Trek XI poster at Comic con
Saturday, August 05, 2006
TrekCheck: The Future Beyond Trek XI
The Star Trek 40th anniversary festivities are just now poised to begin, so before looking back let's pause a moment for a brief glimpse into the Star Trek future.
With the first poster and a round of interviews, the Abrams' Star Trek XI film is gathering momentum. There was also this remarkable statement from longtime Trek insider, Paula Block, at comicon:"The people at CBS are very excited to have inherited the franchise, and they want to do a lot with it. There are a lot of things we're doing behind the scenes that we can't tell you about yet because we don't know if they'll come to fruition or not, but we're very excited about them."
So even television may again be part of the mix come 2008, when Trek XI is expected to hit theatres. So it's my guess that the movers and shakers are looking at Trek XI and its story not in isolation, but in terms of how it might fit into the saga's future. Without knowing what's being discussed in terms of television, it's still possible to speculate about how Trek XI might pave the way for Trek XII and so on.
This is another area where a prequel movie raises a lot of questions. Is it going to be a one-time deal, a movie about, say, how Kirk and Spock met, were perhaps part of the same adventure but serving on different ships, ending with them getting posted together on the Enterprise? The idea would be to test the waters, see if there is a market for a revived Star Trek, and whether audiences will go for a new Kirk and Spock.
But if they do, and the movie is a hit, then what? Will the new actor playing Kirk become the new Kirk, or will Kirk become James Bond, a mythical figure played by a series of actors? And what kind of limitations does a prequel present---is there enough room before the original series time frame for a series of movies? Or will these become the new adventures of the Enterprise with a new Scotty, a new Bones, etc.? I'll bet somebody is thinking about these things, or should be.
The history of past Trek movies is that, at least before the TNG era, each Trek movie could well have been the last. Nobody was really thinking ahead, but then, what was there to think about? They had a nearly infinite universe to play with--and almost a century before bumping into the TNG universe. But now, things are a great deal more complicated with so much of the Trek timeline filled in.
If you want to keep the same Kirk for a few films, can you count on a major star to be available? Past Trek films that succeeded financially did so by keeping costs down well below blockbuster budget levels. Are they going to up the ante?
Then there’s age. People worried about the original series actors being too old for Star Trek: The Motion Picture. They all went on diets, yet Kirk’s aging became a plot point. Given that they kept on going for another decade makes it all seem fairly silly. But at least they didn’t have to worry about getting older than their later selves. As I pointed out here before, Matt Damon is about the age that William Shatner was when he started playing Kirk as Captain of the Enterprise. Can prequel actors maintain credibility if they get older than the crew they are supposed to be younger than? Always a headache, these time paradoxes!
The Star Trek 40th anniversary festivities are just now poised to begin, so before looking back let's pause a moment for a brief glimpse into the Star Trek future.
With the first poster and a round of interviews, the Abrams' Star Trek XI film is gathering momentum. There was also this remarkable statement from longtime Trek insider, Paula Block, at comicon:"The people at CBS are very excited to have inherited the franchise, and they want to do a lot with it. There are a lot of things we're doing behind the scenes that we can't tell you about yet because we don't know if they'll come to fruition or not, but we're very excited about them."
So even television may again be part of the mix come 2008, when Trek XI is expected to hit theatres. So it's my guess that the movers and shakers are looking at Trek XI and its story not in isolation, but in terms of how it might fit into the saga's future. Without knowing what's being discussed in terms of television, it's still possible to speculate about how Trek XI might pave the way for Trek XII and so on.
This is another area where a prequel movie raises a lot of questions. Is it going to be a one-time deal, a movie about, say, how Kirk and Spock met, were perhaps part of the same adventure but serving on different ships, ending with them getting posted together on the Enterprise? The idea would be to test the waters, see if there is a market for a revived Star Trek, and whether audiences will go for a new Kirk and Spock.
But if they do, and the movie is a hit, then what? Will the new actor playing Kirk become the new Kirk, or will Kirk become James Bond, a mythical figure played by a series of actors? And what kind of limitations does a prequel present---is there enough room before the original series time frame for a series of movies? Or will these become the new adventures of the Enterprise with a new Scotty, a new Bones, etc.? I'll bet somebody is thinking about these things, or should be.
The history of past Trek movies is that, at least before the TNG era, each Trek movie could well have been the last. Nobody was really thinking ahead, but then, what was there to think about? They had a nearly infinite universe to play with--and almost a century before bumping into the TNG universe. But now, things are a great deal more complicated with so much of the Trek timeline filled in.
If you want to keep the same Kirk for a few films, can you count on a major star to be available? Past Trek films that succeeded financially did so by keeping costs down well below blockbuster budget levels. Are they going to up the ante?
Then there’s age. People worried about the original series actors being too old for Star Trek: The Motion Picture. They all went on diets, yet Kirk’s aging became a plot point. Given that they kept on going for another decade makes it all seem fairly silly. But at least they didn’t have to worry about getting older than their later selves. As I pointed out here before, Matt Damon is about the age that William Shatner was when he started playing Kirk as Captain of the Enterprise. Can prequel actors maintain credibility if they get older than the crew they are supposed to be younger than? Always a headache, these time paradoxes!
What about the Future?
The whole idea of a prequel movie doesn’t sit well with several members of the Next Generation cast. In a discussion on her site, Marina Sirtis said "Gene Roddenberry always said that Star Trek should go forward." Michael Dorn echoed this in an interview, and LeVar Burton has said as much in the past.
Invoking Roddenberry in this way reminds me that sadly, these actors (who collectively have also been Trek directors, producer and writers) are the last to have learned Star Trek directly from Roddenberry. You can hear it in their voices and see it in their body language—through individual personal contact, Roddenberry instilled his vision of Star Trek in them at the very beginning, and embodied Star Trek for them.
But it's not just nostalgia-- it does matter that this will be the first Star Trek that isn’t being developed by either GR or someone who worked with him, with his personal guidance. It may even be important in whether Trek ever goes forward rather than just back to the beginning of its future.
