Re: nerding/re-nerding

My wife and I have been re-watching Star Trek: Deep Space 9, starting right from the very beginning. I initially imagined I’d cherry-pick episodes until the final three seasons when continuity and quality seemed to finally gel into narrative satisfaction. But to my surprise the early episodes stand up much, much better than I remembered.

Back in the day, the stereotypes seemed painted with a broad brush — Odo and Quark, particularly. The way I recollected it René Auberjonois flat-footed the security constable Odo as recognizably gruff but lovable, while Armin Shimerman played his Ferengi character as recognizably weaselly, cunning, amusing — two very fine actors in gobs of latex, Kabuki-playing for the paycheque while the writers got a better feel for the characters and rounded them out in future seasons.

"Shall I lead the next dance?"

Turns out the relationship between Odo and Quark is, right out of the gate, a nuanced exploration of power dynamics between Law Enforcement and the Ambitious-if-occasionally-criminal Entrepreneur. Current qualms regarding policing and the populace get a sensitive rendering on two very different sides of the fence in the portrait of these two “aliens” — provoking deeper thought than might, say, a cop show exploring the dynamic between a Latino officer pestering a Black street hustler in Baltimore.

And that’s just one hot-button topic that hasn’t grown any cooler in the intervening decades. There’s also colonizer/post-colonized relations, religion/science/secular education tensions, gender and racial dynamics and a host of other fraught subjects explored — humanely, with subtlety!

ST:DS9 is, effectively, something I can enjoy even more than I originally did because of the current cultural moment.

Be that as it may, another new Star Trek now drops: Lower Decks. At NYmag Angelica Jade Bastién wants to love it, but has misgivings. Personally I gave up early on Discovery, haven’t bothered at all with Picard, and hold the forthcoming Strange New Worlds with suspicion earned from franchise mishandling of Discovery. But animation is its own interest with me, so I may yet tune in.

Also: over at MEL Tim Grierson reconsiders “a Star Wars movie you probably don’t remember” — Star Wars: The Clone Wars. In fact I DO remember it — I took my daughter out of school so we could catch an afternoon matinee. I dozed off for a few minutes, as is inevitable in any afternoon, but my daughter loved it. And I loved the TV series that followed. “For (some), Ahsoka and Rex were as important as Han and Leia — or Rey and Kylo Ren.” So far as I am concerned? Ahsoka and Rex is the only realized relationship in the entire franchise.

I never dreamed I'd live to see the day when the President of the United States is ...

... a Trekkie! I love it.

Promisorry Notice

Life gallops on, with or without blog-worthy thoughts. Thoughts, I've had a few; but then again, too few to mention.

The most stellar of them gravitate, as they are so prone to do, around Star Trek. Every so often, in the midst of that gooey cheese fondue that passes for space opera, there are a few lines that really sing. Or maybe they just settle in my consciousness like grit inside an oyster.

Or maybe they beckon like pearls before a swine.

"I don't like where this is going..."

Alright, enough of the metaphors. The line I've been mulling over, from time to time these last few days, occurs late in the sixth Star Trek movie, The Undiscovered Country. Spock, discovering that his disciple (played by a pre-Sex Kim Cattrall) has, under the sway of a peculiar strain of logic, betrayed him, his ship and his beloved Federation, declares (rather angrily): "Logic is the beginning of wisdom — not the end of it."

Ah, but that makes the old heart goes pitter-pat. For one thing, any peek behind his impassive mien, and his devotion to Vulcan principles, is welcome. More than that, it's hard not to get goosed by the script-writer's ballsy, and very conscious tweaking of the Judeo-Christian code: "The fear of The Lord is the beginning of wisdom" (from Psalm 111:10 and Proverbs 9:10). It's also a very pointed tip of the hat to Gene Roddenberry, that Great, determinedly Humanist, Bird who got the whole (*cough*) enterprise going.

