state of the trek union redux

I saw Star Trek again the other night, and something occurred to me. The movie is great, don’t get me wrong, but there was something going on that I couldn’t pinpoint until I saw it for a second time.

The movie’s tagline is “This isn’t your father’s Star Trek,” despite the fact that my father’s Star Trek is actually my Star Trek, and it works. Some of the more entrenched of the fan base were fully expecting to hate it, and were pleasantly surprised. The actions is intense, the characterizations are spot on (especially McCoy, I couldn’t get over that), canon is maintained in a creative and lasting way, and, to the delight of many, Leonard Nimoy came out of retirement after fifteen years to play the only character he’s ever been known for.

The problem I had with it, however, doesn’t come from the execution, it comes from the content. I know the intention was to get away from the more cerebral tone of the previous movies and go balls-to-the-wall action, but as an aging movie goer I find myself wanting to get emotionally invested in characters I watch - their motivation, past history, and inevitable growth - as it compliments (and ultimately dictates the course of), the action on screen.

I guess what I’ve been waiting for, and haven’t been able to get for almost 20 years, is the spiritual sequel to Terminator 2. A movie like that is, on the surface, an epic action and sci-fi experience that broke ground with so many film making techniques that producers take for granted today (ya ya, cliched, etc. etc.), but if you look just a wee bit deeper you find an exceptionally strong character piece that very distinctly moves the characters from one state of being to another. At the end of the movie, they all, even the Arnold character, have moved beyond the narrow scope of who they were at the beginning. But more than that, squeezed between all the spectacular action set pieces, there is room for the filmmakers to explore who they are, how they got to where they are, and how those events influence the events of the movie. It was the very definition of epic film making, and no popular summer action film since has even come close to duplicating that.

This is what disappointed me so much about Star Trek. It wasn’t that the action was tepid and boring, it wasn’t that they didn’t “go there” and up the ante (and, holy crap, did they ever!), and it wasn’t that the producers ignored the fans and messed too much with canon, but the biggest problem I had was that I didn’t know who James T. Kirk was in this movie. The scenes that established who he was were too short, and the time in between them was too long.

• A scene showing that he was born under exceptional circumstances that ended with his father’s death and his birth,
• A shorter scene of Kirk around 10 or 12 driving a stolen car,
• A scene of a grown up Kirk getting into a bar fight, being told “hey, you’re a pretty smart guy, you should join Starfleet”,
• A final scene showing him getting on the shuttle to the academy

Now, maybe I’m asking too much as a viewer, but why so little time spent establishing who he is? He’s a problem kid who turns into a problem adult. He has no father and his mother is off-planet a lot, so ya I can see how he gets into trouble, but the lack of establishing scenes earlier on, scenes that may have shown the consequences his actions have on him and the people around him, take away from the weight behind his decision to finally do something with his life. It’s almost like he did it on a whim, for a lark. Like the act was to serve the plot instead of the character. Normally, for the kind of kid he supposedly was, this type of decision is a monumental, life changing event, and it’s treated with the Hollywood equivalent of “meh, what the hell, sure.”

The Spock character was treated with a little bit more care, I think. They were able to convey something more substantial - namely that his experiences growing up and motivations for entering Starfleet instead of the Vulcan Science Academy all centered around racial issues. He was picked on and bullied about being half human when he was a child, and it was held against him as an adult, all of which served to push him away.

Now, a few people who have read this have said that there’s only so much that can be done with so many characters in such a relatively short amount of time, and I agree for the most part, but there are a couple things I’d like to say to address that.

First of all, yes, time is a factor. The director has two hours (roughly) to tell his story, and in an action set piece like this, character development of such a large cast usually takes a back seat to the main action of the movie. But in such a summer event as this - especially with all the hype that was given it that we know now has apparently paid off - what would be so bad about having another 15-30 minutes of screen time? I for one would love a three-hour Star Trek movie. Heck, if Titanic can bring in almost $2 billion in it’s initial theatrical run, don’t tell me that a bit of a longer Star Trek movie isn’t economically feasible.

Second, while the large cast is also an issue, the fact is that, historically, there have only ever been three characters that were developed in the original series and movies - Kirk, Spock and McCoy. All of the others weren’t even give billing in the opening credits in the original series - they were guest stars. In 79 episodes and six movies, we don’t really know who the others are. Not like the “Big Three.” The only medium that has ever explored anything about Uhura, Sulu, Chekov and Scotty has been the expanded universe novels, all of which are officially NOT part of the series canon.

All this is not to say that I didn’t enjoy the movie. I really did. I think that it’s a welcome retake on a franchise that had long since worn out it’s welcome. I just think that, if you’re going to do a reboot, don’t use the assumption that your audience knows your characters as an excuse to not establish them properly. Terminator 2 (which, I know, is a sequel, not a reboot) showed us that it is possible for a strong character piece to co-exist with awesome action, and I was quite disappointed that Star Trek wasn’t able to continue that.