For the 23rd and 24th centuries were GR’s creation—with major creative input from others, but with his final say. Even the 22nd century of Enterprise was based on GR’s future, though it may have relied too much on some of its successful components (like introducing the Borg and the Romulans long before they should have shown up.)
It isn't that nobody but GR could come up with Star Trek ideas. New blood can infuse new life, and naturally the new generation wants to separate itself from the old. (Even in small ways---I remember Enterprise showrunner Manny Coto getting into one of those little motorcarts on the Paramount lot, making fun of the old guy, Rick Berman, always saying, 'why when I came to Paramount, none of this was here!') But to take Star Trek into the future requires more than both knowledge of the Trek past and ideas about how to make more exciting contemporary entertainment. GR thought about and cared about the future, both about what it could be and what it must be, if humanity is ever going to get there.
In the last exhausted years of the old Star Trek regime, it seemed that no one involved had the vision and the confidence to invent a farther future, a 25th century or beyond. Does the new regime include people who do? It's a question vital to whether Star Trek's future has a future.
GR may have been just a TV writer, as many of these people are, but he had other lives before that in the military and the police, and when he created Star Trek, he systematically created a workable future (or at least a framework that the creativity of others could work with.) He thought about a plausible future. He consulted scientists, and science fiction writers like Arthur C. Clarke and Issac Asimov, who were scientifically literate futurists as well as imaginative writers. He also consulted writers like Ray Bradbury who imagined the human responses to technological change, as well as knowing how to use science fiction to explore contemporary issues.
Because of what he created and how he created it, GR eventually was asked to speak before scientific groups as well as at places like the Jung Society. The resulting framework and especially how he communicated it to fellow creators, is the basis for why the Star Trek saga constitutes the best known vision of the future on the planet Earth.
Are there people among those thinking about Star Trek for Paramount and CBS who realize this? Who think in these terms, as well as how to wow kids into buying Trek merchandise? Or maybe no one is going where no Trek has gone before because they aren’t up to it.
As for the Next Generation, which never got the respect it deserved, it's not good times. While the original series makes its transition from science fiction (on the Sci-Fi Channel) to nostalgia (on TvLand in the fall), and while Enterprise takes up the Sci-Fi Channel contemporary slack, TNG is marooned in the Spike TV quadrant, light years from civilization. (As for G4, I’m not sure where the line is between “interactive” and “annoying, distracting and deadening” when a story is being told, but it's not available in my neck of the woods anyway.)
Next Gen's movie fate is still something of a mystery to me. TNG was the best of the Star Trek TV series, yet their movies generally speaking didn’t soar as they should have. I’d argue that the opposite happened with the original crew: their movies were better than the TV series, though it’s probably true that the TOS films wouldn’t have been as successful without the history of the TV series.
I’ll have to wrestle with that impression when I finally get back to completing my “Trekalog” essays on the first 10 films. But I do have this modest proposal. Next year (2007) will be TNG’s 20th anniversary. If Paramount isn’t going to give the TNG crew a proper final film on the big screen, why not at least do it for television? A two hour movie with production values good enough to sell on DVD and the Internet. Use the additional history of the movies to inform the story, and give this crew the final adventure they deserve.
Sure, there are financial and logistic problems but they can be overcome. A good enough script will go a long way towards reuniting a group of actors who still love each other. There are all kinds of ways to add to its commercial appeal with cameos and guest appearances. It might even be a way to suggest a future direction, beyond the prequel and the reboot. There are unexplored areas of past Star Trek space that can yield great and provocative stories, and maybe that's where the saga should stay. But if the Star Trek future is to have a future, maybe this is where it should start.
The whole idea of a prequel movie doesn’t sit well with several members of the Next Generation cast. In a discussion on her site, Marina Sirtis said "Gene Roddenberry always said that Star Trek should go forward." Michael Dorn echoed this in an interview, and LeVar Burton has said as much in the past.
Invoking Roddenberry in this way reminds me that sadly, these actors (who collectively have also been Trek directors, producer and writers) are the last to have learned Star Trek directly from Roddenberry. You can hear it in their voices and see it in their body language—through individual personal contact, Roddenberry instilled his vision of Star Trek in them at the very beginning, and embodied Star Trek for them.
But it's not just nostalgia-- it does matter that this will be the first Star Trek that isn’t being developed by either GR or someone who worked with him, with his personal guidance. It may even be important in whether Trek ever goes forward rather than just back to the beginning of its future.
For the 23rd and 24th centuries were GR’s creation—with major creative input from others, but with his final say. Even the 22nd century of Enterprise was based on GR’s future, though it may have relied too much on some of its successful components (like introducing the Borg and the Romulans long before they should have shown up.)
It isn't that nobody but GR could come up with Star Trek ideas. New blood can infuse new life, and naturally the new generation wants to separate itself from the old. (Even in small ways---I remember Enterprise showrunner Manny Coto getting into one of those little motorcarts on the Paramount lot, making fun of the old guy, Rick Berman, always saying, 'why when I came to Paramount, none of this was here!') But to take Star Trek into the future requires more than both knowledge of the Trek past and ideas about how to make more exciting contemporary entertainment. GR thought about and cared about the future, both about what it could be and what it must be, if humanity is ever going to get there.
In the last exhausted years of the old Star Trek regime, it seemed that no one involved had the vision and the confidence to invent a farther future, a 25th century or beyond. Does the new regime include people who do? It's a question vital to whether Star Trek's future has a future.
GR may have been just a TV writer, as many of these people are, but he had other lives before that in the military and the police, and when he created Star Trek, he systematically created a workable future (or at least a framework that the creativity of others could work with.) He thought about a plausible future. He consulted scientists, and science fiction writers like Arthur C. Clarke and Issac Asimov, who were scientifically literate futurists as well as imaginative writers. He also consulted writers like Ray Bradbury who imagined the human responses to technological change, as well as knowing how to use science fiction to explore contemporary issues.
Because of what he created and how he created it, GR eventually was asked to speak before scientific groups as well as at places like the Jung Society. The resulting framework and especially how he communicated it to fellow creators, is the basis for why the Star Trek saga constitutes the best known vision of the future on the planet Earth.
