Star Trek: The Flaws Awakened

I may have descended into cheese title territory but there's good reason.

I managed to see The Force Awakens on launch day -  actually at 11.45 pm so only just -  and knew I needed to talk about it as soon as the credits rolled.  However, I wanted to leave it a couple of weeks to avoid spoiling it for anyone and also to let the dust settle on what has been nothing less than a record annihilating run for the seventh movie.  What I want to talk about is how it relates to the current state of Star Trek. If you've not seen it, please click away now. I don't want to ruin the movie for you.

Initially I was surprised that the Beyond trailer didn't show with Star Wars here in the UK. Instead we got Deadpool, Independence Day: Resurgence, World of Warcraft and Daddy's Home. Whoop.

But as the closing theme boomed out and we start counting down to both 2016's Rogue Squadron and 2017's Episode VIII, there were a few issues that bugged me.

Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed it even if I did think it echoed a lot of moments from the original trilogy especially A New Hope and I look forward to seeing it again. I loathe to admit it because it's got everything from the Millennium Falcon to cool new Stormtroopers, a booming soundtrack and even more. Thing is, JJ Abrams now has a lot to answer for when it comes to Star Trek. 

From the perspective of a Star Trek fan, The Force Awakens was a movie made with great love, appreciation and understanding of what made the original Star Wars trilogy great.  Abrams managed to keep his personal fan indulgence in check and produced a damn fine movie that did precisely what it needed to do plus banish some bad Binks memories. He should be proud not just of the box office takings but of the movie itself although I suspect Laurence Kasdan will have been very useful in the scripting department. 

But in the very way it impressed me and engaged me for two fleetingly short hours, in the back of my mind there was a sole, painful question; Why?

Why did JJ Abrams treat Star Trek in the way he did, even admitting recently that the plot of Into Darkness was full of holes and regrets as well as filling the two reboot. movies he made with god-awful lens flare? If he didn't appreciate the show and understood what made Star Trek great he should have stayed away and waited for the Star Wars gig. 

The way in which Abrams has honoured Lucas' 1977 vision, reproduced the signature scene wipes, memorable characters and the very essence of what made Star Wars great. A marvellous restoration job indeed sir and just what the Star Wars fans wanted. 

Go back eight years and JJ Abrams took Star Trek and did the opposite, instead of going back to its roots and the Roddenberry ideal, he chose to make it his own. I admit there had to be changes and it had to be brought into the present day but to be as drastic as Abrams was came as a jolting surprise to many although it did supposedly open up Star Trek to the larger mainstream audience who had steered clear for decades. Now in the case of Star Wars the damage had been done with the prequels and JJ came along to realign it with the fourth, fifth and sixth episodes and the ethos surrounding them. Funny to think that in the case of Star Trek he may be the one that has done the damage which Pegg, Lin and co are now trying to "undo" if you will (although we've all seen the trailer so I can't be totally convinced that's going to happen).

I suppose the issue is the size of the fandoms and the voice that each carries. In the case of Star Wars the fanbase is colossal and appeals to people of all ages although it was intended for kids. Star Trek on the other hand has had its moments of being incredibly pretentious and closing itself off from the general public. While we can say 'how dare he'  to Abrams for his remaining of the universe the box office takings plus the scores on sites such as Rotten Tomatoes and Box Office Mojo have to be taken into consideration. He has,  without question,  rejuvenated two franchises with stunning  box office success -  in fact if you plug in Mission Impossible it's three. 

It absolutely stings when you then look at Star Trek and see how shockingly Abrams appears to have toyed with the franchise if you're a fan of "Prime" storytelling. That said he did stick around for two movies rather than bowing out after just one as he is doing with the Disney-owned sci-fi series. But maybe the point is that while Star Wars has elements that appeal to all ages in its effects,  space battles and galactic mythology,  Star Trek doesn't or more precisely didn't until Abrams dragged it from the obscurity of that Enterprise finale into 2009 and here we are now waiting for a third installment which he will be producing. 

Much in the same way that no-one outside of the core fanbase will be affected or care about the legal wrangling over Axanar,  the general public will probably go and see Beyond in their droves because Abrams has done what has been required and the same is true of Star Wars. He gave back what was needed in that case while for Trek he opened it to the mass market and took out the deep and meaningful that turned many away. 

