Star Trek II, III and IV: Holiday Retrospectives Part 6

I wasn’t kidding when I said that I’ve been a Trekkie for about as long as I’ve been able to walk. My parents are both fans, and I was born the year Star Trek: the Next Generation started. And like a lot of people in the 1980s I was very keen on the movies.

The Original Star Trek took a while to gather momentum into the phenomenon it is today, so it wasn’t until 1979 that Captain Kirk et al returned to prominence by way of movies. Altogether they appeared in six of them, but the ones that most people remember, and the ones that I grew up with, were the informal trilogy of II, III, and IV, entitled the Wrath of Khan, the Search for Spock, and the Voyage Home, respectively.

Everyone knows by now that Wrath of Khan was the movie that Into Darkness was ripping off. It was a stab at a comeback after Star Trek: the Motion Picture flopped – critically, and deservedly – and represented the arrival of Nicholas Meyer, a newcomer to Star Trek, as director and writer.

In Wrath of Khan, Kirk is an Admiral, and chafing at the administrative inactivity of the position when it’s in his nature to, as Dr. McCoy puts it, “be out there hopping galaxies.” It becomes that much more poignant when he arrives for an inspection tour on a training cruise for new officers, aboard the Enterprise, under Spock’s command.

At the same time, Chekhov, also late of the Enterprise, is on an expedition searching for a totally lifeless planet as part of a scientific project called Genesis. When he goes to the surface of one to check an ambiguous reading, Chekhov is horrified to realize that he’s wandered right into the clutches of Khan, the genetically engineered warlord, a fugitive by way of cryogenic preservation from war-torn 20th Century Earth, who once tried to seize the Enterprise, only to be defeated and marooned – events which formed the Original Series episode “Space Seed.”

He uses a local parasite to gain control of Chekhov, and then learns of Genesis and where he can find Kirk, to get power and revenge for his exile. It turns out that Genesis is a new system for terraforming dead planets instantly into garden worlds. The problem is that if used on a planet with life already present, it becomes a weapon of mass destruction. Kirk has to race to stop Khan gaining control of Genesis and destroying his ship and crew, taking horrible casualties in the process.

The movie deconstructs Kirk’s traditional devil-may-care style of leadership, showing the cost in character and lives it can carry. And the cost is high. As everybody probably also knows, this is the one where Spock dies. With the weight of decades of their friendship in popular culture, it was enough to make people weep in the theatres.

While the situation leading to Khan’s escape is a bit of a stretch (surely lifeless planets can’t be that hard to find), the thematic elements are highly complex and powerful. The writing is excellent, and the special effects the pinnacle of the days (which I sometimes miss) when model photography was the normal method. It brought back all the old cast, including Ricardo Montalban as Khan, and introduced Kirstie Alley to movie audiences as Spock’s protege, Lt. Savvik, who serves as a useful foil for the old crowd.

It’s important to remember that in those days, every Star Trek movie produced was made for its own sake. There was no assumption that sequels would be made. So it was probably a bit out of left field for the gang to be called up for another one: Star Trek III: the Search for Spock.

There’s a funny sort of superstition among Trekkies that odd-numbered Trek movies are never as good as even-numbered ones. And indeed, Star Trek III is a bit silly. I love it, but since this is the specific example of Trek that I started out with, most of it is sentimental.

As the grief-stricken Enterprise limps to Earth, the planet created by the Genesis Device which Khan detonated in a last-ditch attempt to kill Kirk has become a political hot potato for the Federation. Savvik (played by Robin Curtis now) has transferred to a science vessel to explore it.

While Kirk and crew sit idly, after learning the Enterprise is to be scrapped, they are concerned by the illness of Dr. McCoy, who seems to be have been driven round the bend by Spock’s demise. As Spock’s father, Ambassador Sarek explains to Kirk, Spock mind-melded with McCoy before he died, leaving a ‘backup copy’ of himself in McCoy’s mind. Apparently, to free McCoy and lay Spock truly to rest, McCoy and Spock’s body must be brought to Vulcan. Trouble is: they buried Spock on the Genesis Planet, and no one but the science team is allowed there. So, for the sake of their friend, Kirk and his comrades steal the Enterprise and go to Genesis. But they’re in for a shock: the Genesis Effect has somehow resurrected Spock’s body, leaving him a gibbering shell, but with a chance to reunite his consciousness with a living body. It will be hard-fought, because the Klingons have gotten wind of the power of Genesis, and want the planet for themselves.

