His pattern indicates two-dimensional thinking

He is intelligent, but not experienced.
His pattern indicates two-dimensional thinking

 Review of Star Trek Into Darkness

Directed by JJ Abrahms

Reviewed by Ernest M. Whiteman III

“Space, the final frontier….”

Star Trek used to mean something in the golden age of television. It was a joke to network executives and they cancelled it after its third season, sold off the rerun rights for cheap and in the intervening 20-odd years of syndication, went on to become one of the largest worldwide franchises with a tested and faithful fanbase that supported it to extreme ends. Hell, they even got a space shuttle named “Enterprise”.

One of the mainstays of the series, which is why many Nerds glommed onto it, was its particular use of actual scientific principles in the telling of the story. Yes, Star Trek is the start of the blurring line between Geek and Nerds. I just suddenly realized that.

For those of you who do not know, Gene Roddenberry had to severely dumb down his idea to get the pilot sold to NBC. Its original pilot episode (which never aired) “The Cage” was deemed “too cerebral”, “too intellectual” and that it was too slow with “not enough action”. It was rejected for series but a second more action-packed pilot was ordered and based on that, the series was put into production by NBC.

The original pilot was about the captain of the Enterprise, Christopher Pike being caged in a zoo and expected to procreate. So as you see, not too action-packed. It featured Jeffrey Hunter in the lead, with Majel Barrett as the second-in-command in a time when Women’s Lib was barely a movement. The crew and story was later integrated into the series in the two-part “Menagerie”, where Spock hijacks the Enterprise to save his friend and first Captain, Pike. Pike has since gone onto to mythical status in Star Trek lore.

I must say here that I am in no way ‘nostalgic” for the 1982 Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. While I do hold it up as the best of the Star Trek movies, I can easily state that it is general “nostalgia” for the movie that ruins the current Star Trek Into Darkness. The branding of the new Star Trek movies has reached an absurd level that the movie itself I could not take serious at all.

“Star Trek Into Darkness” is the follow-up to 2009’s “Star Trek” which was a sort of continuation/reboot of the Star Trek film franchise. First of all, Benedict Cumberbatch is Khan Noonien Singh. I am not spoiling anything with that, I mention it now because it adds absolutely f*ck-all to the movie. It means nothing. Except that maybe Oh-VER uh-NUNN-see-AY-SHUN takes the PLAYs of ACH-ting. (Purse your beak.)

So, we begin with a quick-paced race to save Spock’s life from an erupting volcano, which leads to Kirk getting demoted because Spock would not lie for Kirk. They are not friends yet.

A terrorist attack on a TOP SECRET SECTOR of Starfleet (read: conspiracy) leads to the possibility of militarizing Starfleet which leads to another attack that kills off my favorite character in the Rebootiverse: Pike. Which leads to Kirk and Spock tracking Khan to Klingon space. Because revenge. (And so we can finally see the New Klingons! And they look… just like Klingons… huh.) They end up capturing Khan which leads to the revelation of the conspiracy to militarize Starfleet which means that Starfleet was complicit in those said attacks to accomplish that. Still with me? Good. Because all of this mean f*ck-all as well.

They go attack the escaped Khan who blasts the hell out of the Enterprise because we loves us a space ship battle. People get double-crossed. Then Kirk saves the crippled Enterprise by irradiating himself and effectively, well, MOSTLY killing him and Spock gets to scream KHAAAAAAN this time and fights Khan on a moving something before realizing that Khan’s magic blood can save Kirk and all of this leads up to them being friends. Finally.

Told you all that conspiracy nonsense meant nothing. Too bad all those people had to die in those attacks just to make sure that Spock cannot quit Kirk. Going through non-stop action takes the place of character building I guess. They are exactly the same people after the events of the movie as at the beginning but they are simply friends now.

That is it in a nutshell.

All of the charm and goodwill gained with the first movie is completely lost on an unimaginative, empty follow-up. It is like wearing a fantastic Spider-man shirt to school and everyone thinks you are cool. So, you wear it over and over again.

For the longest time, Bad Robot and JJ Abrams told the public that they would not rehash Khan in their new Rebootiverse and that we might get something, dare we say, original. Fans of the television show were happy that while this might not be “their” Star Trek, the public can now see what they have seen this whole time: a science fiction series that proliferated that idea that the best of our humanity was still ahead of us and should be something to strive for and how it affects our exploration of the cosmos and dealing with new life and new civilizations without the shackles of our worst instincts and without the shackles of past TV and movie continuity. We would boldly go and explore strange new world with these new movies that now have a modern sensibility that could capture the imagination of the youth of today and steer them to question and inspire them to explore without the shackles of our worst instincts.

What we got instead was a well-made piece of pop nostalgia branding with lots of s’plosions. The series is dumbed-down once again to appeal to a bigger audience. JJ Abrams shows some real skill in making a movie but shows little understanding of the series he is making. Hence the quote describing Khan, which is quite apt here, “He is intelligent, but not experienced. His pattern indicates two-dimensional thinking.” JJ does not understand the series he supposedly “saved” and why it had a specific appeal.

When I was growing up I was called a “Math Nerd”. I never gave that label to myself. I earned that from the ire of fellow schoolmates by being at the top of the class in all my math classes at St. Stephen’s Indian High School. “Fucking nerd,” they would say when I refused to let them cheat off me. Believe me, there was once a time when being called a Nerd was NOT a good thing. It was a passive-aggressive attack on your intelligence and self-esteem. It was meant to humble you to the point of actually wanting to stop being smart and being absorbed into the regular crowd and that give an excuse for others to beat up on you and make fun of you. But I liked math too much, as much as I loved reading, drawing, movies and comic books. I was a nerd in math and English and a geek about movies and comics.

Lately, there seems to be this pervading usurpation of term “Nerd”, which I feel, stems from this egotistical need to look both humble and intelligent at the same time without really accomplishing the intelligence. Now, look at the first 42 seconds or so of thisvideo as it sort of sums up the issues rather well. You can tell that this guy was probably never called a Nerd in his life. (Or maybe he was as a child, I don’t know.) But no one would ever call him one now. But because of his admitted love of comic books, for some reason he is allowed to take up that title. He calls himself "a nerd" simply because he likes Batman.

Milhouse from “The Simpsons” had the correct definition of being a geek versus being a nerd. “Nerds are smart”. Geeks tend to be geeky about specific things that have nothing to do with intelligence (Or, higher intelligence, to not be insulting.) – comic books, movies, sewing, costuming, D&D, science fiction, fantasy, board games, action figures, swords collecting, trading cards and the list goes on. Hobbies. Nerds were only into one or two things that had a lot to do with math or sciences, with intelligence – chemistry, astronomy, physics (both theoretical and applied), computer technology, calculus and so forth. All are subjects that deal with knowledge and intelligence and they were outcast due to their devotion to such subjects.

But somewhere along the way we mixed both of them together and because we did, when certain people find themselves “into” such things as comic books, sci fi and the like, they feel qualified to call themselves nerds though that label has no bearing. We should be doing away with labels all together but there is also this thing out there: the egotistical victimhood of fighting a status quo. (Which I will write more about in a future edition of Wisdom of the Sages and how it pertains to Native American identity and protests.)

Remember when Congress was holding hearings on that Internet Piracy Bill? They wanted to understand how the Internet worked and would state things like “It’s time to call the nerds in to explain this.” Remember? Well, they we actually using the label right because it was attached to a form of education and science and it was used to insult the intelligent. Can you imagine that guy in the motorcyle video showing up and saying “I’m a nerd ‘cause I likes comic books.”

See my point?

Even now, celebrities tend to garner attention for being into The Avengers or Star Wars or all those ladies who dress like Wonder Woman or Slave Leia from “Return of the Jedi” or jocks wearing Boba Fett shirts or hipsters wearing Power Rangers tees (But can never tell you their favorite story line from the comics or shows). It is all a façade to boost our egos into trying to look like humble little nerds that like science fiction without ever having to crack open a real science book.

My solution: do away with both labels and let people be into what they are into without invoking ire or causing those to be outcast simply because they are smarter than the rest of us. Which is another reason we are usurping that title. Our society is on a downward curve, it is actually dumbing down in almost all arenas of society and it is simply too difficult to be smart. We would rather hide behind superstition and myths rather than face the real world.

Now, I know what you are thinking right now. You read most of this before. Also, with such a great build up to getting a good, in-depth review about the new Star Trek movie, all I gave you was shallow, sarcastic fluff piled on top of something you already were familiar with.

Congratulations!

You got exactly what I got out of Star Trek Into Darkness.

Do Not Recommend.

2013 Ernest M. Whiteman III