Are there people among those thinking about Star Trek for Paramount and CBS who realize this? Who think in these terms, as well as how to wow kids into buying Trek merchandise? Or maybe no one is going where no Trek has gone before because they aren’t up to it.
As for the Next Generation, which never got the respect it deserved, it's not good times. While the original series makes its transition from science fiction (on the Sci-Fi Channel) to nostalgia (on TvLand in the fall), and while Enterprise takes up the Sci-Fi Channel contemporary slack, TNG is marooned in the Spike TV quadrant, light years from civilization. (As for G4, I’m not sure where the line is between “interactive” and “annoying, distracting and deadening” when a story is being told, but it's not available in my neck of the woods anyway.)
Next Gen's movie fate is still something of a mystery to me. TNG was the best of the Star Trek TV series, yet their movies generally speaking didn’t soar as they should have. I’d argue that the opposite happened with the original crew: their movies were better than the TV series, though it’s probably true that the TOS films wouldn’t have been as successful without the history of the TV series.
I’ll have to wrestle with that impression when I finally get back to completing my “Trekalog” essays on the first 10 films. But I do have this modest proposal. Next year (2007) will be TNG’s 20th anniversary. If Paramount isn’t going to give the TNG crew a proper final film on the big screen, why not at least do it for television? A two hour movie with production values good enough to sell on DVD and the Internet. Use the additional history of the movies to inform the story, and give this crew the final adventure they deserve.
Sure, there are financial and logistic problems but they can be overcome. A good enough script will go a long way towards reuniting a group of actors who still love each other. There are all kinds of ways to add to its commercial appeal with cameos and guest appearances. It might even be a way to suggest a future direction, beyond the prequel and the reboot. There are unexplored areas of past Star Trek space that can yield great and provocative stories, and maybe that's where the saga should stay. But if the Star Trek future is to have a future, maybe this is where it should start.
Star Dateline News
The official Star Trek site, Startrek. com, has been designated also as the official site for Trek XI, at least so far. But other fan-run sites are springing up, such as The Trek XI Report which features news and video clips, and is already in the thick of the media frenzy by publicizing the premature casting of Matt Damon as Kirk on the Internet Movie Database. The usually reliable IMDb doesn't have a great track record on Trek XI anyway, having for years designated Nick Meyer as its director. I asked Meyer about this a couple of summers ago, and he professed surprise, although he did seem interested.
As some predicted, the lack of new Trek TV or film in production has left a space for unofficial efforts, like Of Gods and Men, which has some new teaser banners on its site. But some can't wait for costly productions, and are creating new Star Trek stories and posting them as scripts for "virtual" fan films, such as those found at Star Trek (Reborn), where fans can also discuss the stories online.
Meanwhile, the site for PlanetXpo's Star Trek 40th anniversary convention in Seattle has added a blog to start the discussion on how Star Trek has changed the world in the past 40 years, a theme of the convention.
The official Star Trek site, Startrek. com, has been designated also as the official site for Trek XI, at least so far. But other fan-run sites are springing up, such as The Trek XI Report which features news and video clips, and is already in the thick of the media frenzy by publicizing the premature casting of Matt Damon as Kirk on the Internet Movie Database. The usually reliable IMDb doesn't have a great track record on Trek XI anyway, having for years designated Nick Meyer as its director. I asked Meyer about this a couple of summers ago, and he professed surprise, although he did seem interested.
As some predicted, the lack of new Trek TV or film in production has left a space for unofficial efforts, like Of Gods and Men, which has some new teaser banners on its site. But some can't wait for costly productions, and are creating new Star Trek stories and posting them as scripts for "virtual" fan films, such as those found at Star Trek (Reborn), where fans can also discuss the stories online.
Meanwhile, the site for PlanetXpo's Star Trek 40th anniversary convention in Seattle has added a blog to start the discussion on how Star Trek has changed the world in the past 40 years, a theme of the convention.
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
News Update
Both Trek Today and TrekWeb have noted Morgan Gendel’s comments on “The Inner Light” here (see below.) Jeff Ayers, author of Voyages of Imagination: The Star Trek Fiction Companion, forthcoming in November, emailed to say he's interested in Morgan Gendel getting in touch with him for a project he's working on with Trek fiction writer Kevin Lauderdale. I’ll pass on that info through "captainfuture" at sbcglobal, dot net.
Planet Xpo has just released more information on the Star Trek 40th Anniversary Celebration and Conference, September 8 – 10 at the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame in Seattle. “The weekend will feature three days of presentations and panels by actors, authors, entrepreneurs, and scientists exploring how Star Trek has changed the world over the past 40 years.”
Some of the scheduled highlights: a live presentation of a staged radio play, starring Jason Alexander as an “evil Captain Kirk,” with a cast of Star Trek alums. The play was written by Walter Koenig and Tracy Torme, both of whom will be at the convention.
Also the world premiere of "To Serve All My Days," introduced by and starring Walter Koenig; director Robert Burnett's presenting "Free Enterprise," Tim Russ' presenting "Roddenberry On Patrol" and Nichelle Nichols' presenting the trailer for her new forthcoming movie, "Lady Magdalene.”
Besides the aforementioned Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nichols, Alexander, Russ and Torme, there will be appearances by the Rikers--Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis—George Takei, Majel Barrett Roddenberry, Rod Roddenberry, Gary Lockwood, Grace Lee Whitney, Garrett Wang, John Billingsley, Alan Ruck, Star Trek physicist Dr. Lawrence Krauss, science fiction authors Greg Bear, Jeff Greenwald and David Marinaccio, and others.
There are numerous panels, two evening events, dealers rooms and so on, but the number of attendees is limited, so check out planetxpo.com for details and reservations.
Both Trek Today and TrekWeb have noted Morgan Gendel’s comments on “The Inner Light” here (see below.) Jeff Ayers, author of Voyages of Imagination: The Star Trek Fiction Companion, forthcoming in November, emailed to say he's interested in Morgan Gendel getting in touch with him for a project he's working on with Trek fiction writer Kevin Lauderdale. I’ll pass on that info through "captainfuture" at sbcglobal, dot net.