The whole premise has ‘contrived’ hovering over it. The conjuration of a means to bring Spock back was at least vaguely hinted at in Wrath of Khan; exactly why the Klingons need to go to Genesis is a bit unclear, as is why they needed Spock’s body even before they knew that Genesis would regenerate him. The end of Kirk’s long-lost-son arc from Wrath is kind of cheap. But as with Wrath, the saving grace of the movie is its thematic meaning. For all the hoops they had to jump through, the writers made Search a counterpoint to its predecessor. The phrase that bookends Wrath of Khan is Spock’s remark that “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” It summarizes the reasons of Spock’s sacrifice and Kirk’s acceptance of his own responsibilities as a leader. In Search for Spock, though, he counters with “the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many,” the team’s responsibility to each member. If the basic message of Wrath was ‘one for all,’ then Search’s was ‘all for one.’ The basic moments of friendship, especially Spock’s return and McCoy’s remark to him that “it seems I’ve missed you,” are heartwarming and classic, not something you’d hear in this era of ‘bromance.’ The action sequences are tons of fun too. It also marked a few milestones, including the first extensive showcase of the Klingon language, the first of many appearances of the Klingon Bird of Prey (to this hour, I submit, the coolest spaceship ever imagined), the appearance of a fantastically hammy Klingon played by Christopher “1.21 Gigawatts” Lloyd, and Leonard Nimoy’s directorial debut.

The funny thing about Star Trek III is that it was billed as “the last voyage of the starship Enterprise.” As I said, they didn’t assume they’d be making any more. Mind you, it was technically true: the Enterprise itself didn’t survive the movie.

Star Trek IV: the Voyage Home finds Kirk and crew still on Vulcan, having chosen to return, by way of the Klingon vessel they seized in Search for Spock, to Earth and face the music for their actions. Spock, still not fully recovered from his experience, rejoins them for this last voyage.

But Earth is abruptly cut off when an alien probe of enormous power arrives, sending out a thunderous but incomprehensible transmission that cripples every ship, station or planetary infrastructure around it, and starts vaporizing Earth’s oceans.

Kirk and his anxious crew are stymied, but Spock realizes that the probe might not be trying to talk to humans. He’s right: the transmission is actually in the song of humpback whales. Trouble is, they’re extinct in the 23rd Century. To talk the probe down, they’d need actual whales to understand what it’s saying. With no other option to hand, they decide to risk travelling in time to the 20th Century and get some.

So, yes, this is the one where they save the whales. A lot of people seem to regard that as the biggest joke Star Trek ever played on itself. I don’t understand why. Saving whales is good, isn’t it? And the time-travel technique they use was well-established in the Original Series. Plus, it was a fresh formula after the Enterprise vs. Bad Guy setup of the last two. Regardless, it is true that Star Trek IV is written as more of a comedy. This was customary all through the pre-reboot film canon; Star Trek movies cycle between dramatic and lighthearted every other movie or so.

They arrive in 1980s San Francisco, hide their stealthed Klingon ship in Golden Gate Park, and Kirk and Spock make the acquaintance of the marine biologist who is responsible for the only two humpbacks in captivity. Meanwhile Chekhov and Uhura have to try and jump-start their ship’s engine by breaking into a nuclear reactor (oddly enough the one aboard the aircraft carrier Enterprise) and Scotty, Sulu and McCoy have to get into the good graces of a Plexiglas manufacturer in order to convert their ship into a flying aquarium. Wackiness ensues.

The degree of cultural disconnect between the 20th and 23rd Centuries is the root of a lot of the humour; the fact that our heores don’t use money (“I’ll give you one hundred dollars.” “Is that a lot?”) or Scotty trying to give voice commands to an early Apple MacIntosh (through the mouse, no less) or their tenuous grasp of the colloquial idiom (“Double dumb-ass on you!”). The one everyone (especially J.J. Abrams) remembers is Chekhov asking the way to the ‘nuclear wessels.’ Funny thing is, it isn’t his Russian accent that’s the joke: it’s that he’s a Russian in 1980s America asking the way to the United States nuclear navy.

