Blog of Oonah V Joslin -- please visit my Parallel Oonahverse at WordPress

where I post stories and poems that have not been seen elsewhere - also recipes and various other stuff. http://oovj.wordpress.com/

and see me At the Cumberland Arms 2011









Monday 11 May 2009

Why I will not be seeing Star Trek

That's right! I won't pay a single penny to Paramount's coffers to see this travesty.

Did I miss something about the ideas upon which the original series was based? I thought Star Trek was about a better future...

In this film we are to be served up a Mr Spock who flies into a rage and attacks Kirk. Surely having just left Vulcan Spock would be more, not less logcal than in the first series.

Spock is supposed to have been bullied on Vulcan because of his racial mix... That is not the Vulcan of the first series or indeed any other. Vulcans had rejected emotion by the time Spock was born.

As if that was not a poor enough descriptor of racial portrayals or should I say betrayals in this Flick, we have an Uhura who is being treated as a sex object - wow isn't that original!

And Kirk is a peeping Tom, a person unfit to serve in any command capacity even in our day let alone in the 23rd century!

They are trying to persuade us that wrecking a car is Star Trek stuff?

They just don't get it, do they? Enterprise was deeply unpopular with the fan base because it became entirely given over to a temporal war involving a species whose name was too close to Muslim for (at least my) comfort. The series was American Foreign Policy badly scripted. Now we are to have Trex and the City.

No thank you Paramount.

Those of us who loved Star Trek, loved Gene Roddenbury's vision of the future. We loved the Science of Star Trek - the humour of Star Trek - the equality of Star Trek both sexual (short skirts notwithstanding) and racial and we know the history of these characters. This, like Enterprise, is a betrayal of the Star Trek universe and there are many more fans who, like me, will not buy into it.

5 comments:

  1. Bravo!

    I have no desire to see the new Star Trek. Somehow, from what I've heard, read, and seen, I feel it is Star Trek in name only. And I've never been overly fond of reimaginings of cherished classics anyway.

    I grew up on the original series with the original cast. To me, THAT is true Star Trek.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mercy. I was so looking forward to Star Trek. Talk about taking the wind out of my perverbial sails. Geeze and jeepers.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank you for your comments. I too was eager to see the film and some non-purists have told me that if you value special effects it is quite good and contains a good deal of humour but still - I am loath to see the Star Trek I loved so balderized.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Oonah ... I stumbled onto your blog from Every Day Poets.

    I would encourage you to give the movie a second chance. I love Star Trek as well and you are correct, it is about a better future. This movie is about the journey of how we arrived at Roddenberry's vision!

    As far as Spock is concerned, he is one of my favorite Trek characters. In this movie, he is younger and is still torn between his human and vulcan sides. Again, this is about his journey.

    The same can be said of the other characters as well. They may not be exactly as we remember them, but then again, I am a different person now than I was when I was young as well.

    Don't deny yourself the thrill of seeing the characters you love. It is fun to see how young and immature they were before their first five year mission aboard the Enterprise. I loved it!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thank you Clark, but these are NOT hte characters I love. Spock only became torn between his Vulcan and Human sides after living among humans. As a young man and at the beginning of the first sreies, he was VERY Vulcan and detached. They have tried to m ake Star Trek 'sexy', in the new sense of the word and that is something I at least won't tolerate.

    ReplyDelete