Yet another review of Star Trek 2009 from a socialist point of view, and one that condemns it for not being like The Next Generation: Star Trek Unalienated
That's a fair criticism, actually. What the reviewer misses is that that was never the point of this film. The point of this film was to get the crew together and tell that story as a jumping point for a new era of movies. Now, if the next film doesn't hit on all those points the reviewer mentions, which the writers themselves claim they're hoping to do, I will not only understand this reviewer's pessimism toward the new era, I will likely share it. That said, I am confident the next film will be the film that reviewer wanted to see this time.
I disagree with this review, for a lot of reasons: 1)Roddenberry was too inconsistent with Star Trek most of the time, and this shows up in the difference in economies between Star Trek: TOS and Star Trek: TNG (in TOS, it was established that inventions are covered by a patent royalty system, that you need money to buy things, that Captain Kirk and most of the officers are paid a salary, and so on.) In TNG, this is all gone, replaced by replicators (although we never get if the energy that they use has to be paid for), nobody works for money, or seems to have to, yet people write books for a living, own restaurants, make dresses and suits, farm and raise crops, and are wine growers/vintners, etc. So if they do all of these things, why do they have replicators? Are they capitalists, or socialists? From what I’ve seen of the original Star Trek, it was the former, except TNG shows a society that has elements (the best ones) of both. 2) The author seems to be putting his own spin on Star Trek vis-a-vis the use of naval ranks; this was a part of the original show from the very beginning. Obviously, he has an ax to grind, as well as… 3) A big anti-American viewpoint, and a need to bash the film for Nero using torture , and also to bash the film with baseless accusations about the character of Nero being shown as a typical terrorist (‘The enemy is the non-state fanatic seeking revenge’)-amazing how the Marxist states he’s so fond of were just as worse as America in many ways, with the same kind of people against it, and the Soviet sci-fi films (some of them) did the same kind of propagandization he’s accusing this movie of (and no, Nero is insane, and wearing tattoos as humans would wear all-black or all-white clothes-to mourn the other Romulans who died.) Also, what Kirk is in the movie was what Kirk was in the series, to a certain extent; I think that the author confused Kirk with Picard and Janeway, forgetting that both of them had to fight when necessary as well. I wish that both the left and the right would stop using this film and the Iron Man movies (as an example) as their personal bearer about what they love and hate about the USA; neither film is. Both are about what they are, and both sides need to let both be, especially Star Trek, which used to attack the extremes of both the left and the right in a few episodes anyway.
Nah, as far as can be told the "truly fanatic following" was based upon fascination with the spaceship designs and an opportunity to make-believe that they live and serve in Starfleet.
We'll never get anything substantial in this regards until Star Trek returns to the longer form of TV. Summer popcorn movies are fun, but they are not the right place to try to deliver any semi-intelligent messages. There isn't enough time inbetween the mandatory explosions, and what little time there is has to be devoted to character stuff (we do want that, too, right?) Well maybe somewhat, years ago. But the audience for the movies doesn't give a flip about that stuff. Hopefully the people making it do - that's a big part of what gives Star Trek its identity. But it won't matter until Star Trek is back on TV, where something can be done about it. Capitalism still exists in the 23rd C. It's killed off by the 24th, because of replicators, which provide everything you want without having to work for it. Replicator energy isn't paid for any more than the transporter or FTL energy is paid for; those technologies would use such phenomenal levels of energy that the only explanation could be some source of infinite amounts of cost-free energy. That's all fanon, but it makes sense and is good enough for me.
And yet Gene's work was probably the most sexiest in TREK with the short skirt, reduced ruels to sleeping with the leading male members and not much else. Guy on You Tube had a go at me saying ST09 was not faithful to Gene and other people uase the same excuses for other points they hate about the franchise... TBH Gene maybe the father of TREK but I feel Star Trek became better when he had little or no involvement and I know saying that might piss people off. TMP was ok and very TREK like but lets face it the later original movies with less to little Gene involvement were better (TFF withstanding). TNG got better after the first 2 seasons and DS9 probably gave us the best drama and conflict in the crew, no matter your feeling on the show itself. ST09 was a re-boot a modern telling of an old story, like Casino Royale and Batman Begins did for their franchises. Some people are just too stuck in the past, ST09 does not insult what came before it actually praises it, it celebrates it.