To Boldly Go...

I slept in until 8:30 Sunday morning, my only day off again this week. That felt good. I'm a night owl by nature, so when I'm deployed on these assignments with extended hours it's a struggle for me to get to sleep at an early enough hour to be able to wake up at 5 or 5:30am. After a quick shower I drove over to Panera Bread for an equally quick breakfast, then over the theater to get in for the first showing of the day of the new "Star Trek" movie.

People who know me personally know that I am a "Star Trek" nerd. I've watched all of the TV incarnations and all of the motion pictures, most of them multiple times. I've read all the hardback novels and almost all of the paperback novels. I own various incarnations of "Star Trek" memorabilia. I've attended "Star Trek" conventions. I have gathered with friends for "Star Trek" viewing marathons, and spent hours with those same friends discussing various minutiae of the "Star Trek" universe.

I say that simply to establish that I would watch paint dry if it had some kind of "Star Trek" connection.



So, JJ Abrams was charged by paramount Studios with the unenviable task of rebooting the mythology of "Star Trek" (one of their most financially lucrative properties, though its shine has dulled in recent years) in such a way as to attract new viewers without pissing off the mass of us who have watched Gene Roddenberry's vision unfold on the screen since 1966. On top of that, Abrams has made it clear he was never really a fan of Trek, causing some to feel that he might bring a breath of fresh air and others to run screaming "heresy!" across the Internet.

If you are a fan of "Star Trek" and it's mythology, you WILL be confused at the beginning of the movie as you watch a slightly different history unfold. It is not until later in the movie that you discover WHY that history is not exactly right. Actions by the story's villain have created a different timeline - a timeline that will be inhabited by our rebooted characters and...someone else.

Abrams is obviously a fan of time travel. He used it in his TV series "Alias" and "Lost" and he has used it to effect his reboot in "Star Trek". I have no problem with that at all, I am a big fan of time travel stories.

If they are well-constructed.

And this one is. We get the characters we have loved with their same personality quirks and courageous spirit. We get to see the same relationships...and a new one or two. And best of all, to me, we get to see Captain Christopher Pike play a large part in James Tiberius Kirk becoming Captain James T. Kirk.

It will be interesting to see what happens in future "Star Trek" movies (and there WILL be future "Star Trek" movies), especially considering that the slate has been wiped clean and a major, major storyline change has been inserted that will mean everything can take a different direction. What that direction will be remains to be seen.

But it seems that one thing will NOT change;


"I have been, and always shall be, your friend."

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