Star Trek: Into The Darkside

One's a blowhard, leap-first/ask questions later, dictator, whose
brash decision making continuously puts the Enterprise in
danger... The other is Captain James T. Kirk... Baazing...

I've mentioned before how doomed the Star Wars franchise is. More and more Star Wars is looking like it has an exposed thermal exhaust port ripe for the exploding. I mean if the opening on the first Death Star had been as big as some of the plot holes in the prequel trilogy, then Luke wouldn't have had to use the Force. Hell, he could've even used Apple Maps to guide that torpedo shot. Now after having seen Star Trek: Into Darkness the imminent death of my all-time favorite franchise seems all but assured.

This is not going to be a review of the newest installment of the Star Trek franchise, after all there is plenty of angry nerds out there exhorting the numerous plot holes, convoluted story lines, nonsensical ranking/organization of this "Abramsverse" Starfleet, and the other dissatisfactions of the most recent movie, (and if you are looking that kind of review I suggest you check out The Nerd Blog for a fairly complete breakdown of the film.) I will say that I didn't hate the movie as much as I probably should have. Yes, Abrams butchered one of the best Trek plot lines and effectively neutered (and swapped nationalities of) one of Trek's best villains, but I can appreciate what they tried to do in the grand scheme of things. I mean at last the movie was still better than The Dark Knight Rises.

What really irks me is how Abrams tends to handle everything. Its like Nero's ship went back in time and created an alternate universe where all the people became young and sexy, all action became fast paced, decisions didn't always have to make sense, and Starfleet's new motto became Deus Ex Machina, (as opposed to Ex Astris, Scientia,) "but who cares, as long as it sells tickets, right?.." And that's the problem. Abrams likes to say he cares about making a good movie, but what he really means is that he cares about making a profitable movie. Star Wars fans should take this as a bad sign.

Professor: Good Lord! That's over 5000 atmospheres of pressure!
Fry: How many atmospheres can the ship withstand?
Professor: Well, it was built for space travel, so anywhere
between zero and one.
(Read about why this scene is stupid and implausible)

What people (George Lucas included) seem to forget is that Star Wars didn't start out with the sole purpose of making money. In 1977 Lucas was an unknown director who created some kind of new and far fetched space opera that no one had ever heard of before, and no one thought it would make any money (Lucas included,) but that didn't matter. That wasn't the point, because Star Wars had something deeper. Yes, it had ground-breaking special effects for the time, but at the core of A New Hope it was about the universal story of a farmboy taking the hero's journey and finding something buried within himself. It wasn't the lightspeed or the climatic X-Wing battle that made Star Wars beloved (though they were both very cool and impressive,) it was the heart of the story and how it spoke to something deeper about who we were as humans. The fact that it made money was an added surprise.

Episodes VII, VIII, IX, and the (sigh) one-shot movies about Han Solo and Boba Fett will not (no matter how many times they try to make you think it is) ever be about that deeper mythology or the universal themes of humanity. It will always be about making money, especially now that the films are under the control of Disney. Remember John Carter? (Most people don't.) The House of Mouse took a Victorian fantasy/sci-fi piece that had boundless potential for story-telling and made it into a CGI orgasm of little-to-no substance. They will do it again to Star Wars and there is no decision that optimizes that more than the hiring of J.J. Abrams as director. He is going to take the heart from Star Wars just as he did from Star Trek.

If Star Wars has always been about deeper and grander themes of myth, villainy, and heroism, than Star Trek has always been about philosophical and social commentary. The Original Series was the first TV show to depict minorities as officers and leaders, instead of just caricatures. The show and its predecessors tackled important and relevant social themes of the day including, the Vietnam War, racism, the Cold War, Big Brother, and issues of security versus liberty. It was a truism for Star Trek from the very first episode to the end of the last (Picard-era) movie. If Star Wars was meant to speak to the common myths we all hold within ourselves and our experiences, than Star Trek was meant to speak to the smaller (yet no less important) shared philosophical and ethical debates of our lives, (even if dropped the ball on LGBT issues,) but with this new movie all I find is a Star Trek universe that is all flash and no heart.



An Honest Star Trek Trailer

I am not saying the old Trek always got it right, they didn't. There were plenty of bad story lines and convoluted plot points, but at least they had the audacity to try. Abrams Star Trek is exactly what you would expect, a popcorn sci-fi action movie with enough moments of comedy and sexual innuendo to placate the masses of summer movie-goers. Its a characterization that might have been understandable for the 2009 movie, but for the 2013 movie I looking for something more. This movie missed an incredible opportunity to follow in its predecessor's footsteps and talk about deeper issues, such as terrorism, friendship, and the difference between doing what is expected and doing what is right. I am not saying the movie didn't try to touch on these themes, but it felt glossed over and lackluster at best. It was as if they shuffled them forward so that we could make it just in time to see the next high-flying action sequence.

