Reboot! -whap-
It’s pretty easy now to find copies of the J. Michael Straczynski and Bryce Zabel proposal for re-booting Classic Trek. This series would not have had to deal with 40 years worth of continuity unless it wanted to from time to time, and would have had technology more believable to the 21st century viewer; as well, it could have been interesting to see new actors and scriptwriters putting their spin on Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. (The authors even throw out the idea of a female Scotty or Sulu, just to cut down on the sexism a bit.)
But would it have been Star Trek?
I don’t actually have a problem with a single revision they suggest – lots of it would have been quite interesting, and I think their season arcs had much more potential than Enterprise‘s. No; what I’m worried about is the current angst-ridden quality of Sci-Fi right now, and the idea that this show would bring that to Star Trek. That simply doesn’t work right.
Star Trek‘s main message was: “If we ever get a grip on ourselves, the future’s gonna be great.”
TNG: “In fact, with a little more time, it’ll be even shinier and comfier. Though we will talk a lot.”
DS9: “And once in a while, we’ll have to make nasty decisions and put ourselves on the line to keep what we’ve worked for. Worth it, though.”
(Then things came apart a bit)
VOY: “Of course, this future society will produce a few spoiled brats who, in a crisis situation, will manage to be smug and whiny simultaneously. Hell, let’s look at boobs and funky alien tech for a while.”
ENT: “And for a while there, we were just whiny, and everyone in the universe hated us and had cooler toys. Wow, we sucked.”
—–
While the main message of B5 and the current BSG seems to boil down to, “Humans (and the aliens who are like us) suck. We’ll muddle through somehow, but we suck now and forever. Deal with it.” Perhaps, a more realistic message, but I’d prefer to fight for the great shiny future, myself. Would this Star Trek be a gritty, realistic, angst-ridden examination of the flaws of humanity? If so, I don’t think I’d want any part of it.
“Quick – put up some shelves.”
While watching the 2005 season finale of Doctor Who with Rain the other day, something struck me. The Doctor carries a tool he calls a “sonic screwdriver”. About the size of a regular screwdriver, this tool emits sonic (and perhaps other) waves which can manipulate small mechanical and electronic objects. It’s most commonly used as a lockpick, but it’s been shown as a welder / unwelder, circuit modifier, computer reprogrammer, medical scanner, and (on rare occasions) a screwdriver.
He started using it in the Sixties, in his second incarnation, and continued well into the Eighties, when it was destroyed by an enemy of the Fifth Doctor. Sources in the BBC production team revealed that the device was causing the writers trouble when they wanted the Doctor locked up or otherwise frustrated by mechanisms. While I can’t remember if the Eighth Doctor used one during his movie, the Ninth and Tenth do so regularly, and I think with good reason. Someone at the BBC seems to have realized a fact:
Locked doors are boring story telling.
The sonic screwdriver is in fact a boon to the program: when there’s only 45 minutes of story, it’s a wise move to get past the locked doors and computer codes, and move on to the part where the Doctor must deal with other people and nasty decisions.
Besides, since the tool’s never too clearly explained, you can always have the door that the sonic screwdriver just won’t open.
(Brion Fields of Space Rogues keeps a sonic screwdriver in a pocket of his jumpsuit. Where he got it, I don’t know; and it was intended to be a subtle in-joke, not fill half the frame in an early scene.)
Getting it right
In the first episode of the 2005 Doctor Who series, Rose tries to find out something about this strange Doctor she’s met. Clive the conspiracy theorist tells her that he has one constant companion – Death.
Clive has a point. Though the Doctor usually prevents bad situations from getting much much worse, there’s no doubt that people drop like flies while he’s around, and that’s been the case throughout the 44-year history of the series. It’s strongly implied that just before he met Rose, the Doctor was partially (if, perhaps, accidentally) responsible for the death of his entire race.
So, for me, the scene in Friday’s episode where the Doctor begs the Chula nanogenes for one tiny miracle – one day where no one dies because he wasn’t a little faster, a little smarter, or a little luckier – is poignant as hell. Imagine the guilt that a compassionate man would carry after 900 years of not quite getting 100%, wondering if maybe he could have made it all work a little better.
Then, see the look on Eccelston’s face as this time he gets it right. For once in all his centuries, no one has died on his watch, and there are no horrors which are even partially his fault. Eccleston plays it beautifully, and maybe this is just a TV show, but it’s moved me every time I’ve watched it.
On the other hand, my geek cred is eroding a bit. 5 episodes into the new season, I haven’t managed to find time to watch even one of them. Oh well.
Fact-checking
I just found an entry on Star Trek: TNG from “TeeVeePedia, the Internet TV Encyclopedia”.
