Wagon Train in Space
According to Variety magazine, Star Trek is the new James Bond.
Nice to see the new movie got a good review. Don’t know if that means I’ll see it though. I see about one movie in the theaters a year. Last year it was “Iron Man”. This year I’m leaning towards “Wolverine”. I read those comic books when I was a kid and teen and unlike those who have continued the comic book habit into adulthood (rechristening them “graphic novels” in the process to avoid the stigma of the term “comic book”) I have been pretty entertained by the film adaptations. Then again, I’m not a serious film guy either. After all, like people say about pro wrestling, it’s all fake anyway so who cares?
Back when I was a kid though, back in the 70s, back before cable was really prevalent, Star Trek the original series was a big part of my life. Five nights a week, 6pm, channel 11 WPIX in New York if memory serves me right. No, I’m not old enough to remember the original prime time run; that ended right before I appeared on the scene. But for five nights a week back in the 70s, the Fun City decade of NYC I would watch Star Trek every night no matter how many times I had seen the episode. I was such a fanatic I would make paper cut-out Enterprises from scratch and glue them together and “fly” them around the room. Dad didn’t want to spend the money on plastic models because I would either not put them together right or break them. Eventually we did get some plastic models and Dad was right though I did inadvertently get good and high off the Testors glue while I was trying to put them together. Not bad for being 9, or 10, or whatever I was.
When I was 14 the Wrath of Khan came out. As everyone knows, that was the best Star Trek movie ever, much like everyone knows that Empire is the best Star Wars movie ever. I saw it for the first time at the late, great Lane Theater with my parents who were so concerned I was traumatized by the ending when a beloved character kicks the bucket (though they make it pretty obvious that he will be reincarnated in the next movie) they took me out for ice cream afterwards at the Sedutto’s shop down the block. Sweet of them, wasn’t it?
But this new movie though, the new thing, I’m not sure I want to see it. It’s nice that it got a good review and it’s good to see an entertainment institution that’s been around my whole life (well, longer really) and that was important to me as a kid doing well. Why? Well, the one commercial I saw for it threw me. It looked like a Jerry Bruckheimer film or the Fast and the Furious or something. The words “Star Trek” come up at the end of the spot and I sat there going “Huh? Really?” Then it hit me. This was another sign of my own irrelevance. How could I not see that a show with interesting storytelling, admittedly campy characters and a certain moralistic point of view could not be adequately or accurately marketed in 2009? No sir, that is not “how we roll” here in the brave future of the 21st century. Star Trek is like a lot of us were, like a lot of us still are: a little too smart for the mainstream, a little too dumb for the academic/intellectual hoi-polloi. Proudly middlebrow. Better than average, but not much. Flypaper for those of us who feel vaguely out of place among the Great Unwashed but who are also rejected by the educated, intellectual elite. I’ve got news for you: that shit don’t fly today. Maybe it never did. The success of the original was an accident to begin with but the stakes are too high today to let the franchise lose financial value.
I hope Gene Roddenberry’s heirs do well with this. And who knows, maybe I will eventually see it and actually like it. I don’t think it will compare to how I felt about the first series as a kid though. Then again, do we ever feel the same way about things as we did when we were kids?
Nice to see the new movie got a good review. Don’t know if that means I’ll see it though. I see about one movie in the theaters a year. Last year it was “Iron Man”. This year I’m leaning towards “Wolverine”. I read those comic books when I was a kid and teen and unlike those who have continued the comic book habit into adulthood (rechristening them “graphic novels” in the process to avoid the stigma of the term “comic book”) I have been pretty entertained by the film adaptations. Then again, I’m not a serious film guy either. After all, like people say about pro wrestling, it’s all fake anyway so who cares?
Back when I was a kid though, back in the 70s, back before cable was really prevalent, Star Trek the original series was a big part of my life. Five nights a week, 6pm, channel 11 WPIX in New York if memory serves me right. No, I’m not old enough to remember the original prime time run; that ended right before I appeared on the scene. But for five nights a week back in the 70s, the Fun City decade of NYC I would watch Star Trek every night no matter how many times I had seen the episode. I was such a fanatic I would make paper cut-out Enterprises from scratch and glue them together and “fly” them around the room. Dad didn’t want to spend the money on plastic models because I would either not put them together right or break them. Eventually we did get some plastic models and Dad was right though I did inadvertently get good and high off the Testors glue while I was trying to put them together. Not bad for being 9, or 10, or whatever I was.
When I was 14 the Wrath of Khan came out. As everyone knows, that was the best Star Trek movie ever, much like everyone knows that Empire is the best Star Wars movie ever. I saw it for the first time at the late, great Lane Theater with my parents who were so concerned I was traumatized by the ending when a beloved character kicks the bucket (though they make it pretty obvious that he will be reincarnated in the next movie) they took me out for ice cream afterwards at the Sedutto’s shop down the block. Sweet of them, wasn’t it?
But this new movie though, the new thing, I’m not sure I want to see it. It’s nice that it got a good review and it’s good to see an entertainment institution that’s been around my whole life (well, longer really) and that was important to me as a kid doing well. Why? Well, the one commercial I saw for it threw me. It looked like a Jerry Bruckheimer film or the Fast and the Furious or something. The words “Star Trek” come up at the end of the spot and I sat there going “Huh? Really?” Then it hit me. This was another sign of my own irrelevance. How could I not see that a show with interesting storytelling, admittedly campy characters and a certain moralistic point of view could not be adequately or accurately marketed in 2009? No sir, that is not “how we roll” here in the brave future of the 21st century. Star Trek is like a lot of us were, like a lot of us still are: a little too smart for the mainstream, a little too dumb for the academic/intellectual hoi-polloi. Proudly middlebrow. Better than average, but not much. Flypaper for those of us who feel vaguely out of place among the Great Unwashed but who are also rejected by the educated, intellectual elite. I’ve got news for you: that shit don’t fly today. Maybe it never did. The success of the original was an accident to begin with but the stakes are too high today to let the franchise lose financial value.
I hope Gene Roddenberry’s heirs do well with this. And who knows, maybe I will eventually see it and actually like it. I don’t think it will compare to how I felt about the first series as a kid though. Then again, do we ever feel the same way about things as we did when we were kids?
Comments