Planet Xpo has just released more information on the Star Trek 40th Anniversary Celebration and Conference, September 8 – 10 at the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame in Seattle. “The weekend will feature three days of presentations and panels by actors, authors, entrepreneurs, and scientists exploring how Star Trek has changed the world over the past 40 years.”
Some of the scheduled highlights: a live presentation of a staged radio play, starring Jason Alexander as an “evil Captain Kirk,” with a cast of Star Trek alums. The play was written by Walter Koenig and Tracy Torme, both of whom will be at the convention.
Also the world premiere of "To Serve All My Days," introduced by and starring Walter Koenig; director Robert Burnett's presenting "Free Enterprise," Tim Russ' presenting "Roddenberry On Patrol" and Nichelle Nichols' presenting the trailer for her new forthcoming movie, "Lady Magdalene.”
Besides the aforementioned Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nichols, Alexander, Russ and Torme, there will be appearances by the Rikers--Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis—George Takei, Majel Barrett Roddenberry, Rod Roddenberry, Gary Lockwood, Grace Lee Whitney, Garrett Wang, John Billingsley, Alan Ruck, Star Trek physicist Dr. Lawrence Krauss, science fiction authors Greg Bear, Jeff Greenwald and David Marinaccio, and others.
There are numerous panels, two evening events, dealers rooms and so on, but the number of attendees is limited, so check out planetxpo.com for details and reservations.
Monday, July 24, 2006
TrekCheck: The Latest From J.J. (and other matters)
First a bit of site news. The post on the TNG episode "Inner Light" got a long comment here from Morgan Grendel, who wrote the episode. He provides more history, confirms the title's source, and suggests a follow-up episode he pitched but which was never made. Check it out.
Also old business: I saw the rest of the 2005 Eccleston Doctor Who episodes I'd missed, and viewed several again I'd seen before. My admiration has only grown. But I also noted two Trek references. In "The Empty Child," Rose has to explain who the Doctor is to Captain Jack, and is befuddled because he doesn't give a name. Just the Doctor--"what is that about? Doctor who?" So what is the name Rose chose for the Doctor? "Mr. Spock."
So Rose is a Trek fan, which pays off in the second episode in this two-parter, "The Doctor Dances," when Rose volunteers to distract a soldier but Jack tells her he's the one to do the distracting. His any-gender sexuality, the Doctor says, is the way humans are in the 51st century, only it's also any-alien. Rose says something to the effect that is this what humans do? "Seek out new life and..." mate with it is the jist. The Doctor confirms it. So it looks like Captain Kirk had the right idea all along.
Okay, J.J. Abrams. A number of interviews have recently been published, with slightly different things to say. Some of the difference may reflect the time elapsed since the interview was given. But in what is likely to be the most recent, in TV Guide, Abrams says the writing is surprisingly far along--they must have the basic story--and he may be ready to go with the movie before Paramount is. None of the interviews deal with the rumor that Matt Damon is preferred to play the young James T. Kirk (although how much younger is Damon than Shatner was when he played Kirk? The answer: he isn't. Shatner was 35 when he started playing Kirk in 1966. At the scheduled release of Star Trek XI in 2008, Damon will be 38.)
Abrams is not confirming the Paramount announcement of a story about Kirk and Spock at the Academy, but the first poster released on startrek.com, with the original series style and the gold and blue of that series' command and science uniforms, tends to support it. But as some fans wrote on the Trekweb board, that doesn't mean we won't see a TNG-style poster added in the coming months. That would really start people talking.
In answering the all-important question of what makes Star Trek special, he told TV Guide:
"It was incredibly smart television. The original series and Next Generation were about something - human nature and the idea of coming up against the unexpected and the often terrifying. It was a good story that happened to be science fiction. When I watch episodes with my 7-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter and see them so vitally respond to a show that was made the year I was born - it's not because it takes place on a spaceship. What endures isn't a genre, it's character and emotional connection. "
This tends to support the impression that the movie is going to deal with something "unexpected and terrifying," which he's mentioned as what he liked in the original series but what he found missing in Trek movies. As he told Variety: "[Trek] was always my favorite when it was a little bit scary, when they would deal with beaming something on the ship that was an incredible mystery or there was a clear threat.
He also told Variety: Star Trek to me was always about infinite possibility and the incredible imagination that Gene Roddenberry brought to that core of characters," he says. "It was a show about purpose, about faith vs. logic, about science vs. emotion, about us vs. them. It was its own world, and yet it was our world.
The "us vs. them" concerns me. Dealing with those issues is one thing, but re-starting Star Trek with a simplistic us vs. them story would be contrary to the real achievement of the saga, the part of GR's vision most important to him, and a real disappointment. Trek began at a time that Us vs. Them was the plot of the usual science fiction film, and when it was a time of Us vs. Them conflicts in America and involving the U.S. abroad. Trek was able to create strong stories and conflicts, without resorting to the brutalizing oversimplifcations of Us vs. Them.
We're in another period like that now. We need the vision of another way reconfirmed for this generation. The diversity on the Enterprise bridge, including the "Thems" of racial, ethnic and gender stereotypes, as well as the sci-fi "Them" of the alien, was the key to Trek's soul. I'd like to see this infused with fresh meaning for our time.
Fans will be reassured that Abrams and others on his team are insisting they know the Star Trek universe and the "canon" of previous stories, and will respect them in their story. They confirm that they respect the fans as a key to their success. Abrams has apparently talked with William Shatner about the project, and he's said very laudatory things about Leonard Nimoy. He went so far as to menton that Nicholas Meyer attended his bar mitzvah.
It seems Star Trek XI will be true to Star Trek's history. I'm hoping it will also be true to its soul.
First a bit of site news. The post on the TNG episode "Inner Light" got a long comment here from Morgan Grendel, who wrote the episode. He provides more history, confirms the title's source, and suggests a follow-up episode he pitched but which was never made. Check it out.