Highlights:
“Star Trek: The Next Generation is set more than 100 years in the future from the original series, when […] the toupee technology employed by the original series’ Capt. James T. Kirk has been banned following the Hairpiece Wars of the late 23rd century.”
“Wesley Crusher (Wil Wheaton): An instant hit among fans, the character of young genius Wesley Crusher became so popular that Wheaton was forced to leave the show in its third season, after producers could not meet his skyrocketing salary demands.”
“Guinan: Whoopi Goldberg portrayed the Enterprise’s bartender, the last surviving member of a race that went extinct after being devoured by their own enormous, sentient hats.”
Making adaptations
It has always been a good thing for my spare time that World of Warcraft won’t install on my laptop. (Actually, I did make it install one time, but only got one video frame every 4 seconds or so, so off it went again.) Unfortunately, Monday night a friend’s casual reference reminded me that the laptop’s specs were well up to another piece of software, and last night, I put Starcraft on it. Maybe now I can finish the darn Terran campaign and play the other two-thirds of the game.
Blizzard does not own me. But I think it’s trying to acquire controlling interest.
The conspiracy theorist in me wonders if Alan Moore and the Wachowskis have manufactured this little tiff they are having just to make sure V for Vendetta retains a brighter blip on the geek radar. As someone recently pointed out, any author who has sold thousands of copies of professional fanfic (I refer to League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on when bitching about other creative folks modifying their characters and storylines.
You know, a book is not a movie is not a comic is not a TV show. They all have different rules and must make adaptations if they are to flourish in a changed environment. “Spamalot” is hardly a scene-for-scene copy of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, for example. If SciFi ever makes that rumored miniseries of “Ringworld”, they’ll have to change quite a bit to keep a good novel from being very dull television. (Knowing SciFi, they probably won’t – they’ll follow the advice of some uber-fan who wants a line-by-line copy.) I wish fans were better at judging material on its own merits, instead of what they wanted the material to be. (I also wish more fans understood the difference between “This is poor quality” and “I personally don’t like this much.”)
Speaking of which, some website recently applauded the Enterprise-D as one of the most iconic spaceships in visual science fiction, making the note that “not a lot of thought was put into the original television Enterprise.” I hope the ghost of Matt Jeffries hunts this person down and explains a thing or three to him.
Somebody call Lunch Rescue
Last night, for no clear reason, my energy levels just evaporated. I had plenty of food, caffeine, and good company… but suddenly I just wanted to lie there, watch TV, and then go to bed. This morning was the same… I had to drag myself from bed to shower to desk. I only now feel like my head is clearing and my body is beginning to function again.
The main fallout from this is that my lunch for today is still sitting at home, neatly packed on top of the kitchen pantry.
D’oh.
I did get to watch our recorded copy of Thunderbirds over the holidays. Frankly, I expected it to be remarkably lame, but it wasn’t bad. There were some minor issues, but the production design was great – when the kids were climbing over the auxiliary craft, the vehicles all looked like Gerry Anderson models blown up to life-size – and the actress playing Lady Penelope understood that she was supposed to have fun with the role. I’d pick up the DVD eventually, even if the hardware didn’t get enough screen time.
Welcome 2006
Been away for a while, again. December was a rough month for me; one of the high points was the sinus infection that kept me feverish, nauseated, and flat on my back for all of Christmas weekend. On the other hand, raininva trumped her Valentine’s Day gift to me with an even more geeky present: a 30GB iPod video. Dang, but that thing is small. It’s full of anime and British SF right now, but even with video-on-the-go I never have time to watch anything right now.
Back in April, I barely resisted a rant about SF fans and reviewers. However, this review of the “Starship Troopers” novel pushed the rant to the surface again.
Trivia
I hadn’t realized until someone pointed out today that the actor playing Barty Crouch, Jr. in Goblet of Fire is the same person playing the Tenth Doctor in the 2006 Doctor Who series. But then, I can really be bad with faces sometimes.
And he looks *dang* good for 68, too
Halloween’s a holiday dedicated to things that aren’t what they seem, so it’s a bit appropriate that George Takei is choosing it to come publically out of the closet.
http://www.frontierspublishing.com/features/feature_second.html
Good for him! I can’t help thinking that some of the people involved with RoVaCon way back when would have been less excited about inviting him had they known… but that’s far in the past now.
I haven’t decided yet what to wear to Mandy & Krys’ party tomorrow night. I do wish VTSFFC Halloween wasn’t 5 hours away. I also wish Rain didn’t work Saturdays and Sundays, making a 2- or 3am Rocky Horror evening this weekend a bit impractical.
In good news, Rain welcomed me home last night to a spotless living room lit by candles, served me an excellent dinner, and snuggled down with me for a romantic evening of TiVo’d MythBusters. (Hey, mad science is too romantic.) It was a good way to wrap up the day.
