Right now as I start writing this, it’s the night before I’ll see the new Star Trek film. I can start writing early because I already know I don’t like it.
I will pause here for the howls of protest.
OK. Now, I say that not because I believe the film, as a piece of creative art, is bad. It’s still the night before, so how do I know? Instead, I say it because I’m dismayed that Star Trek reached that point in its existence where it had to do a “backwards reset.”
Star Trek has been rebooting and resetting itself for awhile now, if you think about it. Since the Original Series ended:
- The show restarted in an animated half-hour format, with the freedoms of animation and the constraints of shorter stories.
- It restarted again as a series of movies, with the changes both that come from going from TV to film, and with jumping ahead in the show’s internal timeline.
- It reinvented itself on TV as Star Trek: The Next Generation, with more leaping ahead in the universe’s internal history, and the changes in producing television that came along in twenty years.
- TNG made its own TV to movie leap.
- Deep Space Nine did Star Trek in an entirely new format from “voyages of the Enterprise“.
- Voyager…well, it had a new cast. And ship.
- Enterprise did the prequel thing (which isn’t a backwards reset, since it doesn’t reset the internal continuity/timeline of this fictional universe).
So, that’s a lot of reinvention (successful and not so much). But now, apparently, it’s time for a hard reset. A real reboot. For whatever reasons, there is no longer a will to keep moving forward with the internal continuity, or the creativity to bring a fresh means to doing that to TV or film, or both, or neither. Whatever.
So, we come back around to dislike. I dislike it because I don’t know if I’m ready to give it up and watch it all restart again. Sure, the “original” will probably carry on in novels and the like. But clearly, the existing shows will not be back on TV or film again. A chapter is closed. A new one is opening.
I bring an open mind, and a whole lot of hope.
Next time, let’s see where I stand after actually seeing the film.
