Hot, fast, wet, and loud: Not your father's "Star Trek"
by Mark H. Anbinder.
The danger in the release of the new "Star Trek" movie this week, with TV veteran J.J. Abrams behind the camera, is that focusing on pleasing existing fans would make it harder to attract a new generation of moviegoing fans to the franchise, and could make this its last hurrah. But a new film that ignored four decades of tradition, and four decades of fans, could never have the staying power to be a summer blockbuster success. To do that, studios need the fans to go back to see the movie a second, maybe even third, time.
I'm going back to see the movie a second, maybe even third, time.
Yes, I'm a longtime "Star Trek" fan, as well as a fan of Abrams's other best-known work, "Lost." Nervous as I was about the excessive tinkering Abrams could have done, I was predisposed to like this movie, as I've been predisposed to enjoy each of the previous ten films in the franchise's history. Have I loved all of them? No. But despite the challenge of balancing mass appeal and fan satisfaction -- a mix the previous movies never quite hit -- this new "Star Trek" manages to walk the tightrope with surprising facility.
Balancing Act
One thing everyone's saying about this weekend's new film is that it's fast-paced and action-packed, more noticeably a summer blockbuster than a "Star Trek" tale. Well distributed amidst the parachute jumping, car chasing, fist fighting, and romance, though, is the clear current of a familiar tale, told from shortly before we joined the narrative last time.
Unlike with "Star Trek: Enterprise," we know these characters; this retelling of their history needs to fit what countless millions already think they know but depart from a well-worn path. This, then, is more like a 23rd century "Batman Begins," or the recent "Casino Royale," than like either "Enterprise" or "Superman Returns," respectively prequel and sequel in their ongoing stories.
We won't talk about how Abrams departs from the "Star Trek" you thought you knew, but depart he does -- so sharply that it can only have been an intentional, loud announcement that your preconceptions of what he surely wouldn't dare touch aren't safe.
For longtime fans still skeptical, we suspect the casting of Leonard Nimoy as an elderly version of his original Spock character, alongside the young and brilliant Zachary Quinto, will get many past their concerns about new actors replacing familiar faces in existing roles. Nimoy is Spock for generations of viewers, just as William Shatner is Kirk. Contrast this seemingly inviolable connection of actor to character, forged over four decades, with seven actors playing James Bond and ten playing Doctor Who, over that same timeframe.
Passing the Baton
Nimoy's appearance in the movie, and his impressively tireless promotional tour (the guy is, after all, pushing eighty), remind me of the baton-passing in the late '80s intended to give "Star Trek: The Next Generation" some legitimacy in the eyes of that era's skeptical fans. Beginning with the late DeForest Kelley's cameo appearance alongside Commander Data, and continuing with Shatner's voiceover about "another crew" and its "posterity" at the end of "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country," the "Next Generation" crew picked up the mantle from the original cast.
Over the last several weeks, lots of "Trek" aficionados, including Wil Wheaton, have chimed in to say they loved the new film. But perhaps the best sign for me that it was destined to work was the story of the movie's surprise world premiere. The night before it was scheduled to premiere in Australia, of all places, a scheduled showing of "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" at an Alamo Drafthouse movie theatre in Texas, was interrupted just seven minutes in as the film seemed to melt and break.
Out onto the theatre's stage strode Leonard Nimoy, carrying a print of the new movie, and the assembled audience, fans of what's widely considered the best "Trek" film ever made, were treated to an unexpected screening ahead of any other public audience. The Internet was abuzz the next day, and not only were there conspicuously no gripes about being cheated out of the movie they'd gone to see, the numerous reviews were universally positive -- many of them glowing. It was a nutty stunt, but it worked; "Star Trek" was a hit for the hardest-core of hardcore fans.
What's Next?
Just like the aforementioned ending to "Star Trek VI," this movie closes with a look toward the future. But unlike that retirement party, this movie's ending features a fresh-faced crew, newly assembled from a host of different directions, ready to seek out strange new worlds and new civilizations as a group. Familiar, yet new -- a brand new beginning after forty years. We're ready, too.
