Rebooting an Icon: Why the Star Trek Movie is Important
If you haven’t seen the new Star Trek movie yet, surely you’re one of the few left. It grossed $72.5 million in its opening weekend, and if the buzz on the internet is anything to go by, that success is only going to continue through the summer. As someone raised in a family where Star Trek was practically a religion, I was both surprised and delighted to find that the Trek fan reactions within my social strata were overwhelmingly positive despite the liberties taken with the original canon and time line.
Of course, there are still plenty of hardcore fans out there who are displeased with what is becoming known as the “reboot.” It’s got me thinking about the validity of the complaints when held against the importance of revitalizing a franchise that has become an integral part of our cultural awareness.
Let’s face it: If you are a member of modern society, you knew about Star Trek well before this film was released. It is nothing less than an icon, and has influenced the science fiction genre in ways that few other canons have. There’s no denying that it is much beloved, and I can absolutely sympathize with the more hardcore fans who are maligning the vast changes being made in the new movie. When you cherish something so intensely, it’s difficult to see it changed into something unfamiliar. But at what point does being esoteric turn into stagnation?
Say what you will about the broad appeal of The Next Generation or the sundry Star Trek movies in the past, the fact remains that Trek hasn’t been mainstream since the initial run of the original series in the Sixties. At the time, it was a revelation, something so new and exciting. So much so that the genre expanded and changed because of it, a double-edged sword: We as viewers were given greater variety, but Trek itself was eventually just one of many programs pushing the same sort of sci-fi. At some point, it became less important and got lost in the shuffle. More of the same would be about as effective as not doing anything at all.
To my mind, simply letting the death knell sound for something this culturally relevant is a horrible disservice not only to the current fans, but future fans as well.
Keeping a canon fresh is a tricky business. Reboots are an even bigger gamble. Sometimes they work, sometimes they fail so miserably that we wish they could be stricken from our memory entirely (Godzilla, anyone?) Ultimately, though, success is measured in one way: Did it generate new interest in an old canon? If the widespread reactions I’m seeing are any indication, the new Star Trek movie is a rousing success. Old fans are renewing their love, new fans are excitedly jumping into the pool, bringing fresh ideas and enthusiasm. Sure, you can quibble about accuracy of characterization or deviation from How Things Were, but when compared to the fact that the world is falling in love with Star Trek all over again, it’s just small potatoes.
I am curious as to what you mean by culturally relevant, if the show hasn’t been mainstream for many years and is no longer an exciting shot out of the dark. Are you referring to its iconic status? I expect I will have to see it now so I can think about what it means as a piece of modern-day sci-fi!
@bzzinglikeneon
20 May 2009 at 9:09 pm Permalink
I don’t think that something has to be new and exciting to be relevant. For that matter, I don’t really think that something has to be iconic to be relevant, but in this instance, we’re talking about a program that has helped shape an entire genre and spawned its own sub-culture. You don’t get much more relevant than that, no matter how long it’s been. What I’m talking about here is acknowledgment on a broader scale.
And you should see it anyway! It’s a great film.
Well, influence felt through subsequent genre products is important, certainly, and it’s not like we’ve ever let Dracula for instance, go, so I definitely see what you mean about the usefulness of revisiting the seminal texts of a genre. But I tend to interpret relevance as the kind of thing about BSG that BSG evangelists trumpet, and the kind of thing TOS had with the first inter-racial kiss. My uninformed, trailer-based opinion of the new movie therefore casts it as more of an economic exercise, eliding the thematic significance of TOS and some of the great shows around these days for Transformers-style action glamour.
DGMW, I enjoyed Transformers! I hate to rain on parades, and the Quinto factor and what I’ve heard about what they do with Spock’s inner struggle do certainly make me curious.
@bzzinglikeneon
20 May 2009 at 10:09 pm Permalink
Well, and that’s fair enough, too, because it isn’t as if the studio would have made the film if they didn’t think they’d make money at it, and action glamor has a broad appeal. But I still think it’s important that the canon is being… well, regifted, in a way, for both the younger generations and people who’ve never really been exposed to ST beyond the ubiquitous cliches. I’m really enjoying the reactions I’m seeing from friends, who are excited to start watching some or all of the various canon for it. I think that’s the power of it, and studio motivation doesn’t really matter (Although really, big studio motivation is always going to be monetary.)
I love what you say about regifting, and it has warmed my cold heart to see everything on my flist and fandomsecrets etc about the revitalisation of the fandom. I think it’s awesome because of course I’m here for the love.
But I think I attach more legitimacy to reinterpretation (BSG being an obvious exemplar) as opposed to rebooting. I think the studio motivation does matter, because what is the purpose of it beyond making another first ST product with a younger hotter-according-to-today cast? It has certainly made the franchise economically relevant again, but how is this movie meant to be relevant to fan/non-fan audiences? In terms of acknowledgment in a broader sense, is that about a feeling of validation? (These are just my semi-rhetorical ponderings.)
Not sure how to reply on this thing, but addressing nigeltde question of relevancy, I think it’s at least done one thing that the original series did socially:
Initially Gene wrote Trek with an idea as showing that we, the human race, would not screw it all up and die and we did have a spiffy future to look forward too. Given the threat of nuclear destruction and such, according to my dad that PoV was a welcome change from a lot of PoV’s at the time.
Well I think this movie as that kinda timeliness. Since 9/11 we’ve gotten back around to that “will humanity make it” type thing and I think Trek has again come around and said “ok yes maybe, here is something to strive for.”
As Micheal Piller siad:
he strength of Star Trek depends on making people feel good about the future. Over the last ten years, the American public has turned to darker and darker science-fiction. But I think the fans love the parameters that Gene Roddenberry set for us, the ‘box’ that he put us in. It’s an intellectual challenge, but we have to stay in that box.”
And I think the movie proved that a viable formula to the Studios, after Insurrection kinda killed it.
And that’s were I think the movie really succeeded. It made big bucks giving Trek another chance and yet it stayed faithful to Gene’s vision of a more positive future, which previously had been what was being sacrificed more and more in the name of social relevance.
I do agree, though, that the progressive social elements are not there as much, and I hope that don’t sit on the laurels now that it takes more than having an Asian and a black woman on the screen to be progressive and really do new things.