Star Trek is a huge hit, a retcon masterpiece, and a much-needed jolt for a franchise that has languished on life-support for the past decade. Mastermind behind the television series Lost and the films Mission Impossible III and Cloverfield, J.J. Abrams brought his A-games and knocked one out of the park. The film is being hailed as an instant science fiction classic by both long-time trekkies and those new to the Star Trek universe.Star Trek dominated its opening weekend of May 10th grossing $72 million, came in a close second the following weekend of May 17th grossing $43 million, and then dropped to third in the weekend of May 24th yet still grossed a respectable $21 million. Public response to the film has been overwhelmingly positive. Rotten Tomatoes, which reflects the critical reaction, gives the movie an impressive 95% positive reviews, while IMBD, where users rate the films, gives the movie an 8.5 out of 10. So it looks like Star Trek is a hit and may be on its way to being the best movie of the summer, enjoying the same honor as last year’s The Dark Knight and Iron Man.
How did Star Trek, whose target audience would normally confine itself to a select cabal of sci-fi geeks, appeal to so many movie goers? Indeed, the success of this film is based largely on its inclusiveness, its ability to entertain everyone and pull in the widest segment of the summer movie demographic. How did it pull it off? One word: retcon. Carefully using the plot devise of time travel, and thereby creating a quantum-based multi-verse in which a new time line is created existing parallel with the old time line, J.J. Abrams effectively creates a clean slate for the Star Trek universe without destroying the old or making the new redundant. As a result, we have a new Kirk, Spock, and Bones and a new frontier for them to boldly go and explore. Unlike the Star Wars prequels that delivered stories whose ultimate end was already known, this new Star Trek universe grants the franchise infinite possibilities. Meanwhile, those old 1960s episodes and 1980s films, featuring the original cast of William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, are still valid. They just exists in another, alternative time line. In this way, J.J. Abrams manages to make Star Trek new again, accessible to new fans, and at the same time satisfying to traditional fans.
All of this represents a much needed win by the Star Trek franchise. When Star Trek: Enterprise went off the air in 2005 after an unremarkable four year run, it looked as though the franchise was finished. For the first time in twenty years there was no Star Trek series on television. What’s more, the last two movies, Insurrection in 1998 and Nemesis in 2002, both featuring the TNG cast, were panned by critics and fans alike as nothing more than glorified episodes of Star Trek The Next Generation. These disasters came on the heels of Star Trek: Voyager (1995-2001), a mediocre trek series that showed the franchise was running out of steam. Much debate has raged over who or what to blame for the Star Trek crash and burn, but now with the new movie ready to revitalize the franchise the only debate worthy of attention is how soon J.J. Abrams and Co. can put out another movie. Can we hope for a new television series? Will the DVDs feature Director’s commentary? Will they offer cell phones that look like the actual Star Trek communicators?
Star Trek Is Back.
