The Stars Our Destination

Star Trek Into Darkness poster

Hard to believe it's just gone ten years since Star Trek: Nemesis was released. 2002 was expected to be a great year for sci-fi: The Matrix sequels, a Red Dwarf film, a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy film, and the aforementioned Star Trek X. In the end only Nemesis made it out that year alongside the equally poor Die Another Day. Shatner's diabolical Final Frontier narrowly avoided being responsible for the death of the Trek film franchise in 1989 - sadly the responsibility for achieving just that thirteen years later fell on The Next Generation cast. Interesting it should happen in December 2002 at the exact time Die Another Day was doing the same for Bond. As with my Skyfall review, discussing Star Trek into Darkness requires discussing my experiences with Trek. Be warned, it's going to take a few thousand words before I get to the review...

Utopia Planitia

You might not know I'm a Star Trek fan, but there's been one thing that's annoyed me for quite some time (unless you include Enterprise and sometimes Voyager, which makes it 2.5 things).

I've been reading this from which I've taken two quotes:

"[Avery Brooks] said he took the role of Sisko in Deep Space Nine in order to "keep in front of children the ever-changing horizon. To let the children know that there is possibility, to let the children know that someone is not going to take away or destroy this world before they have a chance." He added, "That's not altruistic. Somebody has to keep the horizon happening. Let us not acquiesce or fall down or lie down for somebody else's desire to destroy the world."

"At the conclusion of his time on stage, Shatner followed up on the thought: "Those of us who love Star Trek know that there is a future. It's just taking a pause right now. We don't have anything to worry about. Paramount Studios has made ... in excess of $2 billion? From the franchise of Star Trek? They aren't gonna let that die! There's too much money there! So, there will be another Star Trek, I assure you."

I take Brooks' quote to mean he believes in the future depicted in the Star Trek franchise (regularly attacked as a Socialist future by reactionaries), and I and many fans certainly do.

Then Shatner only goes and highlights the problem: that Paramount is happy to rake in billions thanks to a TV series about a utopian future where there are no corporations and no money and people are motived by faith in humanity. Does no-one else see the contradiction? The people in paramount obviously have no problem knowing that 2+2 is both equal to 4 and 5.

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