Star Trek, the Mindless Frontier

My worst nightmares have become a reality.

I must apologize to JJ Abrams however, for it was unfair of me to blame him and him alone, he's merely the director. I can only blame him for the atrocious look of the film, and for any bad direction I see, which I couldn't spot much of during the laser show which was Star Trek XI (reboot).

I blamed him only because I hadn't seen the movie (well it hadn't come out yet!), and I knew that everything he touched has been horrible in my opinion. The new Trek movie is no exception, but it's completely unfair to blame Abrams alone.

The lions share of the burden falls upon the two writers, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman. These two even said they were fans of trek (not sure if they uttered the word trekkie or not), so though I dreaded that JJ would dumb it down, I hoped that perhaps with two people who knew trek actually writing, some semblance of a decent plot and story may make it through the typical hollywood abattoirs.

I was wrong.

If these two hacks are trek fans, I'm Gene Roddenberry.

That the movie destroys 40 years of canon and wipes out the last 25 years of continuity, I expected, and though it's frustrating, these facts are the least of the new movies problems.

I can accept an invalidation of canon, as insulting as it is.

I can accept a 'reboot' that tries to reimagine Star Trek from square one.

What I can't accept is a rebooting of the very spirit of what Star Trek has always been about.

In short; Intelligent, relevant story driven plots, characters that didn't feel forced, and an optimistic vision of the future of humanity have all been abandoned in the new movie.

At it's worse, star trek was a bit silly and preachy. But at it's best? It waxed profound, and it could move even a passing casual viewer.

I will not sit idly by as they continually slap me in the face time and time again, with trek references that show they know something about trek, and have chosen to ignore all that it implies.

Star Trek is not a mindless action movie franchise.

I can sit here and list everything wrong with this movie, and all the ways in which it isn't star trek, without once citing some nerdy trekkie canon or technical issue. I would point out issues of story alone, of how it doesn't fit in scope, story, plot, mood or in any other way with any of the previous trek movies.

I can't really do it without spoilers though. So, I'm going to sit on that for a while. Besides, I will have to bring up canon issues now and again; just based on the various 'nods' this movie is supposed to be making, in order to highlight that the nod is really more of an insult.

I also want to wait until some of the hub-bub dies down, and the children who currently think star trek is cool are distracted by the next shiny object to enter their field of view. I can't deal with their sort of mentality, or more appropriate lack thereof.

Suffice it to say; if you like mindless action movies and have no problem at all seeing a Star Trek movie that's as well written and ploted as 'independence day'... you'll probably like the new movie.

If that description sounds like an abomination... and I hope it does, you're not alone.

Live long and prosper. Because unless we do something, Trek won't.