Thursday, October 16, 2008

We're So Screwed...

Well, the Paramount publicity machine, on the behalf of the new Star Trek movie, is starting to sputter to life, starting off with a cover story in Entertainment Weekly.

Here's what one attentive poster on trekmovie.com has managed to piece together on the plot of this thing.

"After seeing the pictures and reading the EW article, I think I can glean a few things about the plot of the film.

1) James Kirk has been shamed somehow. He’s a lone wolf on the Enterprise, and he is not trusted. A black uniform is a (rather obvious) physical symbol of being a “black sheep.” We know Kirk is rebel of sorts as a basic character trait. We also see Spock attacking Kirk for some unknown reason. We ALSO have been led to believe (by the MTV blog and photo on the bridge) that Kirk and Sulu have gotten into a fight of some kind. Kirk is not the regular captain of the Enterprise. He has somehow taken command against the will of the crew or has been given command in a crisis. My best guess is that Kirk is on the Enterprise as either a prisoner or as a ward of the Enterprise. Kirk could have been kicked out of Starfleet for some indiscretion, but is being protected by the Enterprise because they believe his life is in danger (from Nero, obviously). Captain Pike’s injury takes place during the film, putting him out of action, giving Kirk a chance to step up and be in charge.

2) Kirk will be Captain Kirk in the gold tunic by the last shot of the film. Remember, this is an *origin* story. That means one of the grand climaxes to the film will be when all of our heroes are together, in the right places, ready to start their proper adventures. Casino Royale and Batman Begins are examples of this principle. It is not until the end of those 2 movies that we get all the dogmatic trappings of the characters that have been held back for the end. Bond finally gets his theme and says his catchphrase. Batman gets the Bat-Signal and a supervillain (The Joker’s card). The evasive, cryptic nature of Orci and Kurtzman’s responses on the topic bear out what the end result will be. By the film’s end, anything that isn’t in line with the basic mythos of Star Trek will be put into place. That includes Kirk in Command Gold, as Captain.

3) Nero’s time-travel scheme is definitely what we all expect: he seeks to kill James T. Kirk. I also assume there is something to the notion of Nero’s group being against Reunification. Damon makes it pretty clear in his interview that Nero’s aims are not “about money.” That means, it must be ideological. What else is there? Unless Jim Kirk stole his girlfriend in the 20 minutes he was in the 24th century, it must be ideological. It also makes more sense that they are rejecting traditional Romulan aesthetics."

Have these morons even seen Star Trek? Starfleet doesn't work like this, or any self-respecting military for that matter. If Kirk was that much of a pain in the ass, they wouldn't do some sort of frat house "shaming", they'd courtmartial his insubordinate ass and be done with him!

Add to this the nonsensical production design that has as much resemblance to anything in Star Trek as a day old bagel has to a Mongolian barbecue, and it's becoming painfully clear that these joker haven't got a fucking clue what they're doing. They're making Brannon Braga look like Gene Coon, fer chrissakes!

I'm beginning to wonder if I even want to bother with the upcoming season of "Lost".

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