An Additional Frontier
It's been a few weeks, and because I'm a huge nerd, I suppose that I have an obligation to offer up my thoughts on the newest Star Trek movie. The short answer is that I liked it. I really liked it.
As for the inevitable longer answer, I was pleasantly surprised by how many things they did right. It looked pretty; it was funny; it moved at a good pace. The casting, for the most part, was impeccable, although I may be the only person I know who didn't really care for Simon Pegg as Scotty. Part of that is just the fact that he was so recognizable (a problem I also had with Zachary Quinto), but mostly because his portrayal was so broadly comedic. Quinto suffered a little from having to share screen time with Leonard Nimoy, which really only served to highlight the aspects of Nimoy's performance that Quinto wasn't able to bring to his own portrayal.
Those two quibbles aside, however, I loved the cast. The clone of DeForest Kelley that the geneticists decided to rename Karl Urban was tremendous as McCoy. Chekov and Sulu were ... well, they were present. Zoe Saldana was ridiculously hot, and while I feel I should be a little annoyed that she was pushed into the role of "love interest", I actually like that her flirtation with Spock in the series has finally paid off. Also, I'm a dude, and she was hot; many sins have been forgiven for less. Bruce Greenwood was a good choice for Pike, although there were probably a lot of actors who could have done just as well.
And then there's Kirk. Truth be told, I liked Chris Pine. He was charming, and he managed to do a Kirk impression without doing a Shatner impression. And fine, I'll accept that this was a Kirk raised with daddy issues rather than an actual daddy, and thus I'll buy that he's more rebel without a cause than rebel with a cause. I accept Cadet Kirk, flirting with Uhura and pissing off Spock. Nevertheless, I can't accept the new Captain Kirk.
If you asked fifty different nerds to sum up Star Trek's view of the future, you'd probably wind up with fifty different answers, but for myself, any correct answer would have to mention that the twenty-third century is, among other things, a meritocracy. Uhura was on the bridge of the Enterprise because she was good at her job, and the fact that she was a black woman was completely irrelevant. When a fan of the show wrote Gene Roddenberry to protest that he didn't have a Russian on the show, despite the pivotal role they played in the space race, Roddenberry put Chekov on the bridge. It didn't matter that it was the middle of the Cold War. The Russians deserved a representative on the Enterprise, so they got one.
Abrams' Star Trek is not a meritocracy. Kirk ends up as captain of the Enterprise, not because he's earned it after a long and successful career in Starfleet, but rather because he's destined to wear that yellow shirt. Instead of Kirk and Spock becoming friends after learning to respect, trust, and even love one another, the universe simply ties itself into knots because their relationship is apparently an inherent part of the fabric of space and time.
The lesson of the Kobayashi Maru, regardless of what Spock says, is not about learning how to face certain death, nor is it about how Kirk is an arrogant prick who wants to make sure everyone knows how smart he is. The real lesson is that Kirk always finds a way to win; it's an instinctive part of his nature. There's a book called Kobayashi Maru (and yes, I'm nerd enough to have read it), which describes how Shatner's Kirk beat the simulator. In that version, he programmed the computer so that the Klingons retreat when they learn they're facing off against the famous James T. Kirk. When confronted with evidence that he cheated, he makes the case that by the time he's in a similar situation, his career and reputation will be enough to make this so. He cheats, but he cheats by making the simulation (at least in his eyes) more realistic.
Pine's Kirk just cheats, apparently because he thinks he can. He's not arguing that in a similar situation, his adversaries will just drop their shields and let him destroy them. He just cheats so that he can win. And to make matters worse, he gets away with it. It's a subtle difference (heck, maybe I'm just biased, and the only difference is in my head), but to me, it signals the most important difference between Abrams' vision and Roddenberry's. It's not about the actors, or the special effects, or the fancy new bridge, or time travel, or maintaining continuity for the sake of the nerds. Roddenberry's future was one to which we could all aspire. Race, gender, creed, and even species won't matter; our lives will be shaped by who we are, what we do, and the choices that we make, freed from the limits of the common bigotry we still face here in the twenty-first century. In Roddenberry's future, we can all grow up to be the captain of a starship.
I don't feel that way about Abrams' twenty-third century, even if so much of it is still true. The bigotry may be gone, but people are still limited by factors outside their control. If I'm the most senior officer on the Enterprise behind Captain Pike, I guess it's tough luck for me when he gets kidnapped because the universe wants Cadet Kirk to get the fastest battlefield promotion in history. And on top of that, it really doesn't matter if he's acted like an insufferable asshole from day one, because it's his destiny for Spock to be his blood brother. His choices, his successes, and his mistakes prove to be irrelevant, as do those of the rest of the crew, because inevitably, everyone will simply fall into some preordained pattern.
But I did like the movie! No, really! I liked it in spite of the fact that it relies so heavily on Destiny, the cheapest, laziest, and most unrealistic of plot devices. I liked it in spite of the fact that some of it doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense (Nero's motives, why a mining ship has so many torpedoes, what pre-teen Kirk was attempting to accomplish by driving his uncle's classic car into one of Iowa's many giant ravines, how Scotty could transport onto a starship that had been flying away at warp speed for several hours, at least, etc.). I liked it despite the glaring absence of a Shatner cameo, which we all know would have been awesome (maybe he would have had to sing for some reason!).
I liked it. It's not as good as Wrath of Khan, of course, but it's comparable with The Voyage Home and The Undiscovered Country. I'm excited for the sequel (Gael Garcia Bernal or Dev Patel as Khan, perhaps?). I'm just not sure that it's Star Trek.
