By most standards, I am considered something of a Star Wars die-hard, and my record of franchise loyalty - including home-made Jedi robes worn in high school, choreographed light saber battles, full-scale cardboard stand-ups of Boba Fett in the bedroom, and ownership of most every Star Wars novel, comic book, and video game released up until 2004 - proudly affirms this reputation. Yet something about the upcoming Star Trek reboot has really tickled my Wookie.
Although I never got into the original 1960s series - I was more of a Buck Rogers in the 21st Century kind of 8-year-old - I did go through my own Trek phase. (Hey, a kid could only watch The Empire Strikes Back so many times before the VHS tape wore out.) To date, my longest-running committed relationship has been with Seven of Nine from the Voyager series, and I've seen The Next Generation enough times to know that Deep Space 9 was no good. But as the times changed, this paradigm of cheesy science fiction lost its hold, and I realized that my heart was only big enough for one galactic saga. (After all, playing with plastic lightsabers is so much more fun than playing with phasers ... and unlike Trekkies, Jedi Knights don't need to use a holo-deck to get a date.)
So some 10 years later, I greeted the news of this "hip and bold" Star Trek remake with a mixture of detached nostalgia and shameful fascination - feelings which no self-respecting Star Wars fan should ever publicly express. Then The Heights assigned me to the film's press circuit, and in a telephone interview, Chris Pine (as future Enterprise captain James T. Kirk) and Zach Quinto (as the pointy-eared Spock) not only absolved me of my guilt, but also motivated me to articulate five good reasons why other Star Wars devotees should be just as excited.
1. Better than the prequels: Right off the bat, there is one painfully obvious reason why Star Wars fans should support their Trekkie brethren: because Episodes I, II, and III sucked, and blockbuster science-fiction needs some major redeeming. There were variations on the suck-o-meter, of course - Attack of the Clones made Revenge of the Sith look like Lawrence of Arabia in comparison - but none of them were what any sober viewer would call "good." J.J. Abrams' Star Trek, luckily, does not look to repeat the mistakes of its special-effects bloated rivals. While there are things that that die-hard Trekkies can look forward to, Quinto stressed that "non-fans can look forward to the fact that this is a movie that's much more about relationships and characters [than it is about] planets and starships and aliens." (So what, no Jar-Jar Binks?)
2. Trek Meets "The Last Lecture": Director J. J. Abrams gave Randy Pausch - the Carnegie Mellon Professor who famously gave his "Last Lecture" after a diagnosis of terminal pancreatic cancer - a cameo, because aside from being an inspirational figure, he was also a life-long Trek fan. In contrast, George Lucas gave the boy-band 'N Sync a split-second appearance in Clones, because his 13-year-old daughter begged him to. (On a brighter note, the pop stars were quickly annihilated by killer robots.)
3. Spock Likes Ewoks: Certainly no substitute for Yoda, Zack Quinto does at least seem poised to bring sexy back to the whole pointy-eared Zen-master persona - which has been sorely lacking since Frank Oz's classic green puppet last bowed in 1983's Return of the Jedi. Think of Spock as a much taller, slightly less mature version of the great Jedi Master. (Who also uses a lot more product in his hair.) Appropriately, Quinto confirms that as a child, "I was really, really into Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back." More importantly, Quinto also confessed to something with which all grown men can relate, but probably wouldn't admit: "Ewoks were my life for some time."
4. Hayden Christensen Isn't In It: 'Nuff said.
5. Han and Luke vs. Kirk and Spock: On this point I must strongly rebuke all things Trek, because Mr. Pine and Mr. Quinto had the audacity to state that, quote, "We kick their ass," in response to my question, "You guys, as Kirk and Spock versus Han Solo and Luke Skywalker, who wins?" For the honor of Tattooine farm boys and scruffy-looking nerf-herders everywhere, I urge anyone who takes issue with this statement to hop in their X-Wings (or Volvos) and invade this final frontier. Or if not for them, do it for yourself - because Star Trek looks to be the only thing going for all you guys still living in your mothers' basements playing Rogue Squadron. So until the Classic Trilogy comes out on Blu-Ray, consider me Beamed Up by Scotty
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