Thursday, March 12, 2009

180 in Space

As many of you know, I'm old-school Star Wars fan. I've never dressed up for a show or gone to a convention, but I know the original trilogy so well I can practically quote it verbatim. When I was a kid, I begged my mom to put Sun-In into my hair so I could be blond like Luke Skywalker. Tom and I used to have violent, destructive pillow fights where we would shout things like, "MEET YOUR DESTINY!!" before hurling a pillow across the room. As I kid, I could be a Star Wars fan and it was cool. I never once had someone give me grief over it.

For whatever reason, I saw Star Trek differently. It just had 'nerdy' attached to it. Bill Shatner was busy ripping on it himself with SNL skits "You... Have you ever kissed a girl?" For me it was a lack of explosions, lightsabers, death-stars and Darth Vader. As a young kid those things got my blood boiling more than "beam me up" and people shooting each other with guns that looked like remote controls.

But the tide appears to be changing. First George Lucas decided to blaspheme his own creation and viloate a sacred rule found in Revelations 22:18-19 "DON'T ADD TO OR TAKE AWAY, FROM SACRED WORK!!!" I loathe the special editions of the original trilogy. He corrupted the greatest Saga ever and gave us a taste of the garbage to come (I have a bad feeling about this). We all know the pre-quel trilogy had some moments, but it is basically a poor Pixar movie with a few live actors trying to survive horrible plot and dialouge. Before we knew it, spoofs of Star Wars were everywhere and Darth Vader became the king of unintentional comedy with Youtube hits like Chad Vader. I won't even breathe on the Clone Wars movie. With Obi-Wan I lament... now the Jedi are all but extict.

Who can step foward and reclaim Space, the final fronter? None other than a re-boot of Star Trek, that looks very promising.

In my typical Nostradamus fashion, I predict the new Trek film will become what Star Wars fans were hoping for when the pre-quels came out. I see a revenge of the Nerds, the beginning of something we can all enjoy. I'm getting geeked out. Beam me up.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The intellectual arena in Star Trek never seems to go beyond High School Sophmore level. Take, as evidence, the fact that we only hear Shakespeare in the literary references of the characters. We never hear references to Satre, Nietsche, Voltaire, Locke, or other more interesting literary and philosophical giants. I mean -- who the hell would believe that an alien from another planet would casually quote Shakepeare like an English-speaking earth person? Aren't there alien philosophers who can come up with words of wisdom once in a while? I just cannot believe a shakespeare-spouting Klingon in the 24th century, unless he grew up going to high school in Cleveland, Ohio.

Daniel said...

Looks pretty dang cool.

Too bad they always have to throw in the uncalled for and gratuitous, "Let's appease the teeming masses of men and male teenagers" . . .