There are nuances and ironies aplenty to explore — but not tonight. Too much on my plate, my friend. Content yourself, if you can, on previous provocations. I'll be back.

Led Zeppelin IV, A 33 1/3 Book By Erik Davis (With Just A Dash Of Star Trek Thrown In)

Back at the Wilshire Pedro sits there dreaming
He’s found a book on Magic in a garbage can
He looks at the pictures and stares at the cracked ceiling
“At the count of 3,” he says, “I hope I can disappear . . .” — Lou Reed, "Dirty Boulevard"

“Rock and roll owes its life to the power of the commodity fetish” — Erik Davis

When I was 12 or 13 it wasn’t uncommon for me to pick up a magazine devoted to Star Trek and spend the better part of an evening simply staring at the pictures. I also bought the comic books, and pored over the newsprint until the books fell apart at the staples. Once, I even saved up money for a model kit that featured the tricorder, communicator and phaser. When I finally got it home, it proved to be far and away the crappiest model kit I’d ever purchased. I’d had snap-together kits that were more challenging — and better looking.

The dodgy comics and models could have served as a wake-up call. Instead, as I grew older the market provided ever more sophisticated items for me and my similarly smitten friends to purchase and ponder. I had a buddy who favored the blueprints and technical manuals. I preferred the photonovels — cut-and-paste comic books made from prints of actual episodes. Someone’s kid brother bought the wonky action figures, similar enough to the execution of my models that we held up them up to braying ridicule.

We gave the entire pantheon our critical consideration. When all was said and done, these items all served as a means to the same impossible end: to get us closer to The Thing Itself. Like the kid who opens Goodnight Moon to his favorite page, then sets it on the floor and stands on it, that wacky juror who walks into court in her Starfleet uniform just wants to be inside Star Trek. *Sigh*: c’est moi, mes amis. C’est moi.

Until I read Erik Davis’s inspired 33 1/3 meditation (A) on Led Zeppelin’s fourth album (IV, ZOSO, what-have-you) it had never occurred to me to dub this sort of longing as “spiritual.” It certainly wasn’t sexual. Although, mind you, Uhura or Yeoman Rand in a red mini and black leather boots were admittedly stirring figures. As was Yvonne Craig, painted green and dancing sinuously in a few scraps of fabric. Then there was that robot girl with the bright, uh, eyes . . .

Alright, so it was sexual. But that wasn’t the whole of it, not by a long shot. There was the technology, the exotic environment, the bonhomie, the adventures and their physicality, the cogent possibility of experiencing genuine fulfillment at the end of a given challenge — a large, engulfing sensibility that was akin to true life, and yet Something Other than actual experience.

So too with Zep’s fourth album. As Davis makes abundantly clear, you can click over to iTunes and download the songs, but listening to those music files through a pair of earbuds doesn’t even begin to evoke the experience of that album’s power in its particular time and place. The music is about noise and sex, sure. But there was a time when the gatefold art, the mysterious symbols, the off-puttingly ambiguous lyrics — even the vinyl itself — combined to conjure an experience that wasn’t just provocative, or even evocative. To paraphrase Coppola’s early enthusiasm for Apocalypse Now, this album wasn't a rock 'n' roll album. This album was rock 'n' roll.

I find Davis’s treatment of the subject matter delightfully adept. He’s quick to identify and brush away the manifold silliness that accompanied (and was frequently generated by) the band and the album. But he’s also fundamentally serious about the group and the musing (and muses) that produced this deeply appealing and inescapable monument of Rock. He performs a fabulous balancing act between critical thought — that post-spiritual apple that finally removed me from my Trekkie Eden — and a suitable receptivity to the possible.

Now that I've finished the book, I want more. I want the LP, I want to read Davis' other work, I want to re-read this book, I want Davis to write a sequel, I want . . . I want!

Wait a sec: how'd I wind up back in the Garden?

Post-script: if this is a little too much Trek for you, blame it on Joel.

