Star Trek – The Real Next Generation

Yes I admit it I’m a trek head, Trekkie, trek geek, whatever you want to call it, I’m it, except I’m not a fanatic. I’ve never been to a convention and I’ve never dressed up like a character for Halloween and don’t plan to either.

I have however been a fan of the shows, movies since TOS (Star Trek The Original Series) for the most part, I fell off a bit as I got older, and realized I mainly watched it because my dad would let me stay up a little bit later and hang out with him. I guess that was before the angst of growing up kicked in and hanging out with my dad was fun. As I got older and went through my teen rebellion years when it wasn’t cool to watch TOS, I fell back into the fold when TNG (Star Trek The Next Generation) hit the airwaves, more or less when I decided that i like it on my own and not cuz TJ Hooker was on it. I’ve been a Trekkie ever since then and have followed almost all of the series spin offs including DS9 (Deep Space Nine), Voyager, and Enterprise.

The other reason I was turned onto TOS and TNG, was because of the technical advances that the show presented, that were adapted into reality, Such as wireless remote controls, talking computers, and wireless phones, and none of them looked like a brick with a cable.Regardless of what many think the entire Star Trek brand led to many of today technical innovations that many take for granted, but that’s a story for another time.

So going into this as a trekkie I was a little apprehensive as the outcome of another reboot attempt, especially after seeing so many reboot/remake fail miserably a great example was Ang Lee’s Hulk. The other more or less worry was that the Star Trek curse, which basically states every odd number movie will fail horribly.

So with another summer of movies upon us Star Trek is the only one I’m exited to go see, in a close second is Transformers 2 and Terminator: Salvation, all of which are sequels and don’t really need any explains as to why they were made, Star Trek however is a reboot to an existing story, cast, pop icons.

The big question was how, and of course in great fashion within mere minutes of the opening scene I knew some what how this was going to play out, and without going into to great of detail for those who have not seen the movie I commend JJ Abrams, “Well played sir”. Thus the dreadful odd number curse has been slain or has it just jumped to some other odd ball sequence. I will say this, the way the story plays, it leaves open the doors to do so many different story arcs that the original series and movies could not due to continuation issues, that going back to some of the older version for a re-tell will just be seen as lazy.

To prevent such here is what i think would make a great movie…The Borg…and here’s why , thank Wikipedia

The origin of the Borg is never made clear, though they are
portrayed as having existed for thousands of centuries (as attested by
Guinan and the Borg Queen). In Star Trek: First Contact,
the Borg Queen merely states that the Borg were once much like
humanity, “flawed and weak,” but gradually developed into a partially
synthetic species in an ongoing attempt to evolve and perfect
themselves.

In TNG’s “Q Who.”, Guinan mentions that the Borg are “made up
of organic and artificial life […] which has been developing for
[…] thousands of centuries.” In the later episode of Star Trek: Voyager, “Dragon’s Teeth“,
Gedrin says that before he and his people were put into suspended
animation over 900 years earlier, the Borg were just a few assimilated
colonies inside the Delta quadrant and viewed somewhat like a minor
pain. Now awake in the 24th century, he’s amazed to see that the Borg
control a vast area of the Delta quadrant.

The Star Trek Encyclopedia speculates that there could be a connection between the Borg and V’ger, the vessel encountered in Star Trek: The Motion Picture; this is advanced in William Shatner‘s novel, The Return. The connection was also suggested in a letter in Starlog
#160 (November 1990). The letter writer, Christopher Haviland, also
speculated that the original Borg drones were members of a race called
“The Preservers”, which Spock had suggested in the original series episode The Paradise Syndrome might be responsible for why so many humanoids populate the galaxy. Coincidentally, in the novelization of Star Trek: The Motion Picture
(written by Gene Roddenberry), the V’ger entity notes that the Ilia
probe is resisting the programming given to it because of residual
memories and feelings for Decker. When V’ger becomes aware of this, it
is aware that “the resistance was futile, of course”.

And to even add to the twist, with Spock and Spock there, the federation should be progressing by leaps and bounds technology wise, so by the next film I would expect the old Enterprise to be mothballed for at least the Enterprise Refit or C, maybe even the E but that would be a stretch beyond belief.

Bottom line go see Star Trek, even if you never liked it before you’ll surprisingly pleased, and if you ever wondered what happened between TOS and TNG check out Star Trek New Voyages, a fan based production company keeping the Mission alive, even to the point of having some of the original cast members reprise their original roles.