines, Voyager can be pretty hard to beat. By 2009, Star Trek was an almost entirely dormant franchise - pretty much having self-invented the term "franchise fatigue". J.J. Abrams had a pretty tough job to do in finding a way to reverse its fortunes while still finding an appeal-point for some of the series oldest and most devoted of fans. I was nervous as there was a lot of grumblings about it being too action oriented and kyping too much from Star Wars. And I kept hearing that one A LOT. But let's face it, most of the Trek movies have done that, both the best and the worst - :Following the success of Star Wars, 79's comeback movie TMP loaded up on innovative special effects, to the point where it overbears most of the actual story. :The Wrath of Khan succeeded by punching up the pace and space-opera action elements of it's storyline, not to mention the effects were completed by George Lucas' own ILM effects shop! :Search for Spock features a scene that is a watered down version of the cantina scene from Star Wars. :The one plus of Final Frontier is that it's practically Shatner's love letter to the style and tone of the Star Wars movies (he should have cast Mark Hamill to play Sybok - or better yet, Carried Fisher as "God"!). And just any of you TRY and convince me this movie is any less ridiculous and unbelievable than actual biblical scripture! :Insurrection, although a technically proficient film, moves at a snail's pace and needed more cowbell, err, I mean Star Wars-ishiness. :Nemesis, anyone? I mean, come on! And let us not forget, Star Wars itself took many ideas from the original Star Trek - :a mining city in the clouds. :Spock using his psionic powers to suggest a security guard unlock his cell door. :a bastardization of the word, "Carbomite." :green skinned slave bimbos. Anyway, what I and apparently most of the movie going audience liked about the new Trek is the fact that it's back to the original characters and now we have a chance to explore some of their history and motivations without stuff like "continuity" getting in the way. And as previously noted, I'm already a fan of alternate histories and parallel universes (of which Trek has a modest few, including the "Mirror, Mirror" universe and the Star Fleet Battles universe, the latter of which isn't even acknowledged by franchise owners Paramount Pictures), so a movie that is still as much a sequel as it was a reboot was right up my alley. Yes, there is a danger that the franchise is loosing some of it's identity as cerebral and thought provoking science fiction that, when at it's best, explores the condition of being a sentient, free-thinking being, but here was a movie that was giving us the best of both. Less so for the first sequel, Into Darkness, which is mostly a pastiche of repeat ideas and doesn't feel nearly as fresh; that said the visuals are wonderful and it's entertaining from start to finish! For this year's 50th birthday bash, we have Star Trek Beyond, which, as far as i'm concerned is absolutely the best of the three of this new Kelvin time-line series of films. Not only is it non-stop action up the ass, it's pretty damned funny, most of which are not throwaway one liners, but actual character driven humor! Not only does this film out-Abrams for visual panache (the Yorktown space station is my new favorite sci-fi location, on a par with the Citadel from Mass Effect!) , but it finds time to highlight the right balance of humor and pathos for the entire cast, including the new characters (one caveat is that Idris Elba's villainous Krall could have used a tad more motivation and screen time - he's freakin' IDRIS ELBA for Buddha's sake!). The plot is, admittedly, not much (some of it is literally drowned out by explosions!) but it's intentionally kept light and easy to follow. Where this movie shines is in it's visual ideas: nanotech is going to become a thing; starships are becoming obsolete; biotech will allow us to change our physiological makeup and change our identities on a mere whim! I suspect, as has always been, the movie's will remain action and humor spectacles because they need to appeal, now, to not only a broad audience but a global one as well. They have to rely less on communicative languages and more on visual storytelling. However, with advent of a new streaming tele-series, Discovery, set for next year, there, we will find our leisurely pacing and intimate science fiction ideas. It appears we will easily have another 50 years to look forward to!
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