I have an on-again off-again fondness for farce comedy, so I can see how some people might not have much patience with it. It’s interesting insofar as this movie has a lot more conversational dialogue, rather than the “Captain, sensors are picking up such-and-such” material Trek usually deals in. The coolness of humpback whales is sold quite well by the movie, and indeed, they had the co-discoverer of whale song on the crew: Roger Payne.

Except for a brush with a whaling ship, there’s no villain per se in the movie, but the end, as they struggle to get the whales free and clear to call the probe off is nevertheless very suspenseful. Spock’s ongoing recovery is both plot relevant and rather charming and funny (“Spock, where the hell’s the power you promised me?” “One damn minute, Admiral”). The camaraderie of the crew is strong as ever and it’s all wrapped up with a feel-good ending promising further adventures.

The three movies form a trilogy within the Star Trek film canon, based on Meyer’s and Bennett’s vision of it being very much Horatio Hornblower in space, and Leonard Nimoy’s long-standing acquaintance with the show, its characters and its themes. They were in many respects more grounded than the Original Series or the Motion Picture, and I find them the most aesthetically compelling Trek production prior to Deep Space Nine. James Horner’s soundtracks for II and III are absolutely fantastic (he’s a major reason why the ‘stealing the Enterprise sequence is so exhilarating), and the special effects represent Industrial Light and Magic in their prime. For a lot of people this was the high point of the Original Star Trek cast, if not Star Trek generally. And despite what everyone thinks of Star Trek, and William Shatner particularly, the acting is top game all round.

Happy New Year, and Live Long and Prosper

 

Saturday Supplemental: A Brief History of Star Trek

Since I put my cards on the table in my review of J.J. Abrams so-called Star Trek film Into Darkness, I feel that, as a fan, I should explain for those only broadly aware of Star Trek where I’m coming from and how we got here.

Star Trek is so ingrained into the popular consciousness that you can ask someone to draw the starship Enterprise and they probably can even if they can‘t remember ever seeing it. Along with Star Wars and Doctor Who, it is one of the benchmarks of popular science fiction and has a storied history behind it.

In the mid-1960s air force and LAPD veteran Gene Roddenberry presented Paramount with a new, idealistic vision of the future, reflecting both the sky’s-the-limit spirit of its time and the grand adventure of Flash Gordon or Horatio Hornblower.

And so was born Star Trek, which, while the first series had its intended ‘five year mission’ cut short by executives, proved a late bloomer in popularity and has since swelled into a franchise incorporating twelves films, five television shows, and a vast range of paperback novels, comics and video games.

The shows that form the core of it proceeded thusly:

Star Trek: aka Star Trek: the Original Series or TOS was the first, obviously. In the 23rd Century, the Enterprise is a starship of the United Federation of Planets, dedicated to exploring unknown worlds, making contact and forming good relations with alien civilizations. Captain Kirk, Science Officer Spock and Doctor McCoy form the core of a diverse team who tackle the dangers and wonders of these discoveries. Often, they play the tense games of a Cold War against the militaristic Klingon Empire.

Star Trek: the Next Generation, or TNG skips ahead 70 years to a new crew on a successor Enterprise, led by Captain Jean-Luc Picard to continue the mission of their predecessors, confronting personal conflicts and political puzzles, as well as new tensions with the sly Romulans and fascistic Cardassians, while far beyond the Federation, the implacable Borg Collective threatens sentient life as they know it.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, or DS9 overlaps with TNG, taking us to a remote outpost, the space station Deep Space Nine, where world-weary widower Commander Ben Sisko leads the Federation efforts to help reconstruction and integration of the people of Bajor, lately freed from oppressive Cardassian occupation. Selected by the alien energy beings who are as gods to the Bajorans to be their emissary, Sisko pulls together dispirate elements of Bajor, the Federation and the station community to set an example for cooperation, even as a shadowy new power, the Dominion, creeps into their affairs and threatens to make Bajor the centre of a war that will engulf the galaxy.

Star Trek: Voyager features Captain Katherine Janeway of the starship Voyager and her ad hoc crew. Sent in pursuit of a group of anti-Federation colonists, both groups are swept up and carried to the Delta Quadrant, seventy years distance from home. Pooling their resources under Janeway’s leadership, both crews begin to integrate and begin the journey home. As they go, they make new friends, new enemies, fight the Borg on their own turf and challenge the limits of Starfleet ideals as they face these obstacles alone.

