STAR TREK: A Geek's Perspective

Let me preface this by saying that I have absolute faith in J.J. Abrams and his team on the new STAR TREK movie that's coming out next summer. These are all the same guys who made MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE III a couple years ago, and that picture is damn near perfect. This could quite possibly be the best Star Trek movie of all-time. However, I question some of the choices they're making.

First off, this film is taking place within normal Star Trek continuity. It's not a reboot. It is said that these dudes have great respect for the timeline, and co-writer Roberto Orci even views the novels as canon.

With that being said, there's also a time travel element to this thing. So in a sense, they can do whatever the frack they want. Abrams has even stated that main characters can die in this movie, and it would still fit into continuity.

Based on this, it is believed that STAR TREK will feature a BACK TO THE FUTURE-type scenario. Characters in the "future" will go back in time to some point before the start of the original series. When that happens, a new alternate timeline will be created in which events unfold differently from the original timeline.

I'm perfectly fine with this idea. I think it's a great way to relaunch the series without abandoning 43 years of history. The thing is, the changes need to make sense.

Star Trek is notorious for re-writing history by saying, "Well, remember, they went back in time. So now everything can be different." That's true. But tell me how the events in GENERATIONS somehow magically occur because the timeline was changed in the NEXT GENERATION finale, "All Good Things..." It doesn't work. And I'm afraid we have a similar scenario taking place with this movie.

As fans of Star Trek continuity, Abrams and Co. are undoubtedly familiar with Denise and Michael Okuda's wonderful reference book, STAR TREK CHRONOLOGY: THE HISTORY OF THE FUTURE. Obviously, a lot of stuff in that book is conjecture, but a lot of it isn't. So here are some things that we know about Abram's STAR TREK which concern me.






First and foremost, why are Uhura, Chekov, and Bones in this movie? None of them appeared until after STAR TREK's second pilot, "Where No Man Has Gone Before," which takes place after the new movie.

You could get away with Uhura. It's quite possible that she was assigned to the ship at that point, and just not in that episode. But from a creative standpoint, let me ask this question: What good is she? Seriously, she doesn't do anything. You can't have someone else answer the phone?

Chekov doesn't make much sense, because he doesn't show up until Season 2. And while there isn't any sort of Chekov origin episode, when he does show up, they spend a lot of time making fun of how young he is. So if he shows up in this thing, he'd be, like, 19. And where did he go for those two years in between the movie and Season 2?

But the one that really bothers me is Bones. In "Where No Man Has Gone Before," Dr. Mark Piper is the chief medical officer. So it doesn't make any sense for Bones to be assigned to the Enterprise at this point in time.

Now, I understand why they'd want Bones in the movie. One of the reasons why people think the original series works so well is because of the holy trinity of Bones, Spock, and Kirk. Bones is the id, Spock's the superego, and Kirk's the ego. So without Bones, that dynamic is lost. Unless you want to use this guy:



Lt. Commander Gary Mitchell is very conspicuously missing from Abram's movie. The backstory established in "Where No Man Has Gone Before" is that Mitchell was a friend of Kirk's from the Academy. When Kirk was given his own command (i.e. in this movie) he requested Mitchell as his first officer. Replacing Bones with Mitchell solves all sorts of problems.

Moving on to other things that bother me, I don't like what I'm hearing about the production design. Now, I'm not proposing a NEW VOYAGES level of consistency. I completely see the need to revise some of the more dated design elements, especially when it comes to the sets. But why are the uniforms so different from what they theoretically should be?

Early reports are that they are very similar to the uniforms used throughout the original series, both in design and color. The problem is, those uniforms weren't worn until after the events depicted in the movie. Here's what the uniforms should look like:


Obviously, the differences are slight. Most notably, the turtleneck, no red uniforms, and no miniskirts for the women. I'm all for miniskirts, but not in this movie. Again, if they want to modify the uniforms to suit the needs of 21st century filmmaking, I'm perfectly fine with that. But don't make decisions based solely on iconography.

Next on my bitch-list, why are the Romulans in this thing? Doing anything with the Romulans pre-"Balance of Terror" just brings up way more questions than answers. No one's supposed to have seen these dudes prior to that episode, because the Romulan Wars of the 22nd century occurred before the invention of viewscreen technology. Well, the reality is that we beat the Star Trek universe to viewscreen technology by about 100 years. In fact, it beat itself on ENTERPRISE, and even then, they felt the need to come up with these elaborate scenarios to include the Romulans in the show without having anyone see them. Meanwhile, there was this huge elephant standing in the corner that no one was talking about. So if it were me, I'd just avoid the situation altogether, pretend that that little inconsistency doesn't exist, and move on to another, less problematic, bad guy.

Finally,



What the frack is he doing in this movie?

But despite all of this, we really don't know what Abrams has up his sleeve, and it's quite possible that all will be revealed, and make sense, on May 8th. Like I said at the top of the post, I have the utmost confidence in his abilities, and I'm sure that STAR TREK will rock hard.