T w e n t y S i d e d

I’ve always had a strange relationship with Star Trek. I don’t self-identify as a Trek fan, but I’ve watched most of the originals, most of The Next Generation, half of Voyager, a handful of Deep Space Nine, and all of the movies. I’m not sure why, as I’ve hated it more often than I loved it. Still, I’ve absorbed enough that it’s pretty hard to claim I’m not a fan in some capacity. I think maybe I like the idea of Star Trek better than I like the product itself.

Part of the problem is just the sheer longevity of the show. Star Trek has run for over four decades. It’s spanned six TV series, eleven movies, and a cargo container of books and comics. With that much content by so many different authors with so many divergent agendas it would be impossible for any work of fiction to emerge without a few plot holes and regrettable errors, but I still find myself wishing they could at least get everyone in the band on the same page. If not in tune, and perhaps not even all playing the same song, but maybe it’s not to much to ask that they all stick to the same genre of music. Trying to create a coherent story that goes from space-western to morality play to space [and sometimes soap] opera, to thought-provoking sci-fi, to “action flick go boom” is so difficult that it makes me wonder why they bother trying to create continuity at all. It’s fine if they want to take some ideas and go off and make something new with them, but then they insist on trying to re-connect everything by dragging characters and events from one genre show to another, and the result always makes a hash of things.

“Midi-chlorians” is the sneering watchword of disillusioned Star Wars fans. If it’s not “Midi-chlorians”, it’s “Han Shot First”, the complaint of fans who don’t like to see the story changed via retroactive rewrites and “re-imaginings” of established events. But their troubles are minor compared to the trials of the average Trek fan. The Star Trek version of the scene would have Han Solo from the future time-traveling back to the gunfight to save Greedo from his past self because it turns out that Greedo is crucial (crucial!) to the life of the galaxy in some way that was never mentioned, telegraphed, or plausible in the original ordering of events. Then after playing his part in saving the galaxy, Greedo would betray future Han and run off to become a recurring villain, and every time they met they would talk about The Day in The Bar When We Tried To Shoot Each Other. Han would repeatedly spare Greedo for reasons that were never explained. Then they would be forced to team up against some Greater Threat to The Whole Universe. Then Greedo would become a good guy. Then he would get his own show.

This is the story of the Trek universe, a bubbling cauldron of thick, chunky nonsense and disjointed storytelling. It’s a beast with more holes than a Dunkin’ Donuts and more cruft than the Windows 98 codebase.

Oops.

I sat down here to write about the movie, and ended up banging out 500 words about the franchise itself. I guess this is fitting, since every conversation I have about any individual movie or television show turns into a tirade about how it’s further contorted an already badly mangled story.

Watched every movie? Complained about all of them? Obsessing over continuity problems? Who am I kidding? That’s the definition of a Trek fan, right there. I might as well put on some pointy ears and start writing fan fiction.

I’ll try again tomorrow to review the movie.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.