Where Spock Has Gone Before ***

My friend, Kevin, gleefully demonstrates his original series Star Trek phaser. Nice shootin' Tex.

I started watching Star Trek back in the late 60's, when the show was still new. The unique program took viewers like me to places that no man had gone before, and introduced a generation to science fiction.

I was still pretty small, but can remember how mesmerizing the introduction music* was to me. Almost spooky. The same piece of music was replayed at the end of each episode as superimposed credits rolled over intriguing snapshots from other Star Trek episodes.

Star Trek was canceled in 1969, and quickly made its way to syndication, where it became popular among a crowd of loners who began calling themselves Trekkers.**

Even though I have seen every episode of the original series numerous times, I certainly would not classify myself as either Trekkie or Trekker. I definitely don't envision Star Trek as the blueprint for our future. Maybe that's what I liked about the latest Star Trek movie. Not that I loved it, but at least this movie wasn't terrible like all of its predecessors have been.

The first Star Trek movie was a huge disappointment, and every subsequent movie followed suit. Each trying to outdo the last, Star Trek movies boasted terrible acting with long drawn-out, close-up scenes of the USS Enterprise. It's only a model. The stories were bad, too. In one, the Enterprise travels through time to rescue a whale. With a bit of remodeling, the large endangered mammal is placed inside the spaceship and whisked through time.***

Now, there's a new Star Trek movie, and this one isn't terrible. In fact, it's pretty good. This newest Star Trek takes place in the early life of James T. Kirk, and chronicles his ascendancy to captain of the Enterprise. It wouldn't be fair to call this latest Star Trek a prequel because the familiar mythos is completely undone when a rogue Romulan vessel travels back in time and changes galactic history. Young versions of Kirk and Spock behave as enemies as they vie for control of the Enterprise, and who would have suspected that Uhura and Spock would have a special relationship?

Since Star Trek movies are all so bad, I usually wait to rent them on video. This time I gambled, and went to the theater. I reasoned that since all of the Star Trek movies have been terrible, there was a good chance this one might not be. And I'm happy to report that it is pretty good. It isn't perfect. As you might expect, there are lots of corny familiar lines. Scotty gives it all he's got while Spock is out of his Vulcan mind, but maybe the cliches are more appropriate in this movie than previous Star Trek theatrical attempts.

* I later learned that the haunting voice was created by an electronic instrument called a theremin.

** Trekkers are sometimes mistakenly called Trekkies by outsiders.

*** Put Jonah in that whale and you've got yourself a story.