Star Trek: Enterprise is a prequel series. Captain Jonathan Archer leads the first crew to go on a mission of exploration. As they do so, they learn the basic principles which will someday drive the Federation, learn to fight and to be at peace as needed, and become the wild cards in a fair few interstellar conspiracies.

The great thing about Star Trek in most every form it took was that it embodied a progressive and positive vision of humanity and its future. This is most obvious in the Original Series, where, among other things you have a crew of senior officers including a Russian, an Asian and a black woman. This seems quaint now but at the time their mere presence was revolutionary. Nichelle Nichols, who played Lt. Uhura, was so revolutionary that, when expressing an intent to leave the show, was talked out of doing so by none other than Martin Luther King! Her example inspired Whoopi Goldberg (who famously screamed to her entire household ‘come quick! There’s a black lady on TV and she ain’t no maid!’) to enter acting. Dr. Mae Jemison, the first African-American woman in space, likewise took inspiration from Uhura.

TOS and TNG both used analogies for current poltical issues like the Cold War, displaced peoples, cultural meddling and personal liberties. These dilemmas were almost never a case of shooting the bad guy. Wits, not weapons, were the choice tools for many situations. When fighting did take place, it was usually when no other choice was at hand (although it might explain why Trek battles often seemed dreadfully stilted). TOS episodes like “Let That Be Your Last Battelfield,” “Errand of Mercy,” “Day of the Dove” and “Balance of Terror” are among my favourites and all cover different angles on this.

The sad thing about TOS, alas, is that all anybody remembers about it is stuff like this:

TOS was born in the midst of 60’s camp culture, and a lot of the ways it tells its stories arouse contempt today. A principle gripe I, my fellow WordPress blogger Lady Geek Girl, and others hold is that Abrams’ films seem to be building on the pop-culture stereotype of Star Trek, not on actual Star Trek.

Enjoy or ignore the camp as you please, but you can reliably find the point they were trying to make about peaceful coexistence, futility of conflict, or any of the other Star Trek morals. From a historical perspective, it’s now a fascinating look into the culture and ideas of the period it came from. Crucially, the friendship dynamic of Kirk, Spock and McCoy carried the series through deep analysis of what being human meant, a dynamic recreated time and again in later series.

TNG brought things up into the 80s-90s and continued the tradition of challenging and cautionary tales, interspersed with rollicking adventure and comic relief. The concept of the Prime Directive of non-interference was brought to the fore and used to create a moral dilemma that resonates with a globalizing world to this day. Whereas TOS lived in a black and white age and was determined to paint some grey on it, TNG explored various shades of grey in a post-Cold War period.

Up to this point, Star Trek was doing well but was in definite danger of stagnation. The series’ episodic structure limited character development and forced a certain shallowness on the setting (although this improved later in TNG). The writing had evolved a lot by the time TNG ended in 1994 but could still be a little pretentious and certain plot-convenience fallbacks like the holodecks were beginning to get a little too frequent. Still, it did introduce Q and the Borg as recurring villains, which drove some of the most memorable stories like “Best of Both Worlds,” and the performances of a well-balanced cast led by Patrick Stewart secured its widely-held status as the best Star Trek series.

Deep Space Nine represented a change toward a darker and more cynical spirit. It started out with a TNG leaning toward political intrigue, and put a twist on by keeping the show in one place and making an ongoing arc. By going out to the Federation’s frontiers, it started deconstructing a lot of the utopian vision of Star Trek, both showing that there must always be exceptions and compromises, and suggesting that the Federation has gotten a bit cocky about its own wonderfulness. DS9’s female characters also achieved new heights. TOS and TNG had tried at that, but a certain chauvinism still haunted them. The fact that Counsellor Troi was arguably TNG’s least-well written (and, for no apparent reason, least-dressed) main character reflects this. While TNG is often regarded as the best series, Deep Space Nine produced a number of Star Trek’s best-regarded episodes.

Its main failing was that its writers, keen to give their show the cutting-edge morals of its predecessors, started tackling religion seriously for the first time, but often muddled it a bit, due to either timidity or ignorance. Still, it had shown the best character development, the dialogue became more naturalistic and it brought in a Captain of colour to Star Trek’s roster.

