Star Trek into Darkness

[circ_bamboo]

So yeah, of course I saw the trailer--the Japanese version with the extra fourteen seconds, natch--and of course I posted a link to Facebook, and within about 5 minutes I got a giant rant sent via a FB message (thank goodness for small mercies) wherein a friend of mine mansplained about how he hated what JJ Abrams did to the franchise because it used to be all about thinky things and have moral! points! but now it's just an action movie, wah.

feels_like_fire's comment was, "I hope you sent him back a big picture of a middle finger."

I did not, but I did send a comment that basically said, "Honey, my Trekkie Cred is at least as solid as yours [lie; it's way the fuck more solid, but I couldn't say that] and I've come to a different conclusion, but hey, we're all friends here and I respect your opinion."

Which I do, but I also find it funny that by and large, all the people I know who hate nu!Trek are male, and they all profess to hate it for highbrow reasons like the friend above, but I strongly suspect at least a few don't like it because it got popular and the fanbase expanded to include non-nerds . . . including women.

The other thing that bothers me is having my Trek cred questioned. This friend--and he really is a friend, I promise--really was mansplaining, not merely explaining, because clearly there was no way I could be enough of a Trekkie to, like, know what Star Trek used to be, back in the halcyon days of TNG or something.

First: I'm not a Trekkie because of the 2009 movie. I went to see the 2009 movie the day it came out because I was already a Trekkie. I watched TNG kind of when it aired (well, mostly I caught them in the first run of syndication), and I most certainly watched DS9 and VOY as they aired originally. (Didn't watch ENT. Still haven't.) I saw movies VII-X in the theater as well (I wasn't old enough to have seen them in the theater before then).

Second: It's kind of ridiculous to pretend that Star Trek as a franchise is some sort of pinnacle of artistic achievement. I know we all pick on ST:V a lot but, uh--there's a reason for that. That rule about odd-numbered Trek movies (until XI) being stinkers? Yeah, but even with one of the good movies, THERE WAS SLINGSHOTTING AROUND THE SUN TO SAVE WHALES. It's a lot of fun! There are a lot of good episodes and movies! I like Star Trek! But JJ Abrams couldn't ruin it (and I don't think he did, obviously), because it was, well, already ruined? (Not ruined. But you get it.)

Out of a little over 700, um, episodes plus movies, I'd say probably 10% are actually good, as in a cultural achievement/contribution to society/the genre/science fiction/literature, etc. The rest are distributed along the continuum from "entertaining but not particularly great" [ST:IV, for example] to "oh god, why did someone let that happen?" [see: the Wesley + Traveler arc, or Spock's Brain. No, really, Spock's Brain is kind of terrible.] That's fine. But let's not pretend that Trek is perfect.

Sorry, but I've been getting beat over the head with the Women are Not Nerds thing recently, and I'm blasted sick of it. I got made fun of in school for being a nerd, but now that I'm older, I either don't exist ("women don't do [X]!") or I'm not nerdy enough because I don't play certain video games. *sigh*

Comments

[imachar.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's such a douchey thing to do...in general the people I run into that might tend to think that way about women are students and they wouldn't dare challenge my nerd-cred, at least not to my face.

My rant for the day has been about the sheer amount of stupid on Tumblr since the trailer appeared, speculation is one thing, but speculating in defiance of the few things we actually know for sure about the film is just idiocy...and I could also do without the fandom war that's about to break out between the Sherlock and Star Trek fandoms over why people are excited about the film....kids...

[circ-bamboo.livejournal.com]

Ugh. feels_like_fire has been on me to get a tumblr and therefore not be left out of, you know, most of fandom these days, but maybe I'll wait until the stupid has died down and/or the Sherlock/Star Trek wars are over.

(Ha, ha. Fandom wars will never be over. *sigh*)

Spot on, Circ-Bamboo

[mayayuxwatl.livejournal.com]

I agree Circ-bamboo. However I also think "storytelling" is a lot different between tv shows versus movies, of course. In a tv series writers/producers can write some or many 'thinky shows' and arcs. Financial pressures on movies are a different animal - for sci fi, almost inevitably will a movie be very action oriented.

I have read in many blogs of late about certain male nerds being misogynistic jerks to women. Luckily I never run into that cuz I am a cranky middle aged woman who does not really interact with fanboyz much, if ever. If I run into one I might need to box his ears.

Re: Spot on, Circ-Bamboo

[circ-bamboo.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was kind of hoping that when I hit, like, 30, that the fanboys would stop being shits but alas, no. Oh well.

Your point about the TV-vs-movie issue is, I think, something they don't really get. I mean, okay, some of the Trek movies have been 'thinky' but not in the same way as even individual episodes.