Sounds like a good time

Geek blogging. My inner Trekkie revealed, again.



Some early quibbles about the new Star Trek trailer. (That's right, trailer quibbles. Or, as they will hereinafter be known, Tribbles.)

For one thing, that certainly doesn't look like the Iowa farm that we all know James Kirk grew up on.

And I'm a bit shocked by the idea of an angry Spock - aren't Vulcans emotionally, uh, restrained? When Spock showed emotion in the original Star Trek, it was an oddity, shocking, out of character, and thus, used sparingly and always meaningfully, adding more depth to Spock's struggle against his half-human alter ego in order to remain emotionless, to suppress the duality that tortured him inside with a mask of Vulcan even-tempered logic. Kirk and McCoy were not used to seeing Spock show emotion, yet somehow we're now to think that, early on in their relationship, he exhibited rage, a first impression that would undermine everything that we know they believed about Spock as their relationship evolved. I don't think I'm buying it. (On the other hand, Leonard Nimoy himself appears as "old" Spock in the movie, so I'd have to assume that he was on-board with the depiction.)

I know that Enterprise treated the depiction of logic and lack of emotion as a form of pent-up anger, with the Vulcans further depicted as deceptive, with a thin skin of logic barely concealing weakness and arrogance. But Enterprise is over, and I'd just assume forget it ever happened.

It has become convention to re-imagine, or reboot, classic series. That's fine for a series like Knight Rider and Battlestar Galactica, which could use a bit of a rejiggering with the underlying storyline. Sometimes the reconceptualized series is an improvement on a weak original that had conceptual potential but never realized on that potential (BSG); sometimes it destroys the little bit of value that there was to the original itself (Knight Rider without Hasselhoff camp is just a waste of the airwaves). But sometimes too much has grown around the original to reimagine the show's history away. Continuity matters in the Star Trek universe.

I assume those gripes - I mean tribbles - will get explained in the movie, but why give us something to be frustrated about after seeing the clip? That's the trouble with tribbles. (I know - no shame.)

But yeah, I'll be there on opening day.