Voyager had a lot of potential to challenge Federation ideals further, throwing a Starfleet crew and a group of rebels together in a near-hopeless situation. It was a series with a million good ideas but a return to episodic format and inconsistent writing kneecapped it almost immediately. When Voyager was good, it was very good, but it wasn’t good often enough. Characterization was either hopelessly static or all over the place. The introduction of the first female captain was undercut because the writers couldn’t get straight what kind of person she was. Her actress, Kate Mulgrew, has remarked that she often thought Janeway seemed to be mentally unstable. Several other actors in the series also voiced dissatisfaction with the writing. The aliens encountered got quite bland after a while, and the Borg, once the shadowy menace from beyond, devolved into a common and easily-evaded nuisance. The introduction of Seven of Nine, a liberated Borg, represented a new exploration of the human condition in the tradition of Spock and Data, but it kept getting snarled up in the agenda of showing off the actress’s cleavage.

I didn’t stick with Enterprise for long. After four previous series it seemed very by-the-numbers; the Captain had gone back to being an all-American white guy and a few quite interesting stories early-on were outnumbered by numerous frantic attempts to recapture the glory days, goofing around or playing to the cleavage-seekers. It got worse when the second season introduced a massive attack on Earth and our heroes rush off into the galaxy to seek the evildoers. This was a couple of years after the World Trade Centre was destroyed, keeping in line with the popular spirit of the times. But Star Trek is supposed to examine and even subvert the popular spirit. After an attempt to reinvent itself, Enterprise quietly passed away.

In fairness to those who thought Trek a bit tacky, some signs of rot were showing early on. Being the work of many hands, Star Trek had trouble staying consistent. In world-building details like the exact logic of the Prime Directive, the cultural minutiae of the Vulcans or Klingons, and how exactly Federation society and Starfleet protocol work, the writers couldn’t seem to make up their minds. TNG started to show the first signs of pushing morals that the story writers didn’t think through properly, or else were ham-fistedly executed. Increasing reliance on techno babble and recycled plots like holodeck and transporter malfunctions began to look pretty absurd, and there‘s only so many times you can do aliens who look exactly like humans with weird foreheads. Oh and I might add, civilian clothing in Star Trek always looks bloody ridiculous. With Enterprise they even started ignoring their own canon and coming up with events that didn’t gel with the other series.

And sadly, after a while, the commentary at the heart of Star Trek started to fizzle. The marketing image of a sci-fi fan as a sexually repressed male meant that profound stories of the human condition occupied the same space as a lot of fan service, the plots and morals started to repeat themselves to the point of meaninglessness, and TNG, DS9 and Enterprise brushed up against LGBT issues but never seemed to work up the nerve to tackle them head-on.

I stand by what I said before, that the Star Trek reboot is futile if it doesn’t maintain the franchise’s original mission statement; let me amend by saying that I think rebooting Star Trek is futile anyway. It’s not because Star Trek isn’t worth it. It’s because Star Trek is over. It’s run its course. There’s no place left to boldly go. It did great and memorable things but eventually ran out of steam. Anything it couldn’t do (or didn’t do properly) has been left to others. A lot of the potential Voyager in particular had was achieved later by shows like Farscape and Firefly.

I love Star Trek. I miss the days when an optimistic vision of the future was the going thing. But it told its stories, it made its mark. Rather than trying to resurrect it incompletely, better to remember it for everything that made it a classic and bid it a respectful farewell.

“I have been, and ever shall be your friend. Live Long, and Prosper.”

 

Star Trek: Into Badness

This is probably the most difficult review I’ve written so far.

Well, half an hour just passed and I’m only now writing a second line, so you see what I mean.

See, I’ve been a Star Trek fan more or less my entire life. The odd thing is that being a fan of something seems to automatically invalidate one’s opinion when you find fault in the direction it chooses to take. That being the case I’m going to have to work very hard to make a clear distinction between what I see as shortcomings as a story and shortcomings as a piece of a franchise in J.J Abrams second Trek-reboot film.

That having been said, Star Trek: Into Darkness is a load of piffle.

Notice all those stars for us to go explore? Me neither.