Another Family "Star Trek" Discussion

Me: Girls, we've gone and seen the movie four times. Surely we don't need the DVD?

Daughter 1: Dad. Wait: are you kidding?

Daughter 2: Bonus material, Dad. Bonus material.

J.J. Abrams' Star Trek

Well, this is . . . interesting. Star Trek, the television-turned-multimedia franchise that thoroughly wore out its welcome on all fronts, has been resurrected by two writers and a television director who take continuity — the foundation of sand on which the franchise narrative is based — as their starting point. The movie might as well have begun with a rolling script that said, “Attention Trekkies: You now have a new Kirk, Spock, and McCoy who are markedly different from the ones you grew up with on television. Here is how that happened.”

It’s all Back To The Future plotting, which, when scrutinized too closely, raises more questions than it settles. It's also a bizarrely astute strategy for getting Trekkies on side. We argue about this stuff over weekends in convention centers the whole world over. A series writer takes the podium, his trembling hand lifts a glass to his lips, and we preface our questions with, “I know I’m not supposed to take this so seriously, but isn’t it a problem when . . . ?” Groups of us move these discussions to neighborhood pubs where eventually the most ardent of us concede that none of this makes a lick of sense but we still like it anyway. And we LOVE IT whenever writers/directors/producers demonstrate that they’ve been paying attention.

Attention has been paid. Like most of the people in the audience I thought there were moments when the crew members had been updated with appreciable improvement. I was especially fond of Uhura’s* steely, smart-girl impatience, and Chekov’s** nerdy enthusiasm. Chris Pine’s Kirk is still figuring out how to employ his charm for nobler purposes than pantie-removal. He’s clearly got some daddy issues, but boy is he surprised to discover a Vulcan with an even bigger chip on his shoulder....

And so it goes with the rest of the crew. We recognize them, and their actors seem to recognize a few motivations we somehow missed while watching all those repeats. Most of us, including me, want to see more. But unlike most of the audience, I sighed whenever a character’s catch-phrase was trotted out. Was this really what we wanted to rescue from the old universe to dress up the new one?

You’ll notice I haven’t revealed the movie’s plot, or said anything especially profound about character development. There is a plot of sorts, and some basic character development, but nothing that really sticks to the ribs. Abrams & Co. were primarily concerned with enticing a jaded audience back into theaters, and re-launching the franchise. Between revved-up action sequences and deliberately "borrowed" slapstick scenes from Galaxy Quest (a movie I insist you watch if you haven't yet) they pretty much got the job done.

If this was the first episode of a new television series I’d be ecstatic. But as this is the first of a new movie series, I’m afraid I remain reserved. In two or more years we’ll get another Star Trek installment. And in the Star Trek universe, yesterday’s movie is only as good as tomorrow’s.

*Zoe Seldana
**Anton Yelchin

Anticipating Star Trek: It's Deja Vu All Over Again

I've just finished reading the comic book prequel to this weekend's assured block-buster. Because I have had been so merrily public in my sneering at Paramount and Abrams, I believe it behooves me to confess: I'm getting pretty stoked!

Second confession: the comic is a hoot.* It has managed to set the stage more sumptuously than any of the trailers have, because it's the first thing I've seen that persuades me the writers are up to the task. Yep: it's deja vu all over again.

The last word goes to The Onion.

*The franchise treatment of time travel remains laughably superficial, but it's much too late to correct any of that now. All we can do is hope the next movie resurrects Edith Keeler.

The Art of Persuasion

I remain disenfranchised with the current efforts to revive the Paramount Star Trek franchise, but even so I have to admit: this is a stroke of viral marketing genius! (Thanks, Scott!)

Today's Kirk-Spock Mash-Up

Every bit as brilliant as this one, and AMSFW -- Altogether More Suitable For Work (so long as the volume isn't too high, and you're not dancing to it).



Via boing-boing.