The Isle of Perspicuity

Just did some research on the new Star Trek movie, turns out the new movie is actually set in an alternative universe, but just in terms of a few minor details, and it isn’t the first time it’s been done… there have been times in the original series, and particularly in the Next Generation and Voyager series, that this has been touched upon, mostly as a result of time travel and its effects. The new film does indeed feature a time-traveling Romulan from the future, and this does alter the Star Trek past a little bit, but the movie still seems to hold true to The Original Series and does not seem to alter the nature of the original characters or the Star Trek Universe itself.

The props, sets, uniforms and ship designs are indeed different, but chalk that up to the fact that the original series, while cutting-edge in many ways, was also steeped in the culture of the sixties and its own distinctive style. In return, Star Trek has since had a tremendous impact on our own subsequent cultural history and technological development, and we are constantly surrounded by the influences that Star Trek has had on our everyday lives, from the flip-style cell phone (beam me up, Scotty) and Bluetooth earpieces (hailing frequencies, Lieutenant Uhura) to a myriad of modern medical devices that would have been right at home in McCoy’s examination room.

If Kirk had whipped out an old-style communicator, or if McCoy had used the traditional huge, old boxy tricorder, both of those instruments would look sadly archaic and out-dated by today’s standards, never mind in a world that is supposed to take place a couple of hundred years or so into our own future. You have but to pull your iPhone out of your pocket as you sit in front of your flat-screen LCD monitor to see the truth to that. Science has always chased fiction, since the days of Jules Verne to Star Trek and beyond, on into a future that is still being foretold and, yes, changed even further by those who are doing the foretelling itself. The resemblance of the history of science fiction to our own modern times is no mistake; much of modern science is inspired by the fiction of the past, the scientists themselves having grown up as avid fans and dreaming of being the first to make the fiction of the past into the reality of tomorrow.

Truth be told, I want something a bit new, I don’t want to watch some young punk… try… to… talk like… Shatner… or see the same old ship designs and boxy interiors. Roddenberry himself said "some young thing" would come along and do Star Trek bigger and better than he himself had done it, and to tell the truth, each incarnation of Trek – on TV and in the movies – has technically been better and more sophisticated than the one that came before, from the special effects to the acting and plot development.

I’ve been drooling over this movie since I heard about it a few years ago and can’t wait to see it, and frankly, if I went in to the movies and simply saw an extended TV episode that was trying to imitate the original series in every way, much like the 1998 version of Psycho was made as an exact copy of the 1960’sclassic, line for line, scene for scene and shot for shot, I would have been mildly entertained, but it would have been little more than a novelty, and would ultimately be a flop. We wouldn’t see any more Star Trek movies after that, because it would have ultimately been a bad movie. Think about it.

For those who consider themselves Trekkie purists, the film does indeed hold true to all that is Trek, but it also incorporates some of the themes and ideas from novels written in the Star Trek Universe, but previously not considered as “cannon”, or ‘official’, as they take place outside of anything that has been put on TV or the Big Screen. Also, the sheer number of Star Trek novels out there, and the abundance of writers behind those novels, makes it difficult to keep continuity amongst the creative Star Trek community. In fact there are many glaring inconsistencies within the TV shows and movies themselves, so in large part, this voyage into non-‘cannon’ material can be forgiven.

When you stop to think about it, time travel has been used so many times in the Star Trek films themselves that any inconsistencies can be explained and excused just because of that; many scientific theorists believe that, if one were to travel back in time and change ANYTHING, you automatically create an alternative universe practically identical to our own but indeed different. Some even believe that process takes place every time we make a decision, any decision at all, and we make thousands of decisions every day, big and small, that could change the course of our lives forever. So the idea that the Star Trek we will see is different in some ways from the Star Trek we grew up with is OK when seen within this context. They didn’t “mess it up”, it’s always going to be there in my 3-season boxed DVD set on my shelf, right next to the original ‘Star Trek – The Animated Series’ (NBC, 1973), for me to enjoy whenever I want it.

Roddenberry himself always wanted to do a ‘prequel’, and his wife reprised her role as the voice of the enterprise computer for this new movie before her own death in 2008. Nimoy also plays a major role in the movie as the older, original Spock who also time-travels to join in the fun, and also in terms of and being an integral part of the whole process of creating, maintaining and presenting the Star Trek Universe, he would not have participated in the new movie if he didn’t like the script, and the script itself would have been rewritten had he NOT approved. They were also flirting with the idea of bringing back Kirk as well, but decided against it because it would just seem cheap, no matter how they did it. Kirk had indeed died in an earlier movie, and Shatner was being too pushy and demanding, so they scrapped any plans they might have had and left Shatner completely out of the new picture. Shatner himself is quite cheap and cheesy, so I’m glad they did. Let Kirk rest in peace.

So, overall, I think the new movie will be a worthy intro to – hopefully – a whole new set of movies that we can all get into all over again. Of course, some day they will remake the original Star Wars, and technically do it better, but I’ll be the first one to balk at the idea; I grew up with the original Star Wars, my Dad, Ron, took me to see it when it first came out. Until then, and even afterwards I’ll wager, the original will always be special to me, just as I still love to watch the original Star Trek when it comes on TV. I’m sure Star Trek will “live long and prosper” no matter who is at the helm.