Rebooted Enterprise vs. TOS/Movie Enterprises

JJ Abrams Star Trek reboot finally came onto my Netflix queue a few months ago and I finally got around to seeing it. I have mixed feelings about the movie, though one of the three things that worked for me was the rebooted Enterprise.

Up to this moment, the movie version of the original Enterprise had held pride of place in my heart, followed closely by the Enterprise-E, first seen in First Contact (without doubt, the only good TNG movie). The TOS Enterprise is a beautiful ship but it suffers from being so "1960s."


Now for grace and aesthetic appeal, I think the rebooted Enterprise has stolen my heart, pushing everyone else down a rung:

1. Rebooted Enterprise
2. Movie/First Contact Enterprise (tie)
3. Enterprise-C (from the TNG episode "Yesterday's Enterprise")
4. TOS Enterprise

The less said about the Enterprises -B and -D the better. The former was too "fat"; it looked like the pretty girl's ugly friend (in comparison - from some angles she could look decent). The latter was too wide and suffered from the same gracelessness as its second-generation cousin.

Of the Federation's neighbors', the Klingon D-7 is hands down the best ship in the quadrant, every angle radiating menace and aggressive intent. Back in the day, FASA, the RPG company, produced a series of Romulan ship miniatures that were pretty neat looking - especially their Winged Defender and Bright One classes. They couldn't quite capture the Federation's ship designs, though. And Task Force Games produced a similar series for Star Fleet Battles, which had some interesting designs. In their case, my favorites were the Romulans (esp. the Sparrowhawk), the Lyrans (though I wish they had had more detail) and the Interstellar Concordance.

But back to the Abrams' movie: I mentioned three things that worked for me. The first was the crew - I liked them. Without exception they worked for me. Unfortunately, they were trapped in a story that made no sense.

The second thing that I enjoyed was that Spock was unable to "fix" the timeline. The best he could do was salvage things so that they resembled his future (presumably, the Federation will alert the Romulans about the imminent destruction of their homeworld in the future).

Remaking Some Classics

One should learn not to procrastinate. Case in point: I've been meaning to suggest here that two classic SF films deserve to be remade only to discover that "they" have already done it for one -- The Day the Earth Stood Still. Klaatu (Michael Rennie) comes to Earth to warn us that if we take our aggressive tendencies off planet will spell our doom, and the first thing we do to him when he lands is shoot him. It's a great film -- both thematically (dissecting the Cold War paranoia of the time and the futility of violence) and in terms of writing and acting (though "Billy," the kid, is truly annoying). But it is getting a bit long in the tooth, and would have benefited from a producer/writer/director team that cared about the material.

Alas, this new version (due out in December from what I've read) stars Keanu Reeves (not as Gort, the blank-faced robot and a natural choice, but as Klaatu) so I'm not sure whoever conceived this project really knows what they're doing. On the upside, they have cast Jennifer Connelly as the mother (originally Patricia Neal's role) so it'll be nice to look at for those moments she's on screen.

I will wait, with low expectations, and hope for the best.

The second film that I think deserves a remake is the equally classic Forbidden Planet. The SF genre's retelling of Shakespeare's The Tempest, with Leslie Nielsen, Ann Francis and Walter Pidgeon. Again, in the hands of someone who cared about the material, a really fine, quality film could be produced.

Of course, it should go without saying, that if you haven't seen either original yet, you should.