PIKE BEATS PICARD IN NEW TREK MATCH

Anson Mount is Captain Christopher Pike

Today let’s go where plenty of folks have been before and talk about the latest iteration of Gene Roddenberry’s science fiction media phenomenon, Star Trek. The little series that could first aired on NBC in September,1966 as what is now known as The Original Series and survives today on the streaming service Paramount Plus as several separate ongoing series, two of which I’ll talk about in this post.

Longtime readers of this blog already know I’ve been a fan of Star Trek since the early days of its debut on broadcast television. But I’ve always been an Original Series fan. In any discussion of who makes the Best Captain in Trek, Kirk has always won out over any of the later captains—Picard, Sisko, Janeway, Archer or the next-to-latest, Michael Burnham of Star Trek: Discovery (played by Sonequa Martin-Green).

That opinion was not challenged by watching the two available seasons of Star Trek: Picard on Paramount Plus, which I watched even though I’m not a fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation. I have become a fan of Patrick Stewart as a person, though, and the show also features Jeri Ryan, as Seven of Nine, from Star Trek:Voyager, along with Alison Pill, Michelle Hurd, Santiago Cabrerra, and Orla Brady as the other appealing secondary characters.

Guinan, the wise alien bartender from ST:TNG (played in her later years by Whoopi Goldberg, as a younger person by Ito Aghayere) makes an appearance in Season Two, as do Q (John de Lancie) and the Borg Queen (Anne Wersching), while Seasons One and Three are populated with other familiar faces from TNG (Brent Spiner as Adam Soong, Jonathan Frakes as Will Riker, Marina Sirtis as Deanna Troi). Even Wil Wheaton makes a cameo appearance as Wesley Crusher in the final Season Two episode.

The problem, though, is ST:Picard’s convoluted and overly introspective plot. Look, I used to write fan fiction; I have no objections to delving into the personal pain of a character ad infinitum in the context of a fan novel. But [spoiler alert] I’m not sure I really need to know that Jean-Luc Picard’s mom was bipolar or that his dad locked her up on the family estate. If that were true, chances are Starfleet would have figured it out and a) disqualified Picard from service or b) helped him through it long ago. He is 91 and retired, after all. And I really don’t think Q would be concerned with all that. Isn’t he more of a galactic scale kind of guy?

Then there is the rehash of the “Is an artificial intelligence a sentient being?” debate that we had in the TNG episode “Measure of a Man,” spread over the whole first season and applied to the newly freed-from-the-hive-mind Borg. That is, until the Borg Queen decides she wants in on the debate and freaks everyone out in Season Two.

Mostly it was the lack of real focus and the ex-parte action of the show that left me wanting. Picard is retired (not entirely of his own volition) when he’s asked for help by someone purporting to be Data’s daughter (Isa Briones), then he takes off on his own with some odd compatriots to DO SOMETHING. Just what is never clear. Then time travel becomes involved, and I really lost it. Whenever time travel becomes involved, the writing gets sloppy.

But, okay, even more TNG characters are due to show up in Season Three, which has already been filmed. And, as one critic pointed out, the show was apparently meant to clean up the mess that was the final season of TNG and the film STAR TREK: NEMESIS, which admittedly I didn’t see. (I hated STAR TREK: GENERATIONS so much I never saw another Trek film until J.J. Abrams thought up the Kelvin timeline.) Apparently poor Picard and crew were left hanging by those creative efforts, with emotional wounds aplenty. So perhaps this will give fans some closure.

I’m much happier to have the original series prequel Star Trek: Strange New Worlds to look forward to. This new series just debuted on Paramount Plus, starring Hell on Wheel’s Anson Mount as the square-jawed but affable Christopher Pike, Captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise before one James T. Kirk took command, backed up by Ethan Peck as Science Officer Spock, Rebecca Romijn as First Officer Una Chin-Riley (otherwise known as Number One), Celia Rose-Gooding as Cadet Nyota Uhura, Babs Olusanmokun as Dr. Mbenga and Jess Bush as Nurse Christine Chapel. There are other familiar names among the crew, though the casting may look different (once tall, blond transport officer Kyle, for example, is now a man of Asian descent played by Andre Dae Kim) and Security Officer La’an Noonian Singh (Christina Chong) has a backstory I’m really waiting to hear about! There is a Lt. Kirk on this Enterprise, too, but he’s not the one you expect. I won’t spoil that surprise for you.

