Planet Earth Central

If you’re of my vintage, chances are you’ll have grown up watching Star Trek when it originally aired. In fact, “The Devil in the Dark” episode was the very first program on TV I saw in color!

People seem to prefer the Star Trek series they grew up with. It was Next Gen or DS9 for those born in the 70s and early 80s. Voayager appeals to those born a few years later. And Enterprise was favored by those born in the mid 80s and after.

Most people who were there for the original run of The Original Series (TOS) have fond memories of it and feel its morality tales still have relevance in today’s world. Those growing up on later series see TOS as being kitsch, dated and suffering low production values. It’s interesting that because the original series was shot on film, Star Trek is being released on Blu-Ray in high definition whereas Next Gen was shot on video and so it will never appear on Blu-Ray.

The only other series likely to make an appearance on Blu-Ray is Enterprise. This series was much maligned from Star Trek fans for palaying around with Trek history. Spock was supposed to have been the first Vulcan serving in Starfleet, yet T’Pol served as First Officer 150 years earlier in Enterprise. As she was a member of the Vulcam High Command rather than Starfleet, that resolved the apparent dichotomy. Enterprise contained other rewrites of Trek history as well. Actually, this didn’t annoy me that much as Enterprise was much more in line with the spirit of TOS than the intervening efforts.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the first Trek movie, was released 30 years ago. The final movie, Star Trek: Nemesis, out in 2002, was a dismal effort and put paid to any future Next Gen movies being developed. So here we are, seven years later, awaiting a reboot of the series that started it all. Star Trek XI lands on May 8th, 2009.

I’ve looked at the trailers and hmmm…I’m ambivalent about the movie. But that’s down to me growing up with the old crew and I don’t think Trek history should be messed with (despite my being okay with what Enterprise did). My problen is that the new movie messes with the histories of the characters, alters their relationships and will fundamentally change how those characters will be perceived.

I can see that this has been designed for a new, younger audience, but (not having seen the movie), perhaps it would have been preferable to use a a different ship and crew, but set in the pre-TOS years. I’m not taken with some of the casting choices either. Okay, I agree I’m something of a curmudgeonly old fart on this.

Time will tell. Star Trek XI will be here in a acouple of weeks. Of course I’ll go to watch the movie. I really hope that I’ll be applauding at the end of the movie and wanting more instead of holding my head in my hands dismayed at what may become Star Trek heresy.

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