But let's drag this back to some sort of conclusion before I drift away into a clutter of words. It did feel that Abrams abandoned Star Trek after Into Darkness to follow his dream and you can sense what The Force Awakens means to him. It's a film where you feel for the characters, fall in love with a bowling ball droid and bathe in waves of legend and nostalgia without sinking in a sea of green-screen backgrounds. That emotional attachment and the connection to the characters is something which he did miss with the two reboot Star Trek's. NB: This is not me transferring my allegiance!

If Abrams had wanted to indulge just the existing fanbase for Star Trek he could have given them something full of intricate meaning and self-explanation but instead we got something nearer to a Flash Gordon serial and, possibly, Star Wars. I suppose that's actually why it hurts because The Force Awakens has been such a huge success and Star Trek becomes even more maligned and a "third wheel". Star Wars revitalisation has made Star Trek look very tired and its much smaller core fanbase very, very hard to please and whatever comes on the big screen and the TV screen via CBS will just not be good enough. At the moment thanks to JJ Abrams Star Wars says excitement, innovation and nostalgia while his vision of the Star Trek universe has tried to please the masses and tragically failed to invigorate the core fans - but then that might well have been the very mission statement he was provided when he took on the project and has delivered if that's the case.

There's still a lot of work to do and new hands and ideas may prove to be the light at the end of the tunnel both this summer and in January 2017. The problem is that by that time we will have Rogue Squadron and work on Episode VIII will be in full swing for Christmas '17 - will anyone really be interested in the Star Trek wagon as its wheels begin to roll? Will we have tired of the relentless Star Wars marketing machine? I fear to answer those questions.

Has The Force Awakens made you think about "switching" your flag over to the Dark Side? Are you loathe to admit that the new movie is actually damn good as a proclaimed Star Trek fan?

Where's Star Trek: Rebels?

As my son was zooming his Hot Wheels mini JJ-USS Enterprise around the lounge, hoping to blow my USS Vengeance out of the sky, my wife raised a very good point. 

"He loves ships and the whole space thing," she observed, "and he does like watching Star Wars Rebels - how come there's no Star Trek for kids? Surely they're missing a trick and an audience?"

That's a very good point indeed, especially when it comes from a someone who has no serious love for the franchise. Flashback; the only non-live action Star Trek in 50 years was the 1973 animated series and while it's a good diversion, these days it's classic fans who are the most likely to buy it on DVD and laud some of its exemplary stories. Either that or take berate the brilliance that was the personal forcefield belt. 

Star Wars on the other hand has certainly cornered the market not only producing excellent animated shows such as The Clone Wars (twice) and Rebels in recent years but let's not forget Droids and Ewoks back in the 80's. Plus there were the more child friendly(!) Ewok movies and that "amazing" Christmas special. So why not Star Trek? What has stopped a 50 year old franchise from branching out and potentially extending its lifetime even further. Even in recent years Doctor Who has realised the opportunity within the younger audience. While kids will watch the show, Russell T Davies brought in The Sarah Jane Chronicles to appeal to a younger generation and, I suspect, prep them to watch Doctor Who when they get older. As a footnote here, '60's retro series Thunderbirds has been rebooted in CG and already I can see what the bulk of my son's Christmas presents will consist of and I'm hooked on it for Saturday morning viewing. It's a good example where that rebooting has succeeded in capturing fans of the original and finding a new, adventurous and young audience.

However Star Trek has always aimed for a slightly highbrow audience intending a branch of sci-fi that provokes discussion and is cleverly multi-layered which, no offence intended, has made it less accessible to children. Yes I and many others will have watched it in our formative years but I wouldn't think we're in any for or majority. There wasn't a ton of action, it wasn't all explosions and space battles and there was a fair bit of talking. 

Looking back and thanks to some input from Dennis Koch on Twitter, I recalled that there were forays into material for a younger audience - certainly the comics of the 80's and 90's were looking to expand the ranks of fandom. Likewise there were the 100+ action figures in the Playmates range that many of us still have mint, styro-chipped and vacuum-sealed for future generations, there were books about the main characters at the academy, the Corps of Engineers books, handheld computer games, Galoob figures (yeah, they were great...), Micro Machine starships, I could probably go on but there was, indeed one thing missing, perhaps the hook that needed to be there to secure a more successful merchandising/revenue stream for the future - a TV show.