How will this affect the new Star Wars? I suppose only time will tell, but I am not hopeful. After all when you take out the myth, (the heart) of Star Wars you are left with... Episode I, and that is why the prequel movies failed. They lacked the mythological heart of their predecessors (for a few reasons,) but ultimately because the George Lucas of 1997 was not the same George Lucas of 1977. One was looking to make a deeply satisfying movie (consequences be damned,) the other was looking to appeal to kids so he could sell more toys and McDonald's meals. When you think about it, that is part of the reason why we can accept Ewoks but not Jar Jar Binks. At least the stormtrooper slaughtering teddy bears appeared as part of the greater mythology. The later was just there to pedal the movies to kids like some kind of racially stereotyped drug dealer. I cannot imagine that these new movies will be any better, given the CGI heavy, and "movie by committee" approach that is so common in Hollywood in today.

 

(I am going to digress, please feel free to skip this paragraph.) In many ways the rise of CGI has been both a blessing and a curse to Hollywood. Cheap special effects means that directors have the means to make their movies look big budget, even when they're not. This also means that they can more easily discard storyline and character development for explosions and starfighter dogfights. In franchises like Star Trek and Star Wars the danger for this is even higher. For example, Star Trek: Into Darkness finds itself focusing way too much on action and relies on making Star Trek in-jokes to try and remind audiences of the character bonds that existed between the Shatner/Nimoy crew in order to keep from "wasting" screen time on character interaction between the new Pine/Quinto crew. This is exactly where Hollywood is failing. CGI is not meant to replace story but enhance it. In a lot of ways the limited special effects budget of the old TV show made Star Trek what it is today. Without the ability to depict grand battles between starships writers and producers had to rely on solid and meaningful storytelling that helped to build beloved characters and a deep mythology.

 

Abrams, cannibalized and piece-mealed part of that deeper complexity to make his movie, taking only the actions and aesthetics, and leaving behind much of their inner meaning. He will do the same to Star Wars. According to Wired.com: Despite the alternate “Abramsverse” timeline created for 2009′s Star Trek and Into Darkness, they were still prequels and [Abrams] had to play by some pre-established rules... Lucasfilm/Disney seem poised to create new Star Wars tales from whole cloth, not pick up threads from previous canon, which gives Abrams’ movie a lot more space (literally, figuratively) to play in. More than anything, I find that statement worrying. Let me explain why.

 

This is soon going to be the least racy/sexual thing you have
ever seen in the Star Wars Universe... just ask every female
cast member of the new Star Trek movies.

I don't consider myself a Trekkie (despite my deep love and affection for Star Trek,) but I have seen every episode of every TV show and every movie ever made about the Star Trek universe, so trust me when I say: Star Trek's canon is loose at best. Star Trek stories are notorious for retconning existing story lines, characters, and even existing races into something they were never meant to be, (sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.) Maybe that is why Abrams interpretation of Star Trek does not irk me as much as it does other Star Trek fans, because in the grand scheme of things their canon was always kind of shifting and loose. Star Wars on the other hand has always been held to a rigid canon of events, with very few exceptions. It is a canon that has been enforced on writers and artists for decades by Lucasfilm itself, and a canon that has very tightly established the events, the major players, and the intricate history of the Star Wars universe after the events of Return of the Jedi. That means there very much are pre-established rules for making a Star Wars movie set in that era, much stricter than any imposed on any Star Trek set in an alternate universe.

 

We have seen what Abrams does to such an alternate universe where he is allowed to play with ships and phasers and aliens. Now we are giving him the keys to a prime universe where he doesn't have to follow any of the already established norms or timelines that Lucasfilm itself so rigidly held for virtually anyone else who wanted to play in the Star Wars sandbox. I have no doubt the end result will be a string of summer blockbusters, but it will also be the death of my most beloved science fiction franchise. In many ways I owe my geekiness and (by extension) my very personality and being to Star Wars. It helped shape me and create the person I am today. Abrams and Disney and George Lucas are going to destroy that franchise, and with it a small part of me.

 

Maybe I will be surprised. Maybe these movies will be the greatest thing to ever happen to me and Star Wars, but I find it unlikely. With a playground of starfighters and Jedi Knights I doubt Abrams is going to be able to resist giving us action sequence after action sequence at the expense of the true spirit of Star Wars. I am now, more and more, convinced that the deeper myth of that far far away galaxy existed, only, a long time ago. After all, according to E-Online: Forget the Star Wars novels. Forget the graphic novels. Forget everything you think you know about what happens to Luke Skywalker... Episode 7 will literally be nothing you've ever seen or read before from the Star Wars universe.... I think on that much, at least, we all can agree.