Some spoilers about the latest Star Trek movie. You have been warned.
A few weeks ago I was at the latest Star Trek movie. This new movie takes an alternate Universe view of the original Star Trek series and creates its own timeline. Captain Kirk’s main nemesis, Khan, returns and almost destroys him. In what seems to me to be the ultimate lazy movie writing move, they take a classic scene from “Star Trek 2: The wrath of khan” and reverse it. Making Captain Kirk to be the one sacrificing his life while Spock looks on helplessly.
Hollywood and the entertainment industry is rife with “re-imaginings”, “re-launches”, and homages. Battlestar Galactica came back a few years ago in some ways improved but mostly it was not as good as the original. Doctor Who was relaunched and although it has held up well, I don’t like the fact that they seem to be focusing less on the writing and more on the likeability of the actors. In music a few years ago, Kid Rock took the classic Lynyrd Skynyrd ballad “sweet home Alabama” and incorporated it into his own song. This year the rapper Pitbull and Christina Aguilera did the same with elements from the 80’s hit “Take on me” by A Ha
Are there no original ideas left?
Well yes, plenty actually. But you won’t find them in the mainstream conventional media or big websites. You have to go out along the edges to find them. Eventually if enough people listen then the media bigwigs will try to exploit and market these ideas but it takes a lot to make them move.
Comics, once the purview of nerds, made a huge splash back the 1990’s. This opened up a wealth of new materials to share with the general public. But even here we see a dearth of originality. Both Superman and Spiderman have each been “relaunched” at least 3 times in the last thirty years. The special effects of course are better each time but does that alone justify these relaunches?
In some ways these relaunches make things worse. Negotiations allow the studios to alter the intellectual property to suit their needs. Director Michael Bay has been widely criticized for his Transformers series. Some say all he added were more explosions. Last year he was named Director for a relaunch of the “Teenage mutant ninja turtles” (TMNT) movie. A small insurrection broke out among fans when it was learned that he planned to change the origins of TMNT and make them into space aliens. Production on the movie shut down almost immediately. A contrite Bay spoke out and assured everyone that this was not going to happen.
My belief is that we constantly need to hear new ideas, concepts, stories, and songs. New ideas make the mind stretch, grow, and evolve in ways that we can’t predict. This should be something shared by all people. I don’t dispute that some things are classics and are worth revisiting. But we need to go out and find new things for our minds to ponder.
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