J.J. Abrams' New Star Trek Movie: A Preview

In less than two days J.J. Abrams' installment in the Star Trek series of movies launches and fans everywhere are excited about how much improvement it will make over the sequels and how true it will be to the original series (Morgan, Berriman). It's interesting to know that Abrams' take on the 40 year old space epic is a prequel that is to be released less than a year after the producers of the other most loved space epic of all time, Star Wars, had released a computer animated movie and TV series that are both based on George Lucas's three prequels. This is interesting because the two most popular space epics of both cinema and television have been known to be in box office competition with each other. This brings us to pose this question: will Abrams' Star Trek movie prequel be his own genuine enhancement of the ongoing series or will it be Paramount's mere commercial device that competes with the Star Wars prequels?

Ever since George Lucas released his Star Wars, Gene Roddenberry's space epic has competed to be the top one of the two. 1979's Star Trek: the Motion Picture was the Star Trek producers' response to Star Wars which had released only two years before. As Star Wars came out with its sequels in the early 1980s making blockbuster success, Star Trek followed closely after with its own sequels beginning with The Wrath of Khan only two summers after The Empire Strikes Back had released.

Seventeen years later, Lucas finally released his prequels to the original Star Wars Trilogy that he had had in the making, at least at the script level, even before he released the very first Star Wars film in 1977. Although not to the extent that the original Trilogy had, the prequels did make blockbuster success in their profits and fan following. They did well to the point to where Lucasfilm launched an animated series on cable television's Cartoon Network which showed in five minute installments between the station's regular programming. Then, only last summer, Lucasfilm launched a computer animated movie in theaters and then a TV series of the same type animation based directly on it, both titled Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Even though Lucas did not make so much off of the computer animated movie and series, he made a top sum of money off of the prequels (Fuchs).

Now the Star Trek franchise is counting down to ignition of its own prequel not just to the movies but to the original TV series. The movie will cover not only the two main characters', James T. Kirk's and Spock's, training years at the Starfleet Academy but also their childhoods and the influences that shape them into the adults they become (Production Notes, startrekmovie.com). Kirk starts out as a teenage delinquent while Spock starts out as a youth outcasted by his Vulcan peers because of his half human origins (Production Notes, startrekmovie.com). In the Star Wars prequels, a main character, Anakin Skywalker (later to become Darth Vader), is shown going through his training as a Jedi during his teenage years. But however similar their elements are between the two, both space epics' prequels do exactly what a prequel is supposed to do: show how it all began. This is a wonderful thing since it often, even if just on a superficial level, develops the characters from the original and sequel episodes. But how much of it is true story telling that stays faithful to the original movie, sequels and its director and writers' imaginations and how much of it is commercial competition?

There is no kidding that this new installment to the Star Trek saga will stay faithful to the original TV series more than any of the previous movies have. Yet it will do so without going too retrospect to the point of mere campy nostalgia. The crew members in this film are given their original four color uniforms back as opposed to 1979's Motion Picture's grey and white replacements and the 1980s' and post '80s' sequels' red and white ones. Yet, at the same time, they have been slightly modified to more dull tones to capture the seriousness of the militant-like mission of Starfleet. The characters are given their basic qualities of humor and a common goal of reaching their full potential as they had in the original TV series and movies (Production Notes, startrekmovie.com). Yet, even though the main crew members had their disagreements and even some raging conflicts between each other in the original TV series and movies, Ian Berriman of SFX magazine indicates that Abrams and the script writers of the upcoming movie enhance the good and bad qualities in the characters making us sympathize even more with them (sfx.co.uk).

In relation to the space vessels, the U.S.S Enterprise's exterior is very similar to that of the one in both the TV series and previous movies, while the interior has been altered greatly to reflect more futuristic advanced technology than ever (startrekmovie.com). Or so it seems. Control panels are operated by touch sensory screens and Uhura uses a bluetooth-looking device to communicate across the channels (startrekmovie.com). Aren't these devices of our own 21^st Century? (Touch sensory screens are already being marketed for common consumer use!) So just how believable is this 23^rd century future that Abrams is attempting to recreate in the Star Trek universe?

There were somewhat similar inconsistencies in the Star Wars prequels. In one episode there is a scene that takes place in a 1950s style alien- and robot-run diner and in another scene there is a 20^th century bus-like shuttle. These are pretty modern Earth historical in appearance for a movie taking place "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away"! However, the characters and story development in the prequels outweighed such flaws. If Abrams' Star Trek has a similar problem with such flaws in order to emphasize stunning visual effects and action over story and setting consistency, all for the sake of commercial competition, hopefully it will at least do well with its character and story development to where it will outweigh those flaws while not contradicting the basic elements of the Star Trek universe as created by Roddenberry and the other original producers who worked with him.

Even if the new Star Trek movie's producers' primary intentions are to compete commercially rather than to make this movie great unto itself, if the obvious basic elements of Gene Roddenberry's original characters and if his basic themes of hope and optimism are kept while Abrams infuses his own interpretation of the Trek universe into this movie, it may become a true classic as much as the original TV series has.

Sources

Berriman, Ian. SFX. http://www.sfx.co.uk/page/sfx?entry=film_review_star_trek

Fuchs, David. Associated Content .
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1351523/a_history_of_star_trek_and_star_wars.html?cat=40

Morgan, Richard. Associated Content. http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1441443/will_j_j_abrams_star_trek_thrive.html?cat=40

http://www.startrekmovie.com/