Monday, November 24, 2008

The Mess Thus Far...

While I sit out my one day ban at TrekBBS (I could say something about trigger happy moderators handing out warnings while I'm editing the post in question, but I'll skip that), I figured it was time to update this puppy.

We know more now about JJ Abrams' alleged Star Trek flick.

Unfortunately.

If this is JJ's idea of "respecting and honoring canon", I'd hate to see what he'd churn out if he really hated Star Trek. Canon is not being honored or respected in this thing, it's being stripmined for a hamfisted reboot. Symbolic of this whole endeavor is the redesign of the Enterprise herself.

Somehow, we're supposed to buy that this...

Photobucket

Really looked like this...

Photobucket

And was actually a helluva lot bigger than we were led to believe...

Photobucket

But wait! There's more!

We're going to be presented with a plot that conveniently assembles all the familiar characters on the maiden voyage of the Enterprise (yes, maiden voyage!).

Anybody else see a problem with this? The scary thing is that a lot of professed fans don't.

We're just supposed to forget about the ship we've been watching for over forty years? That Kirk served on the Republic and the Farragut long before he assumed command of the Enterprise? That he didn't meet Pike until he took over command? That at the time the Enterprise launched, Chekov would've been about a year old?

Kevin Smith's initial instincts were correct, before he was shown a rough cut of this thing and seduced by the dark side. This isn't Star Trek, it's Muppet Babies in Space.

And, as mentioned above, far too many fans are not only happy, but eager, to lap up this slop and accept it.

Didn't we used to be a little more discerning? A little less tolerant of utter bilge being foisted on us under the Star Trek label? Or do I just run with a crowd with better taste?

I'll go into why this tack is such a bad idea later. For now, suffice it to say that we are in really deep trouble if this is the future of the franchise.