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I am not a Trekkie, but . . .

This post is utterly irrelevant to your life.

Star Trek opened, I think, May 7, and it just arrived at our little theatre last night; which is a small price to pay for not living in NY or LA, or any other crowded city. Anyway, I didn’t go. I’ll gladly wait ’til Monday night, when the theatre will be the least crowded. In the meantime . . .

I’ve always been down on people who see movies rather than read books. On one occasion, A Tale of Two Cities came up in conversation, and one illiterate cinemaphile commented, “Oh, that was a good movie.” It was only due to my advanced state of maturity that I kept my immediate reaction bottled up inside, where every good man keeps his emotions. Getting to the point, or nearer to it, at least, I avoid seeing movies based upon books if I haven’t read the book. What has this to do with Star Trek? Well . . .

I have a son who has picked up this tendency of mine, and multiplied it. He wants the original in all things. Like me, he dislikes abridged and adapted works. But he goes a bit further. He won’t see a movie remake without first seeing the original. If, by accident, he does see the remake first, he acts as though he’s been defiled. So, getting to the point — really, this time — we’ve been watching Star Trek. Thursday night, we watched Star Trek: The Movie; last night, The Wrath of Khan. Tonight, whatever comes next. Frankly, my dear, I don’t care. I think I’ve had enough.

I hadn’t seen any of the Trek movies before. The first was fairly mediocre, I thought. Khan was good. Before watching it, I felt compelled to watch Space Seed again. Even though I fell asleep halfway through, I felt I had met my moral obligation. The Wrath of Khan was much better than its predecessor. I did think it interesting that Khan remembered Chekov, who hadn’t yet appeared on the show at the time of Space Seed. Trekkies have no doubt argued at length about that, but it’s an easily-explained inconsistency, not really an inconsistency at all.

So Monday I will see the new Star Trek. My expectations are not high, having already discovered a major contradiction just from watching the trailer. If you care to see what that is, compare the trailer to A Piece of the Action. I hope I’m not too disappointed.