Since I’ve only had access to the first episode, I can’t tell you too much about the show. Of course, it’s set well before Kirk’s first Five-Year Mission and the time of TOS, but there are references to the events of the first season of Star Trek: Discovery, with which both Pike and Spock were involved. They are sworn to secrecy about all that, though, since to reveal Discovery’s technology and the fact that the ship has jumped into the future would break all kinds of protocols.

It does look like the show will be more episodic and less concerned with arcs and personal drama aboard ship than its immediate predecessors. I say amen to that, since the space opera had gotten a bit out of hand. The first episode was a refreshing return to bedrock TREK, except for one jarring note. One scene had a meetup between Spock and his Vulcan betrothed, T’Pring. According to Trek canon, on the episode “Amok Time,” in TOS, Spock says he hadn’t seen T’Pring since they were children (at which time they had been promised to one another). The writers seemed to break that canonical rule just to show actor Ethan Peck without his shirt. Hmm.

I’m not sure, either, how I feel about the reimagining of Nurse Chapel’s character as a mischievous, energetic sprite. It is an improvement over Majel Barrett’s dour original, though (who saved any emotion for her crush on Spock), but it remains to be seen whether Jess Bush can sustain the energy for long. Still, there are intriguing hints of the tragedy to come in Pike’s future, with the captain plagued with visions of what he believes to be his own death. This gives him a much-needed dark side, something Kirk always fought against and every captain benefits from. This old-school fan was delighted and can’t wait for more.

*Hear my longer review of the new Trek shows on my podcast here.

Cheers, Donna

 

 

"KHAAAANN!!!"

Yes, by now everyone knows who the villain is in J.J.Abrams’ latest TREK reboot, STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS:  Khan Noonian Singh, the 20^th Century superman first immortalized on the screen by Ricardo Montalban in TOS episode “The Space Seed” and STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN.  Khan, Kirk’s nemesis of many years, the Moriarty to Kirk’s Holmes (and a fitting piece of reverse casting there, too, for the man chosen to play him in this new version).  A man supposedly superior in every way to our hero, and yet, a man lacking in those qualities which define Kirk and ensure that Kirk will ultimately defeat him—compassion, intuition, resourcefulness.

"From Hell's heart I stab at thee!"

The original cinematic version of Khan’s story, STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN, was an epic tale of good and evil, of guilt and revenge, almost Shakespearean in scope.  Shatner’s Kirk and Montalban’s Khan gobbled scenery with abandon as Khan chased his version of the white whale “around perdition’s flames.”  At the same time, Kirk’s own past came back to haunt him, even as his confinement to a desk job in Starfleet put his future (and his self-worth) in doubt.  The battle between these Titans culminated, of course, in Spock’s sacrifice to save the Enterprise, a death the loss-averse Kirk was not prepared to accept.  (And, luckily, didn’t have to.  This is STAR TREK, after all.)

There is little of the broad scope and classic literary feel to Abrams’ retelling of the Khan tale.  His Kirk is younger, brasher and not much given to introspection.  His Khan is likewise younger, just awakened from his 300-year sleep, and doesn’t have a personal grudge against the captain who marooned him on a planet which then was knocked from its orbit and turned into a dustball.  The story loses something with the lack of that personal element, which it doesn’t regain with the addition of the war-mongering Admiral Marcus.  That part of the plot seems reminiscent of STAR TREK VI: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY, though the Klingons just seem to be Marcus’s pet whipping aliens.  No one else seems to be worried about them.

