Color Me Disappointed

I mentioned in a recent post that I've been a major Star Trek fan since childhood.  I'm talking like complete full-blown Star Trek nerd, one who has watched virtually every episode of every series since TNG, with the exception of Star Trek: Enterprise.  I even had created my own Star Trek fan fiction series, one that I've tweaked and changed around quite a bit since I first came up with the idea when I was 18. 

You're probably now wondering if I've ever even seen a girl in my life, much less touched one.  The answer is yes and yes.  In fact, the fine young lass I'm dating now actually forgives me for my fanhood.  I have no plans to get her to become a Trek fan like myself, but she can have her Sex and the City as a trade off.

Anyways, back to Trek.  When J.J. Abrams (of Lost, Alias, and Fringe fame) was brought on board to direct the reinvention of Star Trek a few years ago, I was excited.  Trek needed a kick in the seat of its pants since it had been bogged down with technobabble nonsense and new age philosophies for the better part of 15 years.  I thoroughly enjoyed the final product of Abrams Trek, though it was by no means a perfect film.  In spite of the movie's shortcomings, I was looking forward to a sequel, which is now currently in production for release in May 2013.

From the first film's release, I read on plenty of movie message boards about where things would go in the sequel.  Lots of Trek fans clamored for the sequel to feature a reboot of Khan, who was arguably the greatest villain in Star Trek history.  He had been the primary villain in what was the best Star Trek film ever to date, 1982's Wrath of Khan.  From what I've read online, fans want to see what a rebooted Khan would be like and use him as the next film's villain.

Insert record-scratching sound effect here.

That's an incredibly stupid idea.  For a lot of reasons.  But in order to get to those reasons, let's look at Wrath of Khan first.

For starters, Khan was used in the original film as a sequel to an episode from the Original Series called Space Seed.  His entire backstory of his origins was detailed in that episode, so to get proper context to everything going on in Wrath of Khan, watching Space Seed helps big time.  Of course, such a complex set up can't be covered in a 2-hour film, which takes away from the dramatic punch in the original movie.

Second, all the major themes from Wrath of Khan can't be used this time around.  The film started off with Admiral Kirk having been away from the captain's chair on the Enterprise for several years.  He's a lot older and more mature than the gung ho captain seen previously.  He's never had to truly come face to face with death, and the training session in the opening of the film sets up for what happens later on.  Meanwhile Kirk has to come to terms with getting older in life, instead of fooling himself into thinking he's eternally young.

Then there's the major plot of Wrath of Khan, which centers around a technology called the Genesis device.  It was designed to be used on a dead target in space, like a moon.  When launched, it would reform the moon into a habitable planet over the course of several years.  New resources of water, plant life, and food would form.  However, if used on a planet that was already inhabited - like say, Earth - the device would then be a catastrophic weapon and wipe out anything currently living there before reforming the planet.

You can probably see how the Genesis device is a perfect dramatic fit with the themes of aging, life, and death in the film.

Now consider the new cast of the Star Trek movies.  They're all young, in their late 20s and early 30s.  They were purposely chosen as such as part of rebooting the entire franchise.  As a result, none of the themes of getting older, facing death for the first time, or being reborn can be used in this new film.  Khan himself won't be the ghost from Kirk's past coming back to haunt him.  Kirk won't have to face the kinds of sacrifices he faced in Wrath of Khan.  The entire emotional impact of that film won't carry over into a sequel in this new franchise if the writers chose to reboot Khan.

You can clearly see that I have been deadset against rebooting Khan.

What I'm getting to here is that yesterday official reports were made that the primary villain will indeed be Khan in the next Star Trek film.  Supposedly he will be a completely different version of the character compared to who he was in Wrath of Khan.  I don't know anything more than that, but I am still very disappointed and unhappy.

Okay, so the writers decided - and rightfully so - that there was no way to recreate the emotional impact of Wrath of Khan, given the complex backstories and arcs in the film.  Instead, they decided to take a name that's easily recognizable to Trek fans everywhere and slap it on a new version of him, even though this new version will have virtually nothing in common with the original.  If that's what they chose to do, why bother with doing a fan service at all and not just make him an entirely new villain?

The writers had the chance to start from a blank slate here.  They used the first film to set up this new universe and could have gone in any number of new directions.  Instead, they went back to the well for an easy sell to the fans.  I'll still see the film and hope for the best, but I am thoroughly disappointed at the lack of creativity here.