Star Trek

I've had it. Officially as of now I am promoting time travel to the level of Class A narrative felony. If I had my druthers, I would impose a five year ban on any form of time travel in motion pictures.

The new Star Trek could have been, and should have been, a masterpiece of a motion picture, one that should have satisfied new and old fans, and filled in critical gaps in the canonical storyline of the Star Trek series.

I really, really, really wanted to like this. I'd been putting it off as a reward after completing some to-do list tasks for my upcoming trip, so I could finally enjoy it in relaxed fashion. An hour before the show today I'd bought my new camera in Nashua, and for the very first snapshot, I took a commemorate shot of the exterior of the AMC in Tyngsboro that has become my second home.

But in the movie, Star Trek fans did not get the fulfillment of the missing parts of the canon. Instead we got what amounts to the negation of the entire Star Trek storyline as we known it, performed ironically under the guise of resurrecting and honoring it. In that sense, it was the perfect Postmodern movie of 2009---destruction of the past, present, and future masquerading as creation.

This is also the last straw for me as any sort of J.J.Abrams fan. I will finish out following the last season of Lost next year, but that's it. From this movie I finally learned the essential truth of Abrams---the guy just likes to destroy things. Nearly every season of Lost has ended with something blowing up. In Cloverfield we got to see the beheading of the most potent symbol of American freedom followed by the nuking of Manhattan.

Now we get...the annihilation of the entire planet Vulcan and the near extinction of Vulcan race. That would be bad enough, but the destruction was such as to shit upon the entire original series, all in the name of, ahem, "rebooting."

If I were a studio head, I'd like to "reboot" Abrams' ass right off the studio lot, L.B. Mayer style.

It's a damn shame because in many respects this was a magnificent effort, especially in terms of art direction and acting. Karl Urban as McCoy blew me away. The Academy doesn't usually give supporting actor nominations for these kind of performances, but in this case they ought to.

I could forgive Abrams for stripping Kirk of his Iowa nativity, having him be born in space instead. I'd already discerned that from the trailers, and in some ways it makes more sense for the Kirk character.

But fuck---time travel. My mouth is hanging open at how wretched it was. Not just little old innocent go back in time for a little glimpse, but full on plot-completely-relies-on-it type crap that I just gone done ranting about in my previous entry on Terminator Salvation. But at least in the latter instance, the makers of the fourth Terminator film were constrained by the necessity of using it according to the canon of the series. They had to use it, which is why the movie felt so clumsy when it otherwise didn't need to be.

Not so for Star Trek. Time travel wasn't necessary all, except for maybe the fact that the writers weren't clever enough to come up with anything else. It should never have been used as the main plot element that drives the characters actions. Never.

Yes, we have had time travel before in Star Trek ("Edith Keeler must die"), but never quite like this.

But Abrams is a destroyer, a Postmodern plunderer par supreme. The Vulcans were nothing if not refined Classicism, so what more appropriate way of celebrating the revival of the series than annihilating their entire history?

This movie also craps on and cheapens the entire future interactions between Kirk and Spock, since they know they are supposed to be lifelong friends. Who gives a shit now, if it's all destiny?

I suppose in time I will get used to this new Vulcanless timeline, but right now I don't want to think about that. I just feel sick to my stomach when I think about this entire movie.

And I'm likely to walk right out of the next goddamn time travel movie I see. I'm sick of directors like Abrams getting all cute and clever trying to figure all the logic of it out (or not trying to figure it out, I suppose). There is no such thing as time travel. What once was fresh and interesting is now simply a device for telling lazy, inferior stories. It's a cheat, and from now on, in my book it is a crime against narrative.

UPDATE: Oh, and fuck Abrams for depriving Scottie's character of the joy of making his big discovery. They obviously do not understand scientists at all. How would Abrams like it if someone made his movies for him? Cute.

But at least I was spared of having to watch the Golden Gate Bridge be destroyed twice in one month on the screen. I was definitely holding my breath on that one.