FILMSLUCIUS SHEPARD

BEAM ME UP, J.J.

N T H E begin-ning, there was Wil-liam Shatner, a sec-ond-rate chunk of

Canadian bacon who gained a mea-sure of fame as Captain JamesTiberius Kirk, commander of theStarship Enterprise, a vessel whosemission was "to explore strange newworlds, to seek out new life andnew civilizations, to boldly go whereno man has gone before" in theoriginal Star Trek television series.The show, created by GeneRoddenberry and aired between1966-1969 on NBC, featured sev-eral good scripts by well-knownscience fiction writers (HarlanEllison most prominent amongthem), but degenerated into formvilawith scripts that dealt with Nazisin space, ancient Romans in space,1920s-style gangsters in space, etc.,and was cancelled. However,Shatner's posturing acting style and

hammy delivery svxited the show'splywood sets and cheesy aliens, andone had the sense that the cast washaving a grand old time, an impres-sion later debunked by stories ofShatner's runaway ego. Kept alivein syndication, nourished by thefanaticism of its cvilt following, whoengaged in a massive letter-writingcampaign to persuade PresidentGerald Ford to rename the spaceshuttle Enterprise, the rash, intem-perate Kirk and his foil, scienceofficer, Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy)— an elf-eared, half-human nativeof the planet Vulcan, a creature ofpure logic whose hvunan blood madehim more prone to emotion than hecared to admit — were transformedinto iconic figures, as were, to alesser extent, the show's ancillarycharacters. Doctor McCoy, Lieu-tenant Sulu, Lieutenant Uhura thecommunications officer. Lieuten-ant Commander Montgomery

FILMS 185

Scott, the ship's engineer, and En-sign Chekov. Their popularity grew,spawning a variety of fan fiction,inclusive of pornographic cartoonsdepicting the two principals as lov-ers, and the show eventually wasreborn as an animated series andthen, ten years after the originalseries had been cancelled, a movie:Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

The film, which did not per-form to expectations and receivedmixed reviews due chiefly to itsplodding pace and lack of action,was a typical Hollywood misadven-ture. Paramount solicited storyideas for the project from dozens ofscience fiction authors, includingRay Bradbury and Ellison. Scriptswere written and tben discarded.Plans were made for a new Trekseries. Star Trek: Phase II, and thenthose plans were scrapped. Finallya script was settled on and the filmrushed into production and releasedonly a few days after the specialeffects had been completed. Direc-tor Robert Wise considered it to bemerely a rough cut of the picture hehad intended to make.

Due to the film's excessivebudget (forty-six million dollars wasdeemed excessive at tbe time) andother issues, Roddenberry was re-moved from the production of asecond film. The Wrath of Khan,

based on an episode in the originalseries in which a messianic, geneti-cally bred superman. Khan NoonienSingh (portrayed by RicardoMontalban), sought vengeance onCaptain Kirk for banishing him andhis followers to a hellish desertplanet. Montalban's over-the-topacting and Nicolas Meyer's direc-tion served to restore the swash-buckling style of the franchise, andthus Star Trek mania began in ear-nest.

Four more films were made fea-turing tbe original cast, and in 1987Roddenberry launcbed a new tele-vision series: Star Trek: The NextGeneration, a politically correcttake on his earlier show, light onviolence and heavy on message, setapproximately a century after theoriginal series. The cast of TNGwas headed up by Patrick Stewart, aSbakespearean actor wbose orotundtones made ordering a glass of beerseem like a royal proclamation. HisCaptain Jean-Luc Picard was morecerebral than Kirk, an intrinsicallymore interesting figure, but themajority of the scripts were poorlyconstructed exercises in tediumbrought to insipid life by a largelyincompetent cast, notably JonathanFrakes as Picard's second fiddle.Commander Riker, who appearedto be constantly sucking in bis gut.

186 FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION

and Councilor Deanna Troi (Ma-rina Sirtis), whose empathie abili-ties enabled her to glance ata shifty-eyed villain who was sweating bul-lets and declare, "He's anxious."TNG also featured the single mostridiculous story element or prop orwhatever in Trek history, theholodeck, a virtual environmentthat allowed crew members to pro-gram their fantasies. Given humannature, the holodeck might right-fully have been expected to produceendless hours of twisted porn, butRoddenberry's PC sensibilities dic-tated that these fantasies be G-ratedand thus we were treated to thesight of the cast dressed in histori-cal costumes and acting outSherlock Holmes scenarios, 1930sjazz club intrigues and such, all tolittle or no dramatic effect. Despitethis, the show flourished, givingbirth to four films of varying de-grees of lameness starring Stewartand company, and to three moretelevision series, the best of which.Deep Space Nine, played for sevenseasons. It dealt with darker themesthan TNG and had more intricateplots (the last few seasons of theshow were written as a serial), andfeatured a cast laden with reputableactors like Avery Brooks, MichelleForbes, Louise Fletcher, ReneAuberjonois, Wallace Shawn, and

Colm Meany. By the time the lastTrek television series, STAR TREK:Enteipiise, petered out in 2005,plans for a reboot of the originalseries were already in the works.No way that Paramount was goingto let its merchandising (action fig-ures, key chains, computer games,models, etc.) go quietly into dark-ness.

