This may be the best news about “Star Trek” in years. J.J. Abrams, the man behind “Lost,” “Alias,” and “Mission Impossible III: Make Tom Cruise Appear Sane,” is going to revive “Star Trek.”
Specifically, Abrams, the producers of “Lost,” and the screenwriters of “MI:III” are going to produce, direct, and write the next Trek movie, which initial reports say will be a prequel showing Kirk and Spock’s first meeting at Starfleet Academy and their “first outer space mission.”
It’s also significant that this will be the first Trek project since the death of Gene Roddenberry that won’t have the involvement of longtime producer Rick Berman, who brought ST:TNG, DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise into creation, as well as all the Next Generation movies. Unfortunately, the last Star Trek movie and Enterprise were both apparent flops, although I liked them. No accounting for taste, I guess.
But if anyone can save Trek with a great movie, I think Abrams can. Let the “Lost Trek” jokes begin!
Technorati Tags: movie, science fiction, Star Trek
I share the joy. News of this on Easter week is surely no coincidence more proof that God loves Sci-Fi or at least has mercy on us fans.
Sounds like the idea is a retreat to the early days of Star Trek. I wonder how they will pull that off and still keep it contemporary?
Great news! Now if I could just get the horrible memory of Enterprise out of my head.
Ack. Here we go again. My husband loves this stuff.
The last batch of episodes were just pagan and weird.
The parallel that comes to my mind is “Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd”
I’m not a trekkie by any means, so I was rather shocked to learn on NPR on Saturday that George Takei, who played Commander Sulu, is gay and, indeed, an activist for the gay lobby, the Human Rights Campaign. Maybe you guys already knew this and have made your peace with it, especially as Take is not a Catholic. But I can’t help but raise the question that if y’all so love the show, you might want to take a bit more to heart Roddenberry’s message of universal love and peace, as it would seem the casting of Takei as Sulu could hardly not have been an effort to extend the big tent of the Enterprise to include gays. Of course, this means nothing within the context of Catholic teaching, other than to raise the issue of whether when humanity ventures boldy or not quite so to other worlds we should carry the shibboleths of the Old Testament or the spirit of Jesus? Live long and prosper!
This franchise really needed for Berman and the old regime to move on. New blood is absolutely key.
I always knew there was a valid reason I liked you so much, Dom.
Well, Tony, for one thing, I engage in a certain amount of separation of the entertainers’ private lives from their public product. Otherwise, I’d have to do all kinds of research into their lives before watching any show or movie.
For another, I only leanred about Takei’s orientation within the past few years and I only think he went public with it recently. I’m pretty sure that he wasn’t “out” back in the mid-60s when Roddenberry was casting. I think even then gay wasn’t yet cool in Hollywood.
Even if Roddenberry did know, I don’t see how casting him was some kind of gay activism since the character wasn’t gay and the public didn’t know Takei was gay.
An equal consideration is the ability of the actor playing Spock. Besides Nimoy, I think only three actors ever “got” Vulcan: Mark Lenard, Tim Russ, and Jolene Blalock. They were able to figure out that Vulcans aren’t simply stonefaced, but that the emotions were very, very subtle.
I’m kind of bummed we never got to see the aftermath of Nemesis. What happens to the “new” Data?
Bender, Dom, I was just blown away to discover that Takei was gay, had been crusading for the Human Rights Campaign, just before my latest visit to my favorite conservative Catholic blog coincided with your discussion of Trek news. I apologize to Bender if my noting of this coincidence discomfitted him as a promotion of the gay agenda, because I must admit that I was bearding the lion a bit in that regard. But for what it’s worth Spock never seemed Satanic to me—other than that his name was a place on that of a pediatrician who dispensed a lot of dubious advice that I’m sure Dom and Melanie will ignore. As for what Roddenberry did or did not know or intend, Dom, the man is not around to explain himself, so I’m not about to put words in his mouth nor read over much in his actions. But the fact remains that Roddenberry quite deliberately made the show in general and the crew of the Enterprise in particular an argument for the acceptance of diversity, long before that term became a cliche.