Oh, All Right....
May. 16th, 2009 11:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ladyspriteI have long ago realized that I'm not a Star Trek fan. I'm a science fiction fan in general, though to be honest my tastes run more towards fantasy than SF, and I'm a Next Gen fan - it was the major genre TV show available when I was in high school, and it gave me something to watch and talk about with my fellow F&SF fan friends. But multiple attempts to introduce me to other parts of the franchise have repeatedly met with failure. I've seen maybe two episodes of original Trek, and about the same for every other incarnation, and none of them have really appealed to me.
I'm okay with this, though several of my friends have repeatedly tried to convince me that if I just try harder, or watch more episodes, that eventually I will come to love DS9/Voyager/the movies. (Unsurprisingly, noone has tried to convince me that I could ever come to love Enterprise; not even my devoted Trek-fan husband.) While I'm sure it's technically possible, I've got better things to do with my life than spend hours on end watching a show I don't enjoy in the hopes that someday it'll become fun.
So, when the new movie came out, I wasn't all that eager to see it. I didn't have anything against it; it's just a movie, and not worth spending any energy opposing or disliking. But I didn't feel the need to expend any effort, time, or money watching it. On the other hand, I also realized that for reasons of cultural literacy alone I'd need to see it eventually. So I figured I'd get it over with, and went to go see it tonight.
And I spent the first half hour full of an uncomfortable combination of confusion and smug amusement, asking my husband pointed questions about the questionable logic of Vulcan architecture and the casting of Winona Ryder in anything related to a Trek franchise. I fully expected to become irredeemably bored shortly after that, and spend the rest of the film either napping or building strange towers from the appetizers we had ordered at the full-restaurant-service theater.
But somehow, at some point, it pains me to admit this, but... it kind of became fun.
I'm not saying that the plot made sense, or that it was deep, or Great Drama, or anything radical like that, but it was... you know, cute. Entertaining. Some of the acting was pretty keen, and it made me smile, and sometimes that's enough.
I'm not saying that I'm going to suddenly become a convert, or develop a taste for back episodes of Voyager. But if they made a tv series with the new characters, I might give it an episode or two. Just out of curiosity, of course.
I'm okay with this, though several of my friends have repeatedly tried to convince me that if I just try harder, or watch more episodes, that eventually I will come to love DS9/Voyager/the movies. (Unsurprisingly, noone has tried to convince me that I could ever come to love Enterprise; not even my devoted Trek-fan husband.) While I'm sure it's technically possible, I've got better things to do with my life than spend hours on end watching a show I don't enjoy in the hopes that someday it'll become fun.
So, when the new movie came out, I wasn't all that eager to see it. I didn't have anything against it; it's just a movie, and not worth spending any energy opposing or disliking. But I didn't feel the need to expend any effort, time, or money watching it. On the other hand, I also realized that for reasons of cultural literacy alone I'd need to see it eventually. So I figured I'd get it over with, and went to go see it tonight.
And I spent the first half hour full of an uncomfortable combination of confusion and smug amusement, asking my husband pointed questions about the questionable logic of Vulcan architecture and the casting of Winona Ryder in anything related to a Trek franchise. I fully expected to become irredeemably bored shortly after that, and spend the rest of the film either napping or building strange towers from the appetizers we had ordered at the full-restaurant-service theater.
But somehow, at some point, it pains me to admit this, but... it kind of became fun.
I'm not saying that the plot made sense, or that it was deep, or Great Drama, or anything radical like that, but it was... you know, cute. Entertaining. Some of the acting was pretty keen, and it made me smile, and sometimes that's enough.
I'm not saying that I'm going to suddenly become a convert, or develop a taste for back episodes of Voyager. But if they made a tv series with the new characters, I might give it an episode or two. Just out of curiosity, of course.
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Date: 2009-05-17 04:42 am (UTC)According to a friend of mine, Ryder participated in Alien Resurrection, even given how bad it was, because she was a big fan of the genre and wanted to be in an Alien movie. One imagines the same might be true here.
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Date: 2009-05-17 06:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-17 07:06 pm (UTC)IMO, the new movie is closer to the spirit of the original series and Next Generation. DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise are Berman's view of the original Star Trek reality. The original series and Next Generation are Roddenberry's. My personal preference is for Roddenberry's view of Trek. I enjoyed the later series, but don't feel the strong attachment to them that I do TOS and TNG.
Now I'm hoping that as additional movies and television series are developed in the new reality, they'll incorporate more exploration of philosophical ideas as the first two series did. I'm also hoping they'll return to the original series' practice of having stories written by various authors rather than having the same team write all of the stories, and that they give the authors the time needed to write works of which they can be proud.
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Date: 2009-05-18 04:17 am (UTC)