Think about it. Kids and adults watched Star Trek, kids and adults watched Star Wars but the later pulled out something that meant the younger generation were hooked even more and wanted X Lego set or Y action figure because there was a show which was "exclusively" theirs. At a push there were the Kre-O sets for Into Darkness and we'll be seeing a Mega Bloks USS Enterprise from The Original Series on the shelves of your local toystore in 2016 BUT Star Trek has never hit that mark and while there have been numerous lines or toys, books or games which could attract that market. They've not had an alternative visual gateway which could have then led them on to the experience of the main Star Trek series.

I am in no way suggesting we dumb Star Trek down, nor am I suggesting that The original Series or Deep Space Nine are inaccessible for younger fans but there needs to be something which is more encapsulating so it's not just the "geeky" kid in the class who watches it. in fact we could even speculate that The Worf Chronicles is perfect for a younger audience if we slap an inexperienced, rookie crew in with the angry Klingon captain(!) and some horrific comedy character - or Neelix.

So is it time to change? As with the JJ movies that have dragged Star Trek more firmly into the 21st Century is it now time to draw in that younger audience because it might well secure a better future for a franchise that, at the moment, is relying purely on a third motion picture in its 50th anniversary year. It could easily be set in the JJ-verse, it could be live or animated I don't think it really matters but it does need to aim for that demographic because there has to be something to ensure the longevity of the franchise. Star Wars is managing to do that through its multiple projects but Star Trek still seems blinkered or maybe it really doesn't appeal that strongly or want to appeal to that younger generation. Before you mention it, yes I have thought about the ever increasing comic book/graphic novel range but they seem more focused on the older viewer and collector especially with cash tie-ins such as The Planet of the Apes, Doctor Who and most recently Green Lantern. Even more singular titles have revisited old concepts such as The Tholian Webs. No guessing what that was about which is going to interest more invested fans than perhaps younger, newer ones.

Of course such a conversation also kicks off other possibilities. With some clever scripting there could be characters dropped into Star Trek Beyond (or taken from) that would lead into said children's spin-off and launch a whole new strand of the franchise. Interest in the movie is certainly starting to gather momentum with visual confirmation of Idris Elba's involvement by his appearance in the launch video to win a walk on role in the third installment (has it really come to this?!). Nice twist on that video guys just adding Idris in there but I can't forgive the break-dancing. Seriously, is there no better time to grab that hot iron and expand the universe as we're seeing DC and Marvel do with their superhero franchises?

I might be going crackers here but Star Trek has always remained, at least on the screen, 100% pure to a single vision, one crew and a seven (not always) season run with no variation outside the lines. The reboot did blur those lines and I would like to think that adding a more juvenile-aimed show could really smudge those boundaries for all time. There needs to be a good head in charge to give it the edge and feel of Star Trek that some recent spin-off elements have tragically diluted. Certainly a spin-off wouldn't do the merchandising department any harm...as long as it's done right and doesn't turn out to be a Bucky O'Hare that is and not allow it all to end up in the 99p bin after six months.

It is after all about getting it right and if there's one thing Star Trek hasn't been good at it's consistency. The last 50 years - and the last 15 for definite have been rocky, uneven affairs that have distanced fans and potentially begun to cut off that younger audience. Taking the bull by the horns and exploring new avenues just as the rebooted films have done could be the key to unlocking some new potential and who knows, we might not be looking forward to a Sulu series in a couple of years but a Sulu movie. I could see an animated version doing well and the options would be limitless. Heck, I'd even go as far as saying George Takei would be onboard immediately to voice.

Whatever happens, the next 12 months will be critical to the future of Star Trek and it's existence for another 50 years. I just hope that it's going to keep the vision focused and cater for all potential parties.

Have I got it right? Does Star Trek need to explore other media avenues to remain a strong player in the sci-fi market? Let me know below!

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Why We Shouldn't Blame JJ

(Sigh.) So the dust is still blowing in the wind as the world comes to terms with the fact that JJ Abrams is to direct Star Wars Episode VII. Of course this left Trekdom up in arms seeing as he's the crowned saviour of the franchise and has been since 2009's reboot. How could he do it? How could the person who gave Star Trek A New Hope(!) defect to the darker side?

The simple answer would be cold, hard cash and the fact that JJ has openly admitted that he is a much bigger Star Wars fan than he is a Star Trek fan. Dummies have been spat out, anger has been vented at this apparent defection but hey; can we really blame him?