Other elements of the Khan story are in place, however. Carol Marcus. A perilously out-of-sync warp drive on the Enterprise demanding the ultimate sacrifice from a senior officer. Kirk in limbo, this time having lost command of the Enterprise over a violation of the Prime Directive. (In STII:TWOK, Kirk had been “kicked upstairs”—forced into a desk job he’s not suited for and doesn’t want.)  In both films, a crisis puts Kirk back in the captain’s chair of the Enterprise and sends him off in search of the man behind an attack on the Federation.

Benedict Cumberbatch (SHERLOCK) plays this man, who is revealed to be Khan, in Abrams’ universe.  With all the other TREK characters, Abrams was careful to be true to the physicality, the mannerisms and the underlying nature of the people he was recreating.  We can forgive Chris Pine’s blue eyes, because he embodies Jim Kirk’s energy, enthusiasm, courage and intuition.  Not to mention his grin.  Simon Pegg doesn’t exactly look like Scotty, but he is Scotty, somehow.  My God, the rest of them—Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, John Cho, Zoe Soldana—are just channeling their counterparts.  And, personally, I like Anton Yelchin better than the original. (Sorry, Chekov fans.)

Khan, is that you?

But Cumberbatch’s Khan cannot be said to be anything like Montalban’s.  You cannot imagine that even if he were left to struggle for survival on a hostile world with his vulnerable human wife and his beloved superhuman followers that he would ever develop the twisted passion that marked Montalban’s every word and movement.  Even Cumberbatch's arrogance is muted and refined, where Montalban’s was haughty, nose-in-the-air and overdeveloped-chest-in-your-chest.

Now some people prefer their villains cool and restrained like this.  The story demands that Khan be somewhat reasonable at first, as does “The Space Seed”, you may recall. (Though, even then, Montalban was obnoxious as hell.)  And, granted, in the end, the new Khan does lose his cool a little bit.  But we never get a real sense of obsession or madness from him, and because we’re given few details of his past as a leader of a genocidal regime, we have little idea of the true trouble he could cause.  Perhaps, sadly, it’s because we’re too inured to terrorism in the real world and extreme violence in the film world.  Oh, he’s a bomber.  So?  He shoots a bunch of Starfleet officers?  Why does that make him special?  

We actually saw nothing of what Khan did in the original episode and yet we knew him to be a mass murderer on the order of Hitler.  He killed only six people in STII:TWOK before Kirk found him, and we knew him to be insane, obsessed and absolutely ruthless.  Most of it was because of that glint of madness in Montalban’s eye. 

 

Montalban-and-Shatner was a match made in Hollywood Heaven. Two hammy heavyweights vying for screen energy meant the sparks flew in their scenes together, both in the original episode and in the movie sequel.  Cumberbatch and Pine don’t quite make the same movie magic.  Cumberbatch is too cool; Pine is too hot.  They end up canceling each other out.  Part of it is the way Khan is written.  Part of it is that Khan has no real reason to hate Kirk and, though Kirk has plenty of reason to hate Khan, he already has enough fire.  With nothing equally passionate in Cumberbatch to meet Pine's emotion, the scenes between them tend to go flat.

Does this make STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS a bad film?  Not at all.  Taken on its own merits Abrams’ film is highly entertaining, emotionally satisfying and true to the spirit of the STAR TREK universe.  Just don’t expect the new vision of Khan to include flowing hair, bare pecs and a penchant for quoting Melville.  Can’t have everything, I guess.

Cheers, Donna

STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS SHINES

Spock and Kirk re-imagined by J.J. Abrams.

In 2009, J.J. Abrams did the impossible.  He re-imagined one of the most iconic of science fiction universes for the blockbuster screen triumph STAR TREK.  He took a huge risk in recasting the characters we had all grown up with and millions had a fierce allegiance to: Captain James T. Kirk, First Officer Spock, Chief Medical Officer Leonard McCoy and the others of the crew of the starship Enterprise. But not only did the old fans love his new TREK, thousands of new fans flocked to his banner.