Also old business: I saw the rest of the 2005 Eccleston Doctor Who episodes I'd missed, and viewed several again I'd seen before. My admiration has only grown. But I also noted two Trek references. In "The Empty Child," Rose has to explain who the Doctor is to Captain Jack, and is befuddled because he doesn't give a name. Just the Doctor--"what is that about? Doctor who?" So what is the name Rose chose for the Doctor? "Mr. Spock."
So Rose is a Trek fan, which pays off in the second episode in this two-parter, "The Doctor Dances," when Rose volunteers to distract a soldier but Jack tells her he's the one to do the distracting. His any-gender sexuality, the Doctor says, is the way humans are in the 51st century, only it's also any-alien. Rose says something to the effect that is this what humans do? "Seek out new life and..." mate with it is the jist. The Doctor confirms it. So it looks like Captain Kirk had the right idea all along.
Okay, J.J. Abrams. A number of interviews have recently been published, with slightly different things to say. Some of the difference may reflect the time elapsed since the interview was given. But in what is likely to be the most recent, in TV Guide, Abrams says the writing is surprisingly far along--they must have the basic story--and he may be ready to go with the movie before Paramount is. None of the interviews deal with the rumor that Matt Damon is preferred to play the young James T. Kirk (although how much younger is Damon than Shatner was when he played Kirk? The answer: he isn't. Shatner was 35 when he started playing Kirk in 1966. At the scheduled release of Star Trek XI in 2008, Damon will be 38.)
Abrams is not confirming the Paramount announcement of a story about Kirk and Spock at the Academy, but the first poster released on startrek.com, with the original series style and the gold and blue of that series' command and science uniforms, tends to support it. But as some fans wrote on the Trekweb board, that doesn't mean we won't see a TNG-style poster added in the coming months. That would really start people talking.
In answering the all-important question of what makes Star Trek special, he told TV Guide:
"It was incredibly smart television. The original series and Next Generation were about something - human nature and the idea of coming up against the unexpected and the often terrifying. It was a good story that happened to be science fiction. When I watch episodes with my 7-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter and see them so vitally respond to a show that was made the year I was born - it's not because it takes place on a spaceship. What endures isn't a genre, it's character and emotional connection. "
This tends to support the impression that the movie is going to deal with something "unexpected and terrifying," which he's mentioned as what he liked in the original series but what he found missing in Trek movies. As he told Variety: "[Trek] was always my favorite when it was a little bit scary, when they would deal with beaming something on the ship that was an incredible mystery or there was a clear threat.
He also told Variety: Star Trek to me was always about infinite possibility and the incredible imagination that Gene Roddenberry brought to that core of characters," he says. "It was a show about purpose, about faith vs. logic, about science vs. emotion, about us vs. them. It was its own world, and yet it was our world.
The "us vs. them" concerns me. Dealing with those issues is one thing, but re-starting Star Trek with a simplistic us vs. them story would be contrary to the real achievement of the saga, the part of GR's vision most important to him, and a real disappointment. Trek began at a time that Us vs. Them was the plot of the usual science fiction film, and when it was a time of Us vs. Them conflicts in America and involving the U.S. abroad. Trek was able to create strong stories and conflicts, without resorting to the brutalizing oversimplifcations of Us vs. Them.
We're in another period like that now. We need the vision of another way reconfirmed for this generation. The diversity on the Enterprise bridge, including the "Thems" of racial, ethnic and gender stereotypes, as well as the sci-fi "Them" of the alien, was the key to Trek's soul. I'd like to see this infused with fresh meaning for our time.
Fans will be reassured that Abrams and others on his team are insisting they know the Star Trek universe and the "canon" of previous stories, and will respect them in their story. They confirm that they respect the fans as a key to their success. Abrams has apparently talked with William Shatner about the project, and he's said very laudatory things about Leonard Nimoy. He went so far as to menton that Nicholas Meyer attended his bar mitzvah.
It seems Star Trek XI will be true to Star Trek's history. I'm hoping it will also be true to its soul.
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Action!
Today in New York, shooting begins on the biggest of an accelerating series of big Star Trek "fan films," Star Trek: Of Gods and Men, produced by Sky Douglas Conway and directed by Tim Russ (of Voyager), the team that did the affectionate non-documentary, Roddenberry on Patrol. (I came in late to a screening of this at the Scotty convention, but what I saw was terrific--smart and a lot of fun.) This production is also in association with James Cawley of “New Voyages," and is making use of their sets in New York. Other filming will take place in Los Angeles
Starring in this adventure are Nichelle Nichols, Walter Koenig and Grace Lee Whitney of the original series, Alan Ruck reprising his role of the captain of the Enterprise B in Star Trek Generations, plus other Trek alumni including Chase Masterson, JG Hertsler, Gary Graham, Crystal Allen, Tim Russ and Garrett Wang (who will play a villain.)
You can read the full press release at Trebweb, but I was especially taken with this paragraph: And it’s not at all about money. What makes Star Trek: Of Gods and Men special is that all these creative talents have united because of a common vision. They all believe in a series that was created by a visionary named Gene Roddenberry and the philosophy that it promoted – that all individuals are created equal and that one day all the peoples of the Earth will unite to live, work and play in harmony.
Today in New York, shooting begins on the biggest of an accelerating series of big Star Trek "fan films," Star Trek: Of Gods and Men, produced by Sky Douglas Conway and directed by Tim Russ (of Voyager), the team that did the affectionate non-documentary, Roddenberry on Patrol. (I came in late to a screening of this at the Scotty convention, but what I saw was terrific--smart and a lot of fun.) This production is also in association with James Cawley of “New Voyages," and is making use of their sets in New York. Other filming will take place in Los Angeles
Starring in this adventure are Nichelle Nichols, Walter Koenig and Grace Lee Whitney of the original series, Alan Ruck reprising his role of the captain of the Enterprise B in Star Trek Generations, plus other Trek alumni including Chase Masterson, JG Hertsler, Gary Graham, Crystal Allen, Tim Russ and Garrett Wang (who will play a villain.)