Abrams has been responsible for Lost, Cloverfield, Super 8, reviving Trek (and Alcatraz cough, cough) so he would be the obvious choice. He loves his sci-fi/fantasy and 99% of it turns to gold. I can imagine it wasn't the hardest choice in the world and now he has control over the futures of the two biggest franchises in that genre. For decades these two have been at war; their battles spreading to many memes, Fisher vs Shatner on Twitter...but really, who cares? He wants to do this and I'm sure all these internet blowouts are just like water off a duck's back and come on, you've got to be a bit jealous that he gets to play with BOTH franchises?

Now before we go any further I have to declare myself firmly in the Trek camp and initially when I heard the news I was pretty gutted. I have a fairly large Trek collection but there is a place in my home for a Star Wars Lego collection. It did feel like two fingers being waved and I hadn't been this disappointed since the Enterprise finale. However after a couple of days dealing with the rumours and the official announcement that JJ is directing Episode VII I think I can live with it. Even Star Wars fans have to admit that the prequels were substandard and I'm not going to shy away from the fact that the latter end of Trek's film series were less than spectacular. The Clone Wars TV series has been a success and Abrams has something to build on, luckily with Lucas only on board as a creative consultant who has provided (importantly) only treatments of the three sequels to the original trilogy. 

Star Wars has made a fat lot more money in a much shorter period of time than Roddenberry's creation and that's not something to snigger at. I have included the excellent infographic here to demonstrate - of course all figures and facts can be swayed but the numbers speak for themselves. There's a billion dollar difference at the box office in the UK and a THREE billion dollar deficit worldwide for Star Trek. Mark my word, JJ hasn't been dumb here.  He holds the ultimate keys to fictional power now and I for one can't wait to see how he reboots the movie Star Wars universe. We can be pretty certain it'll all fit in and there won't be any resets or sideways universes. Let's just hope this amazing success and fortune doesn't go to his head and we get less Empire Strikes Back and more Phantom Menace. However lest we forget that Lucas did a deal with the cinematic devil or as we like to call it, Disney.

That's something that you might not have remembered - two massive Star Wars stories in a matter of months which means that, because of the first one, JJ Abrams is going to be directing a movie for the House of Mouse. Who could have seen that coming a year ago? Then again without that kind of backing and input would there even be Episodes VII, VIII and IX on the boards plus a plethora of other films and media that has been rumoured to be coming on the back of the announcement. Don't forget as well that Lawrence Kasdan who was prominent in the making of the original films (having written Empire and Jedi) as well as George Lucas will be involved in the new movies. No doubt to keep the train of thought pure with the vision of the series. Notably JJ was pretty much given free reign by Disney rivals Paramount when he stripped Star Trek back to basics a few years ago.

Star Trek began life with a second start in 1966 and has never had a life of smooth running - cancellation, dropping box office takings and an inconsistent prequel series. Books and spin off material has varied from being canon to being totally irrelevant to continuity while it's "rival" has kept its material canon pretty much all the way through since 1977. Question is, will the new director be paying much attention or are we going to get the JJ vision of how this universe has evolved since the closing credits and Ewok songs of The Return of the Jedi? His work with Trek has been outstanding and brought it back from the brink with a stunning film and now a sequel that looks just as, if not better. Star Wars on the other hand hasn't fallen so far and it's popularity is far larger as the stats here belay. Working fandom up into a frenzy for Episode VII won't take a lot but then there's no "disturbing lack of faith" to work on. It's there to be built on and not from the ashes. The Star Trek reboot could have been a disaster but it wasn't so surely Trekkers and Trekkies alike should be more than happy to share their saviour apparent with the "enemy" - after all we'll get to keep him at least as a producer on future installments and with the hype over Star Trek Into Darkness, that could be for some time.

Let's bring this to a rambling conclusion - both franchises are now in very, very safe hands but what we MUST hope is that one doesn't suffer because of the other. Be wise, JJ for you could well rack off at least 10 million people on Facebook if you get this all wrong and both Kirk and Skywalker go down the pan.

Anyway, anyway, anyway. I look forward to seeing the results of Abrams work both this year with the Star Trek sequel and 2015 for the Star Wars re-ignition. I think that's really all we can say for now.  It's not that bad. It does feel like he is in command of everything but I think we can be assured the two will be kept separate however they might have some familiar touches in the next round. That will certainly be something worth looking out for. As a Trek fan I'm sad to see his resource split and to something that he openly admits he likes more, but from a sci-fi/fantasy perspective this can only be just about the best news you could want - and it does mean we can virtually guarantee that we will be seeing the next Star Wars episode in cinemas in just TWO years time.

May the Needs of the Force; or the One, be with You