Okay so I remember Star Trek. I grew up watching it particularly in the TNG era. Jean-Luc Picard and his Epic Facepalm skills. Worf getting thrown over consoles in like, almost every episode. Riker only becoming cool once he got his beard. Good ol’ useless Counselor Troi. That Data. You know. The good shit.
So what the fuck is this?
Apparently this is a “professionally produced television pilot” for a new Star Trek series. Hate to say it, but this doesn’t exactly excite me. A lot of things about the scenes in this trailer are off. Maybe it’s a lack of editing or post production, but it looks fairly amateur and mostly awkward. Tim Russ, the guy who played Tuvac (first black Vulcan, yay?) in Voyager, is actually directing this, and they managed to get Chekov from the Original Series to appear in it. That’s something, I guess? I honestly don’t know what to think. But when someone starts claiming that their series “will be bold, edgy and a little dark”, that leaves me a little wary. And these teaser trailers are leaving me dead inside.
Another thing kicking my poor dead insides while they’re down are all the Youtube comments about this. Some are lauding this attempt at a new series as something that will be more like Star Trek than the recent movies. Are they watching the same thing I’m watching? Maybe it’s not completely horrible, but it’s close enough. Don’t get me started on the people that hate the J.J. Abrams movies. Those movies were great. Better than trying to watch a convoluted and weird episode of Voyager, guffawing about continuity in Enterprise, and hating on just about everything those series tried to do. It’s no secret that Star Trek was going downhill real fast after TNG and DS9 and that’s not up for debate. Nobody cared about Star Trek anymore until the JJ era of movies. And I’m sure some people out there enjoyed Voyager and Enterprise, but the fact that the newer movies have done a better job in garnering attention than those two series should be telling you something right now.
But hey, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe they’ll do a better job than I think with this. Maybe I’m being blinded by the low quality production and tepid performances featured in the trailers. Maybe they’re holding all the good stuff back for the actual pilot. Maybe they’ll fix it in post. Maybe that’s too many maybes. But, I can only go by what I can see here and what I’ve seen so far is a bit uninspiring. Sure the female captain has an interesting look about her, but the presentation of this is horrid. (I wanted to be able to use the word horrid once. Oh, you British with your Harry Potter words.) There’s no way this is going to be the savior of the Star Trek series. Not on my watch. Not in my backyard…er quadrant…
There was actually a $200,000 Kickstarter for this, and not surprisingly, they reached their goal. For whatever that’s worth. And yeah, I mean it when I say I’m not surprised. I’m not blind to the appeal of something like this for people starved for a Star Trek universe devoid of lens flares and Abercrombie-model-Kirk. And I guess it’s fine if they have it. It’s just that I like Star Trek too. I want this to be something good. I’d like to be proven wrong that this just isn’t complete shit, but it’s not looking too good. And if it’s just going to be another failure like Voyager or Enterprise, then what’s the point? I just wish they had done a better job if they were going to do this. I got my hopes up when I noticed this was out there and as soon as I saw the trailers, my expectations were deflated faster than a cheap blow-up doll on a date to the pet cactus factory. But, in the words of the great Geordi La Forge, don’t take my word for it. Check out their site for yourself.
I guess this has gone on long enough. I’ll adopt a wait and see attitude, although I’ll probably forget this existed tomorrow. Since the only memorable thing about it was the fact that it was bad. And the last thing I need is PTSD from crappy Star Trek fan-fiction trailers. Actually, I think I’m just done altogether hoping for a new Star Trek tv series that’s decent. That path is full of pain and disappointment.
In short: Bad, Tim Russ! Bad!