As for the inevitable longer answer, I was pleasantly surprised by how many things they did right. It looked pretty; it was funny; it moved at a good pace. The casting, for the most part, was impeccable, although I may be the only person I know who didn't really care for Simon Pegg as Scotty. Part of that is just the fact that he was so recognizable (a problem I also had with Zachary Quinto), but mostly because his portrayal was so broadly comedic. Quinto suffered a little from having to share screen time with Leonard Nimoy, which really only served to highlight the aspects of Nimoy's performance that Quinto wasn't able to bring to his own portrayal.
Those two quibbles aside, however, I loved the cast. The clone of DeForest Kelley that the geneticists decided to rename Karl Urban was tremendous as McCoy. Chekov and Sulu were ... well, they were present. Zoe Saldana was ridiculously hot, and while I feel I should be a little annoyed that she was pushed into the role of "love interest", I actually like that her flirtation with Spock in the series has finally paid off. Also, I'm a dude, and she was hot; many sins have been forgiven for less. Bruce Greenwood was a good choice for Pike, although there were probably a lot of actors who could have done just as well.
And then there's Kirk. Truth be told, I liked Chris Pine. He was charming, and he managed to do a Kirk impression without doing a Shatner impression. And fine, I'll accept that this was a Kirk raised with daddy issues rather than an actual daddy, and thus I'll buy that he's more rebel without a cause than rebel with a cause. I accept Cadet Kirk, flirting with Uhura and pissing off Spock. Nevertheless, I can't accept the new Captain Kirk.
If you asked fifty different nerds to sum up Star Trek's view of the future, you'd probably wind up with fifty different answers, but for myself, any correct answer would have to mention that the twenty-third century is, among other things, a meritocracy. Uhura was on the bridge of the Enterprise because she was good at her job, and the fact that she was a black woman was completely irrelevant. When a fan of the show wrote Gene Roddenberry to protest that he didn't have a Russian on the show, despite the pivotal role they played in the space race, Roddenberry put Chekov on the bridge. It didn't matter that it was the middle of the Cold War. The Russians deserved a representative on the Enterprise, so they got one.
Abrams' Star Trek is not a meritocracy. Kirk ends up as captain of the Enterprise, not because he's earned it after a long and successful career in Starfleet, but rather because he's destined to wear that yellow shirt. Instead of Kirk and Spock becoming friends after learning to respect, trust, and even love one another, the universe simply ties itself into knots because their relationship is apparently an inherent part of the fabric of space and time.
The lesson of the Kobayashi Maru, regardless of what Spock says, is not about learning how to face certain death, nor is it about how Kirk is an arrogant prick who wants to make sure everyone knows how smart he is. The real lesson is that Kirk always finds a way to win; it's an instinctive part of his nature. There's a book called Kobayashi Maru (and yes, I'm nerd enough to have read it), which describes how Shatner's Kirk beat the simulator. In that version, he programmed the computer so that the Klingons retreat when they learn they're facing off against the famous James T. Kirk. When confronted with evidence that he cheated, he makes the case that by the time he's in a similar situation, his career and reputation will be enough to make this so. He cheats, but he cheats by making the simulation (at least in his eyes) more realistic.
Pine's Kirk just cheats, apparently because he thinks he can. He's not arguing that in a similar situation, his adversaries will just drop their shields and let him destroy them. He just cheats so that he can win. And to make matters worse, he gets away with it. It's a subtle difference (heck, maybe I'm just biased, and the only difference is in my head), but to me, it signals the most important difference between Abrams' vision and Roddenberry's. It's not about the actors, or the special effects, or the fancy new bridge, or time travel, or maintaining continuity for the sake of the nerds. Roddenberry's future was one to which we could all aspire. Race, gender, creed, and even species won't matter; our lives will be shaped by who we are, what we do, and the choices that we make, freed from the limits of the common bigotry we still face here in the twenty-first century. In Roddenberry's future, we can all grow up to be the captain of a starship.
I don't feel that way about Abrams' twenty-third century, even if so much of it is still true. The bigotry may be gone, but people are still limited by factors outside their control. If I'm the most senior officer on the Enterprise behind Captain Pike, I guess it's tough luck for me when he gets kidnapped because the universe wants Cadet Kirk to get the fastest battlefield promotion in history. And on top of that, it really doesn't matter if he's acted like an insufferable asshole from day one, because it's his destiny for Spock to be his blood brother. His choices, his successes, and his mistakes prove to be irrelevant, as do those of the rest of the crew, because inevitably, everyone will simply fall into some preordained pattern.
But I did like the movie! No, really! I liked it in spite of the fact that it relies so heavily on Destiny, the cheapest, laziest, and most unrealistic of plot devices. I liked it in spite of the fact that some of it doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense (Nero's motives, why a mining ship has so many torpedoes, what pre-teen Kirk was attempting to accomplish by driving his uncle's classic car into one of Iowa's many giant ravines, how Scotty could transport onto a starship that had been flying away at warp speed for several hours, at least, etc.). I liked it despite the glaring absence of a Shatner cameo, which we all know would have been awesome (maybe he would have had to sing for some reason!).
I liked it. It's not as good as Wrath of Khan, of course, but it's comparable with The Voyage Home and The Undiscovered Country. I'm excited for the sequel (Gael Garcia Bernal or Dev Patel as Khan, perhaps?). I'm just not sure that it's Star Trek.