This weekend Abrams sets himself an even greater challenge with the opening of STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS, the second in his re-envisioned series.  With this film he’s forced to develop the characters he merely introduced in his first outing; he has to create a story that is fresh and relevant to our time, but which uses elements of the original series and movies; and he still has to please his divided audience of old and new fans.

I’m happy—no, I’m ecstatic—to say he’s succeeded by a lightyear!  STID has no shortage of pulse-pounding action, eye-popping special effects, beautiful space shots, cool unidentifiable technology and random aliens. In fact, there is enough of those things to keep any SF geek happy sorting them out for years.  But the real beauty of this film is in the emotion it so willingly offers as a legitimate part of the story.  The heart of STAR TREK has always been the relationships between Kirk, Spock and McCoy, and secondarily between them and Uhura, Scotty, Sulu and Chekov.  This film understands that and doesn’t shy away from it at crucial moments.

The genius of Abrams’ approach to the new TREK was in developing the alternate universe concept from the very beginning of the story in his first movie.  That allows for differences in history and slight differences in personality, but allows us to see that Kirk, Spock and the others retain the same basic character in this new timeline.  Their reactions to their new situations are the same—they’d give their lives for each other, even if the outward circumstances are reversed, for example.  

But Kirk and Spock are younger in this universe, and they have some growing to do.  The process is fascinating.  They misunderstand and lose faith in one another, have flashes of insight about each other, come to rely on each other and eventually bond in ways only brothers-in-arms can know.  In the original series, McCoy was much more a part of this process and this film misses that a bit, but there will be other opportunities in the future to make up for it, I’m sure.

That Abrams (and his co-writers, Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelhof) let us see this character growth is an indication of the respect they have for the TREK franchise and its fans.  Abrams has admitted he is NOT a TREK fan (he’s a STAR WARS fan, and, back in the day, TREK and WARS fans just didn’t get along), but he has at least been wise enough to pay homage to the original in his work.  This film, in particular, is full of references to TOS (as one reviewer said, scattered like Easter eggs throughout for fans to find).  

Things look bad for our side: the Enterprise falls to Earth!

Even the story is drawn from an iconic episode of TOS.  Unlike many reviewers, I refuse to give away the “secret” of the plot or the identity of the villain.  I’ll talk about that in next week’s post, when more folks will have had a chance to see the film.  The “reveal” is made well into the film and provides a distinctly “aahh!” moment, so I won’t be the one to ruin it for you.  The wonderful thing about it is the way Abrams and his co-writers braid the elements of the old story into the new one, twisting the events of the old timeline to fit this new, alternate universe.  (And because this is a new universe, there can be no endless arguing about, “Well, that didn’t happen in the original series”.) Not surprisingly for the creator of such intricate storylines as Lost and Fringe,  foreshadowing is used to great effect here, with random scenes coming back to take on meaning as things come together later in the film.

If I have one criticism, it would be of Benedict Cumberbatch, who underplays his villain almost to the point of blandness.  Chris Pine’s Kirk and Zachary Quinto’s Spock are formidable acting opponents, filling the screen with charisma.  And their crew members—Karl Urban as McCoy (perfect!), Simon Pegg as Scotty (hilarious!), John Cho as Sulu (a captain in the making), Zoe Soldana as Uhura (saving the day, while giving Spock hell) Anton Yelchin as Chekov—are no slouches, either.  You need some big teeth to chew the scenery with that lot.  But more about that next week, too.

After the mixed reaction to Tom Cruise’s OBLIVION, and the fun, but brainless, IRONMAN 3, STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS leads off what looks to be a terrific summer science fiction movie season with a bang.  Go!  Go twice!  Pay extra for 3D if you can tolerate it, but don’t wait for this to shrink to the size of your home screen.  It’s too much big fun in outer space.  And meet me here next week to talk about who that bad guy really is and what he’s up to!

Cheers, Donna