Treknobabble #4: Has J.J.Abrams Watched Star Trek: Enterprise?
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
– George Santayana, The Life of Reason, Volume 1, 1905
In reading through the recent chat transcripts with the creative team behind Star Trek XI, I am left wondering if J.J.Abrams has watched the Enterprise series. According to Roberto Orci, none of the Star Trek XI creative team have talked to the creative team behind Enterprise including Rick Berman and Brannon Braga. This does not bode well for Star Trek XI. After all, Berman and Braga had to deal with the same issues. Both Enterprise the series and Star Trek XI take place before the Original Series and both attempted (or are attempting) to expand the core audience for Star Trek. Regardless, let me address some of Abrams and Orci’s comments.
Abrams says: “Without comedy (my fave TOS eps had GREAT wit), the audience finds their own places to laugh. And in a world of humans and aliens, that could be disastrous.” So I wonder if Abrams considers the line, “Laugh it up, fur ball,” hilarious. I didn’t think Star Wars was all that comedic even with C3P0 and R2D2 playing at Laurel and Hardy. And it seemed to be okay without it. More often than not, Star Trek falls flat when it attempts humour. I wonder what Abrams fave TOS eps is. The Trouble with Tribbles? (That’s the episode with the tribbles.) (My fave is City on the Edge of Forever (about Kirk sacrificing a woman he has fallen in love with in order to prevent Hitler from winning World War II); I mention this in case you were going to accuse me of being evasive.) I must admit that I found much of the humour in The Voyage Home (about time traveling to get the humpback whales) was effective. The Voyage Home’s large box-office receipts were attributed in large part to the humour because the humour brought in the non-Trekkers. Actually, The Voyage Home is the only movie that I’ve paid twice to see at a theatre. (I’m kind of cheap, so this is sort of a big deal.)
I found this response by Robert Orci, Co-Writer/Executive Producer for Star Trek XI, kind of pretentious: “We not only went back to our favorite episodes and books and movies, but we also read graduate level dissertations about the meaning of Star Trek.” I think his attitude is commendable, but if his answer is meant to reassure Trekkers that he knows what he’s doing, then I can only respond with a quote from Scotty (although I realize Scotty didn’t originate this saying): “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” I had such high hopes for Star Trek Nemesis because of things I had read about the writer John Logan. Things like how he was a Trekker and how much he loved the Original Series. And how he was writing scripts for Spielberg and Scorsese. Well, the final product speaks for itself. (And if you’re going to tell me that you loved Nemesis, then you might as well stop reading because we’re worlds apart. I kid, of course. About not reading further. I do hate Nemesis.)
Abrams says with regards to visual FX: “…my goal is to make Trek REAL  that is to say, not have it be camp  not have it be phony  not have it look like a scrap of green screen was used anywhere.” I’ve always wondered if the charm of the Original Series was the phoniness (and of course, the Shatnerian emoting style). I mean if you take away the papier-mâché rocks, the obvious matte paintings, the sliding panels used in engineering to simulate moving status indicators, the vivid wall colours, the blue eye shadow, the obvious stunt doubles, the hand-animated weapon effects, the softly-lit females, the pajama style uniforms, the re-use of the same ship flying shots over and over again, the swarthy-bearded human-like alien Klingons, um… oh, I seem to have run out of things to make fun of. Yeah, so after you fix all these things up, will you finally have something that appeals to mainstream audiences? (That’s a rhetorical question.)
Abrams says when talking about an Enterprise model: “The Enterprise will be a combo of the physical and the virtual.” There’s something physical about the Enterprise exterior that can’t be created digitally? I thought the problems with fur and hair had been effectively resolved. Maybe not. So the Enterprise has sections covered with fur or hair? Maybe under the nacelle pits. Water is kind of difficult to simulate. Maybe the Enterprise has an outdoor pool. (Yeah, I know. Jay has told me that I don’t have a sense of humour.)
Sorry if I’m taking answers out of context. I just didn’t want to bore you by repeating the questions. Abrams would probably lump me in with The Haters (his words). Maybe I should mention that I love Felicity, Lost, and MI3. So it’s nothing personal. I do have a tendency to not have high hopes in order to avoid disappointment.
Anyway, Roberto Orci said something that I can’t argue with or complain about. Let me give him the final words: “Complaints mean you still care… so we never want to see you stop complaining.” — Reed
