2013 Midterms, Part 2: May The Force Live Long And Prosper.

Star Trek Into Darkness (or, Star Wars Episode VI 1/2: Vengeance Of The Khan):

Here’s where I stand on the whole Star Trek thing: I love it. I’m talking the original series and its six movies. I don’t really have much in the way of nice things to say about the “Next Generation” shows (or “Enterprise”) beyond “there were a couple of really good episodes and a passable movie or two,” so I’m definitely not going to dwell on any of that. But, yes, I love Kirk, Spock, Bones, and the whole original Star Trek thing. I’m definitely not a Trekkie (or Trekker, or whatever nickname the hardcore fans feel the need to label themselves with). My gateway drug came in 1982 with Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan (or, more specifically, whenever it ended up on Showtime/HBO). I mean, I already knew the basic mythos through osmosis- Kirk was the brave maverick ladykiller, Spock was the logical one, McCoy was emotional, Scotty was, uh… Scottish… but it was Wrath Of Khan that got me watching everything else. And, full disclosure here, I haven’t even seen all of the original episodes. I own them all (those remastered HD Blu-Rays are really, really great, you guys), and I pop them in every once in a while, so someday I will have seen them, but there are a small handful that I’ve missed. And I’m cool with that. If I was even half as obsessive about consuming (and re-consuming) all things Trek as some people are, I’d have grown tired of it years ago.

OK. So.

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Star Trek Into Darkness is not a great Star Trek movie, considering the decades-spanning quality of the source material. But I had a friggin’ blast.

Random thought/tangent: A director is given all the pieces of a puzzle and it’s his job to put it together. But he doesn’t always create the pieces. Independent films often have the luxury of having the director wear many hats- producer, writer, editor, sometimes actor… but on a big Hollywood blowout like this, somebody “famous” like J. J. Abrams is basically a glorified hired gun. A big studio basically says, “come in and make something great out of the tools we’re giving you.” Problem is, sometimes, mixed in with the pneumatic screwdriver, the variable speed orbital sanders, the heavy-duty Milwaukee Sawzalls, and the Titan Powrliner 850 Airless Spray Painters is a plain old ball peen hammer. But there’s no time to go out and buy a DeWalt nail gun, as you need to get this deck built by 3PM. And, hey, a hammer still works… it just doesn’t get the job done with style. Writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman are that hammer. And, given the amount of work Double-J is doing these days, squeezing him in for a second go-around on this new franchise means getting down on his hands and knees and pounding that nail. It also means the Spray Painter is going to get some serious overtime to make some of those bent, off-center nails look as good as possible.

Yeah, uh… I got a little off track there. But you get what I’m trying to say, right?*

So, the movie- it’s fun. I still like all of these newbies’ takes on their characters (Sulu, Chekov, and even Bones are a little underused, but they’re all great). I liked the idea that this Federation, because of the events of the first 10 minutes of Trek 2009, has to struggle to be the peaceful organization of the days of yore. I liked the retooling of Season 1′s Space Seed, in the context of what I just mentioned, of course, but also in the context of modern-day world issues like terrorism and the fallout caused by nouveau-empire-building. I liked Benedict Cumberbatch’s Khan (yes, that’s at least partly due to my Cumberbatch man-crush). I liked the pacing. I liked the FX. I liked the spectacle of it all.

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I didn’t like the writing… but you knew that already. Literally all of the things I mentioned in that last paragraph I liked because I recognized the basic ideas Orci & Kurtzman tried, albeit ham-handedly, to present to us. I didn’t like the opening sequence (too much emphasis on “cute,” not enough (if any) emphasis on logical storytelling. (Why did Kirk steal a scroll from the natives? Because it initiated a movie-opening chase sequence, dummy!)). I didn’t like that, when all was said and done, this was another origin story. I didn’t like Alice Eve. I didn’t like the obligatory Nimoy cameo (although, I’ve been told that in a crowded theater that was a more electric moment) I’ve never jumped on the “JJ Lens Flare” hate bandwagon, but I definitely didn’t like that his response to everyone else doing so was to triple his use of them here.

OK, it’s time to mention Star Wars.

I’ve never subscribed to the idea that you are either a Star Trek person or a Star Wars person. I have lived most of my life as a fan of both, through both the peaks and the gungans valleys. Just because both have spaceships shooting energy weapons doesn’t mean they’re in the same ballpark. That would be like saying Home Alone and Pan’s Labyrinth are cinematic equivalents because they both feature a child protagonist. The biggest difference between the two, on a very (very) basic level, is that Star Trek deals heavily with the science part of sci-fi, while Star Wars leans more heavily on the fiction part. If Kirk & Co. are trying to figure out how to heal this creature they found in a cave, Spock is going to explain why normal medicine isn’t going to work because the creature is a silicone-based life form. In Star Wars, a freezing, injured, dying-from-exposure Luke Skywalker can just be thrown into a tank with tubes coming out of him and we understand that’s just how healing gets done. In Star Trek you may get an explanation on how phasers work in order to to set up why one needs to be recalibrated (for plot purposes, or something). In Star Wars, blasters work because they’re guns, and we know what guns do (no one ever had to explain how Josey Wales’ Colt Walker 1847 worked…). In Star Trek, Khan will almost defeat you with the aid of mental and physical prowess. In Star Wars, Darth Vader will almost defeat you with the aid of mysticism and faith.

So… why do I bring this up? Because Star Trek Into Darkness is really a Star Wars movie in a United Federation Of Planets uniform. Sure, it references past Trek glories and occasionally uses pseudo-science to explain things, but those explanations take a back seat to spectacle, emotion, and plot momentum. And for some, namely the hardcore Trek peeps, that’s like eating pudding with thumbtacks in it. But it ain’t the first time a beloved franchise (god, I HATE that I just used that word…) has blurred its well-established, very bold line between science and fiction. I refer you to The Phantom Menace and the dumbassery that was midichlorians (god, I hate that I just used THAT word…). If you’re an angry, hardcore Trekker, hell-bent on shaming the world for daring to enjoy this year’s Trek-Lite, now you know how the angry, hardcore Star Wars Heads felt in 1999. So, let’s let the two cancel each other out and move on with our lives, yeah?**

Oh, I also bring it up because it means that with J.J. at the helm, we might actually get a decent Star Wars movie in 2015. Star Trek 2009 and, even moreso, Star Trek Into Darkness feel, to me, a lot like Abrams dipping his toe in the thematic waters of a galaxy far, far away.

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Anyway, despite the fact that Star Trek Into Darkness was a big, loud, ADD summer movie, more Star Trek in name than in execution, I’m good with it. We will always have the original series & the original movies, and we can go back and revel in their greatness whenever we want. But when we want, on occasion, to consume the junk food version, brimming with both obscure and blatant “wink-wink” references, unearned partial nudity, big explosions & fisticuffs, and not-so-scientific science, we have 2009′s Star Trek and 2013′s Star Trek Into Darkness. As a person who still enjoys McDonald’s about once a month, I can get behind that.

*I need to make this clear- I’m not suggesting J. J. Abrams is some kind of major visionary and deserves your undying love. Far from it. If he were more of an artist he’d probably have the time to demand a better script… or even have the basic understanding that he needed one.

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**Angry, hardcore Star Trek enthusiasts & angry, hardcore Star Wars fanatics- I love and respect your passion. Seriously. I just don’t dig your attitude sometimes.