I went on an exciting outing and saw Star Trek. I loved it. Not for its plausible depiction of futuristic diplomacy or faithfulness to the canon – both of which made the original Star Trek as dull as Jean-Luke Pickard’s unpolished forehead – but for, as Laurence puts it, its extreme pace. I don’t care that the plot’s crazy. And the plot is crazy. Image that you, as a scriptwriter, were in possession of a magic acorn that you could use to resolve any plot arc at any time. To illustrate, say you were penning The Matrix, then instead of Neo rescuing Morpheus from captivity you could cash in your magic plot-resolving acorn and Morpheus breaks free because of a “glitch” in the Matrix. Or say you were hammering out The Matrix Revolutions and rather than have Neo save the human race – bombs away! – the magic acorn comes into play, and the machines suddenly have an appreciation for spoken contract and withdraw all their forces at the last moment, snatching defeat from the gaping maw of victory.
The Star Trek plot consumes them like a magic plot chipmunk, making a faint plopping sound that’s audible if you strain your ears. Let me give you a sample: (here be spoilers, if you care) Star Trek needs to be rebooted, so evildoers (plop!) go back in time through a black hole and change everything thus freeing the hands of the scriptwriters. After that, the protagonists have to grow up without threat so a central character from the future, who went through the same black hole as the evildoers, (plop!) only arrives 25 years later. James T. Kirk has to meet this character and (plop!) gets irrationally booted off the Enterprise by Spock. He lands on a strange world and (plop!) meets the character. They pick up Scotty there too (plop again!). Now they can beam back to the ship (plop, plop!). And many, many more.
But I’m not worried. It feels like watching Indiana Jones in space. I didn’t mind anything except a George-Lucas-esque sequence where Scotty gets stuck in a network of tubes and Kirk has to puzzle him free. At that point in the film I was filled with an abject terror that it was all downhill from here, that the produces could see kiddie gaming rights hovering over the horizon and didn’t give a damn about sacrificing valuable screen time to a scene that should never have seen the comfortable dark of a cinema. My blood began to boil and I thought, “Damn you, George Lucas, for ruining two exciting franchises with your pathetic writing and incompetent direction! I hate you!” Then the scene ended, the film went on as before, and I realised I wasn’t watching Indiana “The-Spaces-Between-Spaces” Jones 4 and Mr Lucas was nowhere near this production team. Star Trek has now filled a recently left void in my life.
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I like the acorn. It is relevant to my interests.
Sounds like they used certain Futurama episodes as inspiration for the plot — how delightfully recursive of them.