The Future of Star Trek?

Today Star Trek: Into Darkness came out on DVD and Blu-Ray and it is the one summer blockbuster movie I was planning to buying.  Let me start off by saying I would not call my self a Trekkie.  Growing up my father liked Star Trek.  I remember on Sunday nights, before The Simpsons would come on, my dad watched Star Trek, mainly The Next Generation or Deep Space Nine.  I always found it boring.  I had a soft spot for TNG since it had a kid on the show, Wesley Crusher, and I thought that was cool. To this day it’s still the only Star Trek series that remotely keeps my attention. 

Then I saw the trailer for the 2009 Star Trek movie.  I was curious. It looked exciting, which is something Star Trek had never been to me before.  So I decided to borrow my father’s Star Trek anthology and watch every Star Trek movie, some I didn’t even remember ever seeing.  Maybe it was the fact that I was older and more mature, but Star Trek seemed to have gotten better.  The films that I heard were the best were indeed the best, the crappy ones were indeed crappy, and my favorites were still the ones with Professor X at the helm. 

Then I went to see Star Trek in the summer of 2009.  I thought it was amazing!  It had cool action, drama, laughs, heart; everything a summer movie should be.  It was a sequel and a reboot at the same time! My girlfriend (now wife) even loved it!  J.J. Abrams, the director, even admitted he was always more of a Star Wars fan, but he put together a team of Trekkies and non-Trekkies who would make this film likable for everyone; and they did.  Much like comic book films, there was a fan base already and now the genre was opened up to the general audience with fanboys on the inside track.  Yesterday as I was thinking about Star Trek: Into Darkness I thought about the future of this franchise.  Due to recent events I didn’t know what it could be.

When the first Star Trek film came out in 1979 the cast was from the 60’s TV series.  Throughout the years I didn’t see the cast do much else except William Shatner.  These actor’s careers were Star Trek.  And some of them went on to do 7 films. Leonard Nimoy still plays Spock, for almost 50 years now.  Does Paramount think they can do that with the current cast?  Some have already feared the worst when Star Trek lost their director before his second Star Trek film was even released.  Abrams has been tapped to continue the live-action Star Wars films and direct Episode VII.  This is another huge fan base with a huge voice, much like Star Trek.  Abrams has committed to help produce Star Trek 3(ish), but can he really balance both jobs without botching one, or both of them?  I would not want to be the guy who makes a bad Star Wars film AND a bad Star Trek film.  You might as well just stay off the internet for the rest of your life. According to IMDB Rupert Wyatt is directing Star Trek 3(ish).  Wyatt re-invigorated another sci-fi franchise, Planet of the Apes, with Rise of the Planet of the Apes.  This bestows some of my trust in Wyatt but Jon Favreau trusted director Shane Black with Iron Man 3 and look how polished that turd was.

Going back to the cast, all of these actors are doing other things.  Zoe Saladana and Simon Pegg are becoming household names.  Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, and the rest of the cast are also keeping pretty busy.  It could be another four years before we see the next Star Trek film!  When most actors sign on for a franchise they sign on for three films.  I’m hoping Paramount has thought a little more on this, otherwise they’ll be back where they were before the last film; re-casting.  I hate that they did it with Spider-Man, and I hope they don’t crap out another Batman origin because we’ve seen it on film twice in the last 25 years.  Another option for Paramount would be to take what they did and do it again.  By that I mean re-casting The Next Generation actors and make them the next Star Trek trilogy.  Then Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and so on.  Because we all know Hollywood has run out of original ideas so they’re just recycling anything they can find from books, comics, TV, and films.

I just started liking Star Trek, I don’t want it to start being f*cked up already.  So we will all just have to wait and ponder the future of the franchise just as we all know it will continue in some fashion; like it has for almost 50 years.  Whether it continues to appeal to a broad audience is still yet to be determined, but as a representative of the broad audience I would really like to “make it so.”……..totally nailed that reference :)