I'm dedicating this one to Hobbs, with whom I share stories of grief and exultation in the realms of Star Trek and Star Wars.
Trek has always been there for me. It's a great passion, a source for philosophical discussion and, often enough, a source of frustration committed by those who were in charge of Trek at the time.
Now we have J. J. Abrams' new Trek incarnation about to appear in our cinemas. I've sweated over this as I have "Star Trek - Enterprise," the only Trek show I actively stated should be cancelled.
But there was once the chance to do a Trek prequel way back in the days before George Lucas himself had likely even considered such a notion with his own franchise.
After the bad, yet profitable, Trek 5 had run its course, the accounting nuts and big shots over at Paramount realized that, yes, Trek can survive even the worst outings and be profitable, but it's also getting expensive to produce.
Then Harve Bennett, the man who had guided Trek through these more recent film outings, starting tinkering with an idea he'd had midway through Trek 4. It, as well, would've been a prequel (or in the contemporary dreaded terms, a "reboot.")
The general ideas are laid out for all to read in Shatner's book "Movie Memories," but as I sit here revisiting this particular chapter I'm forced to look at my views of Abram's vision as well.
Harve's idea was one of a Starfleet Academy adventure, with young James Tiberius Kirk restlessly waiting for his acceptance at the Academy by buzzing around the skies of Iowa in an old fashioned plane while simultaneously sowing his wild oats with any woman who'd have him which, knowing young Kirk, might've been anyone of the female persuasion.
Meanwhile Spock would've left Vulcan against his father's wishes to join the Academy, and a young McCoy who'd also have joined up after years of caring for his ailing father. They also would've been under the tutelage of a gifted engineering professor, who was decidedly Scottish.
Take a guess at who that was.
And here it is the pieces would fall into place: Kirk and Spock would be rivals, but Kirk would ultimately come to Spock's defense when the rest of the human population essentially becomes prejudicial against Spock's being there.
Amidst all this there is a villain out in space manipulating the people with his own means of racist and prejudicial weaponry whom these young cadets would have to deal with.
Toss in a genuine love story with a female pilot and you've got a Trek reboot.
And, in a sense, some of these elements don't sound too dissimilar to Abram's version.
I'm still not doing back flips over this new incarnation, and I doubt I would've over this version that never made it to the screen.
But, given all these reboots, remakes, and re-imaginings, I'm reminded of a line from "Amadeus."
Mozart is pushing for permission to go forward with his latest opera, "The Marriage of Figaro" I believe it was (I don't have a copy of the film at my disposal at this moment), and those of the Emperor's court are all trying to prevent Mozart from going forward with it.
Even the man who is his greatest supporter in the court, the man who considers Mozart to be brilliant, is trying to reign the composer in, saying he shouldn't waste his talent on such nonsense and return to the old style legends which have existed forever.
Mozart objects, and argues why must the people keep promoting all these old legends repeatedly forever, and his answer is that because the legends themselves go on forever, "or at least what they represent."
Mozart complains, looking to do something new, as he's sick of hearing about Hercules and poses the question "wouldn't you rather hear about your hairdresser instead of Hercules?"
Hollywood needs someone, anyone, who'll stand up to all these people and say "let all the old things die, come up with something new and maybe then we'll revisit the past!"
James Bond was rebooted, and I won't touch it. Star Trek is suffering a reboot, and I worry about it. Fantastic Four is being rebooted after one movie, while The Inedible...I mean "Incredible" (and I use that term loosely) Hulk was rebooted after one outing.
The Pink Panther was re-imagined, and though it was somewhat enjoyable (it's hard to not like Steve Martin), it was probably best left alone.
Hollywood is built on old legends, and they do their best to keep retracing the steps of all those old gods and goddesses. They'll mine and cannibalize anything that's known, or well known.
But they're afraid of the new, and they shouldn't be.
But when something new comes along, and it has any amount of success, it instantly becomes a legend of old.
Look at Summit and how they've handled the "Twilight" series: it was given a fair budget, was filmed on American soil, make tons of money, and immediately the kids at Summit became evil, trashed the director of their hit, moved the production to Canada, and green lit two more movies instantly and demanded the next one come out within less than a year.
There's talk of a second Trek reboot movie, plus a second X-Men reboot movie as well.
And those haven't even hit screens yet.
But one thing worries me, will they try to reboot Harry Potter in twenty years? Or The X-Files? Or even, dare I say it, Police Academy?
Everything old is new again...but I wish everything new actually was new. And this is why I have so many problems with revisiting Trek in these instances: Gene Roddenberry was looking forward, not backwards.
Since "Enterprise," Trek has looked backwards, and therein lies the problem for me.
For Hollywood, looking back hasn't been completely successful either, so it should look forward as well. Maybe then, and only then, we can shake out the cobwebs and revitalize both the industry and ourselves as well.