In the 23rd Century, the crew of the Enterprise are threatened with being disbanded, but just as Kirk loses his captain’s position, Starfleet suffers a massacre of its top brass by Khan, a genetically engineered terrorist left over from Earth’s war-torn past who then flees to the Klingon homeworld, sending Kirk and crew in pursuit, risking war with the Klingons. Kirk, Spock and company begin to notice some inconsistencies in their mission which leads to a conspiracy within Starfleet to militarize itself in response to the aggression of the Klingon Empire and a blood-soaked coverup resulting therefrom.

Believe it or not I actually caught myself enjoying Into Darkness every so often. Kirk shows signs of a character arc: he wakes up to the fact that Starfleet isn’t about revenge, even if he has a personal stake; there’s balancing between Spock’s by-the-book logic and Kirk’s screw-the-rules-I’m doing-what’s-right and the acting isn’t too bad. Zachary Quinto seems to have studied Leonard Nimoy’s performance very carefully. I thought that Simon Pegg did well, despite the fact that I usually can‘t stand him. And I was pleasantly surprised that in this whiz-bang explodey action flick it was considered acceptable for male characters to cry or say they’re scared without it being comical. Intentionally, anyway.

The Original Star Trek was very progressive in the 60s but has noticeably dated since then, so a lot of scrutiny was placed on its ability to get with the times. Zoe Saldana’s performance as Uhura is a major sticking point. Uhura’s mere presence on the original Enterprise was a huge deal in its day, but she never got a day in the limelight. She certainly does now, but the writers display a lack of boldness in choosing ways of involving her. She’s a love interest – for Spock, no less – and most of her role is representing Spock’s human half. That is, her character is defined by the man in her life. And, though this was in the previous movie, we were apparently required to see her in her underwear at some point. It happens again in Into Darkness with Alice Eve’s character, where for no particular reason we have to see Kirk ogling her in her undies.

It bespeaks a lack of confidence in the characterization, and apart from issues of female objectification, It’s insulting that Abrams and co.’s opinion of us as sci-fi fans is so low that they think this has to be in here just to make us watch the movie.

I got excited when the crew were confronted with a team of Klingon commandos and it fell to Uhura (a linguistics expert) to talk their way out of it, which would have shown her agency in the crew and been a very ‘Star Trek‘ thing to do. Except it doesn’t work. The Klingons just decide to attack anyway and then Benedict Cumberbatch swans in and starts shooting things.

Which reminds me: Cumberbatch as Khan Noonien Singh, who was of course the villain of the Original Series episode “Space Seed” and the film Star Trek II: the Wrath of Khan. Abrams claimed for a while he was playing someone named ‘John Harrison’ but I can’t believe anyone fell for that, because what kind of name for a villain is ‘John Harrison,‘ honestly?

Anyway, I was all prepared to get angry about the fact that we’ve regressed from casting Mexican Ricardo Montablan as Khan and passing him off as Indian to Khan being played by Benedict Cumberbatch, who is even whiter than I am (no small feat, since we’re both redheads) but it turns out I was wrong: Benedict Cumberbatch is not playing Khan. He’s playing Benedict Cumberbatch. Or rather, the fan girl ideal of him.

Seriously, I am not at all convinced that Abrams cast him because he was the best for the role; it’s because he wanted to showcase him. He fights like Jason Bourne, Space Marine, he monologues in that hypnotic voice of his, sheds manly tears and stares intensely at the camera with his big beautiful eyes. And I swear this is true: his ‘game on’ moment is him donning a swishy black coat with a turned-up collar. At that point I lost all decorum and cried, “Ye gods, Abrams, you’re not even trying, are you?”

Which segues nicely into the biggest problem with Into Darkness’s storytelling. There’s plenty of action, dramatic moments and twists, which is fine. A good story uses those elements to build a compelling plot and characters. A bad story, which I submit this is, is one which uses the plot as an excuse to stitch together a lot of action and mawkish drama scenes. Taken in context only with themselves, there are some excellent scenes in the film, but in the larger story they don’t work because I don’t have a feeling of them having been earned by anything previous.

Kirk suffers a lot for this: in some scenes he’s principled, sometimes he’s a jackass, at others he’s a bad boy, and others he’s an action hero. The character development does happen, but it’s very stilted and abrupt. Spock’s human vs. Vulcan conflict isn’t so much middle ground as it is flipping a switch back and forth as the plot demands. Khan, despite how he’s played up, is utterly two-dimensional.

