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Your brother hates Sci fi. Why? Because Sci-Fi, historically, has been one of the forms of entertainment that requires you to actually think a tad to enjoy it. One of the best examples of this is a rash of movies that came out between the 60's and 70's. Planet of The Apes. Clockwork Orange. On the Beach. Dr. Strangelove. Johnny get your Gun and Catch 22 also fit in this period of films at the time but are not technically science fiction, all these movies, and the source material they were based on, asked the hard questions about society as we saw it at the time. Soylent Green. Omega Man. and Sci Fi light it may have been but it managed to convey that 40 years of Asimov you were talking about to a wider audience. Because it's easier to watch tv than to reada book for some people.
And I would disagree with you entirely regarding any relevant social questions Trek touched on after First Contact. Insurrection asked a couple of pretty big ones. At least before it turned to Gunfight at the OK Coral. Star Trek 10 Wrath of Shinzon I will grant you was pretty much crap in that respect, yes.
But Trek is just an example.
That said... disagree with me or not, it doesn't mean Trek is a good movie. Because it's not. Seriously why did you enjoy it? Why did your brother?
Is it well written? No. It's not.
Was a special effect extravaganza? Well no. Not really.
Is it well acted? Yes, honestly yes the cast really in't that bad. Except for Chekov, which has in and of itself become a cliche.
Is it funny? Well, yes. There's some funny stuff in there. witty dialogue.
Does it require you to think? No. It's pure kick splode look at the boobs. Hey suddenly Star Trek is interesting to a bunch of people who would never watch it before.
That's not a good sign, folks.
I'm going to say these two quick things about my brother very quickly and concisely
-He doesn't hate sci-fi for the "it makes you think" arguement. He just hates starships and robots and dealing with fantastical elements. He has no problem discussing the issues in front of us, and can converse quite clearly with his degree in Pre-med biology. He simply prefers to deal in the "here and now" if you will. Saying Sci-fi is the only genre that makes you think is a false arguement.
-What he saw in the new "Star Trek" film? I don't know, and will not presume to speak for him.
Now, you asked me what I saw in the film, and that I will answer. It was three things:
1) Unironic
2) Uniformly positive
3) Relevant to our times (and I didn't even realize this one until you put the question to me, so my sincere thanks)
So, now, in detail
1) It would have been SOOOO easy for the writers to go straight to hackville and take potshots at the underlying absurdity of Trek, the Federation, and its conventions. You know why I know that?
Because that's what people have been doing for almost as long as there has been Star Trek is pointing out the flaws in the premise.
BSG, Firefly/Serenity, Babylon 5, Farscape, Space: Above and Beyond and on and on and on (Switchblade Honey is an explicit ST parody) have taken great time and measure to explain how the future "will look nothing like Star Trek". So much so that it's become the default mode of thinking to say "Well, Star Trek is kitchy, but there's no way it can be like that," to be the starting premise of any given sci-fi series and to extrapolate from there. It would not be hard to imagine even a good writer falling into this trap and going for some ironically hip take in which Kirk (or some other character) has a deadpool-like hipster awareness of how ridiculous everything is and kicking the legs out of the concept as the film unfolded. That would have been the worst thing that could have happened, and I think on some level, we all know it. That they didn't, that they played it straight and didn't take the concept as some collosal joke to be mocked or dissected the way Morrison would (you can easily see Morrison taking time to dissect every possible inconsistency in the premise just to point out how crazy it all is) or just shitting on it in irony and sarcasm (like Mark Millar would) is to the credit of even JJ Abrams.
This leads into...
2) This was a positive movie with a positive message and positive portrayal of the characters. Or, everything current Marvel comics is not.
In an age where "movies that make you think" are universally dark and grim affairs (The Dark Knight, the Wrestler, etc etc), this was a movie that was a lighthearted fun that didn't make too much fun of the characters and showed them at their very best.
And let's face it, Sci-fi is hurting for positive portrayals of humanity in general, nevermind the future.
BSG - Humanity is fucked up and needs to live simply until it learns (somehow, without passing on the education I don't know how that would happen) to take responsibility and care for the technology it creates.
B5 - Humanity has to learn to play nice with others or we'll be bombed by the more advanced races until we do.