You can read the full press release at Trebweb, but I was especially taken with this paragraph: And it’s not at all about money. What makes Star Trek: Of Gods and Men special is that all these creative talents have united because of a common vision. They all believe in a series that was created by a visionary named Gene Roddenberry and the philosophy that it promoted – that all individuals are created equal and that one day all the peoples of the Earth will unite to live, work and play in harmony.
This really is the amazing thing. It's true that although people don't generally realize it, well-known actors in Hollywood and New York, including very big stars, do spend a lot of time workng for free or very little--doing readings, plays and small films, for a varety of reasons: to encourage new writers and their work, to give back to their art form, to express skills of their craft that may not be fully used in the roles they get in TV or film (where playing cops and criminals can get old fast), or for a cause they believe in. But it is still extraordinary that so many people would contribute their time and talent to keep expressing a vision that has inspired so many, beginning forty years ago this fall.
In this case, those donating their services include writers (Sky Conway, Jack Trevino and Ethan H. Calk) and all the other creative and tech people. It is further evidence that Star Trek was always a product of a shared vision and commitment, of many hands that worked together to create this story universe.
These productions are getting so professional that there needs to be a new name for them. Fan films won't do anymore. Tim Russ calls it a "nostalgia-based production," which is closer, but nostalgia has the connotation of something that's over. Paramount may think so, but for many people and well as many fans, the human adventure continues in the Star Trek story universe.
The finished film is expected to be available in three 30 minute episodes, downloadable from the Internet, by year's end. For more information, visit Star Trek: Of Gods and Men.
Sunday, June 25, 2006
The Inner Light, The Outer Darkness
by William S. Kowinski
by William S. Kowinski
Update: The first and last sections that follow deal with the Climate Crisis and its outcome if we don't meet this challenge. For a practical and hopeful view of how things might be changed, there's a new Rolling Stone interview with Al Gore that makes the case better than anything I've seen.
As the first run of Star Trek: The Next Generation came to an end, fans voted for their favorite episodes. Only the two-parter about the Borg invasion, “The Best of Both Worlds,” and “Yesterday’s Enterprise” were voted ahead of “The Inner Light.” It won a 1993 Hugo Award, the first TV episode to win one since the TOS story, “City on the Edge of Forever”. In the years since, esteem for this fifth season episode has only grown. Some now consider it is the best of the Next Generation, and even the best episode of any Star Trek series.
But I’ve been thinking about it recently not because of its excellence, though I’ve always admired it since I saw it the night it first aired. I’ve been pondering it lately, and drawn to see it again on DVD, by thoughts I’ve been having about the real and fairly immediate future of the earth.
Others may be thinking about it, too, right about now. “An Inconvenient Truth,” the documentary film about the Climate Crisis featuring Al Gore, is gradually opening in more and more places. In its first week it was #11 at the box office, despite being in only four theatres. The #10 film was in 1265 theatres. A couple of weeks later, it broke into the top ten, though it was still in only 77 theatres. Its per-theatre take was higher than that of the #1 movie that week---and higher than X-Men 3. The book version is high on the best seller list. (Here's the web site.)
The future it depicts, as determined by the phenomenon known as global warming, is dire. The changes are already underway, caused by the buildup of greenhouse gases. Glaciers and icepacks in the Arctic, in Greenland, in the Antarctic are melting. They are likely to cause sea levels to rise, flooding coastal cities. They may cause shifts in major ocean currents that will in turn cause radical changes in climate. On the day I write this, a new report by the National Center for Atmospheric Research confirms that “global warming accounted for around half of the extra hurricane-fueling warmth” in 2005, so Katrina and the record hurricane year were largely a product of the Climate Crisis, and not natural variations. Storms like these are likely to increase in number and ferocity, in various parts of the world.
Heating is already changing ecologies. Various studies suggest it will bring new diseases to larger areas, change rainfall patterns and create drought in some places, if it is not doing so already. Because of time lags between cause and effect, these current effects are from greenhouse gas buildups that occurred perhaps decades ago. The planet will feel the effects of current greenhouse gas emissions in decades to come. And if greenhouse gas emissions aren’t curtailed dramatically soon (some say five years, some say twenty, but most say 10 years), the climate change may reach a “tipping point,” after which nothing can stop a phenomenon that feeds on itself until it plays itself out. The result could very well be an inexorable dying away of life on earth as we know it.
“The Inner Light” is not strictly speaking about a planet suffering from global warming. Its sun is going nova, causing a gradual global drought. The sun's flaring and dying eventually will extinguish all life. Even at worst, the actual effects of our global warming are likely to be different, especially in different places on earth. But the applicability of this story to fears for our future is inescapable.
With great and concentrated effort, humankind may be able to prevent the worst effects of global heating in the future, and create remedies for the major problems it will cause in the next few decades. It looks very much like a challenge that human civilization must meet in order to go forward.
But what if humanity doesn’t respond? What if all an individual or a family can do, perhaps living in a town outside the great places of power, is watch, measure the changes, and await the end?
The Story
On their way to report on a magnetic wave survey, the Enterprise encounters a probe of unfamiliar design that suddenly emits a nucleonic beam that knocks Captain Picard to the floor, apparently unconscious. He awakens in a strange room, wearing strange clothes, and being attended to by a strange woman, who tells him he is home.
Her name is Eline, and she insists he is Kamin, her husband, who has been ill with a high fever. Picard leaves the house and finds himself in a village square. He sees someone dedicating the planting of a tree as an “affirmation of life” during a long drought. This man is Batai, who claims to be his (Kamin’s) friend. He learns he is in the village of Ressik on a planet he’s never heard of, called Kataan.
He continues to reconnoiter, realizing he is not a prisoner of these people, but there is nowhere to go. At nightfall he returns, exhausted, to the only place he knows--the house where he woke up, and to Eline. She remains convinced he is Kamin. When he says with morbid humor that he supposes his hunger proves this isn’t a dream, she asks incredulously, “You think that this-- your life-- is a dream? “
She gives him soup, which he tastes gingerly. “This is delicious,” he says. Eline, a handsome woman in her thirties or forties, beams and says softly with delight, “You always say that.” In a look and a few words she had communicated fully her good heart, her love for Kamin, and the warmth of their relationship.
