Everything about the Trek movie still makes my skin crawl. Which weirds me out because I'm not sure exactly what it is I'm appalled by. I love the original show because I was raised on it, but I never cared about the spin-offs because they were boring and lacked fist-fights, and I wouldn't know about most of the canon violatons unless they were pointed out to me. So it's not that.

I've been trying to figure it out all day, and I think this is at least part of it: Star Trek is Not Cool, in some essential way. Star Wars can be Cool; Star Trek, no. Star Trek is about humanism and optimism and rationality and I believe those are good things, but they are not Cool things. So I see a trailer that is practically shrieking "this is cool and edgy and dude, Kirk is such a rebel, and he's even riding a motorcycle -- that's how damn cool this movie is!" And that really seems so anti-Trek that it offends me and makes me get all fangirly about it and then I hate myself.

But I must repeat that for all the flailing attempts at being cool, they kept the pajamas and miniskirts, and that's just fucking stupid. And somehow seems to encapsulate what's Wrong about the movie for me -- it seems like they totally missed what made a cheesy show iconic, and randomly decided the important thing was the uniforms.

[Also: I can occasionally identify TOS episodes by the planet. My brother's better at it. But I am awesome at recognizing episodes of Buck Rogers. Which is even dorkier, so thank you and good night.]

But I must repeat that for all the flailing attempts at being cool, they kept the pajamas and miniskirts, and that's just fucking stupid. And somehow seems to encapsulate what's Wrong about the movie for me -- it seems like they totally missed what made a cheesy show iconic, and randomly decided the important thing was the uniforms.

It's funny that you harp on this because a friend of mine was really glad they kept the uniforms. Heh.

Star Wars can be Cool

Not any more. I think Lucas made it impossible with The Phantom Suckage, Send in the Clones, et al.

Star Wars can still be cool if you've never seen the last 3 movies. Or the Thanksgiving TV Special... t shudder

Star Wars can still be cool if you've never seen the last 3 movies. Or the Thanksgiving TV Special...

And the lame new series and...

I think once the suckitude of a franchise outnumbers the coolness, the coolness is lost.

And two of those three could have been fixed -- or at least improved -- so easily.

Phantom -- Throw Jar Jar Binks out an airlock at the first opportunity.

Clones -- Dump the Padme/Anakin love story, make it strictly an action adventure movie starring Ewan MacGregor.

That was, perhaps, the most impressive display of geekery I have ever seen.

I can only add: "Holy shit! Consider the source!"

Actually, that would work for just about any flick. Dump the _________, make it strictly an action adventure movie starring Ewan MacGregor.

I think Lucas made it impossible with The Phantom Suckage, Send in the Clones, et al.

I said cool, not good. Star Wars is about teen angst and heroes and pirates and a literal rebellion. The characters have swordfights and mysterious destinies and must triumph over Evil. It is capital-R Romantic. The story values things that are cool.

Star Trek is about diplomacy and diversity and empathy and rationality. Its values are straight out of the Enlightenment. These are noble things, but they are not cool things.

It's like this: In Star Wars, if a robot is causing a problem, you slice it in half with a light saber. In Star Trek, you give it a paradox that fries its logic circuits.

The story values things that are cool.

I still think the three most recent movies miss on that point. Probably inevitably. Because they're really the exposition for the first trilogy. The rebels are the bad guys, and evil triumphs. The most angsty teen becomes the Big Bad, and we know it going in.