The Star Trek makeover: Itjihad by a kafir?

Last updated on: May 7, 2013 at 6:36 pm by Svend White

The Star Trek makeover: Itjihad by a kafir? 2013-05-07T18:36:51-05:00 Svend White

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Thanks to Haroon Moghul's untimely reminder, I'm am now compelled to spend a morning frenetically switching back and forth between a curiously unchanging screen of C# code in Visual Studio 2008 and a browser with a dozen panes opened to all manner of Star Trek news and lore.

Deadlines and fatal errors be damned, this is Star Trek.

[For the sake of Pete, someone needs to invent a bank-style panic button that instantly throws an innocuous scene of industry and exclusively work-related thought on one's monitor when the C.O….err…boss makes his rounds. Preferably with a Blue Tooth-enabled foot pad.]

If you haven't heard of the upcoming Star Trek feature film, time to give Osama some extra room in that cramped cave in NWFP and rejoin civilization.

I'm looking forward to the inevitable technological and esthetic facelift that this mega-budget undertaking will provide the hallowed but proverbially cheesy TOS, but I am quite concerned about Mr. Abram's vision, his aqida if you will. Take a look at the below to see the depths of the heresy he spouts.

In fact, Abrams can sum up his regard for Trek in two words: Galaxy Quest, the 1999 hit starring Tim Allen that satirized Trek with painful precision. ''It's so ridiculous, so accurate, so sophisticated, it spoils the Star Trek universe,'' he says.

Plus, at heart, Abrams is still more of a Star Wars guy. ''All my smart friends liked Star Trek,'' he says. ''I preferred a more visceral experience.'' Which is exactly why he accepted Paramount's offer in 2005 to develop a new Trek flick; creatively, he was engaged by the possibility of a Star Trek movie ''that grabbed me the way Star Wars did.'' That meant a bigger budget and better special effects than any previous Trek film, plus freedom to reinvent the mythos as needed. ''We have worldwide aspirations and we need to broaden [Trek's] appeal,'' says Weston. ''Doing the half-assed version of this thing wasn't going to work.''

I'm open to pragmatic concessions to revive (let's be honest: belatedly establish) the popular appeal of the "franchise", but isn't this is akin to having "Chess: The Movie" made by a guy who's never progressed beyond checkers?

And, yes, I'm a high-brow snob in this regard. As much as I in my capacity as a patriotic red-blooded American male cherish Star Wars congenitally, it must be said that there are inexorable hierarchies in the natural world, and this is one of 'em. Even if you have a soft spot for the simpler life forms it doesn't make them any more complex.

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