Picard gently probes for answers. He learns that Kataan is not a spacefaring planet, that Kamin is an ironweaver but prefers playing the flute. Eline shows it to him. “When did I learn to play it?” Picard asks, meaning Kamin. “I’m afraid you never did, dear,” Eline says. “You do keep trying.”
On the Enterprise, Data says that a narrow beam is now focused on the supine Captain. Picard’s vital signs are strong, and Doctor Crusher advises that the beam not be disrupted until she can figure out what it’s doing. Riker wants to identify the source of the probe.
But when we return to Kataan, five years have passed. Eline is losing patience with Kamin/Picard and his recollections of another life on a starship. “It was real,” he insists. “As real as this is. You can’t expect me to forget the lifetime I spent there.” “Yes, I can,” she says.
As real as this is—so Picard has accepted the reality of his life on Kataan, and has responded to Eline’s love. He is clearly torn by her need to have him be fully in this life, and for them to begin a family.
He also has become part of the community, and befitting his Picard personality, he has studied this planet’s drought problem and will now push for a solution. He goes with Batai to the town square to meet the regional Administrator, who is curious about the tree flourishing in the midst of drought. Batai explains that everyone contributes part of their water rations to keep it alive, as a symbol of hope. Kamin tells the administrator that their crops will die without more water, and asks for an atmospheric condenser to be built. The Administrator says it is a large undertaking, but he will take the idea to the central government. Picard/Kamin knows nothing will come of it, and tells Batai they should plan to build their own.
Later that day, hy proposes to Eline that he build a nursery. So he commits to starting a family. He has left Picard behind (even though the melody he has just been playing on his flute is Frere Jacques, which Picard sang with a group of stranded children in an earlier fifth season episode, “Disaster.”) He is Kamin now.
On their way to report on a magnetic wave survey, the Enterprise encounters a probe of unfamiliar design that suddenly emits a nucleonic beam that knocks Captain Picard to the floor, apparently unconscious. He awakens in a strange room, wearing strange clothes, and being attended to by a strange woman, who tells him he is home.
Her name is Eline, and she insists he is Kamin, her husband, who has been ill with a high fever. Picard leaves the house and finds himself in a village square. He sees someone dedicating the planting of a tree as an “affirmation of life” during a long drought. This man is Batai, who claims to be his (Kamin’s) friend. He learns he is in the village of Ressik on a planet he’s never heard of, called Kataan.
He continues to reconnoiter, realizing he is not a prisoner of these people, but there is nowhere to go. At nightfall he returns, exhausted, to the only place he knows--the house where he woke up, and to Eline. She remains convinced he is Kamin. When he says with morbid humor that he supposes his hunger proves this isn’t a dream, she asks incredulously, “You think that this-- your life-- is a dream? “
She gives him soup, which he tastes gingerly. “This is delicious,” he says. Eline, a handsome woman in her thirties or forties, beams and says softly with delight, “You always say that.” In a look and a few words she had communicated fully her good heart, her love for Kamin, and the warmth of their relationship.
Picard gently probes for answers. He learns that Kataan is not a spacefaring planet, that Kamin is an ironweaver but prefers playing the flute. Eline shows it to him. “When did I learn to play it?” Picard asks, meaning Kamin. “I’m afraid you never did, dear,” Eline says. “You do keep trying.”
On the Enterprise, Data says that a narrow beam is now focused on the supine Captain. Picard’s vital signs are strong, and Doctor Crusher advises that the beam not be disrupted until she can figure out what it’s doing. Riker wants to identify the source of the probe.
But when we return to Kataan, five years have passed. Eline is losing patience with Kamin/Picard and his recollections of another life on a starship. “It was real,” he insists. “As real as this is. You can’t expect me to forget the lifetime I spent there.” “Yes, I can,” she says.
As real as this is—so Picard has accepted the reality of his life on Kataan, and has responded to Eline’s love. He is clearly torn by her need to have him be fully in this life, and for them to begin a family.
He also has become part of the community, and befitting his Picard personality, he has studied this planet’s drought problem and will now push for a solution. He goes with Batai to the town square to meet the regional Administrator, who is curious about the tree flourishing in the midst of drought. Batai explains that everyone contributes part of their water rations to keep it alive, as a symbol of hope. Kamin tells the administrator that their crops will die without more water, and asks for an atmospheric condenser to be built. The Administrator says it is a large undertaking, but he will take the idea to the central government. Picard/Kamin knows nothing will come of it, and tells Batai they should plan to build their own.
Later that day, hy proposes to Eline that he build a nursery. So he commits to starting a family. He has left Picard behind (even though the melody he has just been playing on his flute is Frere Jacques, which Picard sang with a group of stranded children in an earlier fifth season episode, “Disaster.”) He is Kamin now.
On the Enterprise, Data has discovered a way to disrupt the beam. Crusher is opposed, but Riker decides to go ahead.
On the planet, seven more years have passed. With his daughter playing nearby, Kamin is presiding over the naming ceremony of his infant son by playing his flute. The melody he plays becomes the theme for the episode, and probably the best known and most fondly remembered piece of music (apart from the opening theme) in any Next Generation episode.
Kamin seems completely in this life, but as he gazes at his son (named Batai, after his friend who has died) he says words that could have come from Picard: “I’d always thought I didn’t need children to complete my life. Now I can’t imagine life without them.”
But suddenly Kamin crumples to the floor, as Picard’s life begins to ebb on the Enteprise when the beam is disrupted. Data restores it, Picard returns to normal, and Kamin’s life resumes.
On the planet, Kamin’s now-sixteen year old daughter Meribor is discussing the results of her soil samples with a now visibly older Kamin. She has concluded what he already knows: There is no bacterial life in the soil. Their planet is dying. “It saddens me to see you bear the burden of knowing things…things you can’t change,” he says. She decides that she should marry the boy who has been pursuing her “sooner rather than later.” Kamin responds with passion: “Seize the time, Meribor. Live now. Make now always the most precious time. Now will never come again.”
