Well, I finally got off my broke ass and scooted over to the nearest IMAX theatre to catch the much-anticipated Star Trek reboot, and boy has my tolerance for film that doesn’t even try worn thin. I’m not going to snow anyone; I’m a Trekkie. Been since I was a kid. I was raised on the franchise by my nerd father, and properly instructed in the grand and secretive ways of Star Trek Nerd-dom. I’ve seen all the movies in the theatre save for the first ‘Motion Picture’ — I think; I was 4 at the time, maybe I just don’t remember — watched all the spin-off series and their accompanying films. Never attended any conventions, and I don’t currently own or collect any Trek paraphenalia, so maybe I’m a half-assed Trekkie but I keep up on the history and the mythology — unlike the new Star Trek film, which like every other TV-franchise-to-film reboot to come out in recent years seems to begin with the idea that, Hey, it sucked the first time around, we can do it better now. No, no you can’t. Turning something into an action-soaked milquetoast blockbuster with $50M worth of special effects and CGI and $20M worth of headline talent does not make it better. George Lucas proved this when his most hardcore fans put a fatwa out on him for turning an adult space opera into a Disney-esque fantasy romp.
The Onion indirectly did the Trek franchise justice with this mock entertainment review of the new film:
It occurs to me that I may going about this all the wrong way and that I don’t rightly care. I am the archetypical frustrated artist who has both actively suppressed and morosely neglected my inherent needs for a variety of creative outlets. Actually, I pretty much abandoned all forms of creative expression at a very young age over what now seem like some monumentally petty circumstances, a situation only exacerbated by years of “substance” abuse. That can be interpreted in two ways, really: the unchecked use of certain recreational pharmaceuticals, and the near-total deprivation of literature and art. I use to be a real nerd about those types of things and then one day it seems I just gave it all up. Also, one too many drunken and narcose revelings burdened me with the epiphany that there will always be someone more talented at drawing and more adroit at writing than I will ever be, and there was no point in even trying create anything for the mere possibility that it would be considered second rate.