There was something about Kirk’s arc that didn’t add up to me: this journey of growth and learning might have worked if he wasn’t already the commander of a ship. These are the struggles of someone working to earn a position of power and responsibility, not someone who already has it, or indeed expects to keep it. Again, Abrams couldn’t make the things he wanted to happen happen if Kirk wasn’t the captain so he had to snap the willing suspension of disbelief to bits to get him there.

All of this, I believe, is visible whether or not you are an initiate of Star Trek. Now I want to make a point as a fan. This is a fun movie of action, adventure and suspense. But the problem is: it’s not Star Trek at all.

I think I’m an unusual case as fans of the Original Series go because I don’t embrace the cheesiness. I’ve been a Trekkie for about as long as I’ve been able to walk so by the time I was old enough to notice the camp I just rolled with it. I actually find calling attention to it quite irritating because I want to engage with the stories and constantly calling it out it is like kicking the back of my seat.

I bring this up because even by 60’s standards the dialogue is mind-numbingly corny. The climax is in the tender life-or-death moment between Kirk and Spock that ends with a line that makes the “NOOO!” at the end of Revenge of the Sith seem like Shakespeare.

I said earlier that the actors are actually quite adept but nothing could save the lines they have to deliver. Relegating Dr. McCoy to the support cast in favour of Uhura was an understandable choice to break up the all-boys club, but what shocks me is that McCoy, Scotty and Chekhov aren’t new takes on the characters or glimpses into their early days. Every word they say is a parody of their characters. Chekhov’s accent, McCoy’s contrariness, and Scotty’s hysteria are played for cheap laughs every step of the way. The continuing presence of Leonard Nimoy’s alternate-Spock as an exposition dispenser is at once shameless pandering to the fans and a convenience to keep the plot moving where it has no business doing so.

While action was never forbidden in Star Trek, it was never the point, and it was always used sparingly, while ideas and friendships were the main forces behind the story. It’s bewildering that both movies end with the famous “to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations,” because the characters are never shown doing that, and Kirk isn’t characterized as the kind of person who would aspire to it. Peace, learning, new horizons and the enriching spirit the Federation was meant to idealize isn’t evident.

The action itself is frequent and thus cheap, and Abrams’ continuing love affair with bloom and lens flare means I have trouble seeing most of it anyway.

I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve misunderstood what Abrams is doing. I thought the idea was to refresh and reboot Trek for a new generation, but there’s so much callback to the Original Series, including, at points, ripping off Wrath of Khan literally word for word, taking for granted we know who the Klingons are and parodying old standbys like McCoy’s “Dammit Jim!” that wouldn’t make sense unless you’re already a fan. And there’s so much he could have fixed about the Original Series: the corny dialogue, the sexy fan service, the plot-convenient technical failures, but they’re all still here while the idealism, intelligence and character depth are what’s been removed! And it disturbs me that newcomers to the franchise might look at this and read it as saying, “Laugh at this stupid, stupid show we all used to watch!”

To my friends who enjoyed it, I see where you’re coming from. It falls under the heading of what my Dad calls ‘fun movies;’ light but exciting flicks in the vein of Alien vs. Predator or Van Helsing, and as a Trekkie, I’d love for you to come play with us, I just feel this is the wrong first impression.

To my fellow Trekkies who liked it, because at least the franchise is carrying on and that it is fun and exciting, I understand 100% where you’re coming from, but is this really all you want? There are constellations of action sci-fi movies out there, indeed a whole six films devoted to Wars among the Stars. What is the point of calling this Star Trek if it takes out everything that made Star Trek unique and solves none of its problems?

In summary, then, Star Trek: Into Darkness is a movie that has glimpses of good ideas and is fun, but all the good is stitched together in a disjointed patchwork that carries no weight and is washed out by excessive explosions. The characters belong on a college campus, not a ship’s bridge. The contrived melodrama, half-stolen plot and over-the-top action is like – no, is – the very dorkiest of fan fiction. And calling it Star Trek is meaningless if we’re not going to maintain the franchise’s mission statement:

“To explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life forms and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before…”