Farscape - Humanity is insignificant, until they learn how to grow up even a tiny bit.
Serenity/Firefly - Humanity fucked up the planet - decides to carry its baggage to other ones.
Terminator - we're gonna nuke ourselves and the rohbits will get-us!
and etc....not a lot of positivity there is there? Not like the crew as portrayed in Trek, including this movie.
How many parodies of Trek have portrayed Sulu as a glorified chauffeur or Chekov as a joke or Scotty as an ethnic stereotype run amok or Uhura as useless (Y HALO THAR GALAXY QUEST) or Kirk as an incompetent womanizer (Paging Zap Brannigan)? I've lost count.
That does not exist in this film. The characters are confident, cool, and hypercompetent. They are the best and brightest and they get the job done when no one else can.
Chekov's accent is played for a couple cheap laughs, but he manages to get not one but two moments where he shines for the rest of the crowd to see that he's a boy genius.
Sulu also gets a couple digs thrown at him but he makes up for it when he's needed and comes through in the pinch.
Uhura is smarter than just about anyone else on the ship (except maybe Spock) and she's not afraid to show it.
Scotty figures out something decades ahead of his time and utilizes it in seconds with nearly pinpoint accuracy (given the scale).
McCoy thinks fast on his feet when he needs to help his friends, and his loyalty is completely unwavering.
Spock and Kirk...well, that leads into my next point, but both of them are shown as smart, resourceful, and absolutely in the moment.
These are the crew of the Starship Enterprise and you better not fuck with them or they will fucking cut you. It's something we all know on some level, but this film brings it back to its roots at that Young men's space adventure pulp.
3) This movie was relevant to our time.
"There's no one coming for us" - That one line should have been repeated at least once every goddamn episode of
Enterprise. That it wasn't made into something core to the show, the idea that you are on your own so you better be resourceful, tough, and quick on your feet or you'll be sucking vacuum is but one of the reasons that show tanked. And in "Star Trek" its one of the first lines during the first scene with the
Kelvin. I admit, lifelong Trek fan that I am, I never really understood the necessity of something like Starfleet to a post-scarcity society like 23rd century Earth is, or why someone would feel the need to join such an organization.
This film showed me how it would work, but more importantly, WHY.
Because there isn't another choice. It's work together or die. Something that is made explicit in the Kirk/Spock dynamic. In effect, the entire second half of the movie is an expanded version of "the prisoner's dilemma" and posits that only a co-operative strategy will work. Remove Kirk or Spock from the equation, and the bad guys would have won.
In some ways, this is the core message of trek that maybe we need to pay attention to, and maybe we all need to step back and get some perspective on.
It's funny, I've mentioned the Postmodern Barney posts, and he has a gimmick right now called "Uncomfortable Plot Summaries".
Well, here's a (not-so short) version of this movie:
"Bi-racial child of a desert people learns to respect diversity and make friends with member of a tribe that subscribes to a radical philosophy in order to prevent genocide."
Or, if you really, REALLY want to stretch the metaphor (and I admit this is probably taking it a touch too far):
Nero = Osama Bin Laden
Vulcans = Moderate Muslims
Kirk = USA
Federation = Planet Earth/UN (if you are so inclined)
The core message of this movie isn't that Kirk is Federation Captain Space Jesus, but that it is the strength of diversity, of sharing a common cause despite the differences in philosophy, to become more than the sum of your parts, that is needed not just to survive, but to prosper. Not that humanity (Kirk) is better, or Vulcan, but that only the combination, the mingling, of the foreign and the familiar, and working together, will win the day.
And this is pretty much the point of the Kirk/Spock conflict and friendship. I've often wondered how two people with such wide gaps in their philosophies and approaches could be friends. In the OS, its shown to grow out of common experiences on the ship, built over years. This movie acknowledges that that will probably also be the case, but adds an additional factor - both men know that their planets and their respective philosophies, are too limited for them. In Spock's case it is made explicit during his scene with the Vulcan Science Academy, and Pike says as much to Kirk in the bar. That's their common ground; for all that they love their homeworlds and peoples, the stars are the only place that is big enough for them to exist in and to achieve their full potential.
So yeah, that's what I liked about the movie, and I think I've already said too much.
Michael