I have a friend who constantlyberates me for slamming the crownjewels of pop culture, big block-buster movies like The Avengeis,The Daik Knight and so on, claim-ing that these are our myths, thatsuch films embody the core storiesof our culture, commenting on whowe are as a civilization. I fear thathe is correct in this. On occasion Isuppose that the Gods of Olympusand the legend of Gilgamesh werejustifications designed to servesome base purpose. However, forthe sake of argument (if nothingelse), I maintain that these moviesare brands, nothing more, and thatmyths are stories generated by theexperience of countless generations,grown through centuries andsteeped in the blood of history. IfGieen Lan tein isa myth, I say, thenso is McDonald's, so is ColonelSanders, and Michael Jackson is ademi-urge...and perhaps one daygreat epics will be written extolfing

FILMS 187

tbe virtues and recounting the deedsof Burger King. Mytbs, I tell myfriend, are not simple stories withcartoonish morality foisted upon adumbed-down audience, but intri-cate distillations that arise from aculture over time. Tbey do not comeattacbed to automobüe tie-ins •—they bave nothing to sell other thana consensus expression of man-kind's place in the universe. But bethat as it may....

In 2009, J. J. Abrams, the cre-ator of the television series Lost,brougbt fortb tbe reboot of StarTrek, framing it as a prequel to tbeoriginal sbow, detailing bow tbeyoung Kirk came to be captain ofthe Enterprise. The picture starredChris Pine and Zachary Quinto asKirk and Spock respectively; KarlUrban as McCoy; Simon Pegg asScotty; Zoe Saldana as Ubura;Anton Yelcbin as Cbekov; and JohnCho as Sulu. Pine and Quinto wereespecially good, I thought, mixingin tbeir own understandings of theircharacters while doing just enoughof an impression of Shatner andNimoy. The rest of the cast, Pegg inparticular, seemed upgrades overtbeir predecessors. Not being a fanof Abrams's work, I was pleasantlysurprised. The movie touched allthe bases. Some of the action se-quences were spectacular, and the

CGI effects and generally high pro-duction values added a gloss to thefranchise that made it seem au-thentically futuristic. Yet, as I leftthe theater the movie collapsed intoa jumble of images and noise, as ifsomeone had splashed a bucket fullof tecbnicolor water into my face,and though I briefly retained sev-eral of tbe images, I could not recalla single line of dialogue. Tbe filmhad had a plot — some dementedevil guy (Eric Bana) from the futuregone back into the past to seekvengeance for the destruction of hishome world — but the particularssoon wisped away.

Now comes the sequel to thereboot. Star Trek: Into Darkness, afüm tbat features anotber dementedevil guy seeking vengeance. In thisinstance, the guy is Khan NoonienSingh (Benedict Cumberbatcb), tbevillain from The Wrath of Khan —but while Cumberbatch, tbe actorwho played the lead in the BBC'supdating of Sherlock Holmes, bringsa palpable air of menace to bis role,Kban's backstory and personalityare so bastily sketcbed, tbe charac-ter seems ratber weigbtless, moreplot device than person. As scripted,tbere is no sense of interior con-flict, of pain, no quotes from Moby-Dick ("From Hell's heart I stab attbee... ), no flavor wbatsoever to tbe

188 FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION

man, wbereas Montalban's Khanwas all flavor. A bit overripe, maybe,but a recognizable personality none-theless. Khan's weightlessness per-vades the new film. The concepts ofcharacter and story are jettisoned,sacrificed on the altar of action —the movie is one long action se-quence interspersed with justenough banter to remind us thatwe're watching a Star Trek pictureand not an entry in The Fast and theFurious franchise, with spaceshipsinstead of cars, Pegg and Yelchinscampering about Hke refugees fromtbe Mario Brotbers. Tbe pictureconcludes witb wbat is essentiallya superbero battle between Spockand Kban. Gone is the humanismthat set the original series and themovies that followed it apart fromother action flicks, and gone, too,are the faintly cerebral atmospber-ics. Abrams's movie is a film madefor an audience witb eitber loweredexpectations or no expectationsotber tban to bave flasby visualsteamed up witb appropriate loudnoises and a bombastic score tocompHment tbeir popcorn munch-ing. All that is left from tbe originalStar Trek is tbe name.

Remember wben M. NigbtSbyamalan's name on a movie wasconsidered a plus? Those days.

apparently, are bebind us. His lat-est. After Earth, is slinking intotbeaters with barely a mention ofThe Sixth Sense's director, hopingnot to remind us of the stinkbombsbe's been dropping on us since earlyin his career, films like The Hap-pening, The Last Airbender, andLady in the Water.

After Earth takes place on, waitfor it. Earth. So it's not " after Earth "after aH. It's after mankind left Eartha millennium before. Cypber (WillSmith) and Smith's real-life son.Jaden, who plays Kitai, his onscreenson, Crashland on Earth and find ita hostile place indeed. Cypher tellsKitai that every single creature onthe planet has evolved to kill hu-mans, something that seems a littleodd, given that there haven't beenany bumans around for nigb unto atbousand years — but never youmind tbe small stuff. This justmakes for some mighty unhappycritters. Injured in the crash. Cypherfurther tells Kitai that if they are toget off the planet, he must travelalone across a wilderness throngedwith fanged, super-quick monstersin order to retrieve the beacon fromthe tail section of their spaceship.

The last hour and a half ofKitai's journey contains some ofthe most stilted dialogue and worstCGI in film history, and the sole

FILMS 189

reason I'm mentioning the pictureat all is to warn people away from it.Some movies, like Star Trek: IntoDarkness, may cry out for a hearttransplant, maybe even a braintransplant, but at least they are pass-able fakes, whereas After Earth, for

all its high tech gloss and imagery,requires more drastic surgery yet.Shyamalan keeps getting worsewith each successive picture. Onehas the idea that The Sixth Sensewas nothing more than beginner's

Copyright of Fantasy & Science Fiction is the property of Spilogale, Inc. and its content maynot be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder'sexpress written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles forindividual use.