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