So they are rebooting Star Trek, it would seem.
Now call me a militant die-hard trekkie of the first water but the news is about as palatiable to me as rebooting Tolkien. With the guts of 40 years of canon, and particularly in the case of ‘The Final Frontier’ some misfires, this just gives me the heebee-jeebees.
Not withstanding the fact that I have not, through boycotting TV alot recently, seen anything J.J. Abrams has output I am rather wary and may very well end up taking a Greedo-shot-first stance to all this.
So, will we be treated to a complete reworking of Trek, a ‘Jim Kirk’s Academy Days’ where every one turns up, only younger? I do hope not, since it will jar very much with the version of events we know and anything of that ilk would smack hugely of a Trek Muppet Babies. What would be interesting would be to fill in some of those tantalising threads that the show dangled before us. Kirk and Carol Marcus’ inital relationship - was she the blonde lab tech he almost married. It would be nice to see the well known friction between Spock and his father owing to Spock’s decision to attend the Academy rather than the Vulcan institution Sarek favoured. How about seeing Ben Finney before he got all grumpy and suicidal. Or the famous Kobyashi Maru test - how did it really go down, I’m sure some of classmates were a bit miffed. Or the events alluded to in The Concience of The King. (Yes! marvel at my trivia-fu - I own a uniform so am not one to be triffled with!)
Now, don’t get me wrong, I not against exploring things in the life of the younger Kirk and Spock, and the others if it works, because there is plenty sketched out loosely to play with, but what does worry me is that the established events will be tossed aside to create some trite akin to the current high school adventures we’ve been seeing but in the future, oh and with space ships, oh and a Gorn too. Oh don’t forget the Borg!
The Borg episode aside which was a little on the verge, I felt Enterprise managed to fit things along the established line of canon regarding first contacts with races while still getting us to see some old favourites - The episode with the Feregine stands out here as a gem of an example. And the episode with the Romulan ship was good as well.
As Spock is fond of saying, anything is possible, but I for one feel alot like Dr McCoy when told about the Genesis Device.
Establised over 40 years, now watch out here comes Abrams, we’ll do it for you in 90 minutes!
And I think we all remember what happened that time. All I can do is hope that he adds to things and doesn’t rewrite things too much.
Granted I was not at all happy with Nemesis (to be addressed in another post) anyway so I am not against XI. Just very wary.