The Enterprise has traced the probe to its origin, to a planetary system where all life was destroyed a thousand years before, when its sun went nova.
More years pass on the planet. Kamin’s son Batai becomes a young man and wants to pursue music. Kamin blusters a bit because Batai keeps changing his mind about what he wants, but can’t deny him whatever joy he can find. “Who knows how much time he’ll have to follow any dream?”
Kamin makes one last attempt to get the now aged Administrator to listen to his findings but their scientists already know the planet is doomed, and there’s nothing they can do. Their technology is too limited for space travel. Kamin suggests sending genetic samples into space to at least preserve something of Kataan. The Administrator admits there is a plan in the works. But their conversation is interrupted by young Batai---Elise is dying. She and Kamin have a brief conversation, full of the love and domestic details of a long partnership. As a single tear escapes from the corner of her eye, she dies, and Kamin’s head bows in grief.
More years have passed. Kamin is playing with his grandson, Meribor’s child. As Meribor and Bataii try to coax Kamin into coming with them to the town square to watch the launching of a missile, Kamin confesses that seeing his grandson breaks his heart. “He deserves a rich, full life, and he’s not going to get one.”
But Kamin goes with them, and in his obstreperous old man way, demands to know what they are launching. “You know about it, father,” Meribor says, “you’ve already seen it.” It’s a probe sent out to find someone in the future who will learn about the lives on Kataan and preserve those memories.
Now in the terminally hot sun and the haze of advanced age Kamin suddenly realizes what his long-ago starship dreams were all about. “It’s me, isn’t it? I’m the someone. I’m the one it finds…That’s what this launching is—a probe that finds me, in the future.”
His friend Batai and his wife Elise, both restored to their youth as when he first saw them, explain to him the intentions of the probe. As Kamin sees the woman he loved, Picard hears her say that they have all been dead for a thousand years. “If you remember what we were, and how we lived…then we’ll have found life again… Now we live in you. Tell them of us, my darling…”
Kamin watches the rocket ascend, as Picard begins to stir on the bridge of the Enterprise. He learns that he has been unconscious for twenty-five minutes. He has lived more than thirty years of another life.
Later in his quarters, Riker tells him they have taken the probe into the shuttle bay, no longer functioning. But inside it they found a small box, which Riker gives to Picard, and quietly leaves. Inside is the Ressikan flute. Picard holds it to his heart as he takes it to face his windows into space, and begins to play the melody he composed for Kamin’s infant son’s naming ceremony.
On the planet, seven more years have passed. With his daughter playing nearby, Kamin is presiding over the naming ceremony of his infant son by playing his flute. The melody he plays becomes the theme for the episode, and probably the best known and most fondly remembered piece of music (apart from the opening theme) in any Next Generation episode.
Kamin seems completely in this life, but as he gazes at his son (named Batai, after his friend who has died) he says words that could have come from Picard: “I’d always thought I didn’t need children to complete my life. Now I can’t imagine life without them.”
But suddenly Kamin crumples to the floor, as Picard’s life begins to ebb on the Enteprise when the beam is disrupted. Data restores it, Picard returns to normal, and Kamin’s life resumes.
On the planet, Kamin’s now-sixteen year old daughter Meribor is discussing the results of her soil samples with a now visibly older Kamin. She has concluded what he already knows: There is no bacterial life in the soil. Their planet is dying. “It saddens me to see you bear the burden of knowing things…things you can’t change,” he says. She decides that she should marry the boy who has been pursuing her “sooner rather than later.” Kamin responds with passion: “Seize the time, Meribor. Live now. Make now always the most precious time. Now will never come again.”
The Enterprise has traced the probe to its origin, to a planetary system where all life was destroyed a thousand years before, when its sun went nova.
More years pass on the planet. Kamin’s son Batai becomes a young man and wants to pursue music. Kamin blusters a bit because Batai keeps changing his mind about what he wants, but can’t deny him whatever joy he can find. “Who knows how much time he’ll have to follow any dream?”
Kamin makes one last attempt to get the now aged Administrator to listen to his findings but their scientists already know the planet is doomed, and there’s nothing they can do. Their technology is too limited for space travel. Kamin suggests sending genetic samples into space to at least preserve something of Kataan. The Administrator admits there is a plan in the works. But their conversation is interrupted by young Batai---Elise is dying. She and Kamin have a brief conversation, full of the love and domestic details of a long partnership. As a single tear escapes from the corner of her eye, she dies, and Kamin’s head bows in grief.
More years have passed. Kamin is playing with his grandson, Meribor’s child. As Meribor and Bataii try to coax Kamin into coming with them to the town square to watch the launching of a missile, Kamin confesses that seeing his grandson breaks his heart. “He deserves a rich, full life, and he’s not going to get one.”
But Kamin goes with them, and in his obstreperous old man way, demands to know what they are launching. “You know about it, father,” Meribor says, “you’ve already seen it.” It’s a probe sent out to find someone in the future who will learn about the lives on Kataan and preserve those memories.
Now in the terminally hot sun and the haze of advanced age Kamin suddenly realizes what his long-ago starship dreams were all about. “It’s me, isn’t it? I’m the someone. I’m the one it finds…That’s what this launching is—a probe that finds me, in the future.”
His friend Batai and his wife Elise, both restored to their youth as when he first saw them, explain to him the intentions of the probe. As Kamin sees the woman he loved, Picard hears her say that they have all been dead for a thousand years. “If you remember what we were, and how we lived…then we’ll have found life again… Now we live in you. Tell them of us, my darling…”
Kamin watches the rocket ascend, as Picard begins to stir on the bridge of the Enterprise. He learns that he has been unconscious for twenty-five minutes. He has lived more than thirty years of another life.
Later in his quarters, Riker tells him they have taken the probe into the shuttle bay, no longer functioning. But inside it they found a small box, which Riker gives to Picard, and quietly leaves. Inside is the Ressikan flute. Picard holds it to his heart as he takes it to face his windows into space, and begins to play the melody he composed for Kamin’